| From Valerie Grant
| Wed, 21 Mar 2007 13:15:18 -0700 (PDT)
| Subject: [Audacity-help] MP4 format support?
| A friend directed me to your site; thanks so much for
| the wonderful application! But I've got a problem --
| I'm trying to edit and mix some iTunes I've purchased
| online, which are mp4 format -- and your app doesn't
| seem to accept mp4s.
| Is there a plug-in or something available for your
| program to be compatible with mp4, or alternatively
| could you direct me to some sort of shareware/freeware
| app that would convert mp4s to mp3s? (I'm on Mac osX).
If you are sure you purchased these online, although they are of MPEG-4
type, they will be .M4P files, not .MP4. The difference is that .M4P files are
protected with iTunes encryption, whereas .MP4s are not. Audacity cannot
open either .MP4 or .M4P because it cannot open MPEG-4 audio due to
the format being proprietary. No applications whatsoever will convert .M4P
files to other formats because of the encryption.
So you only have two choices:
1) Burn the .M4P files to an audio CD in iTunes, and extract them back to an
.MP3 file. You should only extract to .MP3 if you sole purpose is to convert the
.M4P files to .MP3. If you are intending to edit the files in Audacity (e.g. to
cut pieces out or apply effects), you should extract to either .AIFF or .WAV,
which are lossless formats. Although Audacity can import .MP3s, it is a lossy
format, meaning you are throwing away quality by extracting to .MP3. You can
always export your files to .MP3 from Audacity after editing, if you want them
to take up less space on your drive.
To burn to CD in iTunes you have to drag the files from your Music window
(under Library in the left-hand panel) into an iTunes playlist. Then go to the
"Advanced" tab of Preferences, and click the "Burning" tab. Select the burner
speed, and make sure "Audio CD" is selected. Then click File > Burn Playlist to
Disc. If you receive a "computer not authorised" error, you need to double-click
the file in the iTunes playlist and enter the password you use to login to the
iTunes store. Additionally, you cannot burn a playlist containing .M4P files that
have been burned more than seven times.
To extract the CD tracks in iTunes, set the conversion format in the iTunes
Preferences at Advanced > Importing: Import using either the .MP3, .WAV or
.AIFF encoder. Then select the CD you burned in the left-hand panel under
"Devices", select the CD track(s) in the window, right-click or control-click over
them, and choose the "convert to ... option". You will only have an option to
convert to the particular format you chose in Preferences.
2) Play the .M4P file in iTunes and record it to .AIFF using either Audio Hijack
http://www.rogueamoeba.com/audiohijack/
or Wiretap
http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/wiretap/If you use Wiretap, turn off "compression" in its Preferences. Then either import
the .AIFF into Audacity normally if you want to edit it, or convert it to .MP3
within iTunes if your purpose is only an .M4P to .MP3 conversion. Note that for
multiple tracks this will be slower than burning to CD and extracting, because it
has to be done in real time as the files play.
If you ever want to import any unprotected .MP4 files into Audacity that you
did not purchase in iTunes store, once you have set the conversion format in
iTunes Preferences to .WAV or .AIFF as explained above, you can similarly
select and right-click or control-click the files in iTunes, and choose the
"convert to .WAV" or "convert to .AIFF..." option.
Gale Andrews
Outbound message virus free.
Tested on: 3/21/2007 10:05:00 PM
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