# MP3 help.....please



## Steve H (May 15, 2006)

My wife is after me to get her an iPod. Right now all of our music on our computers is stored as .wma files. How hard is it going go be to convert the wma files to mp3 format? Am I better off going with an iPod or a different brand mp3 player. We have ~2000 songs stored in wma format. 


THANKS MUCH


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## seanb724 (May 13, 2005)

If the songs are not protected WMA files, then you can just add them to itunes via drag and drop or add files/folder. iTunes will automatically convert them to aac or mp3 depending on your settings in the advanced tab of the importing section... You do have to have windoes media 9 or later.


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## Steve H (May 15, 2006)

seanb724 said:


> If the songs are not protected WMA files, then you can just add them to itunes via drag and drop or add files/folder. iTunes will automatically convert them to aac or mp3 depending on your settings in the advanced tab of the importing section... You do have to have windoes media 9 or later.


Many of the songs are downloaded from Walmart so they have some sor of "liscense". Will that stop the conversion? I do have Windows Media Player 9 or 10.


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## cclement (Mar 22, 2004)

You'll have to burn all the purchased songs to CD's and then you'll have to rip them into iTunes. Unfortunately that's about the only way to get them to work on an iPod. I don't think there's a way to "strip" the copy protection license from the WMA.


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## gamer177 (Jun 14, 2006)

Steve H said:


> My wife is after me to get her an iPod. Right now all of our music on our computers is stored as .wma files. How hard is it going go be to convert the wma files to mp3 format? Am I better off going with an iPod or a different brand mp3 player. We have ~2000 songs stored in wma format.
> 
> THANKS MUCH


There is an application which perfectly works with protected wma's (also Napster, iTunes, BuyMusic, AOL, MSN etc... All popular audio formays are supported too!
It's called *SOUNDTAXI* ! 
It cracks DRM nicely, so u can listen to you music in the way u like... And by the way it a legal tool!!! :lol:


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## cclement (Mar 22, 2004)

gamer177 said:


> There is an application which perfectly works with protected wma's (also Napster, iTunes, BuyMusic, AOL, MSN etc... All popular audio formays are supported too!
> It's called *SOUNDTAXI* !
> It cracks DRM nicely, so u can listen to you music in the way u like... And by the way it a legal tool!!! :lol:


This is great, but can I ask, how is this legal in the US. Any program that breaks copy protection is a violation of the DMCA and is not legal. I'm not saying your wrong or anything, just wondering. I'm guessing the laughing smiley tells me.


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## zuke (Jun 16, 2006)

The simple answer to this is to get a MP3 that is not an IPOD. There are much nicer and cheaper mp3 players out there that play and fully support wma files. 

Creative makes great ones.


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## Bogy (Mar 23, 2002)

I looked briefly at some MP3 players tonite because my wife wants one. She does not want an ipod, because they are more expensive for the capacity than others. We have gotten each of our 3 kids a Sony unit, with 20 gigs of storage. They love them. None of them seemed to have any problem loading the songs they already had ripped to their computers onto the MP3 players. Me, I use my PDA.


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## Teddie (Jul 17, 2006)

cclement said:


> This is great, but can I ask, how is this legal in the US. Any program that breaks copy protection is a violation of the DMCA and is not legal. I'm not saying your wrong or anything, just wondering. I'm guessing the laughing smiley tells me.


They have an official site.. that's for sure! I hope it's OK


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## cclement (Mar 22, 2004)

Soundtaxi.com might be OK, in the Ukraine. That's where the company is located. This site reminds me of allofmp3.com. 

Kind of legal, but not really.  No one has really challenged it.


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## News Junky (Mar 16, 2005)

I use db power coverter. You can right click on any audio file and change to any other file type, wma, mp3, wav, etc . http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc.htm


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## Steve H (May 15, 2006)

zuke said:


> The simple answer to this is to get a MP3 that is not an IPOD. There are much nicer and cheaper mp3 players out there that play and fully support wma files.
> 
> Creative makes great ones.


