Converting .mov songs to iPod compatible files

turn2

turn2

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I have various .mov songs, freebies, samples and live music, that I have accumulated online. I have these songs scattered through various playlists in iTunes and they play just fine. However, whenever I sync my iPod I get the "blah, blah, blah, could not be...because it will not play on an iPod", or something along those lines. Anyway, those .mov tunes do not get loaded on my iPod. Is anyone familiar with an app that would convert these files to .mp3 or other compatible file type? I haven't had success using QT Pro and any help would be much appreciated.
 
Try The QuickTime Player again - you should be able to go File->Export->Sound to AIFF - boom - sound file ready for import back into iTunes. This will be a long-winded process do do manually on a large number of file (unless you know some scripting) but its much faster than real time (under 15secs for my test file - a three minute .mov file from iTMS).

AudioHijack is a great solution for real time encoding of tricky streaming media but not a good solution in this case. (Oh and it's great if you like to compress and otherwise post-process audio before it hits your speakers - I used to love the excitifier for adding a bit of depth the crappy low-bit rate internet radio.)

By the way you might want to consider using a lossless codec on these files rather that mp3 or aac. At least double check, using a couple of test files, that you are happy with the result of different lossy codecs. The more times audio is encoded with these kinds of codecs the worse it gets.

Gabs
 
Hmmm, I haven't seen Audio Hijack in any of my searches and I'm not sure it's what I'm looking for. The only app I've found that may do what I want is called mAC3dec. Any experience anyone? I'll try that tonight.

Also the .mov --> .aiff --> something else via QT Pro looks like an option I should explore again. Either way this could get time consuming.
 
Hi Bob - could you please expand - I'll be "darned" if I can find how to get my copy of Audio Hijack Pro to convert a .mov file to an audio file without having to play it in real time.

Gabs

[note to censors: sorry but I though that I'd self censored enough by the careful use of asterisks. Aparently this is still too much - that's fine and I now know better - but please don't try to make me look like more of an idiot than I already am by just cutting text. Not much difference - but you took the sense away by removing the "I'll be" as well as the "profanity".]
 
mAC3dec versiontracker link does indeed convert my .mov audio files to .mp3 files, and quite efficiently. And for free, no less. So far, so good. Now I'll see how they sound, then if they'll actually load onto the iPod.
 
So far this is what I have learned. You can't tell by looking at the file type whether or not a song will play on an iPod. I have one playlist alone where 37 out of 82 songs will not load on the 'pod. For the life of me I don't know why. Anyone know of a song sniffer that can tell the difference?

Second, you can't appreciate what a convoluted mess an iTunes music folder becomes until you try to track some of these things down. I guess it's not a real BIG deal for me that I can't play these songs. Many of them were free anyway. But my iPod has definitely lost some of its aura for me after this escapade.
 
Do a "Get Info" on the song while it's highligted in iTunes by pressing Command-I. In the first tab ("Summary"), look under the "Kind:" tag -- if it's not an AAC (Protected or Unprotected), MPEG Audio File, AIFF, WAV, or Audible, it probably won't play on the iPod.

You can also hit Command-J while you're in iTunes and then click the "Kind" label, putting a checkmark next to it. This will allow you to sort your playlist by the kind of files they are by clicking on the new "Kind" column that should show up. Once sorted, look for any suspect kinds of files. If you find any format that looks suspect or isn't in the list of supported formats, set your "Import" settings in the Preferences to your preferred format and bit rate, then you can highlight the entire block of files that won't play and convert them to a playable format by selecting "Convert Selection to (...)" from the "Advanced" menu.

Look here under "Audio Support" for a list of the kinds of audio files that each iPod supports: http://www.apple.com/ipod/specs.html

Also, instead of digging through iTunes's music folder trying to find files, simply locate them in iTunes, highlight them, then press Command-R and the file itself will be revealed in a Finder window.

I hope that helps!
 
Very good info EDCC, some I knew, some I didn't. I have a first Gen iPod and this may or may not be contributing to my frustration. I have 2 "kinds" in one particular playlist labeled as "Quicktime movie" or "MPEG audio file" and for each type some will play and some won't. Apparently converting a .mov to an MPEG file isn't enough to make it "iPodable" in my case. By far most of the unplayable songs are the QuickTime movie files.
 
Just to put a wrap on this thread, converting the .mov files to .mp3 does make the songs playable on my iPod. Having multiple performances of the same song by the same artist taught me some lessons about labeling songs and files. Once I was able to correctly track a file associated with a song on a playlist everything went fine. Thanks ElDiabloConCaca! mAC3dec is a great freeware application that converts to .mp3 (also to .mov & aiff).

To the folks whose response was simply "Audio Hijack" I say "Why?" or maybe more appropriately "Wrong!". If you are going to make a brief recommendation like that at least say why or what it will do. I still can't figure it out from their website and I'm sure not going to fork over a minimum of $16 just to find out. Not that $16 is going to break me, but if they can't clearly spell out each of the functions their product has, they don't deserve the cash. In my case it was the wrong answer.

Have a Mac day! :D
 
Jsut for clarification, Audio Hijack is a great product -- but not one I would recommend for this situation. Basically, Audio Hijack can "hijack" audio routed through your speakers and save it to a file. For example, it's a good utility to record streaming radio through iTunes, or to capture a sound bite from a program that you like. It only records in real-time, though, so it's not actually a "conversion" program, and thus wouldn't be a top choice for your situation (although it would work, kinda).

At any rate, glad to hear you got it sorted out!
 
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