Apple Lossless 24 bit

Hello,
I successfully imported a 24 bit / 192 kHz WAV into iTunes 9.0 and converted it to Apple Lossless format. Now I would like to convert my file back to its original format, however the WAV converter seems to be limited to 16 bit / 48 kHz formats. Any suggestions ? Thanks.

Classifying iTunes as a "consumer grade" product is a perfectly valid personal opinion but misses the point of the post.
A Lossless codec is simply a way of storing music without modifying it in a compressed format (think ZIP).
iTunes allows you to read and compress (zip) 24 bit / 192 kHz PCM files but there is no way to retrieve the original file (unzip).
This would be a specification error if Apple was not planning to supply the unzip function (how many products do you know that only give you a zip capability). I do not think this is the case and it is probably an implementation oversight (When the lossless codec got updated to support 24 bit the WAV interface for choosing sample rate / size was forgotten - their defaults being auto). Actually if you read the help file under WAV custom import settings it says "In general, the best choice is Auto, which uses the *same rate* as the original music".
IMHO iTunes should be corrected to take a WAV file and losslessly encode/decode it or give a warning before starting if it cannot deal with it.
And since the code to deal with high resolution files is already there (take a look at QuickTime / Preferences / Audio, and depending on your hardware you can set high resolution audio out) I am still looking for a way around what appears to be a GUI limitation.
cheers
Message was edited by: prefab

Similar Messages

Apple Lossless lower bit rate than AIFF - why?

Why is the bit rate of Apple Lossless lower than that of AIFF for the same song?

Chris2881 wrote:
I can understand the file size thing but why the lower bit rate?
Chris2881,
In your iTunes library, the figure shown for bitrate is just the file size divided by the duration of the song (with adjustments for bytes to bits, and mega to kilo). If you look at an Apple Lossless file, the size and the bit rate are each about half of a standard AIFF for the same song.
As noted by fullcream, the Apple Lossless format is compressed but not lossy; it contains the full audio content of the CD (or AIFF) original but in a more compact file. Unlike AAC or MP3, Apple Lossless does not remove any audio content.
Ed

Converting "Apple Lossless" back to "AAC" - More than 1 track at a time...

Hello,
Short version: I have hundreds of tracks that need to "Create AAC Version", and I can't right-click 8,536 songs in my library one at a time to find them all. Is there a method to sweep the entire library and convert all songs to this format if they are not already?
The problem with this is it still creates a duplicate of the song and the other original needs to be deleted.
Note - the file name changing (it appends a "1" on the M4A file), the "tag" displayed in iTunes retains the song name.
Thanks!,
Joseph
Long version: For the benefit of people facing the same problem and combing the forums for help, here's the rest of the story...
I'm not entirely sure when this changed (and I've reset my Import settings back to AAC 128-bit now), but I've managed to import a good number of CDs at this higher quality "Apple Lossless" format. Essentially, that's overkill - I listen to an iPod classic with headphones the majority of the time (98%) and I won't hear the difference.
CHECK: Edit | Preferences | "General" tab | "Import Settings" button
Essentially my hard-drive space has been disappearing at a rapid rate. I downloaded a tool (WinDarStat) and found my iTunes folder is 50% of my 200GB used. (Yes, I'm on an older laptop -- HD=220GB -- and am getting the 'out of space' warnings.) I found some folders for recent CDs were over 1GB alone and started digging.
I happend to have REM's studio "Man on the Moon" on here twice. The IN TIME version is AAC 128-bit and only 4.9MB in size, whereas the PART LIES version is Apple Lossless 1068-bit and 8x's larger at 39.9MB.
If you right-click a track, it provides option to "Create [other] version.", depending on going to/from ACC to Lossless or vice-versa.
Once I did this for "Man on the Moon", I got 75% of the song's space back ... from approximately 40MB to 11MB.
It does create a second copy of the song, so the original has to be deleted - be certain to "Move the song to the Recycle Bin" when warned.
A better option - all be it more time consuming - is to re-import the CDs.

