Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions using wma in itunes

Nickboros,
This has been interesting for me. I usually use I tunes to make copies of music for an audiophile friend of mine. I don't know if there is a way of downloading I tunes plus, you can get I tunes Plus songs from I tunes, but I think bit rates are only 320 kbps. This is the highest bit rate I can set in my I tunes for importing discs. I used this to make the best copy fro my friend. However, after your post I checked out my until recently little used Windows Media and saw the lossless option, 470-940 kbps ("mathematically lossless" according to the microsofties. So I did an experiment: I ripped a cd in wma lossless. I then imported it to my I tunes and I tunes made sure I knew it would convert to AAC, but that was the only prompt I had, so I said, "sure." After importing I looked at the info of the song in I tunes and low and behold, the sample rate was only 320 kbps. The song file in Windows Media was 843 kbps, so there was obviously some info lost. (I think) Now I don't know if it noticeable or not or if there is a way of getting I tunes to copy bit for bit, but I just thought I'd pass this on.
Sips

powerwindow,

Thanks for the post. I haven't messed with itunes yet to see if I can convert my Microsoft lossless to Apple lossless. But, if I can't (and it sounds like I can't due to what you are saying happened when you tried) then I probably will not be getting a ipod player. The Zune 80gb player is $249 which is the same price as the ipod classic 80gb. The only reason I wanted the ipod was that there should be many more accesories for the ipod due to its popularity. But, not having lossless music is a dealbreaker for me.

I really don't want to re-rip all of those cd's in itunes so that I can have lossless. I am going to have to mess around with itunes a little bit. I just downloaded it this summer and after it was installed it asked if I wanted to make it my default player and I told it "no". I guess if you say "yes" then it will take all of you windows media player songs and convert them to aac. But, even though I said "no" it took artists starting with A through D and put them in itunes at 128kbps. I am not going to listen to my music at that rate. Luckily those artists are still in Windows Media player as lossless.

- Nick

iTunes is like any other software, you need to tell it what you want in order to get it to do it. To tell iTunes to rip in lossless (ripping a CD or importing is the same thing when convertion is involved), go to "Edit/Preferences/Advanced/Importing" and then select "Apple Lossless". That way, ripping a CD or importing WMV will now use Apple Lossless (same basic algo as WMV except for the copy protection mechanism) and instead of the default 128Kpbs.

I honestly think the Zune player is far better than an iPod and I'm not saying that just because I have one and I'm anti-I everything but it's a very slick MP3/media player. Also if you're considering a Zune player, you can get personalized Zune players right from their website. They will print a design/name on the back of the player at no extra charge; something worth checking out.

EFalardeau,
Awesome! I didn't even notice the drop down menu. I just kept it in AAC and cranked the custom bit rate as high as it would go (320 kbps). I changed it to Apple Lossless codec and I tried my experiment again and sure enough it converted WMA Lossless to Apple Lossless. So Nickboros, I think it's safe to say if you import your album folders into I tunes you won't lose anything as long as you change the I tunes codec to Apple Lossless. However, I noticed an interesting thing: The Kbps of the song in WMA Lossless was 841 kbps and after I tunes imported it, it went to 860 kbps. I'm not sure what's going on there, but it does seem to be in a lossless format so if you do go Ipod you shouldn't have to rerip all of your music.
I like features of both software using the computer, Itunes is nice if you make "backup" copies of your media because there is a way you can print a jewel case insert using album artwork that includes track info, which is nice if you don't have any other softwhere that can do it. Anyway, I learned something once again here on the forum. Thanks and good luck.

EFalardeu,

Thanks for the help converting. I was searching online how to do this and couldn't find it anywhere. I converted all of my music stored in Windows Media Player over to itunes in a lossless format. I also put that NIN the Slip high resolution (1.6 gig) album that I downloaded for free in there as well. I just can't seem to get the cover art and stuff in the file to go in there for some reason so itunes doesn't have any labels for that album for some reason. I guess I'll have to mess with it a little bit. I only have about 20 gigs so far. So all my cd's together I'm estimating will be about 40 to 60gigs (probably closer to 60). So I might go for the 160gig ipod so that I don't run out of space for a long time.

wheelz999,

I've though about getting a Zune but with the popularity of the ipod I think I'm going with the ipod. There will be so much more choices in accessories due to its popularity.

- Nick

Nick,
Itunes does not import the cover art from Windows Media, I ran in to this as well. It will find cover art if you import from the cd to Itunes in the future.

However, there is a way to get the cover art into Itunes: This is what I do, (if anyone has other suggestions please let me know).

Go to your My Music folder.
Highlight an Album Folder.
Go up to Tools
--Folder Options
----View Tab
-----Choose show Hidden Files and Folders
----- Also, "Uncheck" hide protected operating system files

This will allow you to see the Album Artwork files in your album folders. Right click and copy the Large Artwork file. Go to Itunes and highlight all the songs that you want to apply the artwork to. (Highlight first, shift highlight last) Right click--Get info (yes apply to all selected) Right click and paste into artwork square.

That should do it. It's kind of convoluted, but part of the problem is that Windows Media hides those files in the album folders. You can always also go to like Amazon and right click and save album artwork to your desktop and then add it to Itunes the same way as above; however, sometimes the image is not as clear.

Finally, I usually go back and change those folder options, just in case there's the chance that something can happen to those hidden files that you don't want to happen.

I hope this helps,
Tom

powerwindow,

Thanks for the help this seems to be working great. It just takes a while to do it.

- Nick

powerwindow,

There is a much better way of getting the album art. After you have ripped or transfered all of the songs just click advanced and tell it to get cover art. You have to have an itunes account setup to do this but that is it. It may miss some so I just went to amazon.com to get them.

- Nick

Nick,
I have found that sometimes ITunes can't find the cover art. The easiest solution is to go to Amazon.com (or any online cd retaler) and look for the cd. Once you find the cd/description save the album cover as a jpeg. You can then load the album art work corresponding to the song list. I found this on the Apple forum a year ago when I got my ITouch.
Cheers,
Shaun