Converting my WMA files for mac usage...

Everything in my music library is in WMA format right now. I will be buying a macbook soon and I have been wondering how I am going to get those WMA to run on my Mac. Will iTunes be able to convert them?

Josh

 

You're in a world of hurt.

You're looking at possibly recompressing compressed files, which is, basically, teh suck.

 

YYESSSSSS!!!

 

lol, revel in the pain! glory in it!

 

You'll need EasyWMA to convert each file.

 

*beats self with bloody scourge*

 

actually, unless they are drm'ed, itunes will convert them all for you.

of course, this means that you will reduce audio quality with the tracks, and possibly introduce artifacts (strange crackle/pop noises). its not ideal to convert one lossy format to another. if you have a 128kbps wma, and you convert it to 128kbps mp3, its more like the sound quality of about a 64kbps mp3. its really subjective and the numbers are sort of up in the air, but i would say that if you take a 128kbps and convert it to a 128 kbps mp3, you really have more like 64kbps or less mp3.

 

eww wma... you just need to "aquire" them again it may be easier and yield a higher quality.

 

might just be easier to use something other than itunes. wma and os x compatibility - mplayer, windows media player 9 for os x, windows media components for quicktime. that was just a quick google search.

converting from one compressed format to another is indeed an inherently lossy approach and does degrade the audio, however don't take anybody's word for this. try it on a few songs in your collection. listen to the wma version, and then the aac version. make sure you do this with songs from different genres. can you hear the difference? if so, does it bother you? you might find if you listen on headphones or on the laptop speakers alot it doesn't matter. if you plug into a nice hi-end stereo you will probably notice and be bothered. but everyone's ears are different so check out what yours have to say.

 

Assuming these are all encoding by you, this would be a great time to reencode them in a open lossless format for archiving, and then into a lossy standard format like .mp3 for everyday use. That way you have a lossless copy somewhere and if the need ever arises you have a good fall back file.

 

How about the Flip4Mac plugin? I know it adds WMA/WMV support to Quicktime but am not sure if this carries over to iTunes.

The Vorbis/FLAC plugins from xiph.org kinda work, although iTunes doesn't recognise several tags during import.

 

I had hundreds of albums that I had ripped in wma format (128-160) a few years back. I then converted them all to mp3 (mostly 128), mostly using dbpoweramp on my pc. I couldn't personally tell the difference between the two tracks, and I spent hours testing to see if there was a problem. Unless you have a $5000+ stereo setup, or top of the range headphones, and are a complete audiophile I doubt the conversion will be noticeable. In fact the only way I could tell was to listen to both tracks, flip back and forth and purposely look for any difference, I mostly found that it was the high end where artefacts could be heard, but again didn't notice them until I specifically looked for em'.
As for programs, dbpoweramp was good, but now i think they charge for using the mp3 codec.
Otherwise itunes for pc will import and convert wma's for you. Just make sure you set the format and bit rate you want first (ie mp3 or aac).

Thus my suggestion is to convert you library on your pc before you get your mac!

a