Q: I just got a new 80GB iPod, and before I begin digitizing my entire CD collection, I’d like to get a feel for the tradeoff between song quality and iPod capacity. Is there somewhere I can easily see what my options are? Thanks!
– Jane
A: Absolutely.
We’ve written a calculator that does just that. Simply select your iPod’s advertised capacity, and you can find out what useful capacity that corresponds to, and approximately how many songs of various bitrates (and average durations) that model iPod will hold.
window.onload = calculate;function calculate(){with (document.iPodcalc){var size = iPodsize.value;var songlength = songdur.value;var cus= bCus.value;}if (isNaN(songlength)){window.alert(“Error: Input a numeric song length.”);document.iPodcalc.songdur.value = 4;}if (isNaN(cus)){window.alert(“Error: Input a numeric custom bitrate.”);document.iPodcalc.bCus.value = 480;}var us = size*1000*1000*1000/1024/1024/1024;document.iPodcalc.usefulspace.value = us.toFixed(2);n96 = us*1024*1024*8/96/(songlength*60);document.iPodcalc.f96.value = Math.floor(n96);n128 = us*1024*1024*8/128/(songlength*60);document.iPodcalc.f128.value = Math.floor(n128);n160 = us*1024*1024*8/160/(songlength*60);document.iPodcalc.f160.value = Math.floor(n160);n192 = us*1024*1024*8/192/(songlength*60);document.iPodcalc.f192.value = Math.floor(n192);n224 = us*1024*1024*8/224/(songlength*60);document.iPodcalc.f224.value = Math.floor(n224);n256 = us*1024*1024*8/256/(songlength*60);document.iPodcalc.f256.value = Math.floor(n256);n320 = us*1024*1024*8/320/(songlength*60);document.iPodcalc.f320.value = Math.floor(n320);nCus = us*1024*1024*8/cus/(songlength*60);document.iPodcalc.fCus.value = Math.floor(nCus);nLoss = us*1024*1024*8/850/(songlength*60);document.iPodcalc.fLoss.value = Math.floor(nLoss);}
Update: This calculator is now available as a permanent iLounge site feature, the iPod Storage Calculator.
