[steaxauce]

Hey guys,
So a friend lent me his external hard drive full of music, but he uses iTunes and I use foobar, and his hard drive is bigger than mine. Most of his music is in apple lossless with some music in lossy formats. What I need to do is convert all of his lossless files to variable bitrate 320 so they will fit on my hard drive, take the files that are in a lossy format that can be played by foobar, and leave the ones in a lossy format that can't (I don't want to convert lossy formats to other lossy formats because of the loss in quality). So, can you guys give me any advice to make this easier? I need a game plan! I also need to know which lossy formats that can be played by iTunes can also be played by Foobar, and which can't. Thanks!

 

[Febs]

Well, you're always safe with MP3. There aren't many lossy formats that Foobar can't play, however ... except maybe ATRAC.

 

[steaxauce]

I've got all of the lossy files that can be played into foobar. What's the best way to isolate all of my apple lossless files to be converted to vbr 320?

 

[spraggih]

you can click on the Music icon in iTunes. Then choose all songs and then sort by Kind. Kind would be Apple Lossless, AAC Audio, MP3, etc.

Then you can select all the lossless files and select convert* **.

* - prior to converting you may need to set the Import bit rate. You can do this from the Preferences menu. Select the Importing tab and set the Import Using option to a lossy format (in your case 320 VBR)

** - One step to make sure you can isolate your conversions is to temporarily change the iTunes Music Folder location. Again under the Preferences menu, select the General tab. Change the location to say, "c:\lossy conversion\". This way all the converted files will be placed in the same root directory so you can now easily where the files are once converted. If you do not do this then the lossy files will be perhaps intermingled with the lossless files. At least they would be intermingled with your existing iTunes library.

Hope this helps.

 

[steaxauce]

Thank you Spraggih, VERY helpful. Just one more thing; I need to be sure that the format iTunes will convert it to can be played by Foobar. Is this the case?

 

[steaxauce]

Hmm, one more slightly embarrassing problem: I can't figure out how to select files in iTunes!

 

[steaxauce]

I see that I can choose between AAC, AIFF, MP3 and WAV. What is the most efficient codec that can be used by Foobar? I believe I'm on the home stretch!

 

[Redo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by steaxauce /img/forum/go_quote.gif I see that I can choose between AAC, AIFF, MP3 and WAV. What is the most efficient codec that can be used by Foobar? I believe I'm on the home stretch!

AAC or MP3 is just fine. From what I remember, the mp3 encoder on iTunes isn't anything special, so use a high bitrate mp3 or 256kbps AAC. MP3 is more universal, and at high bitrates they all sound about the same.

 

[Dark_Archon]

Since hard drives cost about $0.20/GB($100 for 500 GB HDD), why not stick with lossless? I made the switch a little while back, and couldn't imagine going back to using lossy formats.

 

[steaxauce]

I'd like to do that eventually, but for tonight I'm stuck with my internal hard drive. In order to save time, I'd like to combine the conversion and copying process. To do that, I'm guessing I'll need a program other than iTunes to do the conversion. This would also allow me to choose a more efficient codec. Any suggestions on how to go about doing this? Also, can someone tell me which lossy compression format is currently the most efficient?

 

[spraggih]

I think the prior poster who mentioned AAC as a good alternative. It can be easily processed by Foobar and per some *objective* reviews AAC sounds very good. (I use it-- but like another above poster-- I am now re-ripping a number of my CDs onto lossless AS----- drum roll please... Now I can hear the difference between 320 AAC and lossless with my new RPX-33 amplifier.

I honestly could not tell the difference before the amp. Even with lossless directly from the iPod I can hear the difference.

 

[steaxauce]

You can hear the difference? That's not good...
I'm using an Ultrasone Edition 9 and have a Meier Opera coming tomorrow. Maybe I should just stick with lossless and get rid of the music I know I'm not going to listen to. Then get an external hard drive and get more music. About 80GB of lossless files should hold me over until then.

 

[Dark_Archon]

Quote:

Originally Posted by spraggih /img/forum/go_quote.gif I think the prior poster who mentioned AAC as a good alternative. It can be easily processed by Foobar and per some *objective* reviews AAC sounds very good. (I use it-- but like another above poster-- I am now re-ripping a number of my CDs onto lossless AS----- drum roll please... Now I can hear the difference between 320 AAC and lossless with my new RPX-33 amplifier. I honestly could not tell the difference before the amp. Even with lossless directly from the iPod I can hear the difference.

I can't understand why anybody on this forum would use anything BUT lossless, especially when they are spending hundreds or thousands on audio equipment. It costs nothing (assuming you legally own the CDs), so you are improving quality without spending money.

 

[Henry Flower]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dark_Archon /img/forum/go_quote.gif I can't understand why anybody on this forum would use anything BUT lossless, especially when they are spending hundreds or thousands on audio equipment. It costs nothing (assuming you legally own the CDs), so you are improving quality without spending money.

Eh? Because most people can't hear the difference. 'Quality' which you can't hear isn't much use. For those who can - bad luck, since they have to spend more money on bigger hard drives.

 

[stevenkelby]

Yeah I didn't post on that other thread with my RPX-33, ED9 and imod the difference between 320lame and flac is audible on every track Iv'e tried it with. The choice is pretty obvious to me. If your using less revealing equipment then yeah, go lossy. But what if you upgrade one day?