Basic iPod question

[Big Mike]

I'll be getting my first iPod soon, probably within a few days.

A friend of mine who is not as computer savvy wants to get an iPod with me, but he wants me to set it up for him on my computer so he can just listen to the music without having to connect it to his computer. He has a bunch of CD's that he wants me to copy the songs onto his iPod.

My question is:

I'm new to mp3 encoding. Forgive me if this is a basic question.
What software to I need to copy his CD audio tracks into mp3 files on my computer so that I can transfer them onto his iPod?

Thank you for any help

[iWhat]

You'll definitely want to use iTunes. Don't even worry about the audio settings. Just put the CD in the computer and click "Import" in the top right corner. Do that for every CD, then just connect the iPod to the computer, and iTunes will take care of the rest by transferring all the mp3s into the iPod.

[Big Mike]

You'll definitely want to use iTunes. Don't even worry about the audio settings. Just put the CD in the computer and click "Import" in the top right corner. Do that for every CD, then just connect the iPod to the computer, and iTunes will take care of the rest by transferring all the mp3s into the iPod.

Thanks for the reply. When I've imported any CD before into iTunes, it makes the tracks into AAC and says that it is an MPEG-4 file... Will these work on an iPod?

[iWhat]

They sure will work with the iPod. You can read more about it here, if you want:

http://www.apple.com/mpeg4/aac/

[Big Mike]

THANK YOU! :mac:

Thats a great link. Wow, I thought I needed them to be mp3's but it turns out AAC is better! This is excellent.

Thanks again!

[iWhat]

Yes, AAC is better. I use it, as I'm sure other member here prefer it also. Even though the songs on the iTunes Music Store are all encoded at 128 kbps, they all sound really good.

[andremal]

Hard to argue with a format that not only sounds superior to mp3, but has better compression (takes up less hard drive space). :biohazard

[iDVFH.]

Hard to argue with a format that not only sounds superior to mp3, but has better compression (takes up less hard drive space). :biohazard

I always thought AAC format is more likely to sound a little less superior (not always) but there are times that the song does not sound as clear because it was compressed into a smaller file forcing it's quality to downgrade a bit.
I mean I don't care cause I can't even notice the difference

[Jefe3223]

the aac/mp3 battle has been going on for quite sometime, now. I know that if i want to let a windows guy barrow some of my music that i have on my mac (and he doesn't have itunes), then they generally get a little discouraged. Eh, I like aac. My ipod likes it too. :-)