Syncing with 128 kbps conversion

Whenever I try to sync my playlist, I have around 50 songs that somehow don't make it. I always get an error pop-up after: "iTunes could not copy "[Song Name]" to the iPhone "[iPhone]" because the file could not be converted."
I have it set so that files will be converted to 128 kbps when they're transferred over, and they sync from a specified playlist. Almost all the files that can't be converted are MPEG files...does anyone know why this isn't working out?
Thanks in advance.

For what it's worth, I have the same problem. I get that same message for 27 songs. No idea how to fix it, though I've fished around on the web a bit.
Sorry I can't be more helpful.

Similar Messages

"high-quality" of 128 kbps versus higher rates

In a previous discussion a user was asking re difference between different bit
rates one answer clearly expressed dissatisfaction with 128 kbps for music such as instrumental and for music that is intended for streaming to a good stereo.
wondering if other users have a similar experience -- I am in the process of
importing a huge number of files and I wonder if its worth going to the higher
rate for all of my favourites.
I have a lot of space at the moment on my hard drive but I don't want to waste it if I don't get much improvement in quality. Unfortunately I can't test
it right now because I don't have a decent stereo system yet.

This was originally posted by the incredible Sparky the wUnderdog with help from MacMuse:
As a general principle, you can fit more CD's on your iPod if you encode at lower bitrates (making smaller files), but at the cost of audio quality. Apple Lossless promises to capture all the data on the original CD (thus preserving quality) but coded so the file takes half the space. MP3 and AAC (an implementation of variable bit rate MP4) both eliminate some of the information on the CD in order to compress the digital recording into ever smaller files--the lower the bitrate, the smaller the file, but smaller files mean more information lost and consequent poorer sound quality.
AAC files ripped in iTunes certainly sound better than its MP3's, with audio quality close to the best LAME MP3's at higher bitrates. With the type of music I listen to most often, sound quality declines substantially as bitrates fall below 256kbps, but LAME or AAC @ 256kbps sounds pretty darned good, and at 320kbps LAME alt-preset-insane is amazingly faithful to the original. However, many users claim that with the music they listen to they can't hear the difference between 192 or even 128 kbps files and the original CD source, so they naturally choose lower bitrates to fit more "songs" on their iPods.
CDs take approximately 10MB per minute of music; Apple Lossless takes 5MB/minute; LAME insane takes 2.5MB/min; AAC or MP3 at 256kbps take 2MB/min; and iTunes Store files (AAC@128kbps) take 1MB/min. At these rates, a 20GB iPod (really 18.6GB) can hold anywhere from 30 hours to over 300 hours of music. (iPod marketers express this potential playback capacity as "songs," figuring 4 minutes per song--thus 300 hours at 128kbps = 4500 "songs.") You will need to listen to samples ripped with different bitrates and codecs to determine the optimum tradeoff point for you between quality and quantity. It's worth taking some time to do this at the start as it sure beats reripping everything in your collection 2 or 3 times to get it right later.
So far as convenience goes, nothing beats iTunes's one-step process. To change bitrate as you import from CD, go to the iTunes menu>Preferences, select the Importing tab, choose AAC or MP3 encoder in the "import using" selection box, then choose "Custom" in the "setting" box, and the window permitting bitrate selection will pop up. If you choose iTunes MP3 encoder, at least use VBR (variable bit rate) to maximize the sound quality. (VBR increases sample size as data complexity increases.)
If you would prefer LAME MP3's, fear not, for the easy-to-use CDex ripping software is a free download and requires only one simple extra step to get the files into iTunes for transfer to your iPod. Now if AAC sound quality is comparable to LAME MP3, you might wonder why you should even consider LAME: Because of portability to other devices. At present, hardly anything but iPods can read AAC's or Apple Lossless, but almost everything reads MP3's. So if you plan to burn CD's of your compressed files for playback on your home or car CD player (for instance), it would be wise to choose MP3.
One other consideration specific to the iPod- It has a 32MB cache (If you don't know what a cache is, read the last paragraph of this page: iPod + iPod Mini- Batteries). Keep individual file sizes below 25 MB as the rest of the 32 MB memory holds the iPod's Opperating System. If you choose a compression rate that results in large files (i.e. Lossless), then the cache won't hold very much 'music' and the hard drive will have to spin up frequently to fill it, and that will shorten your battery life somewhat.
Edited by The Mimico Kid

If I convert the songs on my iPhone to 128 kbps, will the play counts still sync with what's on my computer?

