Fazer Owners Club - Unofficial
General => General => Topic started by: Hedgetrimmer on 07 October 2015, 04:02:50 pm
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So, I've switched to a Mac from using Windows 7.
All the music I've downloaded transferred across fine, but I ripped all my old CDs before that, and they are in wma format, which the Mac can't use. I've been looking at AVS conversion software online. You can download an example to play with, which I have done, and it seems to work ok, but they 'stamp' everything with an audio voice-over, so you have to buy the activated version of the software to get the job done properly - about $59. Well, it's certainly cheaper than buying all those albums again by a long way, and the quality on the demo version seemed ok.
But does anyone have experience of these converters? Are there likely to be problems further along the line? Are there better ways of doing this? Any help and advice appreciated.
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There are two lessons to learn from all of this.
1. Don't use proprietary file formats if you can avoid it. Even Windows Media player lets you save things as MP3 even if the default is wma.
2. Don't by a Mac :pokefun as they are too restrictive. That said, because they are restrictive, it prevents other issues you may encounter on a Windows device where the average fecwit does something to screw everything up.
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I still have the PC with windows on it, so all is not lost, but I do like the Mac for everyday use and the fact that it's nice and mobile. The idea was to ditch having a specific workstation for a computer when I move, to save space. I'd looked at Macs and had demos on them, and I found everything pretty easy and intuitive for the things I use a computer for at present.
When I ripped all those CDs, I knew even less about computers than I do now :lol
But thanks BBROWN, you have been most helpful :rolleyes
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FWIW, I believe there was an option in Media Player to convert files from wma to MP3 but that may have been taken away in later versions.
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I just tried downloading a .wma file to experiment with and on double-clicking it was surprised that "FlvCrunch" (a free app I use for converting flash videos to MP4) opened and allowed export to MP3.
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Try this one Nick. It's free.
http://www.avs4you.com/AVS-Audio-Converter.aspx?type=GoogleAdWordsSearch&gclid=CKCb0qfqsMgCFSUFwwodRyYM7A (http://www.avs4you.com/AVS-Audio-Converter.aspx?type=GoogleAdWordsSearch&gclid=CKCb0qfqsMgCFSUFwwodRyYM7A)
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I just tried downloading a .wma file to experiment with and on double-clicking it was surprised that "FlvCrunch" (a free app I use for converting flash videos to MP4) opened and allowed export to MP3.
Tried this. Funnily enough, it directed me to a more appropriate free download. That worked for a few items, then 'demanded money with menaces' too :lol But, it was much cheaper than the AVS one I looked at (which did the same after a few uses - seems the free downloads I'm finding are all just demo versions to try out), £15, so I went for it, and am now happily converting everything to mp3 format :)
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Someone hinted to me that "onlinevideoconverter.com" is brilliant for converting YouTube videos to MP3 in very high quality.......apparently ;)
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Be sure to do a sound check on your tracks before deleting anything. I converted some MP4 to MP3 and ended up with so much bass I couldn't play the CD's
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IIRC, maybe 5 years or so ago, I'm sure I used iTunes to convert wma format to mp3 so I could burn tracks to a cd for one of those car stereos that played mp3 cds. Might be worth exploring......
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Do not pay for anything!!
There are free libraries out there that will do this for you though some require a bit of learning. I have no experience with Mac's unfortunately but ffmepg is a fantastic Windows tool - the catch is that it is a bit complicated and is a command line tool
Hell there are even online converters I used to use a few years back
As for free programs that do this, I've used NCH Software's Switch ( http://www.nch.com.au/switch/index.html (http://www.nch.com.au/switch/index.html) ) before but I'm pretty sure it only works for 30 days or something before you have to upgrade and again, it is a Windows program.
If I was near-by it would be so much easier to just pop round, convert your library and head home again :P