Converting from ALAC to AAC: A question of quality?

I'm trying to back up my music electronically. I have all of my CD's on a rack in my entertainment center. However, I'm upgrading to a flat panel TV (YES!!!) finally, and with my old tube TV, the entertainment center is going, and being replaced by something much smaller.
Anyways, I'd like to make copies of my CDs, so I can store them away in the attic. I was told Apple Lossless is essentially the same as having the actual CD on your computer (so no loss in fidelity at all). However, I was wondering if this is true.
And if it is true, does this mean that I can rip CD's to my external HD in ALAC, and then convert them to AAC without any additional loss of quality??? (i.e. Does converting a song in ALAC format to AAC have the same quality as converting from the actual CD to AAC?)

Any lossless format - Apple Lossless, FLAC, etc., - should be identical to the original in sound quality.
I have found this to be this case in listening tests on fairly high quality stereo equipment. However, the best way to answer your question is to test this yourself. Rip a cd to Apple Lossless, and, I would suggest, to 320 bit AAC, and then see if you can hear a difference between them. I'll bet that you would be hard pressed to hear a difference even at 320 bit. After ripping my cd's I now regard my cd's as my backup, and the digital copies my actual collection, since that's what I actually listen to. So in that sense you always have a perfect backup, as long as you still have the cd.
I frequently convert FLAC's to AAC with outstanding results, and would expect the same with Apple Lossless. I think the bit rate you choose to convert to will be much more significant than whether you
convert from CD or lossless. Again, try it and see if you can hear a difference. (If my memory is correct - not always the case - the lossless format will be decoded first and then will be recoded to AAC - meaning you are essentially creating the AAC files from cd's in either case. Can't find a source on this tho to point you to).
One last thing, is storing them in the attic your only alternative? I just remember storing records in the attic and, well, they just never were the same with the summer heat. Cd's are more durable but I'd still be worried (unless it was a finished attic).

Similar Messages

Converting from MP3 to AAC

Several thousand of my songs are in the MP3 format. My question is twofold: first, is there that big a difference in sound quality between MP3 and AAC? I do not care about space restrictions, as I have plenty of room on my 80GB. Second, if I do begin to cnvert these songs to AAC, is a second copy put on my computer as well as in iTunes? If so, where can I find it, as I cannot find duplicates of the ten or so that I have already converted. Thanks in advance. Just want to know if it worth the time and effort to make the conversion.

Converting creates a second file in the format you are converting to. The original file is not changed so you end up with two copies of the song, once in each format. However it's always preferable to re-rip from the original uncompressed format rather than converting from one lossy format to another.
For reference, you'll get an extensive comparison of the various formats on these pages:
Record Store Review - Quality of AAC v MP3 Part 1
Record Store Review - Quality of AAC v MP3 Part 2

Converting from WAV, or "converting but secretly not converting" from wav to AAC

I got this particular problem I just found out about. I imported a wav file into iTunes, and I assumed that means it gets converted to whatever format I set iTunes up for (in my case AAC). But when I then sync my iPod, I get the message that the file that was originally in WAV, cannot be imported because it is not in a compatible format. Yet the same song plays fine in iTunes. This does not make sense, unless iTunes does NOT convert files you import into the required file standard, but just copies them in, and iTunes happened to be able to play wav files. But then again, if iTunes is compatible with WAV files, why isn't iPod?
Now, I have to add, I have the file already on my computer, so I just drag the wav file into my iTunes. Does that mean iTunes copies the file over to the iTunes library, or does it actually convert it into the file format set up?

As for importing, I assume you refer to importing via drag-dropping files into iTunes? because according to my preferences, when I insert a CD it DOES convert to a particular file type.
Kryn, yes, that is the importing that Dave is referring to. Ripping from CD is a different process.
As far as your WAV file, iTunes and iPod can both play WAV. They are pretty reliable if it is a CD-quality WAV, but sometimes have trouble if it is a low bitrate WAV such as the kind that come out of voice recorders. If that is the problem, use a 3rd party conversion tool such as Switch to convert it to an MP3 or AAC.

