[elnero]

I have very limited internet access with my only access to high-speed via my in-laws computer which is running Windows 98 with about 1 gig of space left. In order to rip my music I hooked up an 80 gig drive of my own, ripped to that drive, then took the drive to my own computer which doesn't have internet access. Because of the OS I couldn't use iTunes so opted for dbpoweramp to rip from CD to FLAC which proved to be very fast in comparison to EAC/FLAC.

Mainly for compatibility with both Apple and Rockbox firmware I'm now debating switching my idea of using FLAC to ALAC. To that end I'll need to convert my already ripped FLAC files to ALAC. I again plan on using dbpoweramp to convert the FLAC to ALAC. The process seems very fast, only a couple of minutes per album but I'm wondering if there are any compatibility issues with the iPod/iTunes because the albums will not have been ripped directly from iTunes? Are there any issues using dbpoweramp for this type of task?

I should also note that my own computer is running Windows XP and if I do go the ALAC route I can install iTunes 7 on it to transfer the files to the iPod and I assume I will be able to get gapless playback via Apples firmware this way as well. If I'm wrong on this please correct me.

 

[gregeas]

That's crazy...I was just about to post this exact same question.

I too have all my albums ripped as FLAC via EAC, and I don't want to go through the ripping process again. I also don't trust iTunes for ripping (it look about 1/10th the time, so I wonder about its accuracy).

Rockbox is fun to play around with, but it's still kind of a mess, and I'd like to check out the new iPod firmware.

What's the best way to convert my FLAC files to Apple Lossless? Will I keep the tags, and can I use the album art feature in the new iPod firmware? Finally, how do I import the Lossless files into iTunes?

 

[FaBoLoUsRmX]

Last time i had to do this for rockbox, It didnt go as smooth as i hoped. After using dbpower amp to convert my flacs to alac, my rockboxed ipod would not play properly or reconize the files. So using itunes i converted my dbpoweramp alacs to alac using Itunes, then they were able to play properly. Thus taking much longer then i thought. They sounded great on rockbox though, and this was before hardware eq...

 

[elnero]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FaBoLoUsRmX So using itunes i converted my dbpoweramp alacs to alac using Itunes, then they were able to play properly. Thus taking much longer then i thought.

Sounds like there is some sort of compatibility issue there with dbpoweramp. You actually converted ALAC to ALAC? That sounds odd.

 

[blessingx]

There are various ways to do this. The big concern is losing your tag information as WAVs don't have them. This is the big advantage of AIFF. Anyway the old method worth trying is to convert your FLACs to WMA lossless in DBPoweramp and then (only on Windows iTunes) set iTunes to encode Apple Lossless and import the WMA lossless files there.

 

[bangraman]

The new method is to do it directly in dbPoweramp. I can't remember whether you had to buy it to have the feature (I bought it anyway) but it will do a FLAC > ALAC conversion directly. Another sweet feature is that if you pay for Sveta too, you can do direct (i.e. no intervening iTunes) transfers of FLAC to ALAC to the iPod. Perfect for testing and stuff.


Transcoding everything to ALAC, throwing out all the real-time transcoding stuff, etc and moving wholesale to iTunes on the Mac was the best thing I ever did. Now I concentrate on listening, not geeking.

 

[gregeas]

Just did a test with dbPower Amp, and my converted Apple Lossless files are playing fine through iTunes. I tried this about a month ago, and it didn't work for some reason. So now I'm doing a mass conversion of about 50 albums.

Bangraman, thanks for the tip on Sveta. I'll check it out.

I'd use iTunes for PC music playback if only it could bypass Kmixer... For now I'm stuck with two sets of files: Flac for Media Center and Slim Server, and ALAC for the iPod. Really wish I could find one format that did it all for me.

 

[wanderman]

rockbox. then the ipod turns into a mutli codec jukebox.

 

[nfusion770]

I am going to check that out. The only reason I used rockbox was for the gapless playback, it would be much easier to simply use alac. I will check it out when I get my RW to see if the sound quality is actually better.

I dont understand why apple didnt add on the fly encoding so I could rip everything in alac and downgrade to 320 or 256 for the nano- they did it for the shuffle. If apple added that I would move back to itunes completely instead flipping between itunes and mediamonkey.

 

[blessingx]

Well to be fair it takes the same amount of time to encode before transfer then just doing it before. This might make more sense for a 512 or 1GB than 30 or 60GB. On the Mac though there are work arounds like Lossless to AAC Workflow, but again I've found it makes more since (at least for me) to just encode a bunch off the lossless files on your computer then move everything over. Smart playlists or 'date added' nicely separates.

 

[nfusion770]

Thanks a lot!!! Never heard of this workaround and I am going to try it out right now. I hate having multiple files- I like it all neat and consilidated. I could care less about the time to transfer, as long as itunes helps me keep it all organized.

Quote:

Originally Posted by blessingx Well to be fair it takes the same amount of time to encode before transfer then just doing it before. This might make more sense for a 512 or 1GB than 30 or 60GB. On the Mac though there are work arounds like Lossless to AAC Workflow, but again I've found it makes more since (at least for me) to just encode a bunch off the lossless files on your computer then move everything over. Smart playlists or 'date added' nicely separates.

 

[Jon L]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bangraman The new method is to do it directly in dbPoweramp. I can't remember whether you had to buy it to have the feature (I bought it anyway) but it will do a FLAC > ALAC conversion directly. Another sweet feature is that if you pay for Sveta too, you can do direct (i.e. no intervening iTunes) transfers of FLAC to ALAC to the iPod. Perfect for testing and stuff. Transcoding everything to ALAC, throwing out all the real-time transcoding stuff, etc and moving wholesale to iTunes on the Mac was the best thing I ever did. Now I concentrate on listening, not geeking.

Where can you download the dBpoweramp plugin for apple lossless encoding? What about Sveta?

 

[nfusion770]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jon L Where can you download the dBpoweramp plugin for apple lossless encoding? What about Sveta?

Home page
http://www.dbpoweramp.com/

 

[blessingx]

DBPowerAmps Codec Central only has ALAC decoding. Can you encode ALAC with DBPowerAmp?

 

[carlosgp]

To convert from FLAC to ALAC in Mac OS X, use XLD. It works with .cue sheets.