.wma to .mp3?

[asterroc]

How do I do this for free? I have a Mac. I thought Flip4Mac would let me do it via Quicktime, but apparently not.

Comments

[gemini6ice.livejournal.com]

If you have an audio-grabber program, you can record it while you play the .wma file.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Nope. Can you recommend one?

Oh wait, you're saying this converts in realtime? That's not an option. I want to convert a 23-CD-equivalent audiobook that I was only able to download in .wma format.

[oh-chris.livejournal.com]

http://www.askdavetaylor.com/convert_mac_wma_audio_files_to_mp3.html ?

[best-ken-ever.livejournal.com]

iTunes should do it for you. On my PC, I would do:

Load all files into iTunes.
Change the Preferences, Advanced tab
Change the Encoding to MP3 at a desired bitrate. 64kbps is definitely sufficient for spoken word, 32kbps is probably okay, too.
Then, find all files in iTunes, select all of them, right click on one, and choose Convert Selection to MP3. Then, they should all convert and show up in your My Music folder.

I suspect this will also work on Macs. Best of luck (:

[gemini6ice.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, not an option then. :(

[gemini6ice.livejournal.com]

I don't think iTunes can read .wma--it is a proprietary format to Microsoft.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

On a Mac, iTunes cannot open .wma files. For other file types all I have to do is drag the file into iTunes to import it, and w/ these files it bounces back to where they came from and doesn't import them.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Thanks! :)

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

I also want to know how to tell iTunes something is an audiobook, or isn't a podcast, but that question might be worth a whole 'nother post.

[seekingferret.livejournal.com]

This should be a tagging issue. If I recall (I haven't used iTunes much lately, since I moved to linux and became an Amarok fan) there should be a checkbox in the dialog box you use to edit tags for a song to tell it it's an audiobook or podcast.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Gave it a shot this morning, and it wouldn't convert the files. Not sure if there's some proprietary info tag on them. Any other thoughts? I'm going to try bringing my iPod to work and see if I can transfer it to my iPod here, since I have a Windows computer and this's where I'm downloading the files.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

I've looked for such tags, and as far as I can tell it's not viewable/editable through iTunes.

When're they going to do genre tags on mp3s instead of folders?

[seekingferret.livejournal.com]

Google says the trick is to convert the files from mp3 to aac (m4a) and then rename the files from m4a files to m4b files. This I view as proof that Apple is stupider than people think. Meta tags are there for a reason. Doing sorting operations at the machine level with file extensions is dumb.

[kelsin.livejournal.com]

I don't know this for sure but I think wma is like apple's format. IF the file is not encrypted you can do it rather easily. Most often though iTunes files and wma's that you buy are encrypted with DRM so that you CAN'T play the wma's on iTunes and the iTunes files in other players.

If that's the case then you don't have any legal options to do it (free or not). I wouldn't know any ways around it except the slow real-time option.

This is the reason I refuse to buy music from iTunes.