How to play non-.mp3 files in OS X?

[PaulFXH]

Just getting used to my first Mac experience (13" Macbook, 2.16GHz, 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD) after a long time in Linux.
I have a large and treasured music collection on an external HDD which OSX "sees" without problem.
However, of the various file formats in my collection, only .mp3 is "welcomed" by iTunes. All other files (.wma, .ogg, .flac) are ignored.
In googling around, I see that the general solution to this seems to be to convert all the files to .mp3 -- but I really don't want to do this as I don't intend to exclusively play them on my Macbook from now on.
I would welcome hearing from more experienced users what other options are available to me
Thanks
Paul

 

[Luis]

You can download VLC to play all of them, but if you want to use iTunes, you'll have to convert them.

 

[motulist]

Lots of programs will play those formats. If you just want a player as opposed to a music organization program then you can just use VLC, which every Mac really should have anyway.

 

[shinji]

I had a similar problem coming from Windows where most of my collection was in .flac- I simply converted them to Apple Lossless using max - http://www.sbooth.org so it stays lossless instead of lossy mp3 and will work on Windows as well.

But yeah, if you don't wanna convert just use vlc or play...not sure what issues you'll run into with wma though.

 

[mkrishnan]

I had a similar problem coming from Windows where most of my collection was in .flac- I simply converted them to Apple Lossless using max - http://www.sbooth.org so it stays lossless instead of lossy mp3 and will work on Windows as well.

What happens when you convert a WMA or OGG file into Apple Lossless? Obviously, it doesn't go from being lossy to being lossless, but presumably there is no farther loss in quality, right? But say you have a 4MB OGG file, and you convert it into Apple Lossless, how big is the AL file? A lot more than 4MB, or about the 4MB still? Thanks!

With Flip4Mac and perhaps Perian, Quicktime will also play all those files, although without all the jukeboxy features. I don't think the QT plugins will allow you to place those files in the iTunes library, though....

 

[shinji]

I haven't tried to convert a wma. Lossless ripped from a CD is usually 20-40 mb per song. If you convert a 4 mb .ogg it will be more than 4 mb, it'll probably be 10-15 mb with no further loss in quality but obviously no gain in quality.

Personally though, I wouldn't go from ogg to Apple Lossless just to get it to work in itunes...I'd do ogg to mp3. If you already have lossless music in .flac or .ape though, Apple Lossless is great.

 

[Blubbert]

You dont have to convert your .ogg files. Aslong as they are ogg vorbis files you can download the vorbis component from here. It will allow itunes and Quicktime Player to open ogg files without a problem. Plus this way there is no oversize Flac file or a decrease in quality from reencoding in a lossy format.

 

[Nugget]

Definitely install the ogg plugin (linked by Blubbert) and Flip4Mac (free here from Microsoft). iTunes will benefit from every Quicktime plugin you've installed.

 

[mkrishnan]

Definitely install the ogg plugin (linked by Blubbert) and Flip4Mac (free here from Microsoft). iTunes will benefit from every Quicktime plugin you've installed.

So I don't have any WMA or OGG files to test any of this with... if you have F4M installed, can you just drag a WMA file into your library and have it import as an audio file in the music library just like any other file? I presume it will refuse to go on your iPod, but, otherwise, it works just fine?

 

[Nugget]

I don't see why not, but I also lack any actual WMA files to test with. In theory, that's precisely what it does. For ogg files, yes, that's what the ogg plugin does and iTunes will work with them just fine.

 

[shinji]

You dont have to convert your .ogg files. Aslong as they are ogg vorbis files you can download the vorbis component from here. It will allow itunes and Quicktime Player to open ogg files without a problem. Plus this way there is no oversize Flac file or a decrease in quality from reencoding in a lossy format.

That won't work on an iPod though, will it? Or is there a hack for that?

 

[Blubbert]

That won't work on an iPod though, will it? Or is there a hack for that?

Well, the ipod is pretty picky with its formats, so ogg files will not work on it, any more than flac or wma files would. You could try to look for a different operating system for your ipod, something like ipod linux or alike. I dont know if that will allow you to play ogg files however, as i havent been following their development for a while.

 

[shinji]

Well, the ipod is pretty picky with its formats, so ogg files will not work on it, any more than flac or wma files would. You could try to look for a different operating system for your ipod, something like ipod linux or alike. I dont know if that will allow you to play ogg files however, as i havent been following their development for a while.

Well I don't really use ogg much, I was just wondering if there were a workaround...I converted everything except my mp3's to Apple Lossless cuz it does play on the ipod.

 

[Nermal]

What happens when you convert a WMA or OGG file into Apple Lossless? Obviously, it doesn't go from being lossy to being lossless, but presumably there is no farther loss in quality, right? But say you have a 4MB OGG file, and you convert it into Apple Lossless, how big is the AL file? A lot more than 4MB, or about the 4MB still? Thanks!

My guess will be a lot more. I say this because I put an iTunes-purchased M4P onto a music CD then accidentally deleted the original. I ripped back from the CD in lossless and ended up with a 22 MB file.

 

[shinji]

That is the same as ripping from any CD.

 

[PaulFXH]

Thanks for all the replies.
OK, looks like VLC is what I was looking for. Plays all my music files and very nice that I don't even have to go searching around for Win32 codecs.

However, how do I make VLC my default media player (in place of iTunes)?
-- Sorry for this very elementary question but my Mac experience up to now is minimal.

Thanks
Paul

 

[mkrishnan]

However, how do I make VLC my default media player (in place of iTunes)?
-- Sorry for this very elementary question but my Mac experience up to now is minimal.

Find a file of the type you want to change. Select it in Finder and choose File -> Get Info (or Apple-I). In the info box, at the bottom, select VLC in the Open With section, and then before you close the window, click the Change All button. This should make VLC the default for all files of that type. You may need to individually change each music file type.

 

[motulist]

OK, looks like VLC is what I was looking for.

Cool. Since you're not using a music organization software like iTunes, a nice feature you may not know about in VLC is that you can open a play list window. That way you can drag and drop an album of different songs on it or a mix of songs that you want to play grouped together and it'll play through them all. Then you can save the play list, called a .m3u file, which you can then click on later and it'll open the play list of songs again. Also, if you download albums that already come with a .m3u then you can just double click that and VLC will automatically start playing the whole album.

VLC is one of the pieces of software that I urge all Mac users to get. That and graphicconverter.