How can i convert from alac to mp3 and export to artist/album hierarchy

I am trying to populate a 32GB SD Card with music to listen to in my car. My itunes library is largely in apple lossless format, but the car stereo does not play that format.
I have created a playlist of all of the music I'd like to have on the SD Card (but its in apple lossless format).
So what I'd like to do is:
a)     Bulk convert a large number of apple lossless files to MP3.
b)     Export the MP3 files to an external Finder folder, organized in Artist/Album hierarchy
c)     Delete the MP3 files from the itunes library so as to have just the apple lossless version maintain in the itunes library
Sounds pretty simple, but I'm having a devil of a time trying to figure it out.
I can find a way to do the conversion and export the MP3 files (and subsequently deleted from the itunes library), but they will not be organized by Artist/Album in the Finder folder.
Similarly, I can export a bunch of files from itunes to a Finder folder and have it be organized by Artist/Album.
I just can't do one followed by the other.
I suppose this would also work if instead of exporting the newly created MP3 files, it would establish a new playlist in itunes with these. Then, I could just export them and have them then organized by Artist/Album; and then I could delete all of the MP3 files in the playlist.
Any thoughts or ideas on how to accomplish this goal? (I do know the manual way of doing this, but am trying to figure out a faster, more elegant way).
M

I ask because you wrote, "I just can't do one followed by the other".
You can. Just do one followed by the other.
Convert the files to mp3.
Put them all into a playlist. A smart playlist with Kind is MP3 and added in last one day will do it for you.
Select the songs in teh smart playlist
Run Export to Album Folders script.
Select all the songs in the playlist then Command Delete to remove them from iTunes.

Convert from WAV to AAC from one HD to Another HD

Don't know if this has been answered before but here's my situation. I have all my iTunes music folder in one Hard Drive. All the files are in WAVE format. Now, I want to copy all of the files to an External Hard Drive and in AAC format. How do I do it exactly? Do I Import, Export? O
Windows XP

You can import & convert in one step so only AAC files will be in the new library. No duplicates and nothing to delete.
Copy /Music/iTunes/iTunes media/Music folder to an external.
Connect the external to the other computer.
Open iTunes.
Set your import settings to AAC.
Hold Option, go to File > Create new version - Convert to AAC.
Select the Music folder you copied to the external.
After you are finished, you can delete the /Music/ folder on the external.
Note that this will take some time as it is converting every song file you add.
FYI: You can convert the files directly as they are sync'd to the iPod.
Select the iPod in iTunes.
Click the Summary tab.
Tick Convert higher bit rate songs to {128, 192, 256} kbps AAC.

Converting from MP3 to AAC not working

When I try to convert any of my songs in iTunes I get an error message saying: "An unknown error occurred (0x77686174)." This only happens when trying to convert to AAC. I have tried to convert to AIFF, and Apple Loseless Encoder and it works. I have also tried the default 128kbps and many others. Can anyone help?

When I try to convert any of my songs in iTunes I get an error message saying: "An unknown error occurred (0x77686174)."
hi killbrad!
hmmm. i've seen posts on this topic. see:
http://ipodgarage.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=494&sid=79e818827474b53cfdab3c8b619 aa0e2
i've also seen toonz say (my fault for any misreading of her post) that it's a QT error message saying something like "codec not found". so if the workarounds aren't helpful for you, we could try a careful standalone QT reinstall. see:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=1157322#1157322
keep us posted.
love, b

Converting from Apple Lossless to MP3: loss of quality?

Hi,
I have made the "mistake" of importing dozens and dozens of CD's using the Apple Lossless encoder. Nothing bad about the encoder, on the contrary. But my iPod is now full.
Is there a way I can convert all these tracks to MP3? Will there be a loss of quality from the re-conversion beside the one inherent to MP3? (since we are not starting from the original CD) And will I have to re-create my playlists?
Mmmhhh... doesn't sound too good, right?
Xavier.

