Converting WMA to be usable in iTunes

Stephan936 · Feb 7, 2007

Hi,
Every legal music download I'v seen (except iTunes, which doesn't have much to offer) is only offering WMA and iTunes won't play them, how can I get them converted to some readable format?

Thanks!
Stephan

KoDorSean · Feb 7, 2007

Stephan936 said:
Hi,
Every legal music download I'v seen (except iTunes, which doesn't have much to offer) is only offering WMA and iTunes won't play them, how can I get them converted to some readable format?

Thanks!
Stephan

easywma

http://www.easywma.com/

KoDorSean · Feb 7, 2007

this is not really an answer to your question but an interesting option.. you can use flip4mac and play the .wma in quicktime and its free..

http://www.flip4mac.com/wmv.htm

Stephan936 · Feb 7, 2007

Thanks, but I'm looking to use them in the iPod. It still won't be able to read it right?

Stephan

NanoBite · Feb 7, 2007

G'day Stephan936,

As kodorsean mentioned above, easywma is the go:

EasyWMA allows you to convert wma, wmv audio, asf and ogg vorbis files to aiff, mp3, m4a or wav so that you can play your favorite songs in iTunes or any other player on your Mac. EasyWMA can be helpful if you need to play wma files on your iPod, or if you need to convert files created by your Olympus voice recorder.

KoDorSean · Feb 7, 2007

Stephan936 said:
Thanks, but I'm looking to use them in the iPod. It still won't be able to read it right?

Stephan

Right, you are stuck spending the $10 bucks on EasyWMA.

Stephan936 · Feb 7, 2007

Thanks, I'd rather spend 10$ once for a program than 10$ extra to have a CD rather than downloading it each time

NanoBite · Feb 7, 2007

It makes perfect sense to support the creator of EasyWma if it is a time-saver for you ...

KoDorSean · Feb 7, 2007

Stephan936 said:
Thanks, I'd rather spend 10$ once for a program than 10$ extra to have a CD rather than downloading it each time

good choice!

Stephan936 · Feb 7, 2007

I've just seen:
"5. Can EasyWMA convert DRM protected file coming from CDs or bought online?
No. DRM protected files cannot be converted."

So I guess it's no use for downloaded song

NanoBite · Feb 7, 2007

Burning to cd and then importing back to your HD should be enough to continue on with EasyWma....

djames42 · Feb 7, 2007

Pulse-8 said:
Burning to cd and then importing back to your HD should be enough to continue on with EasyWma....

Not sure how that helps... You'd have to burn to CD using a Windows box, since you need Windows Media Player to play/burn protected WMA files. Once you're burned, you can use iTunes to import that back to an iPod compatible format.

PowerBookG4 · Feb 7, 2007

djames42 said:
Not sure how that helps... You'd have to burn to CD using a Windows box, since you need Windows Media Player to play/burn protected WMA files. Once you're burned, you can use iTunes to import that back to an iPod compatible format.

I have never been able to convert DRM'd WMA's into mp3 for my ipod. Its just something you have to live with and instead of doing subscription music, using itunes.

NanoBite · Feb 7, 2007

I was of the opinion that I could burn any file I wanted to disc on my Mac. I'm going out but when i return I will burn a wma file to my rewriteable disc to test this.

PowerBookG4 · Feb 7, 2007

i wont' be in audible format (at least i was not able to do this) so the drm is still there, so you still can not play it on the ipod.. which defeats the purpose if you can not put it on cd or the ipod unless of-course i put my computer in the passenger seat.

PowerBookG4 · Feb 7, 2007

i think discussing this topic in any more detail is against forum rules, even if you are paying for the music, which is what we are talking about.

Del · Feb 8, 2007

Surely if a DRM sound file is say 200,000 bytes in length then some of those bytes is the DRM itself, if that is this case then a coder could read the file in bit by bit and write to a new file with the correct headers, minus the DRM?

or is that me being too simplistic?

mikeyman · Feb 8, 2007

This is weird... itunes 4 pc can automatically convert the file type from wma to mp3
I found i had the problem when i got my mac because i ripped all my music wma

djames42 · Feb 8, 2007

Del said:
Surely if a DRM sound file is say 200,000 bytes in length then some of those bytes is the DRM itself, if that is this case then a coder could read the file in bit by bit and write to a new file with the correct headers, minus the DRM?

Yeah unfortunately, it doesn't work quite like that. There isn't simply a header saying, "yeah don't play this track unless you've got the key." If there was, someone could easily write a piece of software to ignore the header and play all the protected content you wanted.

There's a header for sure, but the actual music data is encrypted too.

Del · Feb 8, 2007

djames42 said:
Yeah unfortunately, it doesn't work quite like that. There isn't simply a header saying, "yeah don't play this track unless you've got the key." If there was, someone could easily write a piece of software to ignore the header and play all the protected content you wanted.

There's a header for sure, but the actual music data is encrypted too.

Cheers, kinda thought it wouldnt be that simple.

So purely as a learning excercise and lets not go in to the details of it as we dont want to encourage illegal activities, but how do they DRM a file?

Is each individual bit encrypted?

Or is the order of the bit sequence reordered?

Or a combination of all of the above?