Best way to convert .m4p files to .mp3 format? Having trouble with this process!!!

what is the best way to convert .m4p files to .mp3?

the process i used was to:

use itunes to burn an audio cd with the .m4p files i wanted to convert, and then i would rip the cd after it was done. an audio cd is just .wav files, and .wav is lossless, so there is no loss in quality this way, but it IS time consuming and you waste a real life cd-r in the process.

i have BeLight but i cannot get it to convert .m4p files to .mp3. sorry for being an idiot.

what is the best way to convert .m4p files to .mp3 files?

 

Open iTunes.
1. Select "Edit" then "Preferences"
2. Select the "Advenced" tab.
3. Select the "Importing" tab.
4. Were it says "Import Using" select "MP3 Encoder" in the drop-down menu. Then hit "OK"
5. Right click the song you want converted to MP3 and in the menu the pops-up from the right click select the option to "Convert Selection To MP3" this will make a MP3 copy of the song.
6. You now have 2 copys of the song. one in .mp4 and one in .mp3 you can delete the .mp4 one if you want or keep it. It really doesnt matter.

 

thanks so much! you just made my day! very grateful to you!! i had no idea that option even existed... very new to itunes.

much thanks

 

No problem I was going to buy DbPoweramp to convert my music then I found out this option and it saved me $20 bucks! Glad it helped ya. - PeaInAPod

 

i cant believe that people have not found this option yet, i have been to many other forums asking this question and not one other person mentioned this!! incredible!!

 

lol that made my day. I cant believe that out of all the members on all the sites you posted at I was the only one who knew of this!

 

yeah dude thats nuts, i have seen threads on other forums going on about this topic for PAGES AND PAGES, people arguing over the best method, and most people were using some program called besweet which opens up in a dos box and you have to type in all this crap with a command line and then it just converts the m4p files to mp4 so THEN you can convert to mp3 with winamp or something, and here it was, so simple. i have not tried your suggestion yet, but the next time i need to buy a song i will try it out and let you know how i made out.

 

i tried this guys, i bought some music on itunes today and it won't let me convert. it says files protected unable to convert to any format. any pointers? I am really getting mad at itunes. i can't burn any cd's on it or convert it. i don't like being limited to using only itunes to hear music. that is totally lame, help a brother out!

 

yeah, maybe that solution doesnt work as well as i thought it would. the easiest and fastest and less loss of quality way to convert m4p files to mp3s is just to:

1. burn an audio cd with the songs you want in itunes.
2. rip the .wav tracks from the audio cd with a ripping program, nero will do it, and encode to mp3.

its a shame to waste an audio cd to do this, but thats the best way to do it now... besweet does not work anymore with itunes 6.0

you could also use a 'what you hear' audio capture tool to record the sound as your computer plays it but i heard there may be a loss in quality this way.

 

If you don't want to waste a CD-R, here is another solution about converting [bold]protected itunes[/bold] m4p to mp3 or wma.
http://www.dvd-tool.com/convert-m4p-to-mp3.html
Maybe it is the best way.

 

good idea tunebite would do it, however it seems you have to pay for it, which is a shame, or you could be 'resourceful' if its available.

 

When you burn then rip a cd you can and will lose quality in the ripped files unless you use a program like Exact Audio Copy. And in regards to the

this is exactly what tunebite is it even says on their site. Their is no reason why the above mentioned way of converting to mp3 should not work and if it doesnt for some reason then the cd burning method would work.

 

right but when you burn to a cd you convert to .wav and wav is lossless so there is not loss of quality from the cd, its just that going from .m4p to .mp3 is the loss of quality only.

i have no idea how tunebite records in a turbo mode, like if you have a 4 minute song it records it in like 20 seconds or something, how the hell does that work? if you use the 'what you hear' method its going to take exactly that long to record the song.

 

@ Hemingway

Your right .wav is lossless. But it is only as good as what it is converting to .wav. If you take a CD a rip it .wav you will have huge files that sound just like the CD. But if you convert from say .mp3 or.mp4 to .wav then the resulting .wav file will only be as good as the original. That is why once you rip a CD you cant convert that ripped file to a higher bitrate. And CD's burned through programs like iTunes are not necisarily convering your files to .wav. Ever heard of a .mp3 cd?? My last cd player was ".mp3 cd" certified. And when you download music from the iTunes music store there is no skips pops or clicks. Its a perfect file at a crappy 128kbps bitrate. So converting between formats really doesnt matter, it wont create a audible difference.

