MP3 Issue...

My friend e-mailed me this problem. I don't do MP3 (I'm a satellite radio snob) so I thought I'd post here. Sory if this is an easy question, but I promised I would attempt to find the answer and knew there were smarter people than me on this here. I'll try this in computers as well... thanks in advance for any help offered.

"Here is my mp3 issue: I am trying to find a website that will allow me to download (pay or free) mp3s. I downloaded one song off of itunes but that format will not work on my mp3 player. I can listen to the downloaded song on my computer and also burn it to cd but not the mp3 player."

 

You will not find a legit U.S.-based service that sells MP3s. Try www.allofmp3.com.

 

go to download.com and find a converter that could possibly convert what you download to mp3 format?

Or you could just use bittorrent and Azureus to download them like millions of others do.

 

iTunes aren't exactly MP3s. Everyone considers all Digital Music to be MP3s, but in actuallity its just one form of digital music .MP3 is the standard, but Microsoft has its own .wma (this one will work in many of today's MP3 players as well, but check the box. iTunes uses a form call .m4a and .m4p --I believe those are correct. I'd need to be at home to get the extensions totally correct. Anyways long story short iTunes format won't play in a standard MP3 player, but Apple does have a way to convert MP3 to THEIR format. Shrewd business move, because it forces everyone that has an iPod to use their format. There ARE converters out there, but I've yet to find one that will actually work to convert one format to MP3. All I can suggest is that you start your search there. Also there are multiple file sharing programs out there. Most share music, but its not exactly legal. The file sharing programs are, but the people choose what they share. (That's the not so legal part) But I can suggest file sharing programs, but not suggest what you use them for. There's Limewire, iMesh, and Bearshare. Also you can find a number of songs using Bittorrent. Be careful though because many file sharing programs come littered with Spyware. There are ways around that too, but I can't publicly suggest that either.

 

itunes will convert aac to mp3 with no problem -- asuming it's not copy protected. if it IS copy protected (ie, you bought it via the itunes store) then you'll need to burn it to cd first, then re-rip it (in itunes).

in itunes - preferences - advanced - importing :
there is a setting for what file format a cd rip will result it (default aac) but you can set it to mp3 if you want. you can re-encode files by selecting files and going to the "advanced - convert" (in the top menu bar). i use it all the time to re-encode mp3's to 128 bits.

 

I knew about the burn to CD then Rip off, but that wastes CDs. I want something that will convert point A to point B. I'm assuming his friend does as well.

 

the problem isn't the file format, the problem is the copy protection. good luck finding a program that will strip this out. it's the same with protected wma's. they're designed to not be copied, only played. transcoding to a non-copy protected format would defeat the whole purpose of the copy protection.

you can convert aac to mp3 in one step right in itunes -- assuming it's not copy protected. itunes doesn't provide non-copy protected music. i suspect most sites don't either. you can get around copy protection by going to audio cd, then re-ripping that's the only way at the moment and likely the only way in the future (sans hacking tools).

apparently, tho, the actual music you get from itunes store comes unprotected to your computer and it's itunes itself that adds the encryption based on your encryption key. some guys wanted to use linux to download from itunes and discovered this and simply never bothered with the encryption step -- thus downloading unprotected aacs from itunes store. i'm sure they'll be sued.

 

I honestly could care less if I could (a) play iTunes files in Windows Media Player (Including not being forced to install Quicktime on my machine) and (b) Be able to run the itunes files on any MP3 player.

 

i was addressing hoops' friend's problem. didn't mean to step on your toes.

 

No... you did... I was just commenting. I took no offense sorry if I came off like I did.