If I convert the songs on my iPhone to 128 kbps, will the play counts still sync with what's on my computer? I have a lot of songs on my iPhone which are at the 256 kbps bitrate, and if I take them down to 128 kbps on my iPhone, I'll be able to fit a lot more music on my iPhone. But...I really would like to keep the play counts between my iPhone and my Mac in sync. Will that still happen if I switch, or will there be an issue?

Anybody?

Higher Bitrates Conversion while Sync with iPhone4

Hi dear all,
it's possible make higher bitrates Conversion while sync?
I have about 110GB of Apple Lossless music in the iTunes,
and only need to sync with my iPhone for around 256kbps,
the current option is only one choose: 128kbps.
Does Apple make support for it?
Many Thanks

Hi,
Got the same issues when using the conversion to 128kbps.
Everything is fine when the bitrate is already 128 or without using the conversion.
NB : I don't have the issue with my old iPod nano when using this option, so maybe it's an iOS issue.
-Z-

"Convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps AAC" doesn't allow full fill

Hi,
The 128 kbps option does indeed shrink the size of the songs on my 3GS iPhone when using iTunes 9.1, but it won't let me fill it up it and complains that I have more music than can fit. I have been playing with this and for test purposes have 3 playlists. I am able to sync the first 2 and have >15GB free. I add the 3rd playlist which has only 8 GB in it and the sync fails saying that there isn't enough room. I have tried rebooting the iPhone and the Mac Pro both of which are on the latest version/service pack of their respective OS's.
The only thing that I might have that is non-standard, is that some reasonable portion of my music is encoded at 320 kbps rather than 256 kbps.
Anyone have any idea what is happening?
--Jonathan

Try redownloading iTunes from www.apple.com/itunes. It will show that you are still downloading/installing version 9.1.1 but it is build 12, instead of buill 11. This new build wasn't in Software Update but version 9.1.1 (11) had issues with this conversion to 128 kbps. Version 9.1.1 (12) fixes it.

Converting to 128 kbps

In iTunes 9.03, if you have an iPod, you can choose to convert all higher bit rates to 128 kbps, so you can put more songs on your iPod. What I want to know is: does this conversion affect the actual file, or converts iTunes it specially for the iPod (so the file on your Mac, with the higher bit rate, isn't gone)?

After much testing, I have, to my satisfaction, verified that there is a problem with iTunes 9.1.1 (11) new [Convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps AAC] function. After enabling the function for the first time, and all songs had been converted, I discovered that all songs with lyrics had been REMOVED from my iPod touch (64GB 3rd Generation). Thereafter, at EVERY sync, the SAME songs were "updated" but never showed up on the iPod.
I removed the lyrics from the songs, re-synced, and the songs were transferred to the device.
I then added-back the lyrics and synced the device. The songs were then placed on the iPod WITH the lyrics but the songs are now, again, re-updating (each song) at EVERY sync.
I plan to wait until an update to iTunes is released. If this issue is not corrected after that, I will RESTORE the device and report back.

ITunes won't synch 80 songs at 128 kbps despite having 5.5 GB of space on iPod. iTunes or iPod error?

My 4th gen 30 GB iPod has 5.5 GB of space on it (this is what iTunes says before I hit sync). I want to add about 80 songs to be automatically downconverted to 128 kbps. When I try to update iPod, iTunes indicates iPod is overcapacity by over 19 GB and won't add new songs. Something is not right with either iTunes or iPod. Is anyone else having the same problem?
All I have is music on the iPod. No apps, no games, no movies, just music.
I just subscribed to iTunes Match. Could this be the reason why this is happening? Is anyone else having the same problem?

