Importing in lossless from itunes store?

[admin_exported]

Mabye im just stupid and this is a dumb question but is it possible to import tunes purchased from the itunes store in the lossless format. I have tried to convert the ones i have at 128kbps but it wont let me as they are protected.

 

[Mr.H]

The advantage of ripping to a lossless format, when your source is a CD, is that no information stored on the CD is lost in the ripping process. The files on CD contain 1,411,200 "bits" for each second of audio, and this information is unaltered in the ripping process when using a lossless format.

Files on the iTunes store, on the other hand, have had some of this information removed, in order to reduce the file size down to 128,000 "bits" for each second of audio, or in the case of "iTunes Plus", 256,000 bits per second.

Once the information has gone, there is no way to restore it. Converting it to lossless does not magically recreate the missing information.

For the most part, there would be no point in doing what you are trying to do, and you can't get the iTunes store to send you lossless files; your choice is 128 kbps files or 256 kbps (only iTunes Plus songs are available at 256).

Except... if you are trying to get them into a format that will work on something other than an iPod and want to preserve the quality of the iTunes Store file, rather than converting from one lossy codec into another (which would loose you even more information from the music file beyond that already lost when the iTunes store file was created by Apple). In order to do this, burn the tracks to Audio CD (make sure iTunes is set to burn Audio CDs in the "burning" tab of the "Advanced" pane in iTunes preferences).

You can then rip that CD back with whichever software you need to use to work with your other mp3 player.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your reply Mr H

So,if your saying that converting an itunes file from 128kbps would be poinless anyway due to missing information

in the file itself,does that also mean that if i have ripped all my cd's in 128kbps that i can't use itunes to convert those to lossless and will have to re-rip them all.

If so,what is the point of itunes giving you the option to convert files to lossless at all?

 

[Clare Newsome]

I guess the option may be useful if you want to convert from WAV (uncompressed) to Lossless to save some space on your hard drive?

But the bad news is, you'd be better off re-ripping those CDs.

However, it's worth hanging onto some of those 128Kbps files if you have/are planning to buy an ultraportable player with limited storage space - i've got an old 2GB nano I use at the gym, where the lower-bitrate files do decent duty. The big take-on-holiday iPod is filled with a Lossless library.....

 

[Anonymous]

Yes, you'd be better off re-ripping those CDs as Clare suggest.

MP3 is a lossy format. To maximise compression ratios, information is stripped away and it is for ever.

Lossless codecs discard none of the information that makes up the music. Another advantage with lossless is that they can be converted back to .wav, if at anytime in future, you want to make a CD that will be an exact copy of the original. You can also covert them to MP3s for the car or iPod. But you can't covert a lossy format to a lossless format.

Lossless formats such as FLAC, APE and WMA certainly do have sonic advantage even with an iPod, when listening using headphones, playing through dock stations and hi-fi equipment.

Lossless and lossy audio formats expalined
http://www.bobulous.org.uk/misc/audioFormats.html
'Comparison of audio codecs' by Wiki has detailed info plus links to some very sophisticated comparison tests conducted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_audio_codecs
also visit
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Lossless_comparison

With the capacity of the HDs and flash memory increasing fast and their prices falling like a stone, the size of the files is hardly an issue these days. For example, with a 320GB HD from eByer, cost per CD in FLAC is under 4.8p right now and falling.

Use a good quality ripper such as EAC or CDex. Both can be downloaded free from cNet or download.com

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Blumax-I've already spent the first of many hours re-ripping