Is there a difference in the file formats?

[Imola Ghost]

I'm new to mac's and have seen files [what I thought were the same] called different names and wasn't sure.

Apple Lossless
.m4a
ALAC

I'm wanting to rip my CD's to Apple Lossless and have seen it called other things like above but wanted to make sure. Should my filenames have the file extension of .m4a to be Apple Lossless?

 

[spinnerlys]

Apple Lossless (ALAC)
.m4a: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-4_Part_14 or http://filext.com/file-extension/M4A

via http://www.bing.com

and http://www.google.com/cse?cx=011016...e:forums.macrumors.com&hl=en&as_qdr=all&meta=


PS: Plurals and not plural's.

 

[miles01110]

Should my filenames have the file extension of .m4a to be Apple Lossless?

Yes. ALAC = Apple Lossless Audio Codec = Apple Lossless => m4a

 

[Imola Ghost]

Thanks, I just wanted to clear this up before I started to rip some 1,000 CD's.

 

[Penguissimo]

Note that AAC files (a lossy encoding scheme) created by iTunes will ALSO have the .m4a extension. The only way to tell whether a particular .m4a file is AAC or ALAC is by looking at the "Kind" in iTunes, either by adding the column to your view or by doing a Get Info on the file. But as long as you have your Import Settings set to use Apple Lossless, you can rest assured that you're ripping as Apple Lossless.