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If I buy something from the apple-store, can I convert it to a wave or mp3 so I can put it on a disc to burn or my generic mp3 player?
Posts: 2445 | Registered: Oct 2004
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If you buy a song from the iTunes store and then burn it to disc (at least from within iTunes), then it automatically converts it to .WAV format.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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When I first tired iTunes, you could not. It is one of the reasons I removed iTunes from my PC and went with MusicMatch Jukebox. iTunes and Apple had their own format that was not compatible with other .mp3 players.
I had to burn my iTunes songs onto a CD, then rip the CD back to my computer to get them into .mp3 format.
That may have changed since I tried more than a year ago, though.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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There are a few other ways, but the 'approved' way is to burn it to an audio CD (which you can do very easily), then rerip.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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To clarify: I'm pretty sure that you cannot simply convert a song to MP3 to play it on other devices.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Yes - and to have to rerip each song you download is a waste of CDs and time. Which is why I avoid iTunes completely at this point.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Oh, I did forget one very important thing. If you're buying itunes plus tracks (only some of the catalog, but a substantial subset, and the price is now the same), the downloads are DRM free. Those you can convert right in iTunes. Just change your rip preferences to MP3; one of the options in one of the main iTunes menu will be Convert to MP3 when you have non-MP3s selected. You can select multiple and do them in bulk.
Apple doesn't like the DRM, either (and the standard for non-DRM songs is open and not controlled by apple, so players are starting to play them, though most still don't; luckily conversion is easy). Any label that lets them, they make available via iTunes plus without DRM.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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I ran into this last night, actually. It was the first time I've ever tried itunes, other than to download 'Hotel Chevalier' -- an album I wanted, but wasn't able to find anywhere else, was available via itunes.... So. I bought it. When I saw the m4p files I realized my error. What can I say, I'm new to this...
I won't be using itunes anymore, though.
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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Anything with a "+" beside it is available sans DRM at twice the bitrate. iTunes Plus songs used to cost $0.30-$0.40 more, but recently they have begun reducing the price of Plus tracks to the same as tracks with DRM. That may not have propagated throughout the store yet, though.
I'd be more inclined to say that Apple doesn't need DRM now that the iPod has become a juggernaut. I think the iTunes-iPod lock-in for purchased songs probably helped get them to their current market position, though.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote:Originally posted by FlyingCow: Yes - and to have to rerip each song you download is a waste of CDs and time. Which is why I avoid iTunes completely at this point.
I've never tried it, but would it be possible to use a virtual cd drive for this instead of an actual cd?
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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I'm doing the iTunes burn and rip dance, personally.
I tried Rhapsody, and I wasn't happy with the selection and software interface.
I know I'm wasting some CDs, but they're cheap and I'll have a backup disk in a folder. At least for the next two years, until the disks degrade too much. Posts: 1813 | Registered: Apr 2001
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For a while I was just using a program to record with the audio output of my sound card as the source, but I'm sure that caused some decay in quality.
There are various programs out there now which allow one to re-rip ITunes files to MP3 or WAV format; just be aware that some supposedly only work with certain version numbers of ITunes.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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