| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| wellington womble |
Getting an iPod to talk to Windoze.....I have the most expensive bit of useless kit hanging around on my desk at the moment. It's taken me three months to get iTunes downloaded to my PC, and now I find that Windoze had been automatically protecting all the audio content I have loaded onto its hard drive, so that iTunes can't get at it, and put it on my iPod.How on earth do I get all my protected WMA files off my hardrive and onto my (presently!) effectively worthless iPod? The CD's are in storage, which was why I specifically spent a lot of time putting them on my harddrive, and bought a portable media player! I only want something to listen to while I do the housework! 
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| Jonnyboy |
Advanced tab, then consolidate library? | ||||
| wellington womble |
Nope - not sure what it did do, but apparently it's undoable! Oh well. Wonder what I did with the CDs............. | ||||
| dougal |
Possible terminology confusion: "protected WMA"
That is referring to *copy*protected (ie copy-prevented) music downloaded from somewhere other than the iTunes Store. Not that you have digitised from your own CDs. Ordinary (unencrypted) WMAs can be converted to AAC or mp3 by iTunes for iPod playback by the PC version of iTunes (not the Mac version). Its Apple-easy:
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| wellington womble |
Not quite so AppleEasy, I'm afraid. "iTunes is unable to convert the files, as they are protected WMA files". Dunno why. Won't convert to AAC or MP3 or anything else in the drop down box. It did say on the site that windows media player (which is what I used) does this, and you can copy from the orginal CD's, and turn it off the copy in future for Windows media player.
I was hoping if Windows Media Player put the protect thingy on, it can take it off again. I can't be the only person to want to load up a chunk of audio that's already on my harddrive, can I? |
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| dougal |
You're not. I'm just mystified as to how/why you have unintentionally digitised them into an encrypted proprietary format. Which I incorrectly believed that you couldn't have done! It seems a pretty bizarre option to have as the default. But then, I think there's a lot of such bizarre stuff in Windoze. /shrug Sorry, I can't get you out of that one! ... but these folk *do* claim they can. http://www.e-soft.co.uk/MediaAudioCapture.htm Its PC software, and said by users to do what it claims. Seems to cost £12 or so. I'm not advocating it; I've no idea what snags may lurk; or how pox-raddled it might be. But it might be worth your while to check out its reputation. |
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| wellington womble |
Isn't there just! Why on earth would it decide to encrypt things? I hate it when computers do things on their own. They're supposed to do as their told! I'll have a look at the software, though - thanks! |
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| tahir |
I used to use software called Xplay for my iPod but that was years ago, before they had a version of iTunes for Windows. Very good, stable application. | ||||
| bagpuss |
can you burn them to cd then get itunes to reconvert to a suitable format, not ideal as is a bit lossy but might work | ||||
| sean |
You could do the back-conversion using 'lossless' which would help a bit with that. | ||||
| dougal |
Yes, and that approach can be taken one step further by using a 'virtual' CDRW http://www.noteburner.com/ |
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| wellington womble |
If they're on a CD, won't they still be in the same format? I assume even if I copy them again, I'll need to find a little box to uncheck (the one which says 'would you like to save as protected WMA content?') anyone know where that might be? | ||||
| dougal |
The idea is that you save them as an *audio* cd - such as you might play on an aging hifi - rather than simply copying the computer data files onto a data disc. I think you'll find that Noteburner will end up with mp3's for you, if you choose to go that route. If you play them out to a real cdrw, I'd suggest that you use iTunes to redigitise the music. Especially use iTunes if you were to choose to redigitise from the original CDs. For less risk of this sort of rot. |
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| wellington womble |
I think I might get a mac......... | ||||
| Gervase |
Apropos not a lot, I've just burned an MP3 CD for youngest using iTunes. Eleven hours of music is quite a lot - but I think he might have something to chew on with Tangerine Dream, Gong, Paul Robeson, the Red Army Choir, Les Negresss Verts, and lots of Lou Reed and Tom Waits.
I will not let his taste be pigeonholed! |
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| sean |
No Tinariwen, Neil Young or Davy Graham? Man, you're putting him in a box already. 
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| Jonnyboy |
Creedence clearwater, faith no more... the list is endless. Thank the lord for 79p tracks |