Itunes question

Triathlon Forum
1

The Ipod thread reminded me…

Can you burn a MP3 disk with the music you buy at the Itunes music store? I can’t figure out how to do it on my imac. It defaults to a Data disk…

Thanks,

Jim

2

Yes, you can do that. It’s extremely easy. Make a playlist, select it, click “burn disc”. If, when you insert the CD, it defaults to a data disc, just close the finder window, iTunes should be able to burn to it.

I make CD’s from iTunes store songs all the time.

3

They will burn to wav format with out a problem. I like to put music in mp3 form so I can put a few hours of music on one disk and let it go while on the trainer… Does that make sense?

Thanks,

Jim

4

Is there a way to convert the m4p (or whatever it is) to an mp3 without putting it on a cd?

I have a wireless transmitter (RCA Lyra) that I use to play music from my computer in the den to my stereo in the living room. The itunes software doesn’t seem to have a selection for audio output (in other words, change the output from the soundcard to the transmitter), so I need it in mp3 format to play it.

5

Are you trying to play this through another computer as an MP3? If so, you can do this, but it’s a little trickier.

What I do is buy the music, burn it to a music CD, then import that CD back in to iTunes - make sure the default format for importing is MP3, not the apple format. Then the song is just a normal MP3. Drag it to a data disk, burn it, and you are good to go.

6

What you’re making are music CDs but not MP3 CDs.

Songs bought from the itunes music store are encoded in AAC, not MP3. when you burn a music CD from a playlist of those songs (which, as you say, is perfectly easy to do), iTunes is converting from AAC to AIFF. So now you’ve got a CD of AIFFs (i.e. a regular music CD), which you can then rip back to MP3s, and then burn those MP3s onto an MP3 CD. But since AAC and MP3 are both lossy, the quality of the MP3s you end up with will be suspect (an MP3 created from an AIFF that was cooked up from an AAC that was ripped from an original AIFF will probably not sounds as good as an MP3 created from an original AIFF).

Now then, if you want to bypass the tedium of burning music CDs just to re-rip as MP3s, you can try the following:

  • goto http://hymn-project.org/ and try out hymn – this is supposed to remove the DRM from the AAC files you get from the itunes music store, leaving you with plain AACs with no restrictions on them

  • you can import these “I didn’t come from the music store, honest” AAC files into iTunes and then have itunes convert them into MP3s, or you can find other utilities to convert them

good luck

7

I play the mp3 disk with our Bose system. I like to have lots of music on one disk so I don’t have to change disks. So from what you said, I need to burn as a wav and then put that wav disk back on the computer to burn it as an mp3. I thought mac’s are supposed to make things easy??!!

Jim

8

wow, I learned a lot from this thread. Thanks!

9

Thanks. I will try that tonight.

Jim

10

It all comes down to DRM - digital rights management. It may be a headache, but without it, no iTunes store.

There is another option which is much easier - especially if you have an airport card in the iMac. Get an airport express. It is a wireless device that, among other things, allows you to play music on your mac through your stereo in another room - all using iTunes. Very slick, no ripping or burning, and only requres a stereo with RCA jacks in the rear.

11

I think Quicktime pro will convert them to MP3.