Ringtone Woes
Does anyone have any suggestions for a good M4P to MP3 converter? Good as in free. I’ve been looking for two days. The Girl wants to use some songs I purchased as ringtones on her mobile phone; but it only uses MP3s. This hasn’t been a problem until recently. We used to buy WMAs which were easily converted into other formats using the tools available at the time. But the program I have been using to convert M4Ps to M4As (and then to MP3s) after we switched to iTunes doesn’t work with our latest music purchases and I can’t find an update or another similar program. I guess I could burn them to CD and then re-encode them; but I’d like to find an easier way. I know there are tools which streamline the process using virtual CD-R drives, etc. but I’ve tried two of them so far and neither has been able to encode more than a few seconds of audio. It shouldn’t be so difficult to use legally purchased music. Being legit is way harder than it need to be.
iTunes does that. You have to do this:
1) select the song
2) go to the Advanced tab
3) select “convert selection to mp3″
I’m just impressed you can do these things – and surprised you find the time.
Kate: iTunes “knows” the files are protected and won’t convert them. This works great for all of the songs I ripped from CD or transferred from media player. I really don’t see what he bid deal is. Allowing people to export a short low quality clip for a ring tone wouldn’t undercut their business model
Alfie: I’ve got a thirsty brain and like knowing how to do things. And I don’t really have the time. Check the timestamp on some of my posts or comments.
Oh. That sucks!
I didn’t know it did that.
Don’t blame iTunes or Apple for not being able to convert protected content, all that comes from the record companies and their licensing requirements. There is one work around, you can burn the protected songs to a CD making an audio CD. Then rip them back in iTunes. You can also change how iTunes rips songs and make them all mp3′s. Preferenes -> Advanced -> Importing to find that setting.
Kate: They couldn’t do it any other way; or there wouldn’t be a point in having protected music. One of these days, copy-protection will be a thing of the past. It hinders legitimate uses more than anyone else. I know of several offshore websites that sell whole albums for what a single song counts from iTunes. I doubt they are “licensed” but the MP3s sound just as good and can be played anywhere.
John: I’ll do that as a last resort. But that’s painful compared to what some of the now obsolete tools did. The record companies need to figure out that their cash cows are gone and are never coming back. They can sue people forever but consumers are never going to buy whole albums to get one or two songs like the once did.