I'm having similar problems. Up until 4 May 2009 when I installed Windows 7 RC1 on it, I had one XP SP3 PC which was running iTunes properly and syncing and autofilling my iPod shuffle. The laptop described below no longer let me run or re-install itunes on it since I upgraded it to XP SP3. When I switched to Windows 7 RC1 on the XP desktop that was running iTunes properly, I was able to re-authorize that PC for iTunes 8.1 (64 bit) but after that, could not sync nor autofill, nor restore the ipod, but I could buy songs and play all my songs under Windows 7 RC1. Yesterday (Friday 15 May 2009) I got a new HP Compaq 6735s 2 GB RAM 160 MB HD, Vista Home Basic laptop and today installed a fresh download of iTunes 8.1 on it. Now that laptop won't let me even authorize iTunes on it. Any time I do anything in iTunes that involves contacting the web, it comes back with unknown error -3212 unable to contact server. This comes up when I try to authorize, and when I try to play some of my purchased songs on the laptop -- it demands that I authorize the laptop then tells me I can't (error -3212). Also when I try to restore the ipod, I get the same -3212 error trying to get to the update server. I turned off both the windows firewall and stopped the McAfee firewall but that didn't help. I renamed the Hosts file also without result. There doesn't appear to be a tech support email address or trouble reporting web form that can be used to report this and the search and troubleshooting FAQs on the itunes website seem to be pretty useless in resolving this. The phone numbers are either sales related or they want $59 an incident to give me a call back. Seems like Apple is drifting into the Yahoo and Google approach to tech support -- basically, "discuss your problems among yourselves, suckers, we're too busy raking in the cash to bother with your problems."

IPad Won't Sync with MKV to MP4 720p Videos

I converted some mkv files (1280x720p x264, AC3) to mp4 using QuickTime 7 and Perian by exporting to mp4 with the video set to pass thru, and the audio set to AAC 160 Kbps 48 kHz. ITunes won't let them sync with my iPad, but it doesn't tell me why. One possible issue is that the atom (something I know nothing about) has been reported as having a length larger than the whole file by another program. Is there something I can change with my conversion method or an application on the Mac that will repair the atom?
Thank you

I converted some mkv files (1280x720p x264, AC3) to mp4 using QuickTime 7 and Perian by exporting to mp4 with the video set to pass thru, and the audio set to AAC 160 Kbps 48 kHz.
Are you actually trying to determine the cause of the problem or just end up with a playable file? If the latter, then don't pass through the video unless you are certain it meets the Main Profile @ L3.1 (or under) standard. Otherwise, re-compress both video and audio to supported standards as specified on the Apple web site or use any compatible QT or third-party preset you may prefer.
If trying to determine the actual problem here, then download and use one of the various movie info utilities that will allow you to examine the various settings used to encode the source video track to specifically include the profile and level used and see if they comply with ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group standards. Many non-Apple custom encoded source files may either be encoded using profiles/levels exceeding iPad limits, employ hybridized or mixed encodings features drawn from multiple profiles/levels, or simply require a third-party decoder like those included in the Perian component package for playback and which, of course, are not available in the iPad firmware OS. Basically, when you pass the video data through without confirming its compatibility, you do so at your own risk.

Audio/video sync with h.264 - players affected

Hi there,
I've been trying to do a sound mix in Audition CC and have been sent a video reference (h.264/AAC). I noticed the audio going out of sync with the video and so checked the file in a few players (PotPlayer, VLC, Quicktime). I found video was also lagging behind the audio with all these players so I was about to contact the person who sent me the clip but decided to do one more test. Weirdly, in Window Media Player the video stays in sync all the way through!
I understand this means that my problem's more to do with my system than Audition, but I find this problem occurs sometimes in Premiere with other source clips too and instead of tweaking it to work temporarily as usual I really want to get to the bottom of it.
I tried using AME to encode to different codecs and have tried uncompressed video and audio. This makes no difference, and I imagine that's because all my Adobe software is using a dodgy codec to read the video, could this be the case?
Has anyone else had an issue like this? And why is Windows Media Player suddenly the only thing immune to this problem?
Here's the mediainfo for the clip in question, thanks for any help!
Format                                   : MPEG-4
Format profile                           : QuickTime
Codec ID                                 : qt
File size                                : 144 MiB
Duration                                 : 24mn 38s
Overall bit rate                         : 817 Kbps
Encoded date                             : UTC 2014-01-22 15:04:01
Tagged date                              : UTC 2014-01-23 19:33:59
Writing library                          : Apple QuickTime
©TSC                                     : 2500
©TSZ                                     : 100
Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : [email protected]
Format settings, CABAC                   : No
Format settings, ReFrames                : 2 frames
Codec ID                                 : avc1
Codec ID/Info                            : Advanced Video Coding
Duration                                 : 24mn 38s
Bit rate                                 : 683 Kbps
Width                                    : 854 pixels
Height                                   : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 25.000 fps
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.067
Stream size                              : 120 MiB (84%)
Language                                 : English
Encoded date                             : UTC 2014-01-22 15:04:00
Tagged date                              : UTC 2014-01-22 15:04:06
Color primaries                          : BT.709
Transfer characteristics                 : BT.709
Matrix coefficients                      : BT.709
Audio
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : AAC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile                           : LC
Codec ID                                 : 40
Duration                                 : 24mn 38s
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 128 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L R
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 21.7 MiB (15%)
Language                                 : English
Encoded date                             : UTC 2014-01-22 15:04:00
Tagged date                              : UTC 2014-01-22 15:04:06
Other
ID                                       : 3
Type                                     : Time code
Format                                   : QuickTime TC
Duration                                 : 24mn 38s
Time code of first frame                 : 00:00:00:00
Time code settings                       : Striped
Language                                 : English
Encoded date                             : UTC 2014-01-22 15:04:00
Tagged date                              : UTC 2014-01-22 15:04:06

