itunes m4a to wmp help

purplecatlover

i have a heap of cds stored in itunes. they show as m4a files in folders on my computer. i now have a non ipod mp3 player. is it possible to covert these m4a files to wma or mp3 so they will work on my mp3 player? windows media player says it cant play them :S

Phantom_Flan_Flinger

I'm not a big ITunes user, so if I'm wrong I'm sure someone will correct me -

Are they songs you bought from ITunes or just songs you've ripped from CD's?

Bought songs will be harder to do as they'll be DRM protected. You'd have to save them to a disc and then rip them as MP3's.

If they're just songs you've ripped from your own CD's, you should be able to highlight them in ITunes, click on Advanced and then click on Convert to MP3.

purplecatlover

they are ripped songs, well the majority of them.
i shall try that, thank you

edit: hmm that only gives me the option to convert to aac, which wmp still doesnt want to find and which i cant find as a separate thingy on my pc.

Phantom_Flan_Flinger

You might have to wait until someone with more ITunes knowledge comes along, sorry.

If you go in to Edit/Preferences/Advanced/Importing and change it to MP3, does that change the selection in Advanced to MP3?

purplecatlover

k that lets me make mp3's thank you. lets see if i can now get them into wmp.

-TangleFoot-

purplecatlover wrote:

they are ripped songs, well the majority of them.

If you have the time to spare - and WMP 10 or 11 - you can rip them again. All you need to do beforehand is select Tools>Options>Rip Music and change the format to MP3.

Phantom_Flan_Flinger

purplecatlover wrote:

k that lets me make mp3's thank you. lets see if i can now get them into wmp.

You won't have any problems with WMP and MP3.

purplecatlover

-TangleFoot- wrote:

If you have the time to spare - and WMP 10 or 11 - you can rip them again. All you need to do beforehand is select Tools>Options>Rip Music and change the format to MP3.

will it rip them from itunes to wmp though? i really really dont want to fish out all my cds all over again lol

-TangleFoot-

You could transcode from one format to the other, but this would lead to a loss of audio quality.

j_davies

Maybe give this a whirl on a free 15 day trial I found no loss of quality also.

epz_2

if i was doing it i would probably use a shell script and mplayer but i realise this isn't helpful since its dubious your a linux bod. it does however vindicat my decision to spend 70quid more on my iaudio m3 than an ipod not even counting i can get a replace ment battery for 15 quid vs some rediculus amount from apple.

anyway enough of being a smug git and trying to be helpfull, depending upon the itunes version it is also possible to break the drm on any purchased itunes cant remember the program i used but its possible