Go to Preferences in iTunes. Then go to advanced and importing. In importing change the import using to MP3 encoder.
Quit out of this menu. On the top tool bar you have Advanced and under here you have convert option. If you select the songs that you want to convert and use this convert option they will go to MP3s

AAC-MP3 Question

O.K. here is the situation.
A while ago I converted my whole iTunes library to AAC. I have recently notices how the volume gets quieter on songs when you convert them to AAC. If I take an AAC song (converted from MP3 to AAC) and convert it back to MP3, will it still have the original quality of the MP3 before it was converted to AAC or will have AAC quality in an MP3 format?
Thanks in advance!

In your situation, you should leave the library as is; AAC files usually have better quality than MP3 for the same amount of disk space, but you will only see the quality benefit if you import from a lossless format as opposed to converting MP3 to AAC. AAC files aren't as compatible as MP3 ones.
(36315)

Converting from AAC 320kbps to a lower bitrate

I know its always best to go to the .wav files and start fresh, but I can't seem to find it, so all I have are the AAC 320kbps files. But it's not music that I like enough to let take up that kind of space, so I want to put it down to 160. Any ideas on the best way? I'm just going to convert down to AAC 160 thru iTunes.

Yeah I'm a musician and somewhat of an audiophile, mixed in with a little OCD and wether I can hear it or not my mind will tell the difference! lol
I'm just wondering technically, digitally or whateverally if there is a difference in the file, or if its the same.
lets say going from .wav, which contains 5 units of quality, to 160 which contains 3 units of quality is a step of 2. Now 320 contains 4 units. So is it the same amount of data removed regardless of what the starting point is? Like .wav to 160 is 2 units removed, and going from 320 to 160 is only one unit removed?
In other words will that 160 file taken from 320 be the same as if it was taken from a .wav??
I'm not trying to start some personal banter of who can hear what, I'm just looking for the technical aspects of whats removed when converting file types.
Ideas?
Thanks

Difference between AAC and m4a files, converting from AAC to useable format

Does anyone know the difference between AAC and m4a files? iTunes has an option to use an AAC encoder to compress CD files, but this creates an m4a file not an AAC file. I just got some actual AAC files and iTunes cannot read these, is there a way to convert from AAC to a format that iTunes recognizes? Thanks

iTunes uses AAC data wrapped in an MPEG 4 container file. If you got some *.AAC files, and they're just raw AAC files, then you need to wrap them in an MPEG 4 container. The only way I know to do this is using the foobar 2000 program. You can find more information at http://www.hydrogenaudio.org and http://www.foobar2000.org

ITunes convert to ALAC - is it actual lossless?

So I was rearranging some stuff in iTunes yesterday when I right clicked on some songs I had purchased from the iTunes store and noticed that there was an option to convert to Apple Lossless.
Previously, I had to rerip all my CDs when I made the switch to lossless, and was dissapointed when I saw that all the songs I got from iTunes were 256 kbps, so I was kind of surprised when I saw that option.
Anyways, I got all my iTunes store purchases converted to ALAC (296 songs now takes up 8.5 GB on my iPod O_O ), but I was wondering, either how this conversion is made (wouldn't all the extra data lossless has be lost in the compression?) or is this an actual lossless conversion, or something similar to upscaling vs native resolution (upscale is an attempt at getting the quality of native resolution).
For anybody that knows >_>
Thanks guys.

Yes, they are lossless but what you have now is 256k quality in lossless format -- your upscaling. It is not the same as if you had ripped from full quality CD to lossless. If you convert those losslesss files back to AAC there will be dditional quality loss as there is whenever you convert any audio format to a lossy format. iTunes lets you convert from any format to any other format but that doesn't always mean it makes sense to do so.

TS4124 Hi, do you know how can I upload inelegible songs from itunes to Icloud. They are songs added from original CDs. Another question would be how can I transfer all the music I have in my Ipod Classic to my Itunes or ICloud as I want to back it up.

Hi, do you know how can I upload inelegible songs from itunes to Icloud. They are songs added from original CDs. Another question would be how can I transfer all the music I have in my Ipod Classic to my Itunes or ICloud as I want to back it up.

Depends on why it's ineligible. If it's under 96 Kpbs, try right-clicking on the file and choosing Create AAC Version. (If you don't see this option, go to iTunes>Preferences, click "Import Settings..." then choose "Import Using: AAC Encoder" and "Setting: iTunes Plus".) Then rescan your library to see if this version will add to iTunes Match. Or, after changing your import setting, just re-import the song to your iTunes library.
If the song is over 200 MB you would have to reduce it's size to make it eligible.