Hi,
When encoding live in H264 with the FP 11 then playing it live on another client (through FMS r) the video sometimes (1/3 of times) has major skips or jerks. It's almost as if the video goes back to some older keyframes and then returns to live. Same experience with non-h264 produces smooth video.
If the server (FMS ) records the video, the replay looks smooth, which is strange because I would have assumed the FP was not encoding well with H264.
Has anyone had this issue? please reply
Thank you.

HT1535 How do i convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps AAC

I am trying to sync selected songs to my Iphone 5 from my itunes library. I have recently taken my computer to be fixed and all of my music documents were taken off but the files were replaced shorty after. I re-downloaded itunes and it is up to date. My iphone is also on the ios 7.0.4. Whenever i plug my phone in to be synced it never goes past the "waiting for changes to be applied" step. While my phone was still connected i went to the "On this iphone" tab and clicked the autofill button and a message came up that said i must convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps ACC to allow the songs to be copied to my iphone. How do i do this? Also, once this is done will it solve my problem with transfeering my songs from my library to my iphone?

Sid,
With the device connected, click the Summary tab and you will see the "Convert higher bit rate..." option. Set it to 128. See picture below:

Using the "Convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps AAC" feature...

I recently discovered the "Convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps AAC" feature and used it to copy my entire 70 GB music library to my 64GB iPad. The music library now occupies only 45 GB. Awesome!!!
Unfortunately, the whole process took well over 24++ hours on my quad core Windows 7 computer (takes about 6 seconds per track). Questions:
1. Is it possible to speed up the process? Even though I am using iTunes 64-bit version, it seems that at no point is more than a single core being used at 33%. Seems to me like overall 8% of the CPU (33% / 4) capacity is being used for the conversion and 92% is being left idle. Is this just bad programming or is there anything I can do to speed up the process? Others see similar problems?
2. Now I have already started dreading the day, I need to restore my iPad (e.g., when OS version 4 becomes available). I would hate to have to do this process all over again. Should I need to restore my iPad, is there anyway I can force iTunes to back up the 128-bit AAC versions on my computer and restore it up from there?
Any insights into both these questions will be deeply appreciated.
Cheers,

ed2345 wrote:
malus_domestica wrote:
Thanks for the response.
So, I am wondering why iTunes uses only 8% of the processor power in converting the songs.
Possible reasons not to grab more of the CPU power (1) maybe the process is I/O bound due to all the writing, and is not processor limited? (2) since conversion is almost always a background program, and the user will typically have other things going on, maybe it intentionally limits CPU use?
I ran a few quick experiments (out of curiosity) and think the answer is #2. No apparent technical reason but potentially a limitation introduced by Apple's engineers to maintain a good user experience (for some people at least). I fired up 4 instances of dbpoweramp and ran multiple conversions and found that the process goes faster than what iTunes can do by an order of magnitude. With luck, someday Apple will have an option for users to select how much of processor bandwidth to be allocated for the conversion.

