FLAC plugin for Itunes?

WildCowboy said:

Why can't you play it directly? Good question.

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Because Apple wants you to use Apple Lossless, and Apple knows best.

Well iTunes will pay what QT can, and there's a plugin for QT on Mac here: http://damien.drix.free.fr/qtflac/

Doesn't help much, since you can't transfer it to an iPod or anything. Converting to Apple Lossless might be the easiest path.

It was speculated that Apple developed Apple Lossless since the FLAC license wouldn't let them add DRM to the files if they so wanted.

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balamw said:

It was speculated that Apple developed Apple Lossless since the FLAC license wouldn't let them add DRM to the files if they so wanted.

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How open is "Apple Lossless"? Is iTunes and iApps the only software that can play it? Are there other opensource programs that can convert it into other formats?

theBB said:

How open is "Apple Lossless"? Is iTunes and iApps the only software that can play it? Are there other opensource programs that can convert it into other formats?

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It was reverse engineered and an open source decoder is here: http://craz.net/programs/itunes/alac.html

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theBB said:

How open is "Apple Lossless"? Is iTunes and iApps the only software that can play it? Are there other opensource programs that can convert it into other formats?

Click to expand...

There is an opensource Apple Lossless decoder: http://craz.net/programs/itunes/alac.html

WildCowboy said:

There are no DRM restrictions on ALAC, though they could be implemented pretty easily.

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Unlike FLAC whose license explicitly prohibits DRM, which is the point. Apple couldn't use FLAC if they wanted to sell DRMed lossless files on iTMS.

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balamw said:

It was reverse engineered and an open source decoder is here: http://craz.net/programs/itunes/alac.html

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Thanks everybody... I guess the only non-iTunes way of listening is to convert it into something else. With just one link everybody is refering to, it seems like it is not a widespread format.

I guess my problem is, I want to use iTunes as my music orgranizer and player right now, but I want to save music in a lossless format that will not force my hand into using Apple or MS software forever.

I use MacFlac (go to versiontracker to find) to convert to AIFF and then load it into iTunes. If you want to compress it from there you can.

Max seems like a good option, too.

http://sbooth.org/Max/

I am thinking about backing up my CD collection as FLAC (maybe on an external HD) and saving an AAC version (on the internal HD) for iTunes. If I go through all that trouble, I'd need an Airport express to listen to music on my home stereo, but $130 is a bit rich and I would end up listening to the lossy versions. Hmm... As you see, I haven't worked out the details, yet.