For backup see this user tip.
The Create <Format> version tool uses whatever the current import settings are.
You can create a playlist of things that need converting as Ed says above.
To ease the conversion process, and keep your current ratings, playcounts, and playlist membership, plus recyle the old files automatically see my script ConvertFormat. Test on say a single album first to make sure it works as you expect/need.
tt2

Can't Import Songs To iTunes Using Apple Lossless Encoder

I have about 4,000 songs in FLAC format (which is a lossless format) on my external hard drive. I want to import them into iTunes using the Apple Lossless Encoder. I called Apple support and asked them how to do this, and they told me to go under "Preferences" in iTunes and chose to import using Apple Lossless Encoder.
I did this using Preferences>General>Import Settings, and then went to File>Add Folder to Library, however, it still imported my songs as AAC Audio Files. Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong? Thanks.

iTunes cannot read nor import FLAC files - not without third-party plugins, anyway, and I don't know of any that will allow iTunes to convert a FLAC file to another format - so I'm a bit confused as to the procedure you're following. If all you're doing is using the Add to Library command and choosing the FLAC files, it's quite possible that iTunes is misinterpreting the format and adding what is in reality an invalid link with erroneous format information.
If you have some sort of third-party plugin for FLAC for iTunes, please post that information and perhaps someone here can determine whether iTunes can do a conversion successfully.

160 Gb Classic - Audio dropouts, gaps on gapless albums with apple lossless

Dear All,
Since getting my new iPod Classic 160 Gb iPod Classic, I am experiencing audio dropouts that last between one and two seconds. They aren't frequent, occurring maybe one every hour or two of audio playback. They appear to be very random. If I play back the same track after having a dropout, it plays fine and doesn't happen again in the same place. This doesn't appear to be connected to my moving or shaking the iPod around, as it will happen when I am sitting down and perfectly stationary. Also, I don't think it is related to a bad earphone connection, as I a have played the iPod with several pairs of new and/or high quality earphones. More info: Most of my files are Apple Lossless and content is primarily regular music albums. Of note, this is the second 160 Gb iPod I've had with the same problems! The first one I brought down to the Apple Store in Ginza, Tokyo and they replaced it in the blink of an eye after I explained the same as above.
Prior to the 160 Gb Classic, I have owned 1st, 3rd and 5th generation iPods (plus a 2nd gen. Nano and shuffle). The 5th gen. 60 Gb was playing the exact same audio files and never had any dropouts.
I have reset the Classic and reinstalled all my music files (with the most recent ipod software 1.0.2 and running iTunes 7.5) twice now, but the problem remains. I am now thinking of taking one of two possible routes of action. a) go back down to the Apple Store and try to get another iPod replacement (and hope and pray that it doesn't experience this problem) or, b) change all my music files to something like 192 kbps and hope (and pray!) the iPod can handle the smaller file size without the dropouts. At the moment, I am leaning towards going down to the Apple Store as it would actually be the less time consuming of the two for me.
What do you wise people out there think? Exchange iPod or downsize my audio files? Or, does anyone have another suggestion or recommendation on how to resolve this issue? Thanks for any assistance.
To add to this, I have also noticed that several of my gapless albums (DJ mix CD's like those by Global Underground), no longer play consistently "gapless". Sometimes it will pass smoothly between tracks and other times there will be a small pause/gap. No doubt, I have checked the gapless album box and selected yes, in the album get info section for all of these albums, but still problems remain. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Again, my previous iPod, 5th gen. 60 Gb had none of these problems with the same files. I am really happy with the 160 Gb capacity of my new classic but feel a bit let down with these problems I'm having.
Regards,
Peter B.

