Ripping Into .AAC Format

[Nawlins]

I just ripped a CD onto iTunes for the first time, and all the songs were imported as .mp3 files instead of .aac. Anyone know why this is occuring, and how I can fix it?

Thanks, Alex

[patrick0brien]

-Nawlins

Preferences! Go to Preferences/Importing/"Import Using"

Set it to "AAC Encoder".

[Nawlins]

Hmm, I hope this doesn't sound really dumb - when I clicked on the drop down menu for "Import Using," .AAC was not an option. The three options were MP3, AIFF, or WAV.

I'm confused.

[Nawlins]

One other issue - I was importing some Nirvana songs, and the song and album titles were not coming up correctly as they were being imported. It would say "Track 01" instead of "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Nirvana is pretty common, and even though their albums are from the early 90's, I would expect iTunes to recognize the songs.

Any thoughts?

[LimeLite]

Make sure you're using iTunes 4. Anything before that doesn't support AAC files. Once you have iTunes 4, go into the preferences, under the Importing button and choose AAC. As for the track names, it's not iTunes that recognizes it or not, it's the CDDB, a database which is accessed over the internet, meaning that your computer must be connected to the internet for it to pull up track titles and such. Good luck.

[Nawlins]

Thanks for the help - Do new Powerbooks come with iTunes 4, or do I have to download or purchase it?

I won't have internet access on my Mac for at least a few days because it won't work through the cable modem installed on our PC, and it wasn't dialing up properly (we have a 2nd phone line that we rarely use, but I get an error message saying "Server could not be found" when I try to load Internet Explorer by dialing up).

Alex

[P-Worm]

I'm not sure if they come with it now, but it is a free download at apple.com/itunes.

P-Worm

[pEZ]

Also make sure you have Quicktime 6.3 - that will allow the AAC encoding.

Make sure you have all updates installed from Software Update, just a good tip.

[patrick0brien]

Originally posted by pEZ
Also make sure you have Quicktime 6.3 - that will allow the AAC encoding.

-Nawlins

pEZ stole my thunder :D

Yes, you need Quicktime 6.3 as the AAC codec resides withing that, not iTunes. iTunes merely borrows it.