Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with m4a

trimming podcasts in quicktime

krunk — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:06:57 -0800

I have a podcast (M4A format) that I'd like to trim and save without re-encoding. Is this possible? In Quicktime Pro I can select a time range, trim it, and choose save, but it saves the resulting file as a .MOV file. Basically I want to grab a chapter of the podcast and have it as a regular audio file. Eventually this will be done in AppleScript.

Is the .MOV simply a wrapper? It looks as though I can change the file extension to M4A and it loads fine. Do I have to manually change the extension each time? What podcast info has to be removed for iTunes to load it as a regular file and not load it into the podcast section?

iTunes is randomly deleting songs...which ones?

arniec — Thu, 28 May 2009 07:18:49 -0800

Help me fix this absolute mess of my digital music collection which is in iTunes. Over 2300 CDs, but some are missing.... HELP! Okay here's the details. In the 80s, 90s, and early 00s I amassed a fairly large CD collection, well over 2,000 CDs. many times in the past i had worked to rip all these CDs but never succeeded because of problems with CD data, etc. I also, being a Windows guy, waned a specific folder structure which added a lot of manual labor.

Giving up on my wish list, last year I decided I would just rip all my CDs using iTunes. I would let iTunes decide the folder structure, as I am an iPod user. I set iTunes to rip the CDs in Apple's lossless format, and I was not particular about the metadata figuring it's best to get the discs ripped, and I can go back and adjust the metadata to how I like it later (such as changing Phil Collins to Collins, Phil and so on). I set a computer to automatically rip CDs as they are inserted and did about 50 a week. Months later, I was done.

In that time I also have switched from being a Windows user to being a Mac user. I have also belatedly embraced digital music, no longer buying overpriced CDs and instead buying single songs or some albums on iTunes, Amazon, or some other online stores. My music collection is now an amalgam of my own ripped CDs in the Apple lossless codec, MP3s, M4As, etc.

In moving to being a Mac user, I put my music collection on an external drive hooked into a Mac Mini as the "server" and various other Macs in my house share the library. I set the Mac Mini to "Keep iTunes Music Organized". I figured since I had relinquished control of the folders to iTunes, I might as well leave it that way.

But here's the problem... I have since learned that checking the box to allow iTunes to keep the music folder organized can cause removal of data, so I turned it off about a month ago. But it was too late. I discovered this past week that at least 3 of the CDs I know I ripped are missing. Not just some songs, but entire CDs (my wife says iTunes is trying to give me taste as what I lost were the soundtracks to all 3 Beverly Hills Cop movies). Given that those 3 are gone I can only assume others are missing as well...but I have no idea which ones.

I'm now left with a problem. I want to validate all my CDs are there, and all songs on those CDs are there, but I don't want to have to manually pull 2300 CDs at an average of 10 songs per disc and then search iTunes to see if all the tracks are there or not. The amount of manual labor involved in doing that would be extraordinary.

I have thought about just saying "forget it" and reripping all 2300 CDs as that WOULD be quicker than the manual validation method, but I can't just start over as at least 100 songs I've paid for from the various sites are mixed in among the ripped tracks. (God only knows if I have lost tracks I bought from iTunes, etc. I have no real way to validate all those).

So what do I do? i need methods to either:
a) quickly and easily determine if my CDs are ripped in full

or

b) some method to extract the tracks bought from Amazon and iTunes, etc from the tracks I ripped myself so I can rerip all my CDs and reintegrate this music collection.

or

C) some other fix for this problem that will allow me to have a well-organized music library consisting of all the CDs I own plus all the tracks I have bought.

Where do I go from here??

Audio files for non-audiophiles

fusinski — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 21:27:21 -0800

What is the simplest way (free or otherwise) to convert M4P and M4A audio files to MP3 en masse?

What should I use to convert m4a to mp3.

miniape — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 11:46:07 -0800

What should I use to convert m4a to mp3.
A friend of mine burned his demo cd using itunes on his pc. I zipped it it up and sent it to myself so I could copy it onto my own computer / non-iPod mp3 player. So now I have a folder of m4a files that I can't play.

I'm looking for free, or very cheap, software to convert them to mp3s. My requirements are, no spyware, very small footprint, clean install. No iTunes.

Google brings up a number of results. I tried a freeware app called Bonk or something and it didn't work.

What should I use?

File extension change broke my songs?

invitapriore — Sun, 26 Feb 2006 22:43:24 -0800

Accidentally renamed music files won't play. I got some music off of a friend's hard drive in .m4a format. Wanting the file names to match up with my preferred naming system, I used a program to rename them according to the song info, but accidentally changed all the extensions to .mp3. Realizing that that was the reason that they wouldn't play in iTunes, I renamed them back to .m4a, but now only some of them play. iTunes refuses to play the others, showing an empty info screen up at the top and no speaker icon next to the song. Are they salvageable or do I have to get them again?

AAC on non-iPod players?

jsbww — Mon, 21 Nov 2005 10:53:48 -0800

Any good iPod alternatives that support aac?