Change iTunes bit rate on the fly

[ckacosta]

I have ripped all my CD's at 320K fixed AAC. How do I upload these files onto my iPod at 256K vbr AAC? Can I change it on the fly like this, or do I have to stick with the bit rate that I ripped them at?

 

[Bob_McBob]

You're stuck with the bitrate you ripped them at. This is always the case unless you want to re-compress the files (this is a bad idea unless the originals are lossless), so it's not exactly an iTunes-specific problem. You can keep two copies of each album in your iTunes library if you like -- some people do ALAC and AAC, for instance.

 

[jboehle]

I think the 3rd party software Anapod can do this.

 

[xUKHCx]

if you have a mac you can use a script to do this, i should quote the person who told me about this here on head-fi but i cant remember. Its great works perfectly. The actual script converts apple lossless to 224 kb/s, it uploads it to your ipod keeping the original lossless file on your computer. You can just open up the script in script editor and change the options if you wish. Anyway the script is found here

Lossless To AAC

 

[K2Grey]

You can transcode the files to 256k AAC (although I don't know of iTunes can do this). But the quality of these 256k files will be less than if you ripped from the CD at 256k AAC.

 

[Filburt]

It probably won't be tremendously less. The psy model and other bit allocation routines are probably rather similar between the 256 and 320 modes.

 

[angler31337]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Filburt It probably won't be tremendously less. The psy model and other bit allocation routines are probably rather similar between the 256 and 320 modes.

Still, why introduce additional loss if you don't need to? I'd say download, EAC, rip to wav and then go wherever you want with them.

-Angler

 

[Clutz]

A couple of points.

In iTunes (at least for Mac), it is possible to transcode from one lossy format (e.g. MP3, AAC) to another. It probably isn't worth transcoding from 320kbit to 256kbit MP3/AAC files though. You won't get much of a space savings, nor will you get much of a increase in battery life.

Unless you're using a line out from your iPod, a decent headphone amplifier and decent headphones, there probably isn't any reason to use anything much higher than 192 to 224 (this is from personal experience). Yes it is possible to hear a difference, but *I* don't think it's worth it.

It is not recommended to transcode from 320kbit to 256kbit. Whenever you encode music to a lossy format (e.g. MP3), you lose audio information in the process. Going from the original file format (.WAV) to 320 to 256 results in a more degraded file than going straight from CD to 256. The link for the script that converts Apple Lossless to AAC files won't work unless the original file is actally an apple lossless file and you're using a Mac. It won't work if you're converting from 320kbit AAC, it will not work.

 

[MadDog5145]

Using iTunes windows:
Edit->Preferences->Advanced->Importing
Choose the format and bitrate to convert to.

Then choose the songs that to be need transcoded. Right click and choose "Convert Selection to AAC"