Thank heaven! I thought I might be the only one.
My situation almost exactly mirrors your own. My first 160GB classic suffered from sudden dropouts, apparently random and almost impossible to replicate in any predictable fashion. For example, I'd start playing an album and would hear a one or two second dropout in the second track, but in attempting to replicate the situation exactly (as in, powering down the iPod, powering it back up and starting over from the first track of the album) I'd find that the fault didn't recur. Restoring and reloading made no difference at all.
So I took it in to the Apple Store and had it replaced, loaded the replacement up with music and was dismayed to discover myself facing the same problem. I too have had several iPods which were loaded off this same library, and none of them ever gave trouble in this fashion.
I think the issue might just be the size of the files in our libraries. The bulk of my files are at 320kbps, and you mentioned yours were mostly Lossless - could it be that the classic has problems dealing with large files? It's a very frustrating issue, since the audio quality of my classic is so much better to my ears than that of my previous iPod 5G.
I recommend that you take the iPod in and take them to task about it. That's certainly what I'm going to do - I really don't want to re-encode all my music, especially considering that I bought this iPod due to the burgeoning size of my library, and re-encoding would defeat the point. Plus, since it has better sound it sort of deserves to be loaded with larger files. I just hope this isn't an irremediable issue, which I'm starting to suspect it might be, since your iPods were obtained in Japan and mine in the UK. I'll continue posting as this unfolds, and I hope you'll do the same.

Apple Lossless hiccups/drop outs/pauses

Hi
Has anyone tried Apple Lossless files with the Shuffle 3G yet? Does it choke on them, i.e. hiccup/drop out/pause a few seconds into a song, like the Nano 3G did?
I'd like to know before buying, as this was a major irritation for me, and this is the first shuffle to supposedly support lossless.
TIA

Hi I'm wondering what you tried. I have a 3G Shuffle that "stutters" during playback for my Apple Lossless songs also.
I loaded them using sync "checked music" to select the playlist that would sync.
When I let iTunes drop the bit rate down to 128 AAC and sync the same selection of checked playlist there is no skipping. I have tried this on 2 different computer and using 2 different Shuffles. I get the same results consistently. The skips happen in the same songs every time. Lastly, it does not happen with every Apple Losses song.
The songs play back fine on the computers, my 1G Touch and my 120 GB Classic. I haven't tried this on any Nanos yet. But this feels specific to the Shuffle

Sequence Settings for "Apple Lossless" codec !?!?

Help,
I am editing a project and the material was delivered to me in the "Apple Lossless, stereo, 44100 khz DV, 720x480 (640x480), millions
Is there a Sequence settings I can use to edit this without having to render it in the timeline ?!?
Many thanks,
David Berry

o maybe FCP is only able to work in certain formats without having to compress ?o maybe FCP is only able to work in certain formats without having to compress ?
All the formats in the EASY SETUP are what it works with basically. But you can create custom setups..but they will NOT be realtime. That is what that trick is all about. If that trick doesn't work, then it is a format that FCP isn't gonna work with without recompressing. But audio still needs to be 48Khz 16-bit aiff files.
There are other NLEs out there that do this...Vegas, SpeedRazor...you can look into using them if you are constantly going to be dealing with odd codecs.
Shane

Apple Lossless...is it really???

Isn't music from Apple's iTunes Music Store purported to be "Apple Lossless?" Of the songs I've downloaded, all are labeled as "Protected AAC audio file," at a bit rate of 128k. Needless to say, they sound like crap when played on a hifi. Is this format lossless, and if not, is there a way to download songs in lossless format?
There's no way I'm going to continue to download songs of such low fidelity in the future.

Not down with stuff like that Russian site, which I would consider a form of piracy, but I can see how people might be tempted to use such to counter the other form of computer piracy found in stuff like Sony's rootkits. They have no moral right to run their hack-ware on their consumers' personal computers, either.
What makes corporations' intellectual property rights any more important than consumers' private property rights to our own computers? I say absolutely nothing!
In my own system, I use iTunes for the fair use of keeping the music I listen to in my computer for personal listening, and in my iPod for personal listening.
I recall making the "mistake" of inserting Alanis Morissette Unplugged into my old slot-loaded iMac, and not only did it's "copy-protection" stuff block that CD playing, but after the attempt my CD drive became unstable in it's operation until the next time I restored my system in that computer. And I had no warning at all there was anything out of the ordinary with the CD before finding out the hard way.
I don't know what kinds of rootkits may or may not exist to invade a Mac, but I do know that some of this DRM stuff crosses a line of committing vandalism against consumers who just want to listen to their music on their own systems.
Maybe it's better to hook up the analogue audio line output of a CD player to the line-in/mic jack on one's computer and use a program such as Audio Hijack Pro or some similar app to convert the analogue signal back to a digital format without this corporate malware.
One takes a minute loss of quality one time for continued peace of mind, at least until the law catches up with the corporate vandals.

