Getting Itunes DRM music files to operate with RAZR?

Alphaman

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Or re-rip with a Windows based ripping tool such as Exact Audio Copy (EAC).

I haven't been able to rename the ITunes folder for some reason. ITunes must have forced something on user permissions? Even with admin priviledges, I can't rename? I was able to click on songs to download from cloud but it looks like it downloads in apple format and not mp3 as I have specified for saving of music files. If I'm missing something, please tell me.

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tech_head

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Not sure where your iTunes library is?
I'm on a Mac and mine was under Music/iTunes.
I created a new iTunes library in another place.
I was also able to copy it to an ext eternal disc and use that.

I just open iTune while holding the option key.
 

Alphaman

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Can someone explain this in more detail on a Windows machine?

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rherron

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Everything copied back will be DRM free and higher quality unless you used lossless compression to begin with.

Not exactly. If you encoded to any lossy format to begin with you'll be lossy forever, regardless of whatever file format you're re-encoding to. Once that data is gone, it's gone, and it ain't coming back. Burning an MP3 file (or AAC) back onto a CD may create a WAV file, for example, but it's just a bigger file with the exact same data in it. It doesn't restore anything lost when creating the MP3 (or AAC) to begin with. Once lossy, it can never be undone.
 

tech_head

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Actually, you are incorrect.
If the files on iTunes match that are "matched" with what Apple already has you will be able to download in higher quality.

You wil be able to download lossless from Apple after they have matched the file.
if it was uploaded from your PC because Apple didn't find a match then you get what you ripped.

Please read what I wrote.
 

rherron

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Actually, you are incorrect.
If the files on iTunes match that are "matched" with what Apple already has you will be able to download in higher quality.

You wil be able to download lossless from Apple after they have matched the file.
if it was uploaded from your PC because Apple didn't find a match then you get what you ripped.

Please read what I wrote.

Got you. I misunderstood what you were talking about. You're talking about downloading an entirely different file. I thought you were talking about re-encoding a lossy SAC file.

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iguanad

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Doesn't iTunes use an encoded format that doesn't play on other devices. I burned all of my iTunes files to CDs then ripped the CD files to MP3s on another computer. The MP3s will play on any device. I don't buy from iTunes anymore.

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rherron

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Not exactly. The CDs you encode in iTunes can be encoded into many formats. The songs you download are in a proprietary format that is difficult to play on other devices or outside of iTunes.

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rherron

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Actually, you are incorrect.
If the files on iTunes match that are "matched" with what Apple already has you will be able to download in higher quality.

You wil be able to download lossless from Apple after they have matched the file.
if it was uploaded from your PC because Apple didn't find a match then you get what you ripped.

Please read what I wrote.


I hadn't really looked into this until this morning because iTunes Match is a subscription service and I am not interested in that despite having 13,000 songs in my iTunes library. What you get with Match is not Apple Lossless, it's 256-Kbps AAC DRM free. 256 Kbps AAC is not lossless.

Here's a link to the service. Read for yourself under the heading "How iTunes Match Works": Apple - iTunes - Match

You can Google articles about lossless vs lossy music file formats.

I will say, 99.9% of people don't even know what we're talking about and don't care at all about lossy vs. lossless files. But, if you do...

To bad everything doesn't support FLAC.
 

iguanad

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That's what I was trying to say. That's why I converted then to CDs so I could turn them into whatever file I wanted.

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Alphaman

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so does this mean if you download from ITunes, those songs will never be a lossless format. Only original CD's can be lossless format?

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iguanad

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so does this mean if you download from ITunes, those songs will never be a lossless format. Only original CD's can be lossless format?

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I am not sure about the lossless format issue.

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rherron

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so does this mean if you download from ITunes, those songs will never be a lossless format. Only original CD's can be lossless format?

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Yes. Precisely. You can encode CDs you own in a lossless format (Apple Lossless and WAV are the two lossless formats supported in iTunes) and put that music in your iTunes library, but you cannot download (buy) anything from iTunes Music Store in any lossless format. Lossy formats are used because the file size is smaller and most people cannot tell the difference in the formats, particularly when the lossy formats are encoded at high bit rates (like 256). I will say that the protected AAC format that Apple uses for it's downloads is very, very good, and 99.9% of folks could care less that it is a lossless format (witness the extraordinary success of iTunes), but it is. Burning whatever you download to CD doesn't alter the original quality in anyway, it simply makes the files bigger if you keep them in WAV, and allows you to convert to MP3 if you want to -- which is no better, and quite possibly significantly worse (depending upon the bit rate used).
 
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