3rd Party Software/Hardware Links

[JN99]

My favs, and the ones I use for everyday ripping, encoding, tagging etc:

dBpoweramp - for burning, ripping, converting

TagScanner - for tag editing

[fluffychick]

http://team.thenexusnet.com/nexus/AAA/

Album Art Aggregator

Shows all your albums that don't yet have album art, downloads 3 suggestions for each from Amazon US/ UK/ Germany or Japan, and saves the one you choose in the right place with the right file name.

Makes light work of something that could be rather labour intensive.


http://www.2brightsparks.com/downloads.html#freeware

SyncBack

Free back up tool which does an excellent job. First back up takes a while if you have a large music collection, but when run on future occasions, it only backs up new or changed files.

[jfk]

I use Exact Audio Copy (EAC) for the ripping for each Cd I rip it rips to MP3 (for IPods) and Flac for the Sonos; and the Linksys NSLU2 with an external HDD for my NAS. (It also runs an ITunes server, uPnP , web server, etc etc), now replaced by the Nas200.

[Lindahl]

Use a Phillips Pronto as a Sonos Controller:

http://www.avd.com.au/solutions/inde...fc9352a6a4dd56

The 1x1 interface doesn't support zones and linking, but the 4x4 and 8x8 claims to.

Wonder what else is in the works from other companies? I heard rumors of an AMX interface.

[keitht]

http://www.tromer.name/iTunesArtworkConverter/

iTunes Artwork Converter for Windows is a simple program which converts artwork from iTunes (downloaded or manually pasted) into the standard Folder.jpg format so that other indexing libraries (like sonos etc..) can find artwork that iTunes has downloaded.

[johnseay]

MP3tag. I use this along with Tag & Rename. Each has strengths the other lacks.

[dloendorf]

I, like other owners of SONOS Zoneplayers, wanted to listen to music playing on a zone on my computer. I have written a small application that allows you to select a zoneplayer to listen to on the speakers on your computer. It is NOT another zone, but can get the track playing on any zone and play it on your computer. In addition, it can pause, next, and previous track the selected zoneplayer. You can also drop a file on the Desktop Player and it will play on the selected Zoneplayer. You will need to register to download the application. Currently there is no charge. Please contact me for the website address.

[mawi]

This thread is a great example of the need for a wiki, I think! :-)

[DarrenLink]

http://www.darrenlink.talktalk.net/ituneslibrarymanager

http://www.darrenlink.talktalk.net/i...nager/download

I have written an application that solves two main issues for Sonos and iTunes users. Many people like to use iTunes to catalog their MP3 collection for use with iPods but prefer to store lossless files (perhaps apple lossless) on their NAS for use with Sonos. The "iTunes Music Library.xml" cannot be simply placed on the NAS as all the tracks are pointing to the lower bitrate MP3 files. Also many iTunes users have too many playlists to be imported into the available Sonos memory. (Especially if lots of smart playlists covering your entire library are defined)

My application solves the above two problems by changing the paths of the MP3's (or other lossey file types) within the "iTunes Music Library.xml" to the equivalent paths of the lossless files. It also allows the user to choose which playlists they wish to be imported into their Sonos system from their iTunes library. It also eliminates the need to maintain two separate iTunes libraries (although you are still required to create lossey and lossless copies of each track)

The application caches (and maintains) a one to one mapping between each file in iTunes with the equivalent higher quality file on your NAS. This caching allows the application to run through approximately 10,000 tracks on my PC and write an alternative xml file to my NAS pointing to the lossless files within about 25 seconds.

The application is completely configurable so it can be configured to match your setup.

More information, screenshots and the download link are above.

[Avee]

For comments and questions about the iTunes Library Manager (above), please use the following thread:
http://forums.sonos.com/showthread.php?t=13466