IPod Question

[nomiyah]

New technology equals new learning curve. It never ends...If I want to upload tracks to an IPod, is it better to burn a regular audio CD and then load it to the IPod? Or is it better to convert it to an MP3 and then upload it to the IPod?Nomi

[nickbatzdorf]

iTunes will automatically convert it to AAC (not MP3 actually) by default.

[nomiyah]

So you're saying the audio CD is best?

[nickbatzdorf]

Yes, it's uncompressed. But the compressed audio in an iPod is fine for cars, etc.

[superflux]

Been curious about a few similar things myself:1)If you buy something from iTunes, do you getuncompressed audio, or is the very first copythat comes to you a compressed file?2) What's the deal with m4p files? Can iTunesgenerate regular mp3 files for exporting?Thanks!!Steve

[roughly]

Hi Superflux,I'm not sure exactly how it works so someone please correct me if I'm wrong. It's my understanding that everything on iTunes is already the compressed audio mp3. As for mp4 files I know they are used for video to load onto an ipod. Extracting the mp3 from that I'm not sure about. Not sure if this helped or if I'm 100% right.Theresa

[superflux]

Quote:Hi Superflux,I'm not sure exactly how it works so someone please correct me if I'm wrong. It's my understanding that everything on iTunes is already the compressed audio mp3. As for mp4 files I know they are used for video to load onto an ipod. Extracting the mp3 from that I'm not sure about. Not sure if this helped or if I'm 100% right.TheresaThanks for the reply, Theresa.My experience is that when people (with Macs)try to play a song for me on a PC that they got fromiTunes, the PC doesn't know what to do with it.The file extension on these files (as far as the pcis concerned), is m4p (not mp4).If you're correct that the files are already compressedwhen you get them from iTunes, I think I'll stick to buying cd's. An extra $5 for liner notes and uncompressed files seems worth it.Steve

[roughly]

Hi Steve,I'm unfamiliar with the m4p file format. That sounds strange. I only really know PCs, I'm don't know much about Macs except every time I get on one I manage to crash it. I know you can download songs from iTunes onto your PC so there must be a way. Sorry I can't help you more than that. Can you play the file through iTunes on your PC?I did find this on Apple's site though about the compression:"iTunes supports a variety of musical formats, including Advanced Audio Coding (AAC). A cutting-edge audio codec that’s perfect for the Internet, AAC encoding compresses much more efficiently than older formats such as MP3, which iTunes also supports, while delivering quality rivaling that of uncompressed CD audio. In fact, expert listeners have judged AAC audio files compressed at 128 Kbps (stereo) as virtually indistinguishable from the original uncompressed audio source."For me virtually indistinguishable isn't good enough. But for most people it is. I personally still like to buy the CD with liner notes and artwork. But maybe someday soon it will be good enough.Theresa

[davewalton]

Hi,When you download from iTunes (or any other download service for that matter) you'll always get some kind of compressed digital file. Mostly MP3's but in the case of iTunes, you'll get their proprietary M4P format. I use a PC and I use the PC version of iTunes which you have to have to access the store and download. The iTunes application also plays files like any other player including the M4P format. It also converts files from various formats to other formats and really excels at this.A CD is best because it's uncompressed 16-bit stereo audio. If I'm buying all the music on a CD I always get the CD (I can convert it to MP3 or whatever if I need to). A lot of the time I'm only interested in one or two songs and so a download service like iTunes is hard to beat for that. As far as iTunes goes, I've never noticed the "swishy swirly" sound you sometimes get with highly compressed audio. It's really very clean.The M4P file is a "protected" file which prevents piracy. It also prevents it from being useful to the person that paid for it. You can't directly convert it to an MP3, for example. My little digital portable player will only play MP3 and WMA format files. In order to be able to listen to my purchased music on my portable player I have to burn the M4P file to a (rewritable) CD and then "import" the contents of that CD to an MP3 file or files. iTunes allows me to do all of this but it's a hassle compared to just being able to convert from M4P to MP3.I think that audio conversion is one of iTunes real strengths. iTunes will convert a CD, for example, to just about any format (M4P, MP3, WAV) with as many options as anyone would want. I use iTunes a lot but mainly as my last step in the processing of my music (converting WAV files to MP3's). I've found that it does a great job of converting WAV files to MP3's. iTunes converts to and from all of the standard formats.Dave

[superflux]

Thanks folks!Steve