iPod CD Burning Question

Do you have this checked?

by default iTunes rips songs in the Advanced Audio Codec (AAC), not MP3, i'm not sure if you can burn the AACs to an "MP3" disc that will be readable by your player.

Songs ripped in aac will not be burned to an mp3 cd. If you have a mixed playlist with mp3s and aacs the aacs will just be dropped when you burn the disk, the mp3s only will go onto the cd...

Possible solutions:
- burn audio cds
- convert your aacs to mp3s (**) and burn those to mp3 cds
- burn data cds (though very few cd players will play those)



** Set iTunes Preferences -> Advanced -> Importing to mp3 and back in iTunes select the files you waant to convert and choose Advanced -> Convert selection to mp3

Convert all the songs you want to burn to MP3, using the method described Above or below (depending on how you view threads), then use VersionTracker to look for a program that will burn MP3 CD's... I think MusicMac will, its not free, but it's an awesome program to rip music from video and burn music as well.

By burning an audio CD from an iTunes playlist, you are encoding the files so that a regualr CD player can read them - just as if you bought it from the store. When you import those same tracks back into iTunes, if you check the right preferences as mentioned before, those songs will be turned into MP3s that you car stereo will read.

No car stereos - AFAIK - will read AAC or protected AAC files.

If those songs you want to put onto disk are already in MP3 format, just insert a blank CD into your iMac and drag and drop the files directly to that disk. I do it all the time and it works like a charm.

Badandy said:

Will someone explain exactly how to do this without causing a bunch of duplicates in my iTunes library or any complications like that?

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If you intend to do this often, just change the setting as Mitth said and re-rip everything to MP3, if you stay with MP3 that you have full compatibility with iTunes/iPods and your car MP3 CD player.

You will have duplicates in your iTunes library if you need to have both AAC and MP3 versions of tracks around...

Maybe this would be one advantage of using third party CD buring software?

B

You can't without creating duplicates since you want them in a different format.

The songs you bought from the iTMS can't be converted to MP3s because of the DRM in them. You'd have to burn them to CD and then reimport them into iTunes (after changing the import method to MP3).

It might just be easier to buy an iTrip so that you can stream your iPod's contents through your car stereo...

There is a way, arduous, to remove the DRM, but it requires an old version of itunes, and a heap a lot of trouble. -- Wouldn't recommend doing that. -- Hmm... do you have an RW? burn it rip/convert it burn

Badandy said:

I dont get it. Will someone please just tell me how to get some songs that I want onto a CD in MP3 format WITHOUT creating duplicates??

Click to expand...

You can't (at least with iTunes alone).

You started off by saying some of your tracks were from CD, for those tracks you should just be able to replace the AAC versions with new MP3 ones.

For tracks bought from iTMS you have few real options. Play them via iTunes (Mac or PC), an iPod, or an iTunes compatible Motorola cell phone (ROKR, SLVR or RAZR). Or... burn them to an audio CD and rip them to MP3 from there.

Note that ripping from 128 kbps AAC to 128 kbps MP3 does introduce some degradation of the quality of the track, which you may or not notice, and that you are generally better off transcoding to 192 kbps MP3 or higher, which means you can't fit as much on a single CD.

B