Applescript to convert from AW6 spreadsheets to Excel

I have an iMac (iMac12,2) running OS 10.9.1 with applications of Pages’09 (4.3), Pages (5.0.1), Numbers’09 (2.3) and Numbers (3.0.1) available.
One of my laptops is a MBA (MacBookAir1,1) that I have kept at 10.6.8 with applications Appleworks (6.2.2) and Appleworks (6.6.9) available.
Recently, I converted many CWWP documents from AW6 into Pages. This was done on the iMac with an Applescript that copied a file (AnyDocumentCWWP) to the desktop as a file named AWV6, opened AWV6 with Pages’09, saved the result as AWV6.Pages, applied the creation date and modify dates of the original to AWV6.Pages, moved the new AWV6.Pages to the original directory and moved the original file to the trash, renamed AWV6.Pages to the original filename (excluding extension). The Pages version of the original document does not preserve the formatting of the CWWP, but the content was now discoverable with Spotlight. Since I was primarily concerned with the content, I would consider the conversion effort successful enough.
I performed the same sort of process on the iMac with CWSS documents converting from AW6 into Numbers. Here the results were less successful. I discovered that many of the converted spreadsheets had cells where the cell contained the last calculated value in substitute for the formula originally present -or- Numbers was unable to open the CWSS spreadsheet due to size limitations. Neither problem occurs when the file is converted on the MBA by Appleworks into an Excel format. For those CWSS files that did not properly convert to Numbers, I would like to perform a conversion to Excel.
When a given spreadsheet is manually opened on the MBA with either version of Appleworks, one can “Save as” using several formats of Excel. That operation will preserve the formula which cannot be recognized in Numbers’09. An example of this issue is when a spreadsheet has a cell that contains a formula with the function “ISNUMBER”. When I manually open a CWSS in Appleworks (either 6.2 version), I can Save As Excel Win 97 … or Excel Mac 98 … creating an XLS file that preserves the formula.
I have attempted two techniques with Applescript to be able to convert my CWSS documents into XLS format. Neither seem to work.
The first technique is very similar to a few lines extracted from a canned script found on http://macscripter.net/viewtopic.php?id=8296 the relevant code is:
set theSprTranslator to "Excel Win 97, 2000, XP 2002 spr"
tell application "System Events" to set mfpath to get path of disk item ("~/desktop/" as string)
set newfile to (mfpath & "AWV6" as string)
set NewFilename to AWV6XLS
tell application "AppleWorks 6"
    activate
    open newFile -- alias reference is ok
    save using translator theSprTranslator with NewFilename and replace
    close front document without saving
end tell
When this did not work, I attempted a scripted GUI solution as a second option. The GUI code I had found at http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17348326/applescript-to-save-an-appleworks-do cument-wont-compile-end-tell-vs-end-easy is:
tell application "System Events"
         tell process "AppleWorks"
                 click menu item "Save As…" of menu "File" of menu bar 1
                 click menu button "File Format" of window "Save : AppleWorks 6"
                 click menu item "Excel Mac 5 spreadsheet" of menu 1 of menu button "File Format" of window "Save : AppleWorks 6"
                 keystroke return
         end tell
end tell
Unfortunately there is no “File Format” menu button, after a bit of further research, I discovered UI Browser and wrote my own Applescript equivalent:
set mytempwork1 to AWV6
set theSprTranslator to “Excel Win 97, 2000, XP 2002 spr”
tell application "Finder" to open file (mytempwork1 as string) of the desktop
tell application "System Events"
    tell process "AppleWorks"
        click menu item "Save As…" of menu "File" of menu bar 1
        tell text field 1 of window "Save : AppleWorks 6"
            set value to "XX" & mytempwork1
        end tell
        click pop up button 1 of group 1 of window "Save : AppleWorks 6"
        click menu item theSprTranslator
        —click radio button 2 of group 1 of window "Save : AppleWorks 6"
        —delay 3
        —click radio button 1 of group 1 of window "Save : AppleWorks 6"
    end tell
end tell
tell application "System Events"
    tell process "AppleWorks"
        delay 10 — <<<<<IF YOU CLICK ON THE BUTTON WHILE IN THIS DELAY, THE SCRIPT WILL BEHAVE PROPERLY
        click button "Save" of window "Save : AppleWorks 6"
        delay 1
    end tell
end tell
This GUI script behaves almost as I would like. It seems to ignore the setting of the “pop up button 1” unless I actually intervene while the script is running and I click on the button. When I do so, the script runs as intended.
Is there a way to force Appleworks to recognize the Applescripted value of the “clicked” menu item?