Apple Lossless vs. AAC 256k - and best way to change

I originally imported all my 1500 cds as Apple lossless files figuring that would give me the best audio quality for playing back through my AppleTV. But I have realized that sometimes my bandwidth is not enough (when other are downloading from their computers in the house) and the playback stutters. I also want to be able to fit more songs on my iphone.
So now I am thinking about re-encoding using AAC 256khz - I do not think I can really hear much difference.
Firstly what are your opinion on the relative quality of AAV vs. Apple Lossless files....
and secondly is it best to re-encode by ripping all my cds again (please say no) or can I just select all the lossless files in itunes and have it convert them all to AAC - and if that is the best way how do it do it....?
Many thanks for your help...

Well, I have the same question. So last night I compared the original CD vs. Apple Lossless vs. AAC 256kbit/s.
And to be honest: I cant really hear a difference between AL & AAC@256.
When I knew which version I was hearing I felt that AL is a bit more clear in the highrange. But when I closed my eyes and asked my girlfriend to randomly pic a quality, I only guessed right in 6 out of 10 trys. So I guess I cant tell the difference.
My heaphones are Audio Technica: http://www.audio-technica.com/cms/headphones/e69d047fa2f50ad9/index.html
The tested music was electronic/trance & pop/rock.
In case I later start hearing classic music or jazz, I might do this test again.
Kind regards,
Jan
Message was edited by: Jan Riggert

Syncing Apple Lossless Files As Something Else

Hi all,
I am a proud new iPod Touch owner with 60+GB of lossless music in my itunes library, automatically organised, in ALAC (Apple Lossless) format. As my new iPod only holds 8GB, I would like to sync (as much as possible of) my music to the ipod in 192 or 256kbps, whilst keeping the lossless files as well for playing off my computer. Apart from having two computers with two identical yet distinct libraries, one Lossless and the other not, is this at all possible?
Thanks,
Ross

On-the-fly conversion is only available on the iPod shuffle. The iPod shuffle (probably because of it's limited capacity) has the option to "Convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps AAC". This option is not available for any other model iPod. For the larger iPods the files have to be converted in iTunes first or indeed have to have been imported in a compressed format prior to transfer. so if you want to keep your files in lossless format you would need to make a separate copy of those files in another compressed format if you want to sync those to your iPod. You could use either a separate library to sync the iPod or sync it from a distinct playlist of compressed songs within your existing library:
Using multiple iTunes libraries -Windows
iPod - Syncing Music

Confused about Apple Lossless and m4a files

I have Itunes set to import music files from CD in the "Apple Lossless Encoder" format. I notice that it makes
.m4a files. Are these in fact lossless? Are these mpeg4 files? Is mpeg4 lossless?
Thanks,
John

John,
if you get info on a file it will tell you what kind it is, in this case Apple lossless. The difference between importing a song this way and regular AAC or MP3 is size. Lossless is roughly 10MB per minute, AAC and MP3 is about 1MB per minute, so a 4 minute song lossless is about 40MB compared to 4MB.
By importing a song as lossless, you don't lose any of the song, whereas AAC and MP3 throw out the stuff you don't really need to hear and enjoy the song, thus the reason it is alot smaller in size. You can increase the bit rate that you import your songs in using AAC or MP3, making them larger, but not by much.

AAC, Apple lossless, Mp3,WAV

I used to use AAC now I use Mp3 at 320kbps. What is the best way to import for the best sound quality. I use Serrato Scratch so I usually have to convert some songs when their not in Mp3 format. If anyone has any insight I would greatly appreciate it

AAC and MP3 are comparable in terms of size and quality since AAC is basically the newer version of MP3. They are both lossy and compressed though AAC is a more efficient compression so you should get higher quality at the same bit rate/size when compared to MP3.
Apple Lossless is compressed but, as its name implies, it's lossless meaning it retains all the sound information, whereas AAC and MP3 discard data that is deemed unnecessary by the algorithm.
WAV is essentially a straight copy of the data from the CD.
If disk space is not a concern, Apple Lossless should be the best quality/MB.
If you are concerned about disk space-over absolute quality-go with either AAC or MP3. MP3 is older and more widespread, thus may offer better 3rd party compatibility. AAC, as stated above, is by the same MPE Group and is the new standard created to replace MP3.