 

128 kbps is not crappy, i think it sounds great. if you have good speakers, a good soundcard, and good equalizer settings, you can easily mask the difference between a 128 kbps and a 320 kbps mp3 anyday.

ive done this test over and over when i download 320 kbps mp3s, i downcode to 128 and i can tell a difference but not enough to warrent the more than double filesize.

there is no shame in 128 kbps, but never go any lower.

 

No matter what you say the higher the bitrate the better your music will sound. And anyone here on AD will back me up on this fact. All the hardware in the world couldnt make a difference if your music sounded like garbage. I have a surround sound system hooked up to my pc and i can tell the difference. And you know just because a file on your P2P app says its 320 kbps or 128kbps doesnt necissarily mean it is. If someone ripped the song in iTunes to a 128kbps file and then changed their settings to convert to 320 kbps and they converted that file in iTunes. The file would say its "320kbps" but in reality it would only be "128kbps". Of course when you listen to a 128kbps file through earbud headphones you wont hear the difference at all but when you play it through a quality sound system, the difference is all too clear.

 

im saying with the proper hardware and settings, the differnce is very subtle. its true. 128 kbps is considered 'cd quality'.

try this. take a music cd that you own, rip it at 128 kbps and then rip it again at 320 kbps and see if you can tell a large difference. there will be a smaller, more subtle difference, but 128 sounds great to me and its a good file size.

it also depends on the quality of the encoder, if you have a shitty encoder even higher bittrates will sound bad, and a excellent encoder will make 128 sound awesome.

 

Were are you getting your info?!? 128 kbps is not even close to cd quality and that is a widely known fact.The only true "CD Quality" is lossless. And if you rip a cd into 128 kbps files there is no possible way to make them TRUE 320 kbps files. Sure the will be labeled 320 kbps but you cant take a lower bitrate and make it into a higher bitrate. And I can tell the difference through my stereo. What are you listening to your music through? If its the cheap speakers that the manufactures include with their pcs the yeah you probably wont know the differene. And on the subject of what encoder is being used. I dont download music anymore. I only rip my music with the original cd (no copies!) and i rip them with Exact Audio Copy with the LAME MP3 encoder with VBR enabled. With this method my Gorillaz Demon Days CD had bitrates from 165-245. But when ripping my System Of A Down CD's I got bitrates no lower then 300 kbps with the highest being 690 Kbps and the song was " This Cocaine Makes Me Feel Like Im On This Song".
No matter the equipment or the encode nothing can beat lossless or the original CD for that matter. But when encoding to 128 kbps your losing a LOT of quality.

 

thats not what im saying at all. i said rip the cd 2 different times, once at 128 and again at 320 and try to listen and hear the difference with the equalizer on and with a good soundcard and good speakers. i said nothing about re-encoding the same mp3, nowhere did i say that.

thats all very impressive, but frankly you must have a big harddrive and a big ipod or something but i dont have all the space for mp3s that are going 320 all the time. my mp3 player is only 256 mb, not a huge 20 gig ipod or something, it doesnt even have a harddrive its just flash memory.

of course nothing can beat lossless, thats why its called lossless. i should have said, '128 COMPARES to cd quality' not EQUAL too, sorry if i used that word.

i use exact audio copy as well, works very well. i use CBR however, because im not sure if my mp3 player supports VBR and i know some older ones do not. i know vbr is best, you dont need to tell me that.

 

Your right and I apologize I must have read over the part were you said rip it twice. My hardrive is only 120GB and my iPod a old 20Gb color. You by no means have to have a big harddrive. The 690 kbps System Of A Down song was a mere 7mb now that is a lot for a .mp3 file but compared to a 30+ mb lossless file it aint that bad. I can see were size comes into play. All i am trying to say is the higher the bitrate the better the resulting file will sound. yes your encoder and your equipment come into effect but in the end its all the condition of the cd and your software.