itunes, memory cards & digital frames

[lazygood4nothinbum]

for dad's 80th b-day i got a digital frame which i will load up with all the old family pics my mom kept and that my dad hasn't seen in ages (he disappeared from our lives for many years).

the frame plays music and so i want to download his uncle's music. i've found over two hours of it (42 songs so far), some going back to the very early 1900s, amazing to have the recordings still.

i want to put the music on a memory card which i will then put into the frame so it plays the music of his uncle while he watches photos of him with his children.

only i don't see on itunes an option for downloading onto memory card, just onto disc. i've scanned their help index but do not find reference.

before i pay for the downloads, does someone know for certain if this option is possible? (ps, need this info asap. leaving sunday. thanx)

[Sue J]

I'm thinking that you'll need to know if the picture frame will be able to play the iTunes downloads. ITunes downloads are in encryted AAC format.

My son suggested that if you need more compatible files, buy them from Amazon and they will be .mp3 files. Check what kind of files the picture frame will be able to use.

Whatever you buy, save them to your computer and then copy to the memory card.

[lazygood4nothinbum]

thank you thank you thank you very very much sue. i never would have even considered that. you might have just saved me $42 and a whole bunch of time. just checked the kodak easyshare user's guide and it does mention mp3. i guess it isn't as easyshare as they made it out to be. thanx again. now to find the music.

ps. just checked the all-knowing wiki:

Quote:

iTunes 8 can currently read, write, and convert between MP3, AIFF, WAV, MPEG-4, AAC, and Apple Lossless.

does that mean it can indeed write to my computer the music as mp3's?

edit:

from itunes help...

Quote:

To use custom settings with MP3 encoding: Choose Edit > Preferences and click Import Settings. Choose MP3 Encoder from the Import Using pop-up menu. Choose Custom from the Setting pop-up menu. In the dialog that appears, choose settings:blahblahblah.

i probably shouldn't be doing this at the last minute, huh? meanwhile, i'm sending $42 to sue's son's computer education advanced coursework.

[Jeb-NY]

Yes iTunes can convert many formats to MP3. You can setup the quality of the conversion in the preferences under the advance tab. After you setup the quality you just select the files you want to convert and pull down the Advance menu and select convert selected files to MP3. You may want to put all the files you want to convert into one play list to keep them together. You will end up with duplicate songs, the original format and the MP3 copy.

When I want to move files from iTunes to a memory card I just drag and drop from the iTune list to the memory card. This is assuming you have a reader that mounts the memory card on your computer.

Jeb

[lazygood4nothinbum]

thanx jeb though not quite sure i understood that.

i've upgraded to itunes v8. i went to "edit" then to "preferences" then to the "general" tab then to "import settings" then selected "mp3 encoder" with setting "higher quality".

ah, never mind. i see what you mean. i clicked on a song i previously purchased and under "advance" there is option to "create mp3 version". got it. so it sounds like i should reset import settings to download the highest quality so i can burn some good discs and then convert to mp3 postdownload for memory card for digital frame. got it, i think.

this was a lot easier when i just had to crank the handle to make music. i can't wait to see what pops out of this when i'm done.

[lazygood4nothinbum]

bloodyitunes is starting to piss me off. i've set preference to download in mp3. i'm checking the "get info" on the song before purchase to assure it says "mpeg audio stream" and not "protected a a c audio file". but when i buy it and the song downloads, it downloads as a "protected aac" file which can not be converted to mp3.

this happens with some songs but not all. yet i only want to buy the ones i can have in mp3 for the frame.

ideas?

[Sue J]

Protected aac files can be authorized to another computer by the person who purchased it from iTunes. But it has to be a computer running iTunes. That won't work for your picture frame.

Some songs can be downloaded as "iTunes Plus" songs. Go to the iTunes Store and then under Quick Links on the right click on iTunes Plus. The record label company decides what songs will be available in iTunes Plus, so it's hard to know if the music you need will be included.

I know you are short on time. Do you have any of these songs available on CD? You can "rip" songs from CDs in any format, including .mp3. iTunes does this with no restrictions on sharing/copying/moving files around if it's from a CD.

If you've already purchased them from iTunes you can put them in a playlist, burn them to a CD as an audio CD and then rip .mp3s from the CD.

Little bit of a learning curve, but it will get you the .mp3s you need.

[lazygood4nothinbum]

only have a few songs on some albums. some of it is rather obscure with others quite famous, serious americana. i was stunned to find itunes actually had some which probably haven't been played by just about anyone in two or three generations. some songs sound like they were recorded on a gramophone or sung through a megaphone, all quite nostalgic. how oddly pleasing to hear the crispness of digitized clicks & scratches on those. this is gonna go perfect with the old family pictures.

anyway, love your very clever end-run. will give it a try and if works just go that route for the proprietary downloads i wind up buying. didn't realize this was going to be such a project. b-day isn't for another week so i guess i'll have a hotel room project for my overnight stops through the blue ridge mountains.

thanks again for your help. if i need you further i'll be adding your name to dad's birthday card.

[Bestwifeever]

Lazy our library can get CDs if they don't already have them from other libraries, and it's free--maybe go online to your library's website and see if they can help you out?

[lazygood4nothinbum]

thanx best, hadn't even thought to go there and sort of out of time. in any case, some of this stuff is so old (1910s, 20s & 30s) that i don't know what sort of resource a library's current cd collection might be.

just checked out county library online catalogue out of curiosity. not even finding albums with the tracks i want sung by the major crooners: judy garland, billie holiday, etc. i'm really very impressed with itunes. i hadn't at all expected to find so many of my uncle's songs there. dad is going to be very happy with this.

sue, your end-run conversion method works just as you said. thanx again for your huge help.

[peebee]

if you have any of the old songs on CD's and you have media player or a similar program on your PC you can rip the CD tracks onto your PCs hard drive be sure to set the convert option to MP3 in media player convert them at 128 you can then simply copy them onto your memory card. There are plenty of file sharing sites where you can download MP3's from without mentioning any names I'm sure a search on the internet will throw some up hope it helps best of luck

[Bestwifeever]

Too bad about your library, LG4NB--maybe if you called the library they could get them for you (ours has lots of Garland, Holiday, torch songs both in its collection but also through interlibrary loan)?

Anyway, that is really a great thing you are doing for your father and it sounds like you are having a lot of fun getting it put together (once the tearing out your hair trying to get the files to work part is over, anyway ).