Comments on: TuneUp’s iTunes Helper Launches To The Public

By: BigApple

BigApple — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 07:59:11 +0000

Why pay for this? Iriver has an application available that cleans up tags, adds cover art, and allows you to choose from multiple albums for songs that are released on more than one. The identification process is a lot faster than TuneUp (my experience is about 1 second per song on a two year old Lenovo laptop), you can read bios about artists, and reviews about albums which is also inserted. Another nice thing is the release dates and genres are inserted properly and the info is correct.

The big difference is the data source. TuneUp uses Gracenote – known for bad quality, and Iriver uses AMG – the allmusic.com database which is known for high quality.

One potential downside is that it is not an iTunes plugin, but this does not bother me since it identifies all the music on my PC anyway.

Another is that the Iriver application does not show concert info, but this type of info is available in many other apps and services.

Iriver “Plus” application is available for download here:
http://www.iriv...us/down_frm.asp

By: MattGutberlet

MattGutberlet — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:18:27 +0000

Many of my MP3s were downloaded back in the day before people bothered
with filling out ID3 tags, hence most of them can be identified by their
filename pattern of ARTIST – SONGNAME.mp3 and that’s it. I tried to
find a program that would write ID3 info by inferring the artist and
title by that pattern from the filename, but didn’t have much luck with
that.

So, this app piqued my interest. I set it up last night and fed it a handful of untagged songs from my iTunes library. It
was about 95% accurate with one caveat; often times, while the artist
and title were spot-on, the album match would be “Greatest Hits of the
70s Vol 4!” instead of the actual album that the song appeared on.
Plus, on my (admittedly slow) laptop it takes about 30 seconds per song
to process (files are sitting on a remote computer, which the FAQ indicated takes longer). Fortunately, you easily can process entire batches at once and let it run overnight.

So all in all, I think it was $12 well spent, as my 1000 or so untagged
songs is now down to a reasonable handful. If you want a spotless
iTunes library but don’t have the time or patience to manually tag
thousands of errant songs, this app my be just what you’re looking for.

By: Gabe Adiv

Gabe Adiv — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:55:45 +0000

@ Vibhor – Thanks for the positive feedback. The feature you mentioned in paragraph 2 is on the road map.

@Czar – Thanks! I’ll pass on the word to the crew.

Best,

Gabe

By: Czar

Czar — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:07:47 +0000

I just had this plugin a week ago and I’m so impressed about it. It really irons out the information of my songs listed on the iTunes music library. Good job to all its developers!

By: Vibhor JAIN

Vibhor JAIN — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 07:35:38 +0000

It did nice work identifying correct Track names and Artists (I even removed any such info from filenames)

Most Album names though it found were like – “Best of xyz; Greatest Hits; etc…” vis-à-vis original album names. As a user I would have liked to chose from all albums where the track featured…original as wel as compilation albums

~Vibhor

By: Gabe Adiv

Gabe Adiv — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 23:20:23 +0000

Hi All-

Gabe Adiv here, CEO of TuneUp. First off, thanks to TechCrunch for the coverage!

@EH – Sorry you think the unlimited model is too pricey. Maybe check out the free version and see if it’s worth it?

@David Damore – we haven’t gotten any feedback re: the slowing or crashing of iTunes, but would be happy to vet it with you further at tuneupmedia.com/forum or you can write us directly at support@tuneupmedia dot com

@Dave & @Taylor – Mac version will be ready in the fall. I promise.

@ Merrill – Must be a really long song. Kidding. What’s happened with that song is very likely a known bug that has to do with the cover art image that makes it hang. Happy to address it further at support@tuneupmedia dot com.

By: Stage Two Consulting

Stage Two Consulting — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 23:00:33 +0000

Client Launch: TuneUp intros killer iTunes Companion…

The music lovers at TuneUp Media, a client based here in San Francisco, launched their iTunes Companion software today. Here’s an overview of what they are doing:
What’s the one problem most people have with their digital music collections…

By: Merrill

Merrill — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 21:08:50 +0000

Tuneup has been processing the same one song for the last 20 minutes. How many months would it take to clean up my library ?

By: Taylor

Taylor — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 05:30:31 +0000

What’s the Mac equivalent? Please post so mac users can get that

By: Court Kizer

Court Kizer — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 04:53:32 +0000

Wait are charging for this? Totally lame, anyone with a mac has “beautiful, awesome” apps that are 10x better than this and do it 100% free.

Geeze you made me remember why i hate windows, UGLY crappy UIs, and dumb investors.

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 04:43:28 +0000

Pretty cool but Windows only Sorry, don’t use it.

By: David Damore

David Damore — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 04:11:26 +0000

Used TuneUp a bit in the beta as well as in a few of the updates that were posted. Think TechCrunch had some invites they gave away.

Interesting and useful software. Did repair some files that had missing data. Most music was purchased from iTunes and only a few tracks had missing data, such as album covers. At some point using the program seemed more challenging than a novice like me could figure. Other users likely had much better results.

Not sure if the plug in was causing problems or not. Sometimes iTunes would restart after being closed. It would relaod multiple times.

Any other users have that problem?

If I am the only one, then it was probably an unrelated error on my computer.

Look forward to reading other user comments.

Thanks TechCrunch.
ATB,
David

By: EH

EH — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 04:08:56 +0000

man, that’s pricey. i’ll bet on an open source implementation within a year.