4GB can last only so long. I’ve got 42MB left on my 4GB iPod Nano.
Well, earlier, the condition was much worse. I had fewer songs, and comparatively less space required. That’s because, well, I donwloaded my albums through uTorrent. And guys who put up albums on BitTorrent, generally seed them at full quality. So, that means really huge files. And if you don’t convert them to something like 128/192/256 kbps or have a hard-disk based player, you’ll have very little space left.
I prefer 192 kbps, because I think that’s the right balance between quality and size. 128 sounds a bit dull to me, and 256 is a bit too big. Or, you could try 160 kbps as well. Since I use iTunes, I use the inbuilt conversion module. For adjusting the quality, press Ctrl+, to open the Preferences window. Here, select the Advanced tab, and select the Importing sub-tab. Here, you can set your preferences for ripping CDs. But, the same options apply if you try convert a song to MP3, irrespective if it’s already a MP3 file. This is useful if you want to convert the bitrate to a lower one. Select MP3 Encoder in the second drop-down menu, and select the quality you want in the third drop-down menu.
Then, import the songs you want to convert into iTunes. Select the songs together, by keeping Ctrl pressed, and selecting each file, or if they’re together, in a list, pressing Shift and selecting the topmost and bottomost tracks. Right-click any of the selected songs, and click Convert Selection to MP3. Once the conversion process is complete, you can delete the originals.
Still, that doesn’t solve my problem, cause I’ve already done this. So, since I’m not willing to give up the lightness and thinness of the Nano 2nd Generation, I’m going to selectively put songs in the iPod. Connect the iPod, open iTunes, select the iPod under Devices in the list on the left. Here, among the check-boxes at the bottom, select Sync only checked songs, and begin unchecking the songs you’re not likely to be listening to.
Still, there’s this sense of satisfaction at having filled up my iPod. Burp. 