Brief Hands-On Report--iTunes 6.0.1

The update to iTunes 6 is available for download via Mac OS X automatic Software Update and from the iTunes downloads Web page although it doesn't say so. According to the Read Me file,

iTunes 6.0.1 features several stability improvements over iTunes 6.

We downloaded and installed iTunes 6.0.1 with no problems on numerous Macs and PowerBook G4s. No restart was required. iTunes 6.0.1 updated several of our podcast subscriptions. We also noted that there are now 24 free video podcasts that may be subscribed to so we downloaded several. When we plugged in our video iPod, with one exception it updated just fine--songs, podcasts (audio) and contacts. The exception was the video podcasts.

The video podcasts did not import because they were in .mov format and needed to be converted to .m4v format with iMovie HD or QuickTime Pro. It takes a long time to do that, 6 minutes to import a 7-minute .mov file as DV and nearly 30 minutes to export it as a .m4v file with our dual 2.5GHz Power Mac G5. It took about 3 times as long to import the same with our 1.67GHz PowerBook G4. After conversion, our video iPod imported the video podcasts and played them well. [Bill Fox & Dana Baggett]



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