"MP4 to MP3? Possible iTunes question." Topic

How does one convert from MP4 to MP3? My daughter bought her first MP4 from iTunes last night and her MP3 player doesn't seem to like it.

In Itunes, highlight the tracks to convert, then click on the "advanced" tab at the top of the screen, and select "convert to MP3". That said, you may well not be able to; I ditched buying on Itunes a good while ago for this and other reasons, but the DRM on Itunes files certainly used to, and quite possibly still does, prevent you converting tracks bought on Itunes (as opposed from imported from CD etc) to MP3 format; that's why Ipods have such a big share of the market – tracks bought on Itunes don't work on a regular MP3 player…. (Or at least they didn't – I gather Apple relaxed their DRM a while back, but I haven't gone back to them, so don't know if that's one of the things they relaxed or not – give it a try and see if it works….)

Worth a try. Thanks!

There are converter programs you can download, though I think most have some cost. Some one once recommended one to me called TuneBites or something like that.

The way most work to get around the Itunes DRM is to play the MP4 and record the playback, saving the new file as an MP3.

If you buy digital music from Amazon, I think you get it as an MP3, which may be a better way to do it.

Aah yes, this is one of the issues of music being recorded in different formats.

Different MP3 handle the variety of music formats umm, differently. Some are good with wma, but not with mp4/aac, or vice versa. My hardware solution has been to get one of the latest Sony walkmans. It plays everything (so long as I stick to iTunes+, and not regular iTunes).

While it is (in theory) possible to get conversion software, I've never found anything I really liked.

The usual hack is to burn to a CD, then rip the tracks off as mp3s. The mp3 ID tags can then be manually edited with an MP3 tag editor. It's not the most elegant solution. I have a CD-RW on hand to reuse for these tasks.

The nice thing about mp3s is it doesn't matter what you use to play, everybody likes them :)

CPT Jake, how do you record the playback when you play the music?

The way most work to get around the Itunes DRM is to play the MP4 and record the playback, saving the new file as an MP3.

That's how Tunebite works. It plays the music and records a copy ("fair use backup") without the DRM. I think you can specify the target format, but it's been a while since I did anything with it. Pretty handy and a good deal for 17 bucks and change.

Audacity, free on Mac and Windows, does all kinds of things. Open the M4A, save as MP3.

iTunes is just trying to make sure you don't break the law. I understand they're going to move away from this babysitting soon.

Andrew