Batch Convertion of Itunes to FLAC

[Poochpa]

I'm planning to batch convert a large itunes library on my win7 pc to flac on the same machine. My largest genre is classical, but there's also rock, jazz, folk, etc. Any pointers before I start? I've done a few test conversions with dsp set to preserve album art and see that some albums have album art after conversion, some don't. I assume that those that do had the album art embedded in itunes and those that don't have itunes album art stored separately in itunes's separate byzantine folders. Not sure about whether I should have something set in dsp for id tag structure? Also, what is force embedded album art to jpg? Does that create a separate jpg in each album folder upon conversion? Thanks for any help.
Mike

[garym]

Re: Batch Convertion of Itunes to FLAC

I'm planning to batch convert a large itunes library on my win7 pc to flac on the same machine. My largest genre is classical, but there's also rock, jazz, folk, etc. Any pointers before I start? I've done a few test conversions with dsp set to preserve album art and see that some albums have album art after conversion, some don't. I assume that those that do had the album art embedded in itunes and those that don't have itunes album art stored separately in itunes's separate byzantine folders. Not sure about whether I should have something set in dsp for id tag structure? Also, what is force embedded album art to jpg? Does that create a separate jpg in each album folder upon conversion? Thanks for any help.
Mike

What are the original itunes files? Apple Lossless (ALAC) or WAV? If they are ALAC or WAV, then this makes sense to convert (lossless to lossless is OK).

However, if they are mp3, or m4a (aac) lossy files then you understand that converting to FLAC is simply making a VERY large file that is still lossy with no added benefit. Once a lossy file has been created from the CD, one can't "restore" anything that was lost in the compression by simply converting to a lossless file like FLAC.
Regarding "force embedded art to jpeg" this just changes the format of any embedded file to jpg. It is still embedded. But there are artwork conversion options within the converte DSPs to take the embedded file out of file and convert to a single file that shows up in the album subdirectory (e.g., as folder.jpg or cover.jpg).

Note that itunes keeps a lot of its artwork in a separate database rather than embedded in file. You may want to pay the $5 for this program. You can run it on your entire itunes library and it will copy the itunes database artwork over and automatically embed in the files within itunes. This way when you convert to FLAC, the artwork will be there for you to use/see. I've used it in the past with great succes. See

http://www.maximized.com/shareware/icoverart/index.htm

[Poochpa]

Re: Batch Convertion of Itunes to FLAC

Hi Garym,
The itunes files are ALAC, so I will be converting lossless to lossless. Thanks for the link to iCoverArt, it will make the conversion a lot easier. What about output folder dynamic naming. Should I use it, do I need it? I will be outputting to a top folder named "FLAC". I'd like to have subfolders by genre. For classical music only, I'd like to have a folder for each album title, e.g., "Beethoven: Symphony *7," "Beethoven: Symphony *8," etc. For all other genres, I'd like a folder for each artist, followed by subfolders for each album title. Do I need to do any of that, or will the program I use for streaming, such as minimserver, do all that sorting, much like itunes does? What about id tag structure in the dsp settings? Do I need to do something with that? Thanks.
Mike

[garym]

Re: Batch Convertion of Itunes to FLAC

Hi Garym,
The itunes files are ALAC, so I will be converting lossless to lossless. Thanks for the link to iCoverArt, it will make the conversion a lot easier. What about output folder dynamic naming. Should I use it, do I need it? I will be outputting to a top folder named "FLAC". I'd like to have subfolders by genre. For classical music only, I'd like to have a folder for each album title, e.g., "Beethoven: Symphony *7," "Beethoven: Symphony *8," etc. For all other genres, I'd like a folder for each artist, followed by subfolders for each album title. Do I need to do any of that, or will the program I use for streaming, such as minimserver, do all that sorting, much like itunes does? What about id tag structure in the dsp settings? Do I need to do something with that? Thanks.
Mike

Yes, to get the files arranged the way you want, you definitely want to use dynamic naming of the files when you convert. It's just something you set once. it's easy. For example, it could be something like:

path: d:\FLAC

I'd select all my clasical files and use the following dynamic naming setting

[genre]\[album]\[IFMULTI]\Disc [disc][]\[track]-[title]

then for all other files, I'd use this dynamic naming:

[genre]\[artist]\[album]\[IFMULTI]\Disc [disc][]\[track]-[title]

Here's an example of what I use that automatically deals with handling compilations and single artist naming differently.

[IFCOMP]Compilations\[album] [IFMULTI] \Disc [disc][]\[track]-[title]-[artist][][IF!COMP][IFVALUE]album artist,[album artist],[artist][]\[album][IFMULTI] \Disc [disc][]\[track]-[title][]

Note: by the way all this dynamic naming above is exactly what itunes is doing too. It's just that itunes does it behind the scenes and doesn't give you the ability to choose HOW you want things automatically named/organized.

For ID tag structure all you need to do is select in options which tags you want added to your file. One thing you need to do is to open the converter program and click on every button to see all the various options and where they are located. then run the configure dbpa program and also click on every button and see the available options. It's mostly self explanatory.

[Poochpa]

Re: Batch Convertion of Itunes to FLAC

Thanks Garym for the help. The dynamic naming strings are very useful.
Mike