I'm Stuck...Please can someone help?

[yellow peril]

Hi Folks...non techy...please be gentle...:)

I have a whole mass of music that I have transferred to my computer over the years.

I would now like to convert it to MP3 so that I can get lots of tracks on a DVD for the car.

I have Windows MP 10....but I can't seem to find how to convert the tracks to MP3.

I can see how to rip them from disc to MP3..but they are already on my computer and I can't even think of doing them all again. :yikes:

Is there a way to convert my existing stuff with Media Player 10....or do I need an MP3 converter?...if I do ...would you be good enough to recommend one...preferably a free downlosd.

Thank you.....:)

YP

[[k]ar|]

What format are they in now?

I would guess that you will need an mp3 ripper such as this...

http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/

... in addition to your DVD or CD burning program.

Hope that helps

[k]

[MEMSDesign]

I found that itunes has a pretty good mp3 converter. You can download it for free www.apple.com/itunes/download/

By default I think it converts to AAC, but it's easily changed in preferences. I personally use LAME MP3 at 190kbps VBR. Seems to be a reasonable balance between size and quality.

If you are connected to the interweb it will fill in track names etc automatically, and it's fast. Up to 16x speed to rip from CD, which I was impressed with (on a 2.0GHz P-M laptop).

It seems quite intuitive to use to me.

[yellow peril]

[quote=[k]ar|]What format are they in now?

I would guess that you will need an mp3 ripper such as this...

http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/

... in addition to your DVD or CD burning program.

Hope that helps

[k]

[/quote]



They are in Windows Media Audio....so I assume that's WMA.......


[quote=MEMSDesign] .....By default I think it converts to AAC, but it's easily changed in preferences. I personally use LAME MP3 at 190kbps VBR. Seems to be a reasonable balance between size and quality. [/quote]


Mmmmmmm....see trouble is....you may just as well have said that in Greek.... I would probably have understood it better!!

Thank you for the two links....I will go and have a play and see if I can make head or tail of what it's all about.........

This computer stuff makes my head spin...us oldies have soooo much to learn!!!!

Thanks for such quick replies guys...it's appreciated.

YP

[Alex]

Are you sure your in-car player can't play WMA? Many can.

[yellow peril]

Alex said:

Are you sure your in-car player can't play WMA? Many can.

Hi Alex.....I'm sure it can...It's an Avic X1r and can play anything it seems.....

But I don't want to have to fiddle with lots of different discs and thought if I converted all my tracks I could put loads on a DVD instead of just 15/17 on one disc......

It means a trip to Castle Coobme and back without changing the cd...

I have tried downloading the apple link and at the moment it's busy converting all my Windows files.....????

Hopefully I'll then be able to convert those to MP3..............then burn the damn things....

I'm sure that once I know how..it'll be easy..(says she with determination ).all things are once you know how.....

YP

[d-man]

WMA files are normally roughly the same size as MP3s, so you should be able to fit just as many on a CD / DVD.

Otherwise, dbpoweramp can do the conversion without having to rip them all from cd again.

www.dbpoweramp.com/

The music converter is the one you need.

[yellow peril]

d-man said:

WMA files are normally roughly the same size as MP3s, so you should be able to fit just as many on a CD / DVD.

d-man....thanks...

I was under the impression that if compressed to an MP3...it meant that the file was a lot smaller and you could get far more on a cd or dvd.


I have downloaded your suggested converter, thankfully the instructions were not in Latin..... and find that the MP3 and WMA files are the same size

Am I doing the wrong thing in order to get lots of files onto a cd?

Any help appreciated.....

YP

[_dobbo_]

Depends what you mean by lots. A normal data CD should be able to fit a mimimum of 100 songs on it assuming an average of 6 or 7mb per file.

What I suspect you are doing is burning an audio CD - if this is the case you will never fit more than 80 minutes worth on a CD, no matter how much you mess around.

Make sure you are burning a data CD then put all your mp3/wma files on and you should get some more luck.

I'm making the assumption that your car head unit can actually read mp3 disks though, if it can't you are scuppered before you start!

Good luck!

[malman]

Have had a quick look at the spec of your head unit, it does support mp3 but there was no mention of wma so you need to convert to mp3. It wasn't clear whether you could play mp3 from dvd-r but definately from cdr an it support ID3 tags so track info should come up on the display .

As said above you need to make sure that you burn the mp3 files as a data disc not and audio disc. Worth a punt with a dvd-r to see if it works though

[yellow peril]

_dobbo_ said:

What I suspect you are doing is burning an audio CD - if this is the case you will never fit more than 80 minutes worth on a CD, no matter how much you mess around. Good luck!

Aha!!!!....that's it....that's what I'm doing wrong!!!!

Cool.......excellent jobby......

The Avic plays anything....it's a great unit.....
another item hat has an instuction manual that it will take the rest of my life to read!!!!!!!

I'm trying hard to keep up with all this new technology...I really am...........

Still...three years ago I didn't know how to send an email or get on the internet...so there's hope for me yet!!!!


Thank you loads to all those who replied......when you hear the Judge Jules mixes belting out of the Sagaris you'll all know you helped get them there!!!!!!

YP

[yellow peril]

malman said:

Have had a quick look at the spec of your head unit, Worth a punt with a dvd-r to see if it works though

Thank you malman...that was good of you....

Will give the dvd-r a try...nothing ventured..!!!

YP