Hello
As far as I know, there's no need to resort to GUI scripting. The problem in exporting in AppleScript is that AppleWorks 6 only accepts typeChar (TEXT) data as translator name while AppleScript string has become always being represented as typeUnicodeText (utxt) since OS X 10.5. This makes passing translator name to save command difficult but there's a workaround method as shown in the sample code below. The |TEXT|() handler does the job. Tested with AppleWorks 6.2.4 under 10.6.8.
main()
on main()
    set export_translator to "Excel Mac 98, 2001 spreadsheet"
        "Excel Mac 5 spreadsheet"
        "Excel Mac 98, 2001 spreadsheet"
        "Excel Win 5 spreadsheet"
        "Excel Win 97, 2000, XP 2002 spr"
    set export_translator_TEXT to my |TEXT|(export_translator)
    set src to (path to desktop)'s POSIX path & "in.cwk"
    set dst to (path to desktop)'s POSIX path & "out.xls"
    set srca to src as POSIX file as alias
    set dsta to touch(dst) as POSIX file as alias
    tell application "AppleWorks 6"
        --return export translators
        open srca
        tell document 1
            if document kind = spreadsheet document then
                save in dsta using translator export_translator_TEXT
            end if
            close saving no
        end tell
    end tell
end main
on touch(f)
    do shell script "touch " & f's quoted form
    return f
end touch
on |TEXT|(u)
        string u : source text
        return data : «data TEXT...» representing u converted to MACROMAN encoding
    do shell script "u=" & u's quoted form & "; printf '%s' \"$u\" | iconv -f UTF-8 -t MACROMAN | xxd -p"
    run (run script "
script
    «data TEXT" & result & "»
end script")
end |TEXT|
Hope this helps,
H

Convert from PSE10 to Lightroom - metadata concerns

After one too many frustrations with PSE, I've been looking for an alternative program. I don't care about editing - metadata (Organizer type features) are my focus. I looked at a few non-Adobe programs - a big problem with them is I can't import my PSE10 catalog, with 12,000 photos. On the PSE forum, the most common advice was to go to Lightroom, so I was holding out hope for that. However, I've played with the LR 5 trial for half a day now, and as far as I can tell, it doesn't make good use of the PSE catalog either! This is very disappointing for me, but I'm wondering if some of you folks can show me things I'm missing.
I'm looking into to converting from PSE10 to LR 5 on a Windows 7 machine. I have about 12,000, half TIFs from scanned images and half JPGs from digital cameras. As I said, I only care about metadata management. My focus is genealogy, so getting the original dates of scanned pictures captured is very important, and these often are only roughly known.
My main issue is that it seems to me that LR is taking the metadata from the photo files, not the catalog. I used the LR feature "Upgrade Photoshop Elements Catalog". The reason I say this is for two reasons:
(1) When PSE10 writes tags to files, it adds to any tags that are already there. So although PSE10 shows only the updated set of tags in the GUI, the photo files have both old and new tags. After doing the LR Upgrade PSE Catalog, I'm seeing old and new tags. It appears to be ignoring what is in the catalog and looking at the file. (As far as I know, the old tags are not present in the PSE catalog anymore, so it can't be looking at the converted catalog.)
(2) PSE10 allow you to tag photos with incomplete dates (e.g. no time, no day and/or no month). But if PSE10 has an incomplete date, it won't write it to the file (very annoying for working with historical photos). But LR does not show these partial dates, it only shows complete dates. In this case, I'm not sure if LR is showing the metadata in the photo files, or if it dropped the PSE10 catalog date info during the "Upgrade".
So my main question is, am I missing something with regards to the import, or am I correct in my impression that this "Upgrade PSE Catalog" isn't doing much of anything? (ExifTool shows all the metadata in the photo files -- much more complete than LR for that matter -- so what am I gaining by importing the PSE catalog into LR?)
A couple other miscellaneous questions if I may:
-- In PSE10, there is a notes field in the metadata, which goes into XMP-album in the photo files. Does LR not support this? As far as I can tell, LR supports only a few XMP namespaces, with no support for others.
-- In LR in the Folder pane, I have no scroll bar, so I can only see the first few entries. This seems to be a serious bug to me. Or am I missing something?
-- It appears in LR that one cannot show your entire catalog in the main pane sorted by folder then by file name. Is this correct? (This also seems to be a major drawback to me!)
-- When I try to change the date of a photo (Edit Capture Time in LR), it forces you to enter a complete date/time, unlike PSE10. Overall, it is much easier to manage these dates in PSE, it seems. Does LR handle incomplete dates to any level?
-- When I did my PSE import/"Upgrade", it assigned the wrong file names to some of my photos (it used file names from other photos in the catalog). Is this a known issue?
I imagine I have a very unusual vantage point, but at this point it seems that PSE is far superior to LR! And I'm not happy with PSE10!! Anyways, thanks in advance for your input. Sorry about the long post - wasn't sure if I should divide it up or not.
Bill

