Getting iTunes to work on Windows
April 27th, 2005
This has nothing to do with technical writing, but it took me a while to find this, so I'm noting it down here just to increase its visibility on the internet.
I installed Apple iTunes last night on my Windows XP PC. The install went OK, but when I downloaded a track it didn't play back well - in fact the sound quality was so bad you could barely make out what the track was. After lots of Google searching (there's a lot of pages out there about iTunes) I eventually stumbled upon the solution in a Quick Tip article on the About web site, contributed by Rachael Smithey:
Troubleshooting iTunes Playback on a Windows PC
Just in case this page disappears, the fix Rachael describes is as follows:
Having trouble with sound quality on iTunes for the PC? Is the sound crackling, skipping, echoing, or garbled? iTunes uses QuickTime for playback or audio, so in many instances you can fix this problem simply by adjusting QuickTime settings. Here's how:
- Exit iTunes.
- In Windows click Start > Control Panel > QuickTime.
- Click to select the Sound Out option.
- Under Choose a device for playback, click to select waveOut:Windows' preferred device or waveOut:name_of_soundcard
- Reboot your PC.
Now you should be able to enjoy iTunes as it was meant to sound!
I set the playback to my sound card and it worked a treat. I quickly went from being totally unimpressed with iTunes to being moderately impressed. Functionally it's very good. It seems to have a huge database of tracks (I found the tracks I couldn't find on any other music download site, which was the reason for looking a iTunes) and the sound quality is excellent.
On the negative side, iTunes looks horrible. Apple were always renowned for their sense of style and their pioneering user interface, but iTunes looks drab, grey and old-fashioned. There's also the format issue. When you download a track you get an M4P-format file. You can play this with iTunes or on your iPod (for those of you who have one), but nothing else - so you can't play it with Windows Media Player, or load it into your MP3 player. There are ways round this, of course - for instance, if you have a good quality recording program you can play the track in iTunes, record it and export the recorded version as an MP3 file.
But I don't want to end on a negative. I found and bought the tracks I was looking for, and (having found the above tip) I'm pleased with the result.
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