Best media (music and photos) sync?

[jimbl]

These phones do so much, so it surprises me they don't have a good way out of the box to sync music and photos. I'm seeing a couple programs that might be good alternatives, but I am also reading negative reviews about them. Doubletwist and Salling Media Sync. I have about 10GB of music and with all the photos I'm taking with my phone a growing number of photos I'd like to sync with my PCs. I'd like something free, since it seems like this is something the phone should already do.

So I figured I'd ask you all what you use or have used, what you recommend? What to stay away from? When I plug my DrInc into my PC it asks me to install some Verizon VCast Media Manager software that looks promising, but I don't always trust what Verizon is trying to "sell" to me for free. Plus I have read it's crap. Your thoughts? Thanks!

Jim

 

[jimbl]

Guess I'm on to something here, because it appears I have stumped everyone.

 

[mpparr]

I use Songbird. I merely point it at my existing iTunes library and let it synch certain playlists.

 

[galactor]

For music I use Salling Media sync and it works great. Just point to your iTunes playlist and done, just like you would do with an iPod/iPhone. In regards to photo sync, it's kinda sad but the software doesn't do a good job: ties you to use iPhoto and even if you sync an "event" or "album" the photos are not organize in the order they were taken. The "not so good" solution for photos is to manually organize them by folders while the phone is connected to your computer.

 

[CodeToJoy]

doubleTwist works for me. Imported my iTunes library and worked just fine syncing. iPhoto on my Mac handles pictures/videos.

 

[jimbl]

I use Songbird. I merely point it at my existing iTunes library and let it synch certain playlists.

Thanks. I'll check it out. Does it sync photos?

For music I use Salling Media sync and it works great. Just point to your iTunes playlist and done, just like you would do with an iPod/iPhone. In regards to photo sync, it's kinda sad but the software doesn't do a good job: ties you to use iPhoto and even if you sync an "event" or "album" the photos are not organize in the order they were taken. The "not so good" solution for photos is to manually organize them by folders while the phone is connected to your computer.

Hmm...I'm almost looking for something that does photos better than music, just because my music library won't change as often as my photo library will. Maybe I'll use Salling for music, and keep looking for a good photo sync.

doubleTwist works for me. Imported my iTunes library and worked just fine syncing. iPhoto on my Mac handles pictures/videos.

So doubleTwist doesn't sync photos?

Thanks everyone, keep 'em coming!

 

[galactor]

doubleTwist works for me. Imported my iTunes library and worked just fine syncing. iPhoto on my Mac handles pictures/videos.

So doubleTwist doesn't sync photos?

Yeah I'm a bit confused by this. It is my understanding that doubletwist only syncs music. If there is a way to sync the Incredible directly with iPhoto I will like to know the trick

 

[KayIslandDrunk]

Mediamonkey, it's fast, supports auto-playlists, allows for importing your song rankings from iTunes and Windows Media Player and is one of the ONLY media managers that syncs both your music AND PLAYLISTS! I think it also does videos and pictures but I don't really care about those.

Don't bother with doubletwist, it's a great idea but is slower than crap and crashes often on Windows based systems.

 

[galactor]

Mediamonkey, it's fast, supports auto-playlists, allows for importing your song rankings from iTunes and Windows Media Player and is one of the ONLY media managers that syncs both your music AND PLAYLISTS!

2 questions:

1) Once you import your ratings from iTunes how do you change your ratings from within the phone. Is it a combo: phone app + computer app? The stock HTC sense music app doesn't support rating which I hate 'cause in iTunes I used them a lot.

2) What do you mean by support music + playlist? I have 80gig of music so anyways I have to select a playlist to "pick and choose" what I want on my phone. By "support music" you mean that you can organize based on folders instead of playlists?

thanks!

 

[KayIslandDrunk]

2 questions:

1) Once you import your ratings from iTunes how do you change your ratings from within the phone. Is it a combo: phone app + computer app? The stock HTC sense music app doesn't support rating which I hate 'cause in iTunes I used them a lot.

2) What do you mean by support music + playlist? I have 80gig of music so anyways I have to select a playlist to "pick and choose" what I want on my phone. By "support music" you mean that you can organize based on folders instead of playlists?

thanks!

1. You can't change the rankings from with android (yet). It's a limitation on the google side of things right now. What I mean, is when you use media monkey to sync, you can readily grab all the music that you ranked a certain way in another program instead of having to remember what that ranking was.

2. I mean that most other syncing apps will only push the songs to the device, not the playlist. For example, when I sync my "favorites" playlist, with media monkey I see a playlist called "favorites" in my android music player, while with other media syncing applications I've tried I only see the songs that were in the playlist. The only other application I've used that has synced the playlist file as well is doubletwist. However, doubletwist changes the folder structure of the music as it's transferred over, and I've run into issues with songs being dropped off my playlist because they are not in the correct location.

