Thread: Questions concerning audio formats

My music collection is behind with the times, because lossless formats like FLAC and OGG Vorbis are becoming more popular. Unfortunately, I have an iPod Touch 3rd gen which cannot play either of those file formats. Does anyone know of any (free) programs that can convert these lossless audio files to mp3 or ALAC, if it's possible? (preferably ALAC) Also, I heard you can get these file formats to play within iTunes, so how would I go about doing it? It's annoying having to open Winamp every time I want to play one of them...

And yes, I googled this with no success.

Please and thank you, and no "Apple is shit" posts because I'm well aware of my mistake.

Well... there are a lot of open source/GNU GPL file converters... though I tend to favour ones that also do video, so I'm not sure what would be best suited to batch convert pure audio files. As for getting FLAC or Vorbis files to play in iTunes, though, I believe limited support for those formats (in an ogg container, *.oga) can be achieved using the Xiph QuickTime Components.

tbh, though, I'd question the true value of lossless formats on a portable device... unless this iPod doubles as a source for your home stereo system (connected via its line out rather than the headphone jack), you really won't see much (if any) benefit over cheapo headphones (or even decent ones) from a lossless file compared to, say, a 256kbps AAC. Considering the significantly increased size, even of compressed lossless formats, over lossy ones... not sure there's any need.

Could you link me to just one of those conversion programs? Nothing I downloaded worked, or just did video (I'm not interested in video conversion since I don't have any).

Hmmm, I see your point. My headphones aren't the cheapo ones, but I get decent sound quality as is. But some of my music files are only in FLAC or ogg and I'd like it to be portable, hence my need for conversion software.

You could try MediaCoder, which has support for many formats. SUPER© is also a popular one.

My preferred program is Total Video Converter. I have it and it works great for all sorts of video conversion, and audio conversion too. I've never had any problems with it at all. It is not freeware, but you can give it a free trial for a fortnight which, depending on how many files you have to convert, should be more than enough time for you.

Originally Posted by TM2-Megatron

SUPER© is also a popular one.

I used SUPER© too, but once I found out that it was just a front-end for ffmpeg, I decided to find another front-end for ffmpeg instead. I found it in the form of ffe.

Video coders are naturally also audio coders.