WMA lossles to Apple Lossless

I have the same problem and the wish like this guy:
"I’ve also been migrating of my music library from WMV Lossless to AAC Lossless.
I initially tried to drag a big folder full of nested album folders containing WMV Lossless media from a networked drive (SMB) over to iTunes on the Mac, but it did… absolutely nothing. So now, my $700 Dell is cranking away at 95% CPU on both cores, converting a list of more than 5,000 songs, many of which are long, classical tracks. It is maintaining a conversion rate of 11.8x, which Victor says is pretty fast.
At 3am this morning, iTunes had converted more than 3,000 songs in 26 hours when Windows forced a reboot due to software updates. ARGH! So I had to dig around to find the 2,000 songs hadn’t been converted yet and drag them over again. Needless to say, I have disabled Automatic Updates.
Keeping both lossless and compressed versions of music is not easy. I was telling Victor last night that I wished iTunes supported “stacking” of music not unlike what Aperture does with photos. My main music library should be able to track compressed versions alongside lossless versions, or at the very least, have an option to auto-compress when sharing music or transferring music to portable devices (like what iTunes does when you attach a Shuffle). What I want to do is to have access to my lossless media at home and my compressed music on the road."
http://echeng.com/journal/2006/09/13/converting-wma-lossless-to-apple-aac-lossle ss/
is there any hope to have this features ???
I need something like this too
Thank you

Thanks Bottlerboi - a useful distinction between lossless compression for space saving, and lossy compression. I am partly interested in this because of my general interest in hi-fi, and Naim Audio in particular. Naim are just launching a new product which is essentially a CD player with 2 hard drives (albeit one is a back up of the other). The Naim HDX is said to store approximately 600 albums on 400Gb hard drives while making bit-for-bit copies, which I assume from what you have said, to be in WAV format (clearly even Apple Lossless would be many more albums than this). A great piece of kit until they tell you it costs £4,500 sterling...

How can i convert my whole library to flac or apple lossless

how do i convert my whole library to flac or apple lossless?!!?!!?!?!?!

First, FLAC is not supported by iTunes and the same probably applies to the iPod.
Second, are all your files currently in AIFF or WAV format, or on CDs? If you have mp3 files or AAC files the only thing that will happen by you converting them to lossless is you will use up more space for the music with no gain in quality. Quality is lost when you convert to mp3 or AAC and converting it to lossless won't get it back.
It looks like current ipods support Apple Lossless. Still, the whole idea behind ipods is to use compressed format so you can fit on the most music. Read http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=85227
If after doing all that you still want Apple Lossless, you need to set the preferences to ALAC in your iTunes preferences, then convert with the Advanced menu command. Mind you, I use an older iTunes so you may have to explore a bit to find where they have those features now. This conversion will place a copy of the file in iTunes in the new format but also leave the old one there, so you'll need to delete the old ones if you don't want them.
Message was edited by: Limnos

Apple Lossless "ineligible" in iTunes Match

Hi,
so after successfully re-ripping most of my CDs in Apple Lossless and replacing the existing AAC files in my music library (thanks to fabulous Doug's Scripts), I recently purchased some high resolution music files and converted them from FLAC to Apple Lossless. The audio files show and play correctly as "Apple Lossless audio file" at 24-bit and 96k or 192k in iTunes. However, iTunes Match apparently doesn't know how to deal with them.
I searched discussions here and found a number of statements that iTunes Match should read and match music in Apple Lossless, match them with compressed AAC versions and use these compressed versions to play on mobile devices.
Any idea why the high resolution files aren't recognized?
Both albums exist on iTunes and should be matched.

What do you mean by "supported"? Supported to do what? Match it against music that's available on iTunes? Why not? I understand if iTunes Match wouldn't upload files with more than 24/48 resolution for their size. But if the album is known, it wouldn't have to be uploaded to be matched. So why this restriction?
Maybe there's another (technical) reason?

Apple Lossless 24 bit

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