itunes driving me insane!! Help!?

Max_Headroom_3

A good friend has kindly lent me her spare ipod.

I've spent two days trying to get my music to itunes on my PC so I could download it to the ipod.

Started off doing album by album but sitting having to wait five minutes whilst it converted everything so's to then do the next one and sit and wait was too painful, would have been sat there hours and hours waiting for each one to seperately convert so I could transfer the next one.

So then I just grabbed the My Music floder and dragged it in en mass. Success, just as slow progress but I could leave it get on with it. Trouble was, when I checked it several hours later there was lots of music, but much of it was duplicated two or three times. So that was no good.

Still trying to find a way of doing it and failing badly. Have you any ideas or clues or techniques you can recommend? It's driving me insane!

bat999

Hi

I suppose that iTunes is converting all your music into a different format.
Maybe it's converting all your mp3 files into m4a files.

Is it not possible to import music into iTunes in it's original format?
Isn't there an option somewhere where you decide whether to change the format of imported music automatically or whether to leave it in its present format?

(I'm asking these questions because I don't use iTunes any more)
:cool:

isofa

Ripping each CD will take a couple of minutes+ depending on the speed of your CD drive and computer, regardless of whether you are converting to MP3 (which you should, check the preferences)

If you've got music already, but not in MP3 format, you'll need to get iTunes to import it, if it's in MP3 do the same, it'll just move or add it to the library correctly. (File > Add to Library).

If you drag the folder to it, you'll end up with various duplicates. so use the Show Duplicates or Consolidate Library options.

Max_Headroom_3

The files are WMA on my PC. Itunes is converting them, not sure what into to be honest, whatever it does as standard since not adjusted anything.

I've cleared it all out now and am doing it in batches, see if that improves things. Such slow going though.

Thanks for tips, keep 'em coming!

isofa

Preferences > General > Import settings, check it's MP3 and set the bit rate...

Any time you convert between formats (on any application) it'll take a while... MP3 much more universal than WMA... Just set a batch to run over night!

isofa

PS If you want the best quality, re-rip all the tracks at the highest MP3 bit rate (or even an lossless format if you have the room) as converting from any one lossy format (e.g. WMA) to another (e.g. MP3) will result in poorer quality files as you are encoding data which already has some detail missing.

Max_Headroom_3

Thanks Isofa, great advice.

Unfortunately all of my CD's (and it's a lot) are already on my PC, and the idea of deleting them all and putting them back on doesn't bear thinking about...

I did up the bit rate to the max when I put them on though, so hopefully that'll help.

Marty_J

iTunes can't play WMA files, and will convert them to AAC when you import them into the iTunes library.

There's no way around it I'm afraid.