Switcher - transfering large music library

As my sigh says, i'm gonna get my MBP soon

Now on my current system, I have about 15 gigs of music in WMA format. Why in this for mat, you ask? well, MP3 is a dismal audio codec when compare to the newer ones such as aac and wma 10.

When I try to import my music into iTunes, it says it need to convert the tracks to aac. I forsee this issue popping up when I switch. Is there a away to make itunes work with wma? (Eg: Flip4Mac)

I ask this question now so that if ther eis no way to do the above, i can start to make an aac version of my music from now because it will take time - something I don't want to make my MBP sit around doing.....

Thanks in advance

 

its really hard to make the argument that wma is superior to mp3. everything i have heard says otherwise.

if you got your wma files from cd's i recommend you rip them again to mp3 (or aac if you are big into the proprietary formats - but you should take this experience as a lesson to avoid proprietary things. mp3's would have been an easy drag and drop)

if you bought your wma files from an online store, they have drm, you will have to convert them to mp3 using a program that gets around the drm either by cracking it or getting its input from the audio output.

if they are unprotected wma, you can convert them to mp3 using a variety of tools...

however, that is not ideal. an audio purist such as yourself would know that re-encoding music is about the worst thing you can possibly do. its almost guaranteed to introduce audible abnormalities into your music tracks.

i haven't personally heard of people playing wma files with itunes. if you could get itunes to play them, you wouldn't be able to get the files on your ipod (unless maybe you put linux on your ipod)

so my suggestion would be:

re rip from cd if possible, otherwise convert and pray.

 

Flip4Mac plays WMV files on Quicktime, not WMA files on iTunes. I don't think there is an add-on that allows iTunes to play WMA.

MP3 quality is pretty good, although I personally use AAC myself. And as masterchef said, I'd recommend you burn all your music onto CDs, and then insert the CDs and drag the music into the iTunes library on your Mac. The added plus is that the CDs you burn with also become a backup in case anything happens to your hard drive.

 

Well, regarding quality of mp3s
iTunes 4: AAC and MP3 Codecs Compared

From Wikipedia
"Microsoft initially claimed that files in WMA format sounded better than MP3 files at the same bitrate; Microsoft also claimed that WMA files sounded better than MP3 files at higher bitrates. Double blind listening tests with other lossy audio codecs have shown varying results, from failure to support Microsoft's claims about its superior quality to supremacy over other formats. One independent test (May 2004) with WMA standard encoder provided by the Windows Media 9, conducted at 128 kbit/s, showed that WMA was roughly equivalent to MP3 encoded with LAME encoder, inferior to AAC and Vorbis, and superior to ATRAC3 (software version) (ATRAC3plus was not evaluated in this test). Another test, performed by Extreme Tech showed different results, however, placing WMA at the top of the list in terms of quality.

WMA 10 Pro, starting with Windows Media Player 11, competes against the popular AAC and low bitrate aacPlus, and is clearly superior to ordinary WMA."


I know its a varying result, and mp3s can't be beaten for compatibility, but I got most of my music off a store and yes, its un-drm-ed.

Also, AAC is actually an open standard developed by Dolby and AT&T that MS refuses to comply with as usual
AAC, unlike mp3, requires no fees to be paid for its use
iTunes aacs are encrypted with fairplay drm and hence are a "closed format"

Guess i'll have to start converting.....

 

aac is quite good, and so is Apple Lossless, keeps the file size down way below .wav levels. As does .aiff