Does iTunes copy your music when you add it to the library?

DJ...

DJ...

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I'm busy adding about 500GB of music to my iTunes library. The music is located on my media server that I connect to wirelessly. My concern is that iTunes says that it is processing each file individually but in the background (in the media information box that usually shows now playing info) it says it is copying a certain number of files as well. This tiny hard drive on the Macbook Air certainly can't handle that and I don't want it to.

Is this actually copying the music to my local hard drive? If so, how do I stop it? I only want to add it to the library and use the network file location to play the files...
 
Yes that's what it's doing, not just copying but converting.

- Go to the "Advanced" tab which should be on the right hand side.
- There should be a box and next to it, it says "Copy files to Itunes Music Folder when adding to library" make sure to UNCHECK that box!
 
If you add the option for it organise your music and check the option that it must copy the music to a specific folder it will copy it as you add it. I think the default is for it not to move your music.
 
Thanks guys. Unchecked the copy box and it's now blazing through the way I expected it to. Having come from Windows Media Player for all these years, iTunes 11 is a massive step up. Love the interface. Just missing Kiosk Mode.

I love how I can, with the click of a button, play my music wirelessly throughout my entire house...
 
500GB of music. It dwarfs my collection into insignificance. :o
 
DJ... said:
Thanks guys. Unchecked the copy box and it's now blazing through the way I expected it to. Having come from Windows Media Player for all these years, iTunes 11 is a massive step up. Love the interface. Just missing Kiosk Mode.

I love how I can, with the click of a button, play my music wirelessly throughout my entire house...
Click to expand...

iTunes 11 ROCKS
 
And for those looking to stream their music throughout the house to Windows machines, Shairport4w works like a dream.

I have sync issues though as each stream seems to stream slightly out of sync, but I suspect that is an issue with the buffer on my Openelec HTPC and the way my amplifiers handle digital inputs. Solved it by enabling both the Windows and Openelec streams at the same time in iTunes while playing a track - this gets them very near to perfectly in sync...
 
Actually come to think about it, it's probably the fact that in one part of the house I'm running two analogue amplifiers and in the lounge and entertainment area I'm running digital amps. Digital amps will naturally buffer the signal whereas the analogue amps won't. Hence the sync issues.

EDIT: actually this makes no sense. They should always be out of sync then as iTunes is not responsible for the buffer, but I can actually sync them. There is obviously something not quite right about iTunes' time coding for streams...
 
Maybe transmission speed on your network isn't perfect, and the signal is reaching the different parts of the network at slightly different times?
 
BobJones said:
Maybe transmission speed on your network isn't perfect, and the signal is reaching the different parts of the network at slightly different times?
Click to expand...

Streams HD video perfectly. I've been looking into this and it appears to be a very common problem with non-Apple devices - especially digital receivers. It makes sense that they're all processing the audio with different buffers/latencies. iTunes cannot tell them (especially different receivers and different analogue/digital technologies) how to sync to a master timecode. The only solution is to go Apple with everything, or wing it by beginning the streams at different times, as I tried earlier, which worked okay. The delay is barely noticeable and will do for now.

All that Apple need to do is add the option to delay certain signals which shouldn't be too hard to implement...
 
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