Noobie help please -Converting Apple Lossless to WMA Lossless

[CRAIGNIC1]

Hi All,

I am looking to covert all my Apple Lossless music (100Gb) from i-tunes to WMA Lossless (streaming music through XBOX 360 with MCE dosn't support ALAC)

Am I correct in saying all I have to download is the dBpowerAmp music convertor , WMA v9.1 + ALAC v3.5 codecs??

And do I need another 100Gb free disk space for the conversion or does it convert on-the-fly??

Thanks in advance


Craig

[Wayne]

Re: Noobie help please -Converting Apple Lossless to WMA Lossless

You will definitely need another 100GB of free disk space for the converted files otherwise if you choose to delete the source files after conversion you may find that if there are any problems you will not be able to recover your original audio files.

To use the WMA v9.1 codec you either need Windows Media Player 10 installed or at least the latest wma codecs.

Otherwise I can not think of anything else you may have missed.

Wayne

[CRAIGNIC1]

Re: Noobie help please -Converting Apple Lossless to WMA Lossless

Thanks for your quick reply Wayne.

Looks like I'll have to get a new Hard drive - only 60Gb left on the one I use at the moment

Thanks

Craig

[xoas]

Re: Noobie help please -Converting Apple Lossless to WMA Lossless

Craig-
There is one other thing you might want to check. And that is to make sure that your XBOX 360 w/MCE supports WMA Lossless (many WMA devices do not recognize/accept WMA Lossless or WMA Professional codecs). But perhaps you have already checked.

Best wishes,
Bill

[CRAIGNIC1]

Re: Noobie help please -Converting Apple Lossless to WMA Lossless

Hi Bill,

I've checked the Microsoft Xbox/MCE website and it plays WMA Pro + Lossless formats, so I should be ok

Thanks

Craig

[CRAIGNIC1]

Re: Noobie help please -Converting Apple Lossless to WMA Lossless

Hi all,

I eventually downloaded the program + codecs for Apple lossles >>> WMA lossless, and converted a few tracks for testing.

The programs work great , but I still have a couple of questions -

1. When I convert from Apple lossless to WMA lossless, there seems to be a hell of a lot more compresion than I thought would be! - A typical track would compress to about 70% of the original content( would the sound be worse off?). I thought it would be only a small amount of compression between these two lossless formats.

2. How do I go about converting all my library in one go - I can only seem to covert 1 album at a time

Thanks

Craig

[LtData]

Re: Noobie help please -Converting Apple Lossless to WMA Lossless

Are you sure your converting to WMA lossless and not just normal WMA? If your files aren't about 25-30MB in size each, they aren't lossless files.

[CRAIGNIC1]

Re: Noobie help please -Converting Apple Lossless to WMA Lossless

Hi LT,

I've just spotted what is wrong :blush: - The compression(70% approx) is from the original c.d. to WMA lossless, not from Apple lossless to WMA lossless, which would be about right.
The WMA lossless is slightly smaller than the apple lossless.

Do you know how to covert all my library in 1 go??

Thanks

Craig

[xoas]

Re: Noobie help please -Converting Apple Lossless to WMA Lossless

You can use dMC File Selector to convert tracks from multiple folders. Thi can be accessed Start>All Programs>dBpowerAMP Music Converter>dMC File Selector.

Be sure to throughly review the Help file for File Selector beofre using (Start>All Programs>dBpowerAMP Music Converter>Help>dMC File Selctor Help) to check out your various options (say you have ogg vorbis, mp3 and ALAC files and you only want to convert the ALAC files, File Selector can do this).

Theoretically you could convert your whole library in one go with File Selector but I heavily discourage you from this. Start using File selector for just a efw files and then a few folders to make sure you get the hang of it. Then gradually build up the number of folders/files you convert at any one time.

Also, DO NOT select the option to remove source files after conversion. Instead, wait until conversions are complete, check to make sure the converted files are ok. Then and only then you can discard your original files. Be aware that sometimes when a conversion fails it will leave a shell for the file you were trying to create. This will display like a successful conversion except it will be 0 (to maybe as much as 4) kb in size and it will not play. So do make sure your file sizes for your converted files are OK before you delete the corresponding source files.

Hope this helps.

Best wishes,
Bill

[CRAIGNIC1]

Re: Noobie help please -Converting Apple Lossless to WMA Lossless

Thanks Xoas

[LtData]

Re: Noobie help please -Converting Apple Lossless to WMA Lossless

Moved to dMC Support