i hate itunes

[MSilvia]

Originally Posted by CompuDude

The only thing you have to stick with AAC (aka m4a) is purchased music, which has DRM embedded. (Just like anything legitimately purchased)

Of course, if you really want mp3, you can burn a disk from AAC and then re-import it. It won't have the DRM that way.

[CompuDude]

Originally Posted by MSilvia

Of course, if you really want mp3, you can burn a disk from AAC and then re-import it. It won't have the DRM that way.

Right, although you lose a noticeable amount of quality in the process.

Personally, I own very few DRM'd songs, mostly purchased with gift certificates that were presents. I rip most of my songs directly from CDs I buy, which is my preferred source.

[torrey]

I may go back and re-rip my wife's cd's to mp3 then...and look into the categorization option as well. I have only spent as much time with i-tunes as I had to in order to get music from the computer to her ipod. I try not to open it because it brings everything else to a crawl.

[CompuDude]

Originally Posted by torrey

I may go back and re-rip my wife's cd's to mp3 then...and look into the categorization option as well. I have only spent as much time with i-tunes as I had to in order to get music from the computer to her ipod. I try not to open it because it brings everything else to a crawl.

You can choose to have it copy items into it's own data structure, or leave them in place (i.e., the file structure of your own choosing). You can change the default music store location to another drive or simply somewhere else on your drive, if you don't want the default C drive location. (I keep my music library on a very large D drive, for instance, which is easier to back up and leaves my system drive available to wipe without losing data if needed.)

You can set the import format to rip CD's to MP3 (various bit rates), AAC (various bit rates), AIFF (essentially Apple's WAV), Apple Lossless, or WAV. Look over the Advanced tab in Preferences, and the various sub-tabs.

It's a pretty flexible program if you take the time to look over the options and don't just accept the defaults (true of most software, actually). I agree that it's somewhat heavy on system resources, but unless you are doing something really taxing at the same time, or have a computer in serious need of upgrading, something is wrong with your system if it is bringing everything else to a crawl.

[I ate nemo]

itunes is easy to use also i use limewire to get my music hehe

[I ate nemo]

have you tryied debuggin it at all or maybe even redownlading itunes..sometimes that fixes it.

[Brtobin2578]

Itunes can be a pain but it also has help change the way people buy legal songs. When you have more then one ipod, you will want to make sure it take not automaic download and make it so you will download song manual. I am sure by now you have figured it all out. Not really sure why it would lock your computer up. I can only figure that you have an older version of itunes compare to your ipod. One fo the good features of itunes is podcasts which can be some great information.

[mitsuguy]

I'll never own an Ipod...

plain and simple - don't want to deal with Apple's BS software... and not to mention hooking up your ipod to another computer...

With any of my 4 mp3 players, I can plug them into any computer, anywhere, and copy songs (mp3 or wma) to or from... one even has a removable micro-sd card so I can even had extras to store stuff on...

I agree though, Itunes is not intuitive at all, and the learning curve is wayyyy slow... and a few years ago, I owned a computer store... I don't wanna fight with software, especially when there is something it should do, but doesn't...

I do have Itunes on my computer though, to download certain songs I can't find elsewhere... of course, as soon as I do download them, I burn them to cd and then rip them back into mp3 (the easiest, best sounding way to do it) which is a pain in the ass as well...