iPod Help: MP3 player (not iPod)

[commandd]

can anyone please help me. I have bought a couple of cheap INOVIX MP3 players for my children for xmas but i am having trouble getting any music on to them. I don't think itunes can see them and when I drag and drop MP3 from iTunes onto the hard disc it has format problems, although I think this is because the MP3s are protected. The are quoted as being Mac compatible but the manufacturers have not got a clue how to get any music onto them. Thanks

 

[mkrishnan]

Okay, I think you have some terminology issues that are contributing to your problems....

MP3 is a *SPECIFIC* music file format. It refers to the MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 format. It does not refer to all digital music files. It is *NOT* the default format which iTunes uses. iTunes uses an MPEG-4 format called Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) by default.

MP3 files DO NOT support DRM. No MP3 files are "protected." AAC files do support DRM and may be protected...

So. If you have music that you purchased from the iTunes store (protected files with DRM using the AAC format), then you *can not* get them onto this player in any straightforward manner. The only thing you can maybe do is burn an audio CD of them, and then re-rip them.

If you have music that you ripped from CDs, then you can probably get it on this player. But, your player probably does not play AAC files. This is probably where you are having trouble.

If the latter is the case, then this is what you should do. In the iTunes preferences, there is a recording / ripping tab. In that tab there are options for the default file format. Make the default file format MP3.

Now, if you select a song in iTunes, in the Advanced menu, there will be an option to convert the song to MP3. If you select that option and convert the song, the converted version (MP3) will probably play on your player.

Does that make sense?

 

[commandd]

MP3s

Hi Thanks for your reply - i makes complete sense, unfortunately I have already converted the files to MP3 thru iTunes as you mentioned, the tracks start playing then the message bad format appears. All the files have been ripped from my own CD. What is the best way to get the onto the MP3 player? is drag and drop the only way? thanks for your help

 

[mkrishnan]

Hmmmm, in that case, that's a toughie. Hmmm... it could be that there's some MP3 setting that the player doesn't support, like the bit rate or if you're using VBR? Another guess would be maybe it's having trouble with the filenames? Maybe try giving one a very simple filename like a.mp3 and see if it works?

I'm not sure what other ways there are to manage a non-iPod player... I've only ever owned iPods.