iPod Conversion Help

[Heese]

I download a lot of live concerts which are mostly encoded in flac. Most concerts are over a 1 gig compressed. These files are fairly large so i download everything to my External Drive. Using xACT i then uncompress them to .wav, so they're even bigger. After that I then import them into itunes where i compress them to aac so i can listen to them on the ipod.

Is there anyway that I can convert .wav to my default aac settings in itunes without having to import the .wav to itunes first. From my understanding, OS X defrags files under 20mb automatically. Since these files are a lot >20mb i dont want to fragment my hard drive by constantly importing and deleting. So basically i want to convert/compress on the external and then copy that much smaller .m4a file to itunes. Thanks for the help.

 

[frankblundt]

i thought if you had a separate folder for iTunes music, and "copy when adding to library" checked, that it would automatically convert the source file to AAC and only put that in your library (certainly worked that way for me with AIFF rips from vinyl)

 

[Heese]

i thought if you had a separate folder for iTunes music, and "copy when adding to library" checked, that it would automatically convert the source file to AAC and only put that in your library (certainly worked that way for me with AIFF rips from vinyl)

i have that checked and when i drag it into itunes it stays as an aiff. I have to manually select convert selection. .

 

[frankblundt]

hmm. it's a bit clumsy - but if you uncheck the "copy when adding" - add the wavs to the library (it shouldn't copy anything, just reference them to the external) - recheck "copy" - convert them (AACs will be created on the in your music folder) - and delete the wavs out of your library (it won't delete the files, just the reference, because they're not in your iTunes music folder).

 

[balamw]

On the windows side of iLife there's a command line utility called iTunesEncode that allows you to do exactly what you are after. Encode an AAC file from WAV/AIFF and put only the encoded version in the iTunes library.

I rip my CDs to FLAC using EAC and have sometimes used the FLAC file as a source for iTunes instead of letting iTunes rip it from the CD itself. (Mainly for scratched CDs for which I trust EAC more than iTunes to rip accurately).

There's probably something at http://www.dougscripts.com/itunes that can help make it easier.

B

 

[frankblundt]

hmm. it's a bit clumsy - but if you uncheck the "copy when adding" - add the wavs to the library (it shouldn't copy anything, just reference them to the external) - recheck "copy" - convert them (AACs will be created on the in your music folder) - and delete the wavs out of your library (it won't delete the files, just the reference, because they're not in your iTunes music folder).

sorry - put you crook there (should have turned my brain on first) - you don't need to keep going back to prefrences, just leave "copy when.." un-checked - the new converted AAC files go into your default iTunes folder in any case

 

[Heese]

sorry - put you crook there (should have turned my brain on first) - you don't need to keep going back to prefrences, just leave "copy when.." un-checked - the new converted AAC files go into your default iTunes folder in any case

Thanks for your help