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Drowelfchyld · Mar 11, 2006, 03:20 PM

First off, let me start by saying that I am *not* trying to break the copyright laws here. What I am trying to do is LEGALLY use material I paid for. I did a brief search through the forum and didn't see anything relating to this, but if this has been asked before, I'm terribly sorry.

Here's what I want to do:

My car has a 6 CD Changer MP3 CD player. I have an iPod, but don't really get good reception off of FM Transmitters and my car stereo does not have an iPod input that is easily accessable. So I have given up on this particular endeavor, and would like to just burn my iTunes to MP3 CDs. But aside from burning them to a CD and reimporting them as MP3, I have not found a quicker way to do this. Hymn worked on pre-iTunes 6, but it looks like they aren't 6.0 compatible.

So, is there any quicker way to convert several hundred M4P files to MP3 CD?

ShotgunEd · Mar 11, 2006, 03:31 PM

Hymn removes DRM from the m4p files, but these still wouldn't play in your mp3 cd player. The removal of the DRM won't make your mp3 cd player read a different file type.

The method of burning and re-importing as mp3s is your only option with DRMed m4p files.

Weyland-Yutani · Mar 11, 2006, 03:59 PM

Converting m4p to mp3 is impossible for now. The protection in iTunes 6 hasn't been circumvented yet.

cheers

W-Y

slugslugslug · Mar 11, 2006, 08:23 PM

If you haven't bought anything using iTunes 6, then hymn will still work on stuff you buy using iTunes 5. I'm not sure how you can downgrade iTunes (and I'm not sure if we can really talk about it here), but I've heard in can be done.

If you have bought with iTunes 6, those tracks need to be burned and re-ripped. Then you can revert iTunes to version 5, create a new account and use that to buy all your music until there's some news from hymn or Apple stops letting iTunes 5 work at the store..

jasong · Mar 11, 2006, 08:32 PM

Why do you need to re-import the MP3s into iTunes? Just burn your m4ps to an mp3 CD, use the discs in your car, and leave your iTunes as is.

Tomchu · Mar 11, 2006, 08:47 PM

Originally Posted by jasong

Just burn your m4ps to an mp3 CD

That's exactly the point. :-|

An MP3 car stereo won't just magically understand M4P, and converting is out of the question because of DRM. He needs to burn the music, then re-rip it into MP3.

goMac · Mar 11, 2006, 09:28 PM

Does iTunes not burn m4p files when you tell it you want to burn an mp3 cd?

Chuckit · Mar 11, 2006, 09:34 PM

Don't think there will be a simple way to do it until Hymn cracks iTunes 6.

B Gallagher · Mar 11, 2006, 10:39 PM

i thought mp3 CD was just a name for the type of CD.. essentially a data CD with an iTunes .xml file.

msuper69 · Mar 12, 2006, 12:18 AM

What's wrong with just burning an audio CD? Your changer is not compatible with regular audio CDs?

mpancha · Mar 12, 2006, 02:40 AM

MP3 is a format, like ra (real audio), wmv, mp3, cda... etc.

The OP has an MP3 CD changer in his car. Due to the poor reception he gets by using a FM modulator with his iPod, he wants to take his iTunes music (currently in MP4 format) and burn them onto MP3 CD.

He doesn't want to just burn regular audio CDs b/c you can only fit 15-20 songs on a regular audio CD. Whereas on an MP3 CD, you're usually looking at about 100 songs per disc.

He wants to know how to make the mp4 files that iTunes creates become MP3 files he can burn onto CD.

msuper69 · Mar 12, 2006, 11:23 AM

Originally Posted by mpancha

MP3 is a format, like ra (real audio), wmv, mp3, cda... etc.

The OP has an MP3 CD changer in his car. Due to the poor reception he gets by using a FM modulator with his iPod, he wants to take his iTunes music (currently in MP4 format) and burn them onto MP3 CD.

He doesn't want to just burn regular audio CDs b/c you can only fit 15-20 songs on a regular audio CD. Whereas on an MP3 CD, you're usually looking at about 100 songs per disc.

He wants to know how to make the mp4 files that iTunes creates become MP3 files he can burn onto CD.

Ok. I wasn't aware of the difference in capacity between MP3 and Audio.

However, with a 6 disk changer, it wouldn't be the end of the world to use audio CDs.

Plus one would not be circumventing Apple's DRM scheme. I would think that discussion involving bypassing that would be against the forum rules.

mpancha · Mar 12, 2006, 12:54 PM

Originally Posted by msuper69

Ok. I wasn't aware of the difference in capacity between MP3 and Audio.

However, with a 6 disk changer, it wouldn't be the end of the world to use audio CDs.

Plus one would not be circumventing Apple's DRM scheme. I would think that discussion involving bypassing that would be against the forum rules.

well, once you've had a taste of using MP3 CDs where you don't ever have to change a disc for a full week as opposed to every hour.... its almost impossible going back to regular audio CDs.

As for the DRM, the songs you get off of iTunes you can't convert to MP3 directly. The only way at this time on the latest iTunes is to burn the songs to CD which Apple allows. Then import the CD as MP3 into iTunes, leaving them in MP3 format with no DRM. The other option to do it without having to go through burning a CD first, is to use a third party program... however, this isn't the most legal thing to do... which is why discussing how to do it (outside the realm of burning to CD -> reimporting into iTunes) is against forum rules.

ghporter · Mar 12, 2006, 12:56 PM

1) Burn the purchased songs to an audio CD.

2) Rip the just-burned audio CD at the highest supported bitrate in your preferred format (I use MP3)

3) Use your purchased songs on ANY platform that supports your preferred format. Done.

The key is ripping the songs at the highest available bitrate to reduce the transcription errors that may/will crop up during the conversion to audio format and back. Sure, the files get bigger, but not much. And remember this is to use songs you bought on something other than your computer or your iPod, so it's not like you're going to be creating museum-quality masters or anything, just playable songs.