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Convert M4P to MP3 for (Almost) Free

     - Thursday, September 18, 2008

Aside from the cost of blank CD's, you can easily convert all your Protected ACC Audio M4P files to MP3 files using iTunes. The general process is simple. Add the M4P files to a playlist, burn the playlist to CD as an Audio disk, and then import the songs back into iTunes as MP3 files.

But there are some tricks. Only burn a single disk at a time, and don't eject the disk when it's finished burning. As long as the disk stays in the drive, iTunes will know the artist, album, and title. If you eject it, iTunes will not have this information, and you'll be stuck having to enter it manually. Which sucks. If you have more songs to convert than will fit on a single disk, making multiple playlists, one for each CD you will burn, helps keep the process organized.

If you have multiple CD drives, when the first burn is done, and you're importing the songs, you can start to burn another disk using another drive.

Once the songs are imported, you'll have duplicates, so you'll need to find them and delete the M4P version. View duplicates from the file menu, sort by Kind, select all the Protected AAC Audio files, and then resort the list by title. Then just scan the list to confirm you have an MP3 version of each of the selected songs. Once you're sure you have the duplicate, just delete the selected songs.

One other tip. When you burn the disks, don't choose the option to add a gap between songs. That just adds 2 seconds of silence to the end of your song.

Aside from the cost of the CDs and your time, it's basically a free option.

posted by Kevin Watts |  Permalink |