10-06-2007, 10:07 AM

I'm coming from Linux to the os x. I'm think I understand in a general way the difference between the different media formats (i.e., mp3, ogg, wma, etc.). I really liked the ogg in Linux. Is there a way to encode music this way in the Mac? Also are there any other music players/rippers for os x other than vlc and itunes. I'm not too high on itunes for whatever reason. Any other tips for a newbie would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

10-06-2007, 12:50 PM

Unfortunately there aren't nearly as many good media players for Mac as there are for Linux. It was a little disappointing for me also that the media-friendly OS X doesn't seem to have a whole lot of good alternatives available. Everyone just uses iTunes I guess. You can get an extension for iTunes that will allow it to play Ogg files at least. There's some hope for the future with some open source players coming from the Linux world... Songbird works with all of the major formats, but it is still very much in beta and many features don't work. Amarok is planning a native Mac version when it goes 2.0, but who knows when that will be. You can try running it now with the instructions at http://amarok.kde.org/wiki/On_OS_X, haven't tried it myself yet. If anyone knows of a good player that I'm missing, I'd love to know about it...

10-06-2007, 11:30 PM

http://xiph.org/quicktime/download.html

Download the Quicktime component (I usually use Quicktime as my audio player since it is so small, but it doesn't have playlists). Install the component in Macintosh HD/Library/Quicktime. The next time you start up either Quicktime or iTunes (or any other Quicktime based program), they'll be able to play OGG files as well as export them to another format.