ATRAC Conversion to MP3/wma?

[dvallere]

The ol' NZ707 is on its last legs, and I think I'm going to switch to a different format. I'm just not optimistic about the future of non-Sony MDs, and I've had it with Sony products lately. I'll keep the old MDs for car use, since I just went through all that nonsense to get an indash MD player last fall.

So...I've already written to Creative and Toshiba re their MP3 players, and I've peeked in Sonic Stage, but does anyone know whether it's possible to convert my downloaded ATRAC songs into MP3 or wma format? SS only seems to allow conversions to ATRAC and not the other way.

?

Thanks,

D.

[ROMBUSTERS]

if the Atrac songs are downloaded from connect.com (or made with pre SonicStage 3.2 software) then the .omg/a files are DRM'd and you can not do anything with the file itself.

Actually scratch that I don't think you could do anything with the file even if it didn't have DRM...

Anyways moving on, I think the only real way to do this would be one of the following:

1

-Burn an audio cd with your Atrac files.

-Rip this audio cd to your pc in desired format (i.e. mp3/wma/ogg/wav)

2

-Play back the song in SonicStage

-Record from your computers digital sound using audio software

[Bananatree]

No offense intended ROM, but those both sound like terrible ideas, since that'd sound terrible.

Although, those are infact your only real options.

[Syrius]

*cough, himdrenderer, cough cough COUGH!!*

[Christopher]

Yes, as Syrius's chronic vice-induced expulsion has hinted, Hi-MD renderer should be able to convert all of these files to MP3, FLAC, OGG, etc.

[bug80]

Also, make sure that the bitrate of your target files is higher than that of the original ATRAC files.

For example, if the original ATRAC file was LP2 (132 kbs), I'd suggest to make the final MP3 at least 192 kbs. Encoding with Lame at the "--preset standard" or higher setting would be even better.

In general, transcoding = bad, but if you really have to do it make sure the damage is as low as possible.

Edited August 11, 2005 by bug80

[dvallere]

These are songs downloaded from Connect.

It is not critical - there are probably only 20 songs on there that I really want to keep, and if I'm springing for a new device I can certainly spend the extra $20 to redownload them from some other source.

Thanks, all. I read the Hi-MD Renderer post but it didn't appear this would work, since these are on my PC in "plain" .omg format and not on a Hi-MD.

D.

[marcnet]

No harm in giving himdrenderer a try.It works with both omg and oma. It wont wreck the oringal .omg/oma files (it dosnt even change them), its free, and if it outputs complete rubbish then you delete the .wav/.flac/.ogg/.mp3/.whatever and find another solutions

There is a slight bug ive found with .omg files in that you have to restart himdrender after converting a .omg file, but thats about it....

(/me hints at a juicy 0.40 update coming soon.... and then runs awa.....