[MichaelB43]

I have a rather new 17" iMac and I am using iTunes. I think I just realized what I did, but maybe someone can confirm this.

I imported about 6 hours worth of music, all from my CD collection. I had no idea at the time, but apparently iTunes was set at the default AAC Encoder.

I then tried to burn an MP3 disc, assuming that whatever format the imported music was in, iTunes could convert it to MP3 for the disc I wanted to burn.

I hit "burn", and it said that "None of the items in this playlist can be burned to disc".

Is my assumption now that I must import them first as MP3 files in order to burn them onto an MP3 disc?

If this is correct, than I just wasted a LOT of time, which really stinks. I simply want to burn the 6 hours of music on an disc as MP3's, so they can all be on a single disc that I can pop into my stereo and play all night for a party (my stereo will read MP3 audio CDs).

Thanks,
Mike

[Stuphalina]

Check under the prefs for iTunes and see what format you can burn it. You might have to change it to “mp3.” It might help.

Just a thought.

[MichaelB43]

Originally posted by Stuphalina:
Check under the prefs for iTunes and see what format you can burn it. You might have to change it to “mp3.” It might help.

Just a thought.

I did that, and it didn't work. I did also try burning it as a data CD, which worked. However, my stereo couldn't read it. For my stereo to read it, it either has to be standard audio CD (AAC I think), or MP3. I want more than a standard CD's worth of audio, which is why I want MP3.

If I am correct, I think I need to import them ALL again using MP3 encoding versus AAC. And if this is true, then that really stinks.

[Arkham_c]

If you want to burn an mp3 cd then you have to encode your music as mp3s. Sorry, but it makes sense.

Now, you can convert aac files to mp3 using itunes. There is the some loss of quality when transcoding, but some people don't seem to mind, and it's worth a try before you re-rip everything.

To do that, change your import format to mp3, then go to the advanced menu and choose "convert to mp3".

Voila.

[MichaelB43]

Originally posted by Arkham_c:
If you want to burn an mp3 cd then you have to encode your music as mp3s. Sorry, but it makes sense.

Now, you can convert aac files to mp3 using itunes. There is the some loss of quality when transcoding, but some people don't seem to mind, and it's worth a try before you re-rip everything.

To do that, change your import format to mp3, then go to the advanced menu and choose "convert to mp3".

Voila.

Thanks for the help, I appreciate it. One last question. Is the associated quality loss more pronounced than if I had directly encoded the songs to MP3 from the CD in the first place, or would it be the same loss regardless?

Thanks again,
Mike

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by MichaelB43:
Thanks for the help, I appreciate it. One last question. Is the associated quality loss more pronounced than if I had directly encoded the songs to MP3 from the CD in the first place, or would it be the same loss regardless?

It will be far worse than if you'd directly encoded it as mp3.

This makes sense, since the compression works by actually *removing* audio information according to certain psycho-acoustically derived algorithms. If you transcode to a different compression scheme, it will run a *different* data-reduction algorithm over the already-reduced data stream, removing even more information.

-s*

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by MichaelB43:
For my stereo to read it, it either has to be standard audio CD (AAC I think), or MP3.

AAC is NOT standard audio CD format - it is compressed and information-reduced, similar to mp3, except slightly better-sounding, and it incorporates digital rights management technology.

-s*

[Arkham_c]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
AAC is NOT standard audio CD format - it is compressed and information-reduced, similar to mp3, except slightly better-sounding, and it incorporates digital rights management technology.

-s*

AAC does NOT necessarily have DRM (Digital Rights Management). It does support it, but when you rip via iTunes you are not getting any DRM in your music files. The .m4a audio files are in no way associated with DRM -- only the .m4p AAC files that you get from the iTMS have DRM in them.

[ender]

Originally posted by Arkham_c:
[B]If you want to burn an mp3 cd then you have to encode your music as mp3s. Sorry, but it makes sense.
]

Actually, it does NOT make sense!

I just tried the same thing the original poster tried, only to get the same error message...which lead me to search these forums. Apple's built-in and online help make NO mention of this limitation. According to their help files, the ONLY time I should get this error message is if I'm trying to convert an entire library of PROTECTED AAC files to an MP3 disc.

What a pain in the arss! So what you are saying is that I need to manually convert all my AAC to MP3? And then when I'm done I need to go back and manually weed out all the MP3 files from my music library? Seems pretty stupid that iTunes can't just convert them for you before burning the disc and then clean up after itself.

This seriously limits the appeal of the AAC format. If I had known this before I encoded my entire CD collection, I would have simply up'd the bitrate and used the MP3 format.

Apple, are you listening?? At a minimum, you need to explain this in your help files and give a much better error message than "None of the items in this playlist can be burned to disc". I expect that sort of vagueness from Windows error messages!!

[Earth Mk. II]

The way it works currently, iTunes won't convert to MP3 when burning an MP3 CD.

It probably should though. For non-DRM'd files it makes little sense not to.

So speak up: http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunes.html

[Mastrap]

Originally posted by ender:
Seems pretty stupid that iTunes can't just convert them for you before burning the disc and then clean up after itself.

This seriously limits the appeal of the AAC format. If I had known this before I encoded my entire CD collection, I would have simply up'd the bitrate and used the MP3 format.

Apple, are you listening?? At a minimum, you need to explain this in your help files and give a much better error message than "None of the items in this playlist can be burned to disc". I expect that sort of vagueness from Windows error messages!!

Sorry but this is really not Apple's fault. You can't possibly ask for Apple to make it possible for you to write music to CD in a way that makes it sound really crap.

To make a comparison you're complaining that you can't run your diesel car on petrol. There is such a thing as user responsibility, you know.

