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Topic: Moving from Itunes to foobar2000 (Read 14783 times) previous topic - next topic
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Moving from Itunes to foobar2000

Hi,

I have an ipod and have been using itunes for several year and I have finally had enough with the stupid way it converts alll my music to m4a.  My first question is, is it possible to convert m4a to mp3 without loosing quality?  I'm pretty sure ive read somewhere that you do loose quality but dont know for certain.

I want to get away from itunes and use foobar2000 instead but having never used it before would like to check whether it has all of my favourite features that itunes has.

OK, first, does foobar2000 play m4a files?

Will all the song info (album, artist, name etc) be exactly the same in foobar2000?

I have rated loads of song using itunes; will these ratings be shown in foobar and will they still be detected by my ipod?

Will i be able to sync my ipod with foobar2000?

Does foobar2000 create a 'top rated' playlist?

We'll thats everything i think.  Thanks alot

Moving from Itunes to foobar2000

Reply #1 –
1. Yes

2. Yes

3. No. These are stored in the itunes database, rather than in the files themselves, so foobar2000 - as well as most other players - can't read them.

4. Yes. Use the component called foo_dop - there's a post about it floating near the top of the 3rd party plugins subsection.

5. Not automatically. You can, however, create ratings in the files' metadata, and then use these to manually create an autoplaylist. I don't worry about ratings myself, so I'll leave it to users who actually do this to describe the process.

Moderation: Removed fullquote of the preceding post.
"Lifting Shadows Off a Dream"

Moving from Itunes to foobar2000

Reply #2 –
Quote
I have finally had enough with the stupid way it converts alll my music to m4a.

You can set iTunes to use mp3/wav etc instead.
Quote
My first question is, is it possible to convert m4a to mp3 without loosing quality?

No.
Quote
OK, first, does foobar2000 play m4a files?

It plays m4a/aac files (lossy) but not m4a/apple lossless ones created by iTunes.
Quote
Will all the song info (album, artist, name etc) be exactly the same in foobar2000?

Probably yes.
Quote
I have rated loads of song using itunes; will these ratings be shown in foobar and will they still be detected by my ipod?

iTunes stores all statistics in it's own db. But a way to keep some statistics is to create a smart playlist in iTunes with, for example, all songs that have rating: 5, then write "rating 5" in an unpopulated meta field e.g. comment. In Foobar you can then create a autoplaylist:
Code: [Select]
%comment% HAS "rating 5"

Then you can add a new meta field to those files called "rating" and set it's value to 5. Repeat for other statistics you'd like to keep.
Quote
Does foobar2000 create a 'top rated' playlist?

Yes, foobar is capable of creating auto playlist, they are like iTunes smart playlists but more customizable (and complicated).

Moving from Itunes to foobar2000

Reply #3 –
Quote from: Hengest on
4. Yes. Use the component called foo_dop - there's a post about it floating near the top of the 3rd party plugins subsection.


depends on type of IPOD I believe.  I'm not sure these will work on