She wound up with a Samsung................simple to use with Windows Media player and it works GREAT!!!


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## CoriBright (May 30, 2002)

The Plus Digital Media Edition for XP includes a great converter... It's also part of the Plus Super Pack (which is just the original Pus and the Plus DME)


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## Bogy (Mar 23, 2002)

Steve H said:


> Many of the songs are downloaded from Walmart so they have some sor of "liscense". Will that stop the conversion? I do have Windows Media Player 9 or 10.


This is an old thread, and doesn't apply to Steve H anymore, but a few days ago while we were on vacation my son dropped his Sony mp3 player (again), and killed it. It would be impossible for him to go any significant time without an mp3 player, so off we went to buy a new one. We were camping in Missouri, and the retail options in the vicinity were limited, to either Wal-Mart or nothing. Considering his old unit had lasted a year we discussed the options and he felt that it made sense NOT to get another unit with a drive, but to get a flash memory unit. He decided on a Creative unit with a gig of memory. By converting his music to the lowest bit rate possible he had about 150 songs on the unit after a day, with between 700 and 800 meg left. The player is about a third the size of the one he had, has an armband, so he doesn't have to keep it in his pocket, and has a decent FM tuner as a bonus.

But the real reason I decided to add to this resurrected thread was that when we were looking at the mp3 players on display several of them made mention of the fact that they specifically work with songs downloaded from Wal-Mart.


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## Teddie (Jul 17, 2006)

cclement said:


> Soundtaxi.com might be OK, in the Ukraine. That's where the company is located. This site reminds me of allofmp3.com.
> Kind of legal, but not really.  No one has really challenged it.


But what about DRM? It restricts the fair use rights of consumers...!


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

What about DRM? Friday night was the first time in my life (and hopefully last) I ever purchased music legally online. There was this one southern gospel tune I heard on XM, and after three months of searching gave up on finding it Limewire. I downloaded if the iTunes Music Store, used iTunes to burn it, the used Winamp to rip it into an MP3. Bada bing, new file, no DRM. Between the download, the burn, the rip, entering the ID3 info and uploading it to my iPod the entire process was all of two minutes. I then deleted the purchased M4P file off my computer.

Last year I did something similar with a free trial of the Napster monthly service, but instead of burning the songs, I used a program that records ‘What You Here’ directly off the sound card in wav then compressed it to MP3. Quality was excellent. 

DRM is nothing but a pair of toy handcuffs, it can restrict you, but easy to get out of.


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## gamer177 (Jun 14, 2006)

cclement said:


> Soundtaxi.com might be OK, in the Ukraine. That's where the company is located. This site reminds me of allofmp3.com.
> 
> Kind of legal, but not really.  No one has really challenged it.


:nono: 
SoundTaxi re-records the audio signal and converts music purchased be the subscriber (Napster etc.)


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

Don't forget the analog hole method when all else fails. Not only does it work, it still is legal, in the US since even the DMCA does not cover analog bypass of copy protection.

Ipod vs. generic mp3 player. This is so subjective! The reason why Ipods are so popular has to do with two very special features. 1. the navigation wheel to select your music and 2. the fashion design of the device itself. All the original mp3 players and the knockoffs all can't compete with these two main features. However, for someone like myself, and Bogy agrees, a PDA can offer just as much music enjoyment as an ipod, but the real reason I like the PDA/cell phone alternative is that I want one device for all my field needs, cell phone, internet connection, e-mail, sling box player for Video and satellite TV, Game boy knockoff, note pad, camera with flash, video camera with light, power point presentation tool, voice recorder, GPS, XM and sirius radio receiver, Movies on the go, Monitor for my security cameras, but it is not as slick nor pretty as an ipod. But, I can drop it into a cradle in my car and have perfectly integrated hands free cell phone, GPS and plays my mp3's over the car speaker system with sound interrupt automatically when a call comes in. Can't do any of that except play mp3's in a pretty package with the IPOD!


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