[wataru]

Originally posted by Mastrap:
Sorry but this is really not Apple's fault. You can't possibly ask for Apple to make it possible for you to write music to CD in a way that makes it sound really crap.

To make a comparison you're complaining that you can't run your diesel car on petrol. There is such a thing as user responsibility, you know.

Just because Apple software is easy to use doesn't mean it's ok to be completely ignorant of it and how it works.

[ender]

Originally posted by Mastrap:
Sorry but this is really not Apple's fault. You can't possibly ask for Apple to make it possible for you to write music to CD in a way that makes it sound really crap.

To make a comparison you're complaining that you can't run your diesel car on petrol. There is such a thing as user responsibility, you know.

Ah, but to extend your little analogy, this car CAN run on both petrol AND diesel. iTunes supports both MP3 and AAC. So now I've got a car that can run on either fuel, it has two separate tanks and I have to GUESS which on to fill with diesel and which to fill with petrol. And if I guess wrong, my car won't start and won't tell me why.

Does iTunes require that I manually convert all my music to AIFF before burning an audio CD? No! It converts the music for me while burning the dics. Therefore, it's PERFECTLY LOGICAL for me to assume that it will do the same thing for MP3.

[ender]

Originally posted by wataru:
Just because Apple software is easy to use doesn't mean it's ok to be completely ignorant of it and how it works.

Completely ignorant? Show me where in the documentation that it says I need to convert first? What if I have a mixture of MP3s and AACs in one play list? If I don't check the format on each one, I'll get a disc with only part of my playlist on it.

Don't get me wrong, I love iTunes and I'm a huge Apple fan. But requiring me to:

- change my import preferences
- convert all the songs in my playlist to MP3
- create a new playlist
- move the MP3s to that playlist
- burn the CD
- delete the MP3s
- reset my import preferences

when for an audio CD I can just burn it from whatever format songs I have. And then to have no documentation to explain why I can't burn the CD? This is the sort of half-ass implementation I expect from Microsoft.

I'm savy enough to know where to go looking for the solution on the internet. But many other people are novices users (a prime reason to get a Mac!). I certainly wouldn't set their iTunes preferences to AAC format. God forbid they notice that their DVD player will play MP3 CDs and they get it in their head to make one from iTunes!!

So, hopefully without ruffling any feathers here, I guess I'm just saying that Apple missed the concept of "it just works", in this case.

So Merry Christmas! I'm off to my parents house for the holiday and to do their once-a-year Mac check-up! Amazing, they've got my 9 year old Quadra 630. Never had a hard drive crash. Never lost a file (even with 12 grandkids using it). And never (since I gave it to them over 5 years ago) had to reinstall the operating system or any other software. And my Dad, a self-proclaimed computer-phobic, has installed his own applications and printer and done mail merges in MS Word (version 5...that last good version MS made!).

...it just works!!!

[Earth Mk. II]

Originally posted by Mastrap:
Sorry but this is really not Apple's fault. You can't possibly ask for Apple to make it possible for you to write music to CD in a way that makes it sound really crap.

To make a comparison you're complaining that you can't run your diesel car on petrol. There is such a thing as user responsibility, you know.

Granted - there would be a loss in quality. But I think the convenience could outweigh the quality loss for most people.

I think I warning dialogue alerting the user to potential quality loss (and greater time to burn the whole thing) would defiantly be necessary, should the user try to burn a CD that requires format conversion. However, I think the option to do this should defiantly exist, especially since hybrid MP3/AAC playlists are rather common.

[wataru]

Originally posted by Earth Mk. II:
would defiantly be necessary,

this should defiantly exist,

Yep, that would be one defiant feature.

If you guys want this feature so much, then by all means report it to Apple. But I don't think it's a big deal. AAC != MP3.

[koffedrnkr]

if you have AAC's and you want to burn a music CD, itunes converts the files to AIFF and burns them. if you want to make a data cd, it adds the appropriate directory files and makes the burn. if you want to make an MP3 CD, itunes should transcode your AAC's to MP3 and make the burn...the fact that it doesn't seems like a major gaff.....after all, we're not talking about protected AAC's bought from itms, we're talking about data ripped directly from CD.


i wonder why this feature is missing?????

[King Bob On The Cob]

Maybe Apple will fix it for MWSF on the 6th...

[Miniryu]

sheeet, I'm not ripping any more songs into ACC. I made a playlist for a party and all of my ACC files didn't burn. I couldn't figure out why some songs would, but after reading above I figured it out.

[dfiler]

I ran into this problem too upon purchasing an audio book. I wanted to put it on mp3 cds for playing in my car without carrying around a billion disks.

This limitation isn't all that bad and will likely be fixed eventually.

However, iTunes should at least attempt to explain the limitation rather than simply failing to do the requested task.

It should say "sorry, this isn't possible but here is a work around" rather than completely ignoring the user's request or throwing an inexplicable error message.

Here's a fun one, burn a playlist with both aac and mp3...

[Love Calm Quiet]

What about burning AIFF files from a standard music CD onto a CD-R (so I can play in my 1998 car's CD player?) Is there no way to burn AIFF with Disk Utility (even David Pogue doesn't mention it in Panther Missing Manual)?

Do I need to be purchasing Toast to burn AIFFs? or will even Toast fail at that?
Thanks.

[lavar78]

Originally posted by Love Calm Quiet:
What about burning AIFF files from a standard music CD onto a CD-R (so I can play in my 1998 car's CD player?) Is there no way to burn AIFF with Disk Utility (even David Pogue doesn't mention it in Panther Missing Manual)?

Do I need to be purchasing Toast to burn AIFFs? or will even Toast fail at that?
Thanks.

You can do this with iTunes. Import the tracks you want with AIFF as the encoder. Then burn all of those tracks as an audio CD.