sebastianbf Posted March 29, 2006 Report Share Posted March 29, 2006 HelloA friend of mine gave me a iTunes pre-paid music card for 15usd. I was wondering if it's possible to transfer the songs buyed in iTunes to SS and then to my Himd. Another thing that I would like to know is the quality of the available songs in iTunes. And a last question: Can I use the iTunes store if I'm outside U.S (I'm in Chile, South America) ? (Sorry to make a couple of iTunes related questions in here but ... it's a gift!)thank you all Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrazyIvan Posted March 29, 2006 Report Share Posted March 29, 2006 You can't do it directly. You would probably need to burn whatever you download to a audio CD then import to sonic stage or use SB to burn to Hi-MD. I don't know about the whole South America issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danielbb90 Posted March 29, 2006 Report Share Posted March 29, 2006 You can't do it directly. You would probably need to burn whatever you download to a audio CD then import to sonic stage or use SB to burn to Hi-MD. I don't know about the whole South America issue. I think DBPowerAmp can convert to wav from the itunes format! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sebastianbf Posted March 30, 2006 Author Report Share Posted March 30, 2006 Oh! that sucks! And we were complaining about SS........BTW: How's the quality of the downloaded songs? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1kyle Posted March 30, 2006 Report Share Posted March 30, 2006 In general Utterly abysmal. OK you got a gift but avoid this stuff like the plague. This type of music is usually in a horrible "lossy" compressed format and DRM issues which make it a hassle playing it on a variety of players.If you DO manage to convert it to WAV or record via Analog in real time you'll get even more loss in transcoding.Just buy the CD'd -- FAR FAR better quality (usually), No DRM / format issues and usually these days just as cheap as the downloaded crud.Cheers-K Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ksandbergfl Posted March 30, 2006 Report Share Posted March 30, 2006 HelloA friend of mine gave me a iTunes pre-paid music card for 15usd. I was wondering if it's possible to transfer the songs buyed in iTunes to SS and then to my Himd.I've never used iTunes, but I would think as long as the AAC codec is installed on your PC, you should be able to use a freeware tool like MENCODER to directly "rip" the iTunes file to either WAV or MP3.Someone who knows how to use Microsoft's GraphEdit could probably rip AAC to MP3 pretty easily too.You could also use something like AudioGrabber or TotalRecorder and real-time capture/convert the iTunes song to a WAV or MP3 (ie, play the song using iTunes, while recording your sound card's output using AudioGrabber). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lamewing Posted March 31, 2006 Report Share Posted March 31, 2006 (edited) HelloA friend of mine gave me a iTunes pre-paid music card for 15usd. I was wondering if it's possible to transfer the songs buyed in iTunes to SS and then to my Himd. Another thing that I would like to know is the quality of the available songs in iTunes. And a last question: Can I use the iTunes store if I'm outside U.S (I'm in Chile, South America) ? (Sorry to make a couple of iTunes related questions in here but ... it's a gift!)thank you allIt isn't that hard...First, burn the songs to a CD and then rerip as mp3 or ATRAC (your choice). You will lose a bit of sound quality (not much really, especially if you use a higher bitrate ATRAC). After that, you can just transfer them over to your device.OR You can just record in realtime...OR use a PC/Mac digital recording program to "record" the song while it is playing.Now, how to use the US gift card. All you do is open iTunes, click on iTunes Music Cards. It will ask you to enter the code to redeem your card. After you enter it, the program will ask you to create an account. Normally, you would need a U.S. credit card, but this is the way to avoid the cc nonsense. Go ahead and create the account. You will need to use a U.S. address and phone number. The address doesn't have to be legit, just make sure it looks like a real U.S. address. I did the same thing with the iTunes Japan. Heck, I used the Apple Store Japan's phone number!!!After that you are set. Pick your songs and download them. Make sure to keep a back up, just in case.JoeIn general Utterly abysmal. OK you got a gift but avoid this stuff like the plague. This type of music is usually in a horrible "lossy" compressed format and DRM issues which make it a hassle playing it on a variety of players.If you DO manage to convert it to WAV or record via Analog in real time you'll get even more loss in transcoding.Just buy the CD'd -- FAR FAR better quality (usually), No DRM / format issues and usually these days just as cheap as the downloaded crud.Cheers-KTo be truthful, the sound quality of the iTunes store is no different that any other pay-per-download service. The DRM is different, but they all sound about the same.This is the weakness of online music purchases. If we could merely download them in a lossless format (at least as an option) then transcoding would only require one conversion. I guess these companies are willing to provide the server space or bandwith at this point. Edited March 31, 2006 by lamewing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Low Volta Posted March 31, 2006 Report Share Posted March 31, 2006 This is the weakness of online music purchases. If we could merely download them in a lossless format (at least as an option) then transcoding would only require one conversion. I guess these companies are willing to provide the server space or bandwith at this point.If you do not mind walking the thin line of legitimacy...there's always allofMP3.comUnlike what their name makes you believe, this Russian ( it is legit in Russia) online music store offers downloads in a bunch of formats and Flac is among them (perhaps even other lossless ones)and they still are dirt cheap! