Converting into itunes

[Wapping]

A friend of mine has just bought an Ipod.

For several years he has owned a Sony equivalent (not an MP3 player) using Sony's own 'AADAC / ADACC?' - something like that system and Sony's own music library software.

Rather than delete everything is there are easy way for him to:

(A) Convert all the songs into a format useable by Itunes / Ipod?

(B) Ripping the libray staight across?

Many thanks, as usual, for any help etc. etc. etc.

Cheers,

Richard

 

[Deleted Member I]

It depends on the format of the actual music files I think. If he can locate the files on his hard disk, then he can just use the IMPORT function in iTunes. It might even convert it to the iTunes format (not MP3) when importing.

Try that first .. it's a 5 second job to see if it works.

Load iTunes, then use the import function


btw .. you may have noticed that my advice is not as condescending as some

 

[Wapping]

It depends on the format of the actual music files I think. If he can locate the files on his hard disk, then he can just use the IMPORT function in iTunes. It might even convert it to the iTunes format (not MP3) when importing.

Try that first .. it's a 5 second job to see if it works.

Load iTunes, then use the import function


btw .. you may have noticed that my advice is not as condescending as some

Thanks for that, Tom.

Will tell him to give it a go.

Anyone else got any ideas if it doesn't work?

 

[John Armstrong]

I've a couple of Sony MP3 players so ...........

When you download the music to the player you have to load it into the Walkman software, which changes it into ATRAC, and then you load it into the player.

It doesn't convert, AFAIK, the original file, just makes another one. So as long as you haven't deleted the original WMA / MP3, or whatever you ripped it as, then you should I'd have thought, been able to download it to the ipod.

However, you are changing from a PC to a Mac and all the previous could be total cr@p

Other ideas, ditch the ipod or download all the songs from itunes

 

[cookie]

get something like this to convert files & drag them into itunes

 

[Carl]

audio compression

Its really not a good idea to convert from one compressed audio format to another.

To change from Sony's ATRAC3 (if thats what it is?) to Apple's AAC format would mean the original audio file has been compressed twice and a lot of the original audio information will be lost... you will lose a lot of the detail especially in the upper frequencies and the loss will become noticeable.

I very much doubt that iTunes or the iPod can play Sony's proprietary ATRAC files... so the best bet would be to re-rip all the music into iTunes using the AAC format, its a PITA I know, I've been there and done it!

 

[Wapping]

Thanks for all the replies guys.

Ithink he has decided to do the whole lot afresh. Should make him popular with his SWMBO.

Cheers,

Richard

 

[Deleted account 210516001]

I transferred all my MP3 files using http://www.ephpod.com/

This is what they say about it

EphPod is a full-featured, easy-to-use Windows application that connects with Apple's iPod. With a FireWire card and EphPod on a PC, it takes under 30 minutes to transfer 1,000 songs to an iPod. In addition, EphPod supports standard WinAmp (.M3U) playlists, includes powerful playlist creation features, and will synchronize an entire music collection with one click. It imports Microsoft Outlook contacts, in addition to allowing users to create and edit their own contacts. EphPod can also download the latest news, weather, e-books, and movie listings to an iPod.

 

[AndyT]

Anything must be better than i-Tunes, its the worst bit of softeware I've seen in a long time. I got given an I-Pod clkassic at work just before Christmas and bought my lad one for his main present. It seems to load tunes okay onto which ever one you transfer them onto first and then doesn't want to do it to the other one - I need therapy after a few hours of i-tunes, it has to go

 

[President Palmer]

DON'T record into ITUNES

No NO NO!

You will regret it sooooo much down the road. Apple will drop their own proprierty format for an open source(.OGG) or Windows (.WMA .MP3) and you will be stuck.

Everything plays MP3 and it supports VBR.

Itunes is so rubbish

 

[Greg Masters]

I have to agree with the above.

The youngster has an iPod and I made the mistake of loading iTunes onto my PC. It pretty much fecked everything and screwed up registry settings that I'm not skilled/brave enough to correct.

As said, everything plays .mp3s, so why allow iTunes to reformat your music library into something that can only be played on iPods?

Avoid.

Greg

 

[AndyT]

Am I correct in thinking tht the IPods play MP3 as well as the apple format. I seem to recall in ITunes you can choose which format to change them too!!!

ITunes is still a rubbish software program (imho)

AndyT

 

[cookie]

iTunes can be configured to convert imported tracks into mp3 files, AAC is just the default setting.

as it happens all my imported CDs are in AAC. i made the decision on the basis of quality. in retrospect, i think maybe i should have gone for mp3, but i doubt apple will be dropping the format for a rather rubbish format like mp3. maybe when a decently compact lossless format is available

iTunes is not so bad once you get to grips with it, but it doesn't seem terribly stable to me on a PC.


AndyT: ipods do play mp3, but not wma.

 

[ianf]

Just to put the record straight on the AAC format. It's not proprietary, or inferior to mp3:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding

 

[Greg Masters]

Just to put the record straight on the AAC format. It's not proprietary, or inferior to mp3:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding

It must be a bit like Betamax.

FWIW my car will play .mp3s (and so will everything else I've got) but won't play AAC.

Greg

 

[JohnnyOldBoy]

What's wrong with iTunes ?

I have it loaded on all the family PC's. Got 4 iPods between us that seem to work OK. We are able to transfer music to all the PC's.

Does what it claims to do ?

Some of the comments above fall into the PC vs MAC bollocks. Do you really think Apple will jeopardise fantastic revenue by dropping a popular format without giving customers an upgrade path ?

Haven't bought a CD for years but listen to music far more than I used to. In my view Apple/iTunes is one of the best things to happen to the music industry in years.

 

[ianf]

A lot of the trouble comes from the underlying usb/pnp bits in windows/mac osx. I gave my niece my old pc when i switched to a mac a couple of years ago. She got a nano later, and we had a lot of issues with getting nano/shuffle to be reliably recognised by the pc with a belkin usb 2.0 card i added at some point in it's life. It started working by magic after a while.

Occasionally I get similar on the mac where my ipod doesn't mount properly, but unplugging and reinserting in the dock works usually, without crashing anything.

Itunes itself is a very powerful piece of software allowing relational management of all your music and video data, and in general works well on both platforms.

 

[Greg Masters]

Itunes itself is a very powerful piece of software allowing relational management of all your music and video data, and in general works well on both platforms.

But that's the problem - it fecking takes over!!



Greg

 

[cookie]

But that's the problem - it fecking takes over!!



Greg

only if you let it nick all the file associations at installation. every other media player i can think of does the same.

change them back.

don't want to come across as an iTunes apologist, it certainly has it's problems, but it does work ok if you persevere with it.

i've looked at the alternatives, but they are all lacking somewhere. nearly went with Anapod until i read some of the customer reviews. even some on thier own site are pretty damning.