[Paco Loco]

I have a number of tracks on my Mac that I have purchased from the iTunes music store which I listen to on my iPod.

I also have a non-apple flash player that only plays MP3 or WMA files and I would like to listen to my songs on that too...

Is there any way that I can convert my iTunes music to play on this device?

[MoparSteve]

I think you can burn an audio CD with your iTunes songs, then re-rip this CD into iTunes in the MP3 format. This will lower the quality of the music, as you'll be converting it twice (AAC to audio, then audio to MP3).

[hadocon]

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What he/she said

[Paco Loco]

Thanks for the reply - that sounds like it would work. Bit of a hassle though and annoying to have to lose quality in the process. Surely there is a software sollution to this problem??

[chabig]

Originally posted by MoparSteve:
This will lower the quality of the music, as you'll be converting it twice (AAC to audio, then audio to MP3).

This is true, but I bet you won't notice.

[dmxplosive]

how do you get itunes to rip a cd to mp3 format?

[bmedina]

Originally posted by Paco Loco:
Thanks for the reply - that sounds like it would work. Bit of a hassle though and annoying to have to lose quality in the process. Surely there is a software sollution to this problem??

Well, you have to convert the file to a format your player can read. This is most likely MP3, so no, you can't escape the loss in quality. You could convert to WAV, but the files would likely be too big.

As far as a pure software solution, yes it exists. It's a project called Hymn (or JHymn for a Java version). This will strip the DRM, though the legality of doing so has not been established. Then you can convert the file to another codec directly from within iTunes.

[bmedina]

Originally posted by dmxplosive:
how do you get itunes to rip a cd to mp3 format?

Go into the Preferences for iTunes. In the Importing section, choose MP3. Beware that iTunes' MP3 encoder is poor, so you may have to select a high bitrate to achieve acceptable quality.

[stevesnj]

Originally posted by bmedina:
Go into the Preferences for iTunes. In the Importing section, choose MP3. Beware that iTunes' MP3 encoder is poor, so you may have to select a high bitrate to achieve acceptable quality.

I use 'custom' variable bitrate, 192kbps sounds good to me. Also the higher the kbps setting the more space each song takes up space on your HD.

[Boondoggle]

Originally Posted by bmedina

Well, you have to convert the file to a format your player can read. This is most likely MP3, so no, you can't escape the loss in quality. You could convert to WAV, but the files would likely be too big.

As far as a pure software solution, yes it exists. It's a project called Hymn (or JHymn for a Java version). This will strip the DRM, though the legality of doing so has not been established. Then you can convert the file to another codec directly from within iTunes.

Is there anything like jHymn for Rhapsody? It seems like the legality would be even more questionable since you're not really buying the songs with a subscription service.

[inkhead]

rhapsody , yahoo, and napster services all use WMA10 which has not been cracked yet, so in short no you can not have the fun of subscription based music with your iPod ;-)