Free books don't sync with iPod

Why won't free books sync with my iPod? I don't have any issue with paid books. Any ideas why this is happening?
Thanks for the help.

When the Sync finishes, do you see a message telling you that "some videos" have not been transferred to your iPod because they cannot be played on this iPod? If so, then those videos are not in a format that the iPod can recognise.
One reason (but not the only one) is if they are HD videos, which iPods cannot play. In this case, look for the non-HD version of the Podcast if there is one and download that instead.
If HD is not the problem, perhaps they are in one of the MP4 format variations that do not play on the iPod. Below is the spec for videos that iPod Classic can handle, as quoted on the Classic Technical Specs pages:
Video
* H.264 video, up to 1.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Low-Complexity version of the H.264 Baseline Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats;
H.264 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Baseline Profile up to Level 3.0 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats;
MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats
So if the videos are not in one of theose formats, they will not play and therefore not be transferred to the iPod.
You could try selecting the video in your iTunes library and clicking on *Advanced/Create iPod or iPhone version* but each conversion take a long time and it isn't always successful.
Good luck,
Phil

What does convert higher bit rates songs to 128 kbps mean

what does convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps mean?

pattyfromsyracuse wrote:
what does convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps mean?
Some people, myself included, import their music from original audio CDs. When doing so I choose to import using Apple Lossless format so as to keep the full original quality of the audio CDs (this is after all why it is called Apple Lossless format in that you are not losing any quality).
The drawback of doing this is that the music files take a lot more disk space than a lossy format like MP3 or AAC. This is these days not a problem on a computer as hard disk space is now cheap an plentiful but it can be a problem on a flash memory based music player like the iPod Shuffle, iPod Nano, iPod Touch, or iPhone as these have far less capacity.
Therefore Apple now let you turn on this option to automatically convert from Apple Lossless to AAC when syncing to one of these music players. As a result on your computer the music is still kept in the full lossless high quality format, but is converted and transferred as a much smaller but slightly lower quality for use on these music players. As with an iPod you are not listening in a quiet room with high quality speakers you will not really notice the difference in quality.

Automatically syncing with music stored on external drive?

I most of my music on an external drive. The drive isn't always connected to the PC. Prior to iTunes 9.1 I could have iTunes automatically sync the music to my iPhone. If the external drive was disconnected iTunes would simply ignore the missing files and leave them on the phone.
With iTunes 9.1 (and 9.2) I now check the "Convert higher bit rate songs to 128 Kbps AAC" option. When I first used this I found that if I synced my phone with the external drive disconnected, it would remove all the music files from the phone that were stored on the external drive and had been converted to 128 Kbps. That was extremely annoying to say the least so I set iTunes to sync manually to prevent that from happening. I read there was a bug in the original iTunes 9.1 that caused iTunes to always try and sync 128 Kbps converted files every time which could explain why they were being deleted, but I never tried again after upgrading.
Yesterday I clicked to sync books to my iPhone, not realizing that it would wipe out all music, movies and TV from my iPhone. Again very annoying. I went to manually sync them back and noticed my Genius mixes won't sync and I read that they only sync if auto-sync is enabled.
My question is, is there an easy way to keep my music files on an external drive, automatically, sync and have them covert to 128 Kbps without having to worry about all my music being wiped off the phone if the drive is disconnected at the time iPhone syncs?

I don't believe you can do that. The convert to 128 bit only converts the songs being written to the iPod. Every time you play a song it changes (the play count goes up) so iTunes is going to go try to find those and update them every time it syncs.
I am able to disconnect my external that holds my movies and the movies remain but those are not being converted. I think that is where the problem is.
Good luck!

I have two iphones in my house hold one syncs with my MAC Itunes the other doesn't is there a setting that casues the Iphone to stops syncing with Itunes?

I have two iphones in my house hold one syncs with my MAC Itunes the other doesn't is there a setting that casues the Iphone to stops syncing with Itunes?

You need to start over with Music. On the iPhone Music screen uncheck sync music. Also, on the Summary screen uncheck "Manually manage music and videos", then sync and it should clear off your phone.
Next, choose the music you want to sync. If you want to fit more on check "Convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps AAC". This will reduce quality slightly, but it won't be noticable unless you are using $300 headphones.

Syncing with 128 kbps conversion

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