This is a reply to the post from John R. Ellis...
You mentioned "Adobe has never bothered to fix...". Note that the last post by Michel B in this thread
http://www.elementsvillage.com/forums/showthread.php?t=78779&page=2
indicates that PSE11 can handle this.
You say "After importing.... I used ExifTool to append..." Did you do this file by file, or with a script? A Perl script? (The reason I ask is that I would have to learn Perl, so I would have to decide how much this means to me...)
Regarding your suggestion to use fake dates
"(e.g. "1970" => "1/1/1970 00:00:00")"
I've been aware of this since I read it in your psedbtool material a year or two ago, but I've resisted making such changes. When dealing with historical photos, you want the ambiguity. In fact, you'd like to use things like "About 1970" and such. I wish the photo metadata community would get on board with that.
Regarding your point about catalog conversion, for me it sounds like it would be just as good to import the photo files directly. (Better for me, I think, since converting the catalog seems to lose the folder hierarchy in the LR Folder view for some reason. However, if I'm going to import the photo files directly, then LR has no advantage for me over any other program that I can see. The ExifTool GUI utility does a much better job with the metadata in general - the key drawback for me being the fact that you have to type out the keywords each time you want to add one to photo. Looking at the ACDSee Pro trial, that appears to handle metadata better than any of the Adobe products - the critical drawback being that it uses its proprietary XMP namespaces, meaning interoperability issues. LR has drawbacks for me, such as not being able to sort by folder than filename in the main view pane and the lack of support for other XMP namespaces (and the Folder pane scrollbar thing). So at this point I'm in a state of depression. As far as I can tell, I only have a partial solution to my problems - upgrade from PSE10 to PSE11. Truly a depressing notion!!

Why will CS4 not open DNG files converted from Olympus E-M1 raw files?

For several years I have been able to use the DNG Converter to convert .ORF raw files from my Olympus E-M1 and then open them for processing in CS4. Suddenly CS4 quit recognizing these DNG files saying "Photoshop could not complete your request because Photoshop does not recognize this type of file"
I have not changed any preferences. I'm using E-M1 v3.0, DNG Converter v8.3.0.141 on a Mac. I have deleted DNG converter several times, even reinstalled an earlier version but nothing changes.
However, CS4 will open DNG files converted from Pentax raw .PEF files from my K-5. Weird. It's the Olympus raw DNG conversions that won't open.
I can view the DNG converted files in question in Mac's Preview just fine but not CS4. Any ideas will be appreciated.

Be sure the DNG Converter's compatibility is set to provide support for your version of ACR:
Benjamin

Converting from ALAC to AAC: A question of quality?

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