dmpoole said:
Sorry to butt in, but this isn't actually true. iPods maintain their file lists by a number of indexing files on the units themselves. The need for a piece of software to transfer music over is purely in order to maintain these files. As they contain all the file information such as artist, album, title etc. the software you use can put any values in here. As the iPods themselves don't read tags on the music files at all, there's no real problem with using non-ID3 tags or even no tags at all, if your software allows you to manually enter the info you want each time you transfer files over.
As an example, I use MP3s tagged using APEv2 tags, which iTunes won't even read, and the foo_pod plugin for foobar transfers them complete with indexing info beautifully. The newer versions also allow you to set up additional custom tag fields such as date and playcount on the iPod you're using, which is quite handy
arty