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hungerdunger Posted March 31, 2006 Report Share Posted March 31, 2006 If you do not mind walking the thin line of legitimacy...there's always allofMP3.comUnlike what their name makes you believe, this Russian ( it is legit in Russia) online music store offers downloads in a bunch of formats and Flac is among them (perhaps even other lossless ones)and they still are dirt cheap!There was a lengthy discussion on the WinMX newsgroup recently. It was mainly about the legitimacy of allofmp3.com, but someone also asked if it was known for certain what format the original files are stored in. For example if they were saved as 128kbps files, then although you might opt for a 256kbps download it wouldn't actually benefit you. I don't think anyone had a definitive answer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Low Volta Posted March 31, 2006 Report Share Posted March 31, 2006 I must admit that I'm rather oldfashioned and still buy my CD's as CD's... and when I feel like piracy I just copy the CD's from my friends but my collegue swears by AoMP3.com. I dunno what format he buys, but when he showed me the site he pointed out the other options (like flac). I haven't bought any yet... so I can't really contribute to the discussionI must say that you have brought up a very good point and I should check with my collegue to see if it makes a difference (I believe the higher bitrates cost a bit more, not?) in SQ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lamewing Posted March 31, 2006 Report Share Posted March 31, 2006 I must admit that I'm rather oldfashioned and still buy my CD's as CD's... and when I feel like piracy I just copy the CD's from my friends but my collegue swears by AoMP3.com. I dunno what format he buys, but when he showed me the site he pointed out the other options (like flac). I haven't bought any yet... so I can't really contribute to the discussionI must say that you have brought up a very good point and I should check with my collegue to see if it makes a difference (I believe the higher bitrates cost a bit more, not?) in SQI am with you on buying CDs. I import most of my Jpop/Kpop/Cpop CDs from www.yesasia.com. Although, the iTunes music store is great for checking out Japanese singers and bands before importing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jillako Posted April 1, 2006 Report Share Posted April 1, 2006 I suggest that you trade the iTunes Gift Card for a similar card from the Connect Store. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuge Posted April 1, 2006 Report Share Posted April 1, 2006 but my collegue swears by AoMP3.com. I dunno what format he buys, but when he showed me the site he pointed out the other options (like flac). I haven't bought any yet... so I can't really contribute to the discussionI did bought few Mp3`s at 320kpbs & one flac (for testing downloaded from my brothers computer )It`s a nice site even after people say they are not legal outside Russia .... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Low Volta Posted April 1, 2006 Report Share Posted April 1, 2006 so are the flacs real?I'm thinking one could test this by buying a flac of a track one has on CD then decoding the flac to wav and comparing bit-by-bit to the wav directly ripped from CDor even a comparison between a lossy version and the flac could already indicate whether there is 'more info' or not Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sebastianbf Posted April 1, 2006 Author Report Share Posted April 1, 2006 I suggest that you trade the iTunes Gift Card for a similar card from the Connect Store. What for? Better quality of downloads? Also, I can't use connect store her in Chile where I live (i've tried several times). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZosoIV Posted April 1, 2006 Report Share Posted April 1, 2006 What for? Better quality of downloads? Also, I can't use connect store her in Chile where I live (i've tried several times).Connect files are quite bad, too - I don't consider ATRAC3 132kbps to be a very robust format in terms of SQ, especially compared to newer codecs like AAC. The couple of files I got for free sounded attrocious, with HF ringing, pre-echo, and the typical "grainy" sound of LP2. I'll stick to CD, thanks iTunes, BTW, isn't much better, if at all. The stuff on iTunes was encoded with a very old version of Apple's AAC codec - I once got a giftcard, bought a CD on iTunes, and was horrified by the sound quality. It sounded like a transcoded 112kbps MP3! I then went out and bought the actual CD, and out of curiosity, encoded it to 128kbps AAC with iTunes 6.5.2 (this was a while back, remember), and the files sounded nothing alike - the QT-encoded one was almost identical to the original, save for duller-sounding HF content. In short, though, I've found that no matter the codec or store, you're far better off buying the CD and ripping a lossy and lossless version yourself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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