Increase memory on iPod

[Pauro 76]

I'm very nearly filling up my 30GB iPod. The new models are 80GB and really not going to pay a fortune just to increase capacity. Is there are way I can compress my music files without losing sound quality? I know there's a website to compress your files for half the size, but im fecked if im paying £20 for it though... any ideas?

[GavinZac]

Windows, or Mac, or Linux?

There's a multitude of free programs for any of them that'd downsample the music for you (its not really compressing, mp3 itself is a compressed file format, rather its shaving off some of the frequencies and detail but losing "quality").

[NeilMcD]

I'm very nearly filling up my 30GB iPod. The new models are 80GB and really not going to pay a fortune just to increase capacity. Is there are way I can compress my music files without losing sound quality? I know there's a website to compress your files for half the size, but im fecked if im paying £20 for it though... any ideas?

If you treat the I Pod as a portable device .You do not need to have your entire music collection on your IPOD. I have a 30 gig one but I have an 120, external hard drive which my music is on. If I want an album on my I Pod I move it over and when the I Pod became full I can get rid of it from my I Pod and still have it on the hard drive and get it back on.

[GavinZac]

If you treat the I Pod as a portable device .You do not need to have your entire music collection on your IPOD. I have a 30 gig one but I have an 120, external hard drive which my music is on. If I want an album on my I Pod I move it over and when the I Pod became full I can get rid of it from my I Pod and still have it on the hard drive and get it back on.

personally I have no idea how people amnage to find 30Gbs of music they like. In this situation, i would cut back the cruft.

[Pauro 76]

Windows, or Mac, or Linux?

There's a multitude of free programs for any of them that'd downsample the music for you (its not really compressing, mp3 itself is a compressed file format, rather its shaving off some of the frequencies and detail but losing "quality").

Im on Mac, but i'll check out some of those sites if you want to pm me them thanks! Unbelievably i do have nearly 30GB filled with music i listen to. I just find it handy having everything on the one player but i have back-up too.

[Macy]

I'd 25gb filled with loads of stuff still to rip, so it wouldn't be too hard to fill the 30gb. Personally I wouldn't compress music more than it is in standard mp3, as the quality is already down a bit.

Unfortunately my Vision:M screen went again, luckily just inside warranty - in the meantime I'd got an external hard drive so just got 4gb player to tie me over. I doubt I'll go back to using the 30gb day to day. 4gb is lots for a choice of music everyday, on a physically smaller machine - I'll save the 30gb's for when I'm going away and I need a wider selection...

[GavinZac]

Im on Mac, but i'll check out some of those sites if you want to pm me them thanks! Unbelievably i do have nearly 30GB filled with music i listen to. I just find it handy having everything on the one player but i have back-up too.

iTunes will do it for you then.
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030215215022754

Remember not to go too far in terms of downsampling, or you'll end up with tinny music. Test on something you don't particular think you'll miss first.

Another good way to cut file size is to convert from stereo to mono sound. You lose the 'interesting' effect stereo can have but to be honest I don't particularly need to know where the drummer is in relation to the guitarist. You lose none of the quality and can reduce the file size by up to 50%! I'm not sure that iTunes can do this for you (i was hoping you wouldn't say Mac - I could tell you exactly what to do on Windows or Linux) but i'd imagine it would have it somewhere.