aac->mp3

[jedifunk]

ok, so our car stereo will play an mp3 cd, and seeing as how my wifes ipod is getting old and the battery doesnt last all that long (its 1st gen), i thought i'd make her a mp3 cd of the top rated phish on my ipod... well, i forgot that aac & mp3 are 2 different standard, so i couldnt burn a single song...

whats the easiest way to convert aac->mp3?  just use itunes?  guess i have to use senuti to rip them off my ipod first... what a pains :|

[jonyem]

I have done this before, and it would seem that just doing it in iTunes works the best. Maybe write a Automator Workflow to put the converted mp3 somewhere else so you can get rid of your duplicates when you're done. Betcha Jeph has just the trick

[tet]

i will say, you can get a new battery for the 1st/2nd gen iPods from www.macsales.com , they are generally under $20 and last far longer than the original batteries (about 15-20% longer i think).  i did the replacement on my 2nd gen 20 gig and it still runs beautifully.  easy instructions and tools are included.   

to convert, i'd just do it right in iTunes, as much as it sucks to make a lossy compression of a lossy source...  your call i guess.

[jephrey]

BTW...  When converting from one lossy compression scheme to another, is it the same as going to wav and back to the other one, or by knowing the original compression scheme, can it utilize some compression that already exists and just modify it to the new format.  I'm sure you lose some quality, but is it as much as going aac > wav > mp3?

Hang on...  Testing this

If I was doing a ton of stuff, I "Might" use automator.  It's probably just as easy to just select and convert.  The only problem I might see is that you'd end up with alternating mp3/aac files and selecting to delete would be a bitch.

[jephrey]

Interesting...

I started with a wav and took 2 paths

1. 
WAV > AAC128 > MP3

2.
WAV > AAC128 > WAV > MP3

I inverted one of them and mixed it with the other and following is what I got...  I believe this would prove my theory that converting from one lossy format to another is (at least in the case of AAC to MP3) is better than going to WAV first...  Although it doesn't make sense to me, It could be the other way around.  I can't tell the difference in mediocre headphones.

[jephrey]

Here's what I'd do if I was going to use automator...  Rip the tracks into iTunes.  Set up automator like the pic below.  Make sure your mp3 encoder is set the way you want it (bitrate).  And create yourself a playlist...  then hit > in automator and watch the beauty that is mac come to life (I know, it's an everyday thing for us, but this will be jsut one more I guess  :wink:) After burning I assume you'll want to delete all the files from your library.  I really wish you had the option that when you delete a playlist you would have an option to remove those songs from your library as well, because you'll have to go in there and manually find them and blow them away...  Anyhow.  Here's the automator workphlow

rock on