Music file conversions

On 11/22/05 at 1:40 PM, michael.macaskillchmeds.ac.nz (michael.macaskill) wrote:

Try ripping tracks from a CD to AAC using iTunes and then burning an MP3 CD to play in the car. iTunes won't let you. Why? Who knows. The tracks may or may not be infected with DRM, but iTunes still imposes limits on what you can do with them.

So, don't use iTunes to do this. There is third party software that will do the conversion for you instead of using iTunes. And there is also plenty of options as to creating a MP3 CD-ROM. True, these options aren't as convenient in some ways as iTunes. But then the limitation above isn't there either.

michael.macaskill wrote:

Try ripping tracks from a CD to AAC using iTunes and then burning an MP3 CD to play in the car. iTunes won't let you. Why? Who knows. The tracks may or may not be infected with DRM, but iTunes still imposes limits on what you can do with them. Even though you bought the music, Fair Play <> Fair Use as far as Apple is concerned.

iTunes has 3 options for burning CDs: Audio CD, MP3 CD and Data CD. If you choose MP3 CD, only MP3 tracks will be burned to CD and if none of the tracks are in that format, than there's nothing to be burned. iTunes doesn't transcode tracks on-the-fly and I don't think it should.

What I don't understand is why would you rip CD in AAC format if your goal is to make an MP3 CD.

There are no limits on what you can do with tracks you ripped in AAC (or any other) format and those tracks are not "infected with DRM". It's just that, as always, you have to use the right tool (or format in this case) for the job. I understand that DRM is a sensitive issue for many, but let's try not to succumb to conspiracy theories. Thanks.

Regards, Zoran

At 12:44 -0800 UTC, on 2005/11/23, znesic wrote:

[...]

> iTunes has 3 options for burning CDs: Audio CD, MP3 CD and Data CD. If you
> choose MP3 CD, only MP3 tracks will be burned to CD and if none of the
> tracks are in that format, than there's nothing to be burned. iTunes
> doesn't transcode tracks on-the-fly and I don't think it should.

In my experience iTunes *does* convert to AIFF on the fly when you tell it to
burn an audio CD from a playlist containing Apple Lossless files. Given that,
I don't see why iTunes should behave differently when you tell it to create a
MP3 CD from AAC files. (Not that I have tried.)


--
Sander Tekelenburg, <http://www.euronet.nl/~tekelenb/>

Try ripping tracks from a CD to AAC using iTunes and then burning an MP3 CD to play in the car. iTunes won't let you. Why?

Because an MP3 CD should have only MP3-format files on it. ;) Consequently, to burn an AAC file to an MP3 CD, iTunes would have to transcode the file from AAC to MP3, which, unfortunately, it doesn't do.

But you can, for example, export the file in question to, say, a WAV file via QuickTime and encode it to MP3 with something other than iTunes. And, of course, you could burn the file to an audio or data CD.

I agree that this is a case of "a feature sorely missed," but it is not related to DRM'ing the ripped track.

Jochen.

-- A Polytrope's Musings <http://www.polytropia.com/musings> Polytropic Flickr Pix <http://www.flickr.com/photos/polytropia>

The Convert Selection To option found under the Advanced menu (or by right-clicking on a song or selection of songs) will convert most songs to whatever format you have selected in the Importing Preferences in iTunes (Preferences ~ Advanced ~ Importing tab in iTunes 6). If you temporarily set this preference to MP3 you can select most songs, excluding M4P, and use the Convert Selection To option to convert them to MP3 on the fly then you can burn your MP3 CD.


.

On 11/18/05 at 10:20 AM, ceolafaledev.com (Alexander Hoffman) wrote:

3) Just because a file COULD have DRM on it, that doesn't mean that it DOES have DRM on it. For example, if you use the iTunes program to "rip" your CDs into AAC files, they do NOT have DRM on them. Therefore, there is nothing preventing you from copying files to more than 5 computers. But all the stuff you buy from iTunes or the other music stores do have DRM on them.

As a side note to this, fans of both AAC (which is, as I understand it, an open standard as part of the MPEG-4 standard) and WMA claim that the codecs provide better sound quality than MP3 at equivalent bitrates; for that reason, I've been ripping all of my CDs in 128kbps AAC instead of 160kpbs MP3 for the last couple of years.

This does mean I can't use the resulting files to burn a data CD that will play in an MP3 CD player; I've generally viewed the tradeoff in file size to be worth it. There are some software players besides iTunes that will play the standard AAC files that iTunes creates when ripping CDs; from this I'd surmise that it's possible for a company to create a CD player that will play AAC data CDs as well as MP3 CDs, but no one's felt it worth the effort yet.

Travis Butler tbutlermac.com

> I'd surmise that it's possible for a company to create a CD player
> that will play AAC data CDs as well as MP3 CDs, but no one's felt
> it worth the effort yet.

While searching for a new mobile phone, I just noticed that some
Nokia phones, including the new Nxx series, support AAC and M4A in
addition to MP3. Although not nearly as common as MP3, then, AAC is
supported by other hardware manufacturers than just Apple.

Jochen.


--
A Polytrope's Musings <http://www.polytropia.com/musings>
Polytropic Flickr Pix <http://www.flickr.com/photos/polytropia>

Folks, I hope this is not too far off the main thrust of the messages here. Does anyone know of software to connect via USB to a Minidisc and to convert ATRAC to something else?

Ron Cook.

At 12:20 PM -0800 12/6/05, TheCooks wrote:
>I hope this is not too far off the main thrust of the messages here. Does
>anyone know of software to connect via USB to a Minidisc and to convert
>ATRAC to something else?

This might be only relevant to the "Hi-MD" system from 2004, but have you
seen this:
<http://www.minidisc.org/hi-md_faq.html> "SonicStage (download) mediates
all uploads from Minidisc to PC (or Macintosh, with Sony's MZ-M10 and
MZ-M100 Hi-MD units). Conversion of uploaded audio to .wav format is done
by SonicStage itself as of version 3.1. In prior versions audio may be
converted to .wav file using Sony's Wave Conversion Tool (only for mic or
line-in Hi-MD recordings) or using the MarcNet Hi-MD Renderer."




--
* Johann Beda - contact link: <http://public.xdi.org/=j-beda> *
* Johann's MostlyMac Computer Consulting - <http://mmcc.beda.ca/> *