m4v to mp3

all my itunes music is in m4v format, how do i change it to mp3?

This is an oft asked question without any good answer. m4a/m4v are locked formats used to protect the digital rights management policies of Apple for things purchased on iTunes. There have been various efforts at cracking these formats, and some succeed from time to time, but with each new release of iTunes, it appears that Apple changes the game a bit. Certainly I know that the last successful "cracker" of these formats I was aware of became inoperative after the release of iTunes 7.

All that having been said, I *suspect* it is of dubious legality to break these formats. Apple is within its legal rights to protect the media it sells. You shouldn't expect something for nothing.

That having been said, I have followed the efforts to crack these formats with some interest because, as an ethical person myself, I bridle at not being able to do what I wish with media that I have paid for. I buy a CD and I can rip it, record it, play it... do whatever I want with it.... AS LONG AS I don't redistribute it. I can't do any of these things with iTunes music/videos, and as a result, I buy only the bare minimum I can get away with.

The above of course is a HUGELY divisive topic, best left to the realm of a bar, over what a friend of mine euphamistically calls "a cold adult beverage"!

nike7465 said:

all my itunes music is in m4v format, how do i change it to mp3?

Click to expand...

m4v is a video format. If you mean m4a, then you can convert any unprotected content to an MP3 from within iTunes. These m4a files are created when you rip content into iTunes using the default (and superior) aac format. I generally find that aac files ripped at a bitrate of 128 are equivalent to mp3 files ripped at 192, meaning you save a lot of storage by using AAC.

If you really want to convert these files, go into iTunes prefs, click advanced, then importing and change the "import using" option to MP3, and change the bitrate however you want. Then go back to your track listing, highlight the songs you want to convert and right-click them. You'll see an option to convert to MP3.

You'll still have all the AAC/m4a files sitting around however, but you can delete them from within iTunes and tell it to move them to the trash.

Hope that helps...

this works only for audio files not for video files.... i ripped a video from youtube by tubeTV .. is there anyway i can change m4v to mp3?? thanks

mp3 is an audio codec, m4v is a video codec. m4a is an audio mpeg4 file and m4p is a DRM PROTECTED mpeg4 file.

So in short, no way to make video mp3's that I'm aware of.