Until google gets their act together and releases (and as much as I hate to say it) an iTunes like application, we'll be stuck with these mediocre syncing applications.

Damn, that last sentence makes me want to slit my wrists for mentioning iTunes.

 

[galactor]

2. I mean that most other syncing apps will only push the songs to the device, not the playlist. For example, when I sync my "favorites" playlist, with media monkey I see a playlist called "favorites" in my android music player, while with other media syncing applications I've tried I only see the songs that were in the playlist. The only other application I've used that has synced the playlist file as well is doubletwist. However, doubletwist changes the folder structure of the music as it's transferred over, and I've run into issues with songs being dropped off my playlist because they are not in the correct location.

Until google gets their act together and releases (and as much as I hate to say it) an iTunes like application, we'll be stuck with these mediocre syncing applications.

Salling Media Sync also copies the playlist; I can see it in my phone using HTC's stock music app. However, I'm curious as to why you need your playlist unless you sync more than one playlist. With Salling I use only one playlist to sync all the music I want on my phone so I don't have a need for the playlist. I guess your case is different

I'm actually getting bored with my work and I'm learning about Android development and one of the things I would like to implement on my custom player + syncing app, is been able to rate songs from my phone and be able to update the rating back to iTunes.

 

[KayIslandDrunk]

Salling Media Sync also copies the playlist; I can see it in my phone using HTC's stock music app. However, I'm curious as to why you need your playlist unless you sync more than one playlist. With Salling I use only one playlist to sync all the music I want on my phone so I don't have a need for the playlist. I guess your case is different

I'm actually getting bored with my work and I'm learning about Android development and one of the things I would like to implement on my custom player + syncing app, is been able to rate songs from my phone and be able to update the rating back to iTunes.

I use a lot of "ranked playlists" with my music. So, for instance, I give most of my music that I like a star rating. Based on that rating I have various "auto playlists" that dynamically update based on what my ranking of the song is, the genre of it, how long it's been since I've listented to it, etc.

For example:
In my playlists section on my HTC Music Player I have:
Favorites - Rock - 2000+ (This includes all my songs that I have ranked four or five stars and were recorded from the year 2000 to today)
Favorites - Rock - 1990-2000
Favorites - Rock - 80s
Favorites - Rock - 60s-70s

Favorites - Rap & Hip Hop 2000+
Favorites - Rap & Hip Hop 90s

Favorites - All Genres
Favorites - Rock
Favorites - Rap & Hip Hop
Favorites - Classic Rock

Work-out Playlist

 

[jimbl]

I'm trying out MediaMonkey at work, where I don't have iTunes installed and don't have a lot of music. It found my music and works great on my computer. I'm able to sync the music to my phone, but it syncs it to the root of the drive, rather than a fold like the "MP3" folder. I'm trying to "configure the device" in MediaMonkey to make the "MP3" folder the destination folder, but it doesn't work. Assuming I end up with thousands of songs on my phone, I would rather they sync directly to a specified folder so I don't have to move them all every time I sync. Does that make sense, and can anyone tell me if this can be done? Thanks!

Jim

 

[galactor]

I haven't play with MediaMonkey yet. At least with Salling all my music gets synced to a "Music" directory and each artists has its own subfolder.

 

[Momo#AC]

I actually just downloaded the Vcast media manager last nite. Aside from taking forEVER to import only ONE playlist from iTunes, it seems rather easy to use. It's worth a try in my opinion. The last time I used a sync app was Easy Tunes... and the last sync I tried it didn't do crap. It said it synced my playlist, but the music was not on the phone.

 

[jimbl]

Thanks everyone. For photos at the moment, I'm using Dropbox. There is a bit of a manual process involved still, but it allows me to sync my photos between my work PC, home PC and my DrInc. With the latest beta version of Dropbox multiple photos can be uploaded, meaning I can take 10 photos (or however many), select them all, and upload them to Dropbox. Next time I'm on either PC they automatically sync from Dropbox to the PC. I can then move them to another folder if I want.

As far as music, I may resort to just manually copying it to my phone. This way I can maintain the folder structure I want, and once all the music I want on my phone is there, the toughest part is done, then it's just a matter of adding music as I get it, or deleting it if I don't want it. When I have time, I will probably test some more of the apps mentioned here. Thanks again.

 

[wstevenj]

For me Windows Media 11 works fine with syncing. I tried the V Cast Media Manager and I hated it. It took 30 minutes to load 76 songs because it took all my wma files and converted them to ogg. WTF! I uninstalled V Cast the next day. I know many poo-poo WM11 but it does fine. Yes, it doesn't sync the playlist but while WMP is transferring the music I just open the file location of the playlist and copy it over to the music folder on the phone.