Question about Ipod

I got a 16 gb Ipod Nano and would appreciate if someone could answer my question or comment on my experience.

Prior to receiving my Ipod, I kept all of music in Windows Media Player. After getting my Ipod, I downloaded Itunes version 9 (most current version currently on Apple website) and attempted to transfer my music from WMP to I tunes. I selected everthing to copy over, and it copied about 1/3 of it. It seems Itunes accepted about 1/3 of my music, chosen at random. Now I have to transfer the remaining 2/3 of my music library manually. It's a pain in the ass, but not a huge problem I suppose. Now to the part that really pisses me off.......

I have this nice big screen on my Nano, but noticed only a very small fraction of my cover art images display on the Nano. The bulk of my CDs are represented by a generic music symbol icon instead of album art. All of my album art appeared in Windows Media Player. Granted, I did have to do a little copying and pasting from allmusic.com (a really cool website) for get some of the album art, but it worked.

When I right click on the generic music symbol in Itunes, it directs me to the Itunes store to retrieve album art. The catch is that I am required to have an Itunes account and required to provide my credit card number to retreive album art (which I already had before on Windows Media Player and can very easily get from www.allmusic.com, except Itunes does not have a 'paste' option to paste an image copied to the clip board).

I know there must be a way to get album art without providing a credit card number, so I went to the ipod store in the mall and asked an employee. I suspect he was a dumbass, because he just said "I don't know. Let me look it up online" when I told him about my problem. The apple website does not address my specific question. I checked before going to the store. He asked his manager, who confirmed the only way to get album art to appear on my Ipod is to provide my credit card number to the apple store, even though I do not intend to buy anything.

Do I have to give my credit card number for something that should be free? I get the feeling this is comparable to bending over naked with my eyes closed in a prison shower room and being told not to worry about it because they 'promise' not to rape me. Every other MP3 player on the market gives you album art. All the others MP3 players (except Ipod) are compatible with Windows Media Player. Windows media player lets you find album art yourself and paste it over your blank cover art. I tunes does not.

In short, how do I get my album art to appear on my Ipod without giving them my credit card number?

Hope this helps...
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2534

I've used MediaMonkey to manage my iPod's music. You can do everything with it except manage playlists. I've never had a problem with putting music with all artwork onto my ipod as long as the tags show properly in MM. The tagging and art retrieval work pretty well (and don't cost you anything).

What I do when my album art doesn't work in Itunes: right-click on the album, go to Get Info or whatever. One of the options is Cover/Album art; just download the art you need off google images or something and put it in that way. It sucks if you have a lot of artless albums, though.

If the album art is associated with the file, and the ID3 tags are correct, then the images should display. Check doug's applescripts in itunes and look for ones that embed album art to the file, that might help. Free, too.

I had the same problem -- sometimes the cover art would show and sometimes not ... I use Sharepod to add album art and it works great ... Its a free program (www.getsharepod.com) ... I have a 160gb classic and now I wish i had not added album art because Ive used almost 9GB of space for album pics, LOL!!!

That program will also will let you move or copy music from your iPod to another computer - Kinda like treating your ipod like a 16GB hard drive (you know, if your needing to back up you music)

Its one of my favorite programs out there -- Its free, but donations are accepted!!

[quote name='Jesus_S_Preston']What I do when my album art doesn't work in Itunes: right-click on the album, go to Get Info or whatever. One of the options is Cover/Album art; just download the art you need off google images or something and put it in that way. It sucks if you have a lot of artless albums, though.[/QUOTE]

I've already tried this, and this was the central theme of my post. When I am in Itunes and right click to select 'find album art', I am re-directed to the Itunes store. I am required to have an Itunes Store account to retrieve album art, and I am also required to provide a credit card number to set up an Itunes Store account. In short, Apple wants my credit card number to retrieve album art I can easily do myself. However, I cannot paste album art mylsef in Itunes like I can in Windows Media Player. What I don't understand is that most of my albums have artwork to begin with. When I pop in a CD to transfer to Windows Media Player, I always see album art. However, I don't see it in Itunes and they want my credit card number to get it.

Ok here goes.
Its very easy to do without using credit card info. By the way you can ask a friend to use their account. but otherwise pay attention.

1.Go to the album in question.
2. Right click and scroll to Get Info.
3. One of the tabs will say Album Artwork.
4. Use the Browse tab to pull up the saved file and upload.

An easier way to do the whole album cover art is when you pull up a certain album.
Highlight all the songs in the album and then right click to Get Info. It should open up and screen that has titiles and artist name.
In the bottom right hand corner you should see a while box. double click that and it should ask you to put in a album cover.

Its easier if you put all the album covers in one folder and label them by the album so you know what they are. Its a lil time consuming but it better than that damn play note.

Also any easier way to transfer music from Windows to itunes.
Ok here goes.
1. Go find on your desktop where all you WMP songs are. Usually in the My Music folder.
2.Highlight all the songs you want to transfer.
3. Go back to your desktop and find My Music.
4. Find iTunes folder. Then go to the Itunes Library.
5. There should be a folder that says Automatically Add to Itunes.
6. Open that up and Paste into there.
Might take a few minutes but thats how i did it with my music.

Any questions or too confusing them PM me and ill help you out.

I did not read all the other answers, but regarding your specific question, you do not need add a credit card to have an itunes account. I did not know this until recently when I went to set up an account for one of my kids, and I did not want to add a CC for them. I could try and describe how to do this, but you can read how to do it here from apples help pages:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2534

Note - you do not need to look for the "Remote" app, any free app will work, you just need to get to the "login/create account" screen.

Hope that helps.

Biscuit