iPod help

[valis2]

I went with a Zen mp3 player because I wasn't in love with iTunes/iPod.

Now I find that I have to load a ton of music (1,000+ songs) onto a brand new iPod. The songs I have are all in .wma format, and need to be in .aac format for the iPod player, I presume.

I can find no other method of converting them, save to convert each song one at a time. However, my time is incredibly slim, as I'm leaving in a week for a long trip, and I'd rather not sit and convert each file one at a time.

I'm holding out hope that, once plugged in for the first time, it will start up a sequence that goes to all of the music, converts it to .aac, and downloads it to the iPod, all with minimal fuss on my end. Yeah, and I'd like a pony, too.

Anyone know of these matters? Any ideas or help?

ETA: And it won't convert any song numbered 10 on an album. ha!

ETA2: Thanks, innerslytherin!

Comments

[seaislewitch.livejournal.com]

I have a bunch of mp3 files, but my itunes is mp4. I have to figure that out, hopefully you'll figure your thing out too because you cannot go driving across county without your Muse. ;)

[valis2.livejournal.com]

hee! My mp3 player is my little happy muse, you are totally correct.

This project, however, is for the store I work for in WI. Their CD player has finally gasped its last gasp, and they need a new method of playing songs in their store. So they went out and bought an iPod, which is good, in a sense, because they have docking stations where the iPod can just sit and play.

But all of the songs I ripped to my computer (I did this so that I could make CDs for the CD player) are in the .wma format, damnit, which means I have to convert them so that the iPod will play them all. argh!

[aerynstales.livejournal.com]

ITunes does play MP3 (as all my files are mp3s and play fine). There are ways to convert your songs (I used a program called Switch when I found out I had a similar problem to yours)...however, the program I used has the drawback of losing all the ID tags (artist, album, song name). It was a right pain, but ultimately worth it.

I would recommend looking at the settings of ITunes and setting it to MP3 (not aac) and then pluging it in for conversion...but beware on that...you'll suddenly have duplicates of everything (the original and new).

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Hm. These are all in .wma format (for Windows Media Player). They're not in a true mp3 format.

Hmm. I'm through 115 songs already, and I'm wondering if I should do the next 800 or not...I won't get the iPod until Friday, and if I can have it all converted and into my iTunes player, it might go more quickly that way.

[aerynstales.livejournal.com]

Yup...that's the problem I had too! Just in preferences in ITunes tell it to convert to mp3 and then just set it going, just like you did with aac. But whatever works is fine. I mostly use mp3 as I share music and stuff with pals and it's more a common denominator. :D And you're right...getting it all converted now will save you loads of time when you get the Ipod. Which are you getting, btw?

[valis2.livejournal.com]

I think I'm just going to continue my conversion insanity. I just wish there was a way you could pick more than one song at a time!

Oh, and the iPod's not for me, it's for my friends' store in WI. They need something new; their CD player died, and they bought an iPod and a docking station so that it can just sit in their store and play music. No more skipping, hopefully! ;)

[innerslytherin]

Okay, you have to set up iTunes on your computer, then tell it to import your music from "xxx" folder. It should say, "Some of these files are WMA format. Convert to MP3?" And you click Yes or Yes to all and Bob's yer uncle. ^_~

[valis2.livejournal.com]

I have iTunes set up on my computer; the only option I have for importing that I can...

Okay, I have now found the option for moving folders of music into iTunes. Hooray!

Thanks. Y'know, I had a feeling I should have just checked it out a little further...

[innerslytherin]

Yay! I'm glad you got it! It occurred to me maybe I should've said more specifically how to get to that importing folders... x.x

[seaislewitch.livejournal.com]

Thank you for helping me too!

[celisnebula.livejournal.com]

This link might help:
http://www.askdavetaylor.com/converting_wma_to_mp3_for_ipod.html

Unfortunately I don't think my Jhymn converter does MP3 to aac format, though it does go the other way.

*pets her pretty little colby mp3 player*

[valis2.livejournal.com]

innerslytherin just found an option to convert all folders into .aac files, so I'm set. Thanks!

[celisnebula.livejournal.com]

Cool.

I normally have the opposite problem, I download everything in mp4 format because it's smaller, and then I just convert all the stuff in my Itunes folder/account to mp3 for my player, and then leave the movies in the ipod format because they take up less space when you have them on a hard drive or burn them to disc.

[morricone1900.livejournal.com]

aac is evil. convert to mp3! :]

[morricone1900.livejournal.com]

I don't believe in either .wma files or .aac files, hence I import everything as mp3s, because that way they'll play in ANY COMPUTER OR ANY PORTABLE PLAYER!! wma and aac be damned!! damned I say!!!

:D

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Dude, I never thought I'd be using anything except for my Zen player, and because I use WMP to keep it sync'ed, I had no problem keeping things in .wma. My friends were the ones who bought the iPod, so that's why I'm stuck in this position! :(

[morricone1900.livejournal.com]

Actually, I got my iPod as a gift too. I still have mixed feelings about it. I mean, I LOVE iTunes as an application to organize music in my computer, because it's amazing. But there are things about the iPod (including the fact that once you send something to your iPod, you can't get it back, i.e.: you have to also save it to a hard drive or it's stuck in some weird limbo where it exists on the iPod but cannot be re-imported into your computer) that thoroughly annoy me, not to mention that I feel like .aac files are NOT universal, just as .wma files aren't (meaning that if you send them as an attachment to a friend, or burn a data CD for them, they can't listen to them unless they have iTunes).

So my solution is to always import anything as an mp3 (you can set your iTunes preferences that way -- the actual iTunes application is down with ANYthing) and that way whatever you have will play anywhere, in anyone's computer, etc. The only snag is that if you buy tracks from the iTunes store, they come in "protected AAC" format, which means that they won't play in any other computer than your own. Which is okay I guess, given the copyright issues...but if I had bought the actual CD (rather than buying it on iTunes) I would have gotten not only higher quality audio (AIFF files) but I could have easily imported the CD (that I bought) into mp3 format in iTunes. So it seems a little hypocritical. Result? I don't buy something on iTunes unless it's an exclusive or it's just a single song I really want to get quickly.

End of rant. :]

Glad you're so busy these days!

[morricone1900.livejournal.com]

Oh, I get it now...the iPod's not even for YOU!! It's for the friends' store.

Forget everything I said then (except to always import as an mp3 for a worry-free rest-of-your-musical-life). ;)

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I wasn't that clear. ;)

Yeah, it's their iPod, and hopefully this will be the last time I have to import stuff into it. I have negative time at the moment, so this is making me nuts, but it's worth it to have good music at their store.

[morricone1900.livejournal.com]

oh, and I guess I'm assuming that the Zen player would have played mp3s as easily as .wma too.

I guess my point (at the heart of all this verbiage) is that I always opt for mp3, because that format just blithely wanders freely and successfully from one computer to another, from one portable digital player to another...if there's one kind of file that's at home anywhere (even in certain DVD players and CD players), it's mp3. Every other format has JUST a trace of corporate greed attached to it (i.e.: this is OUR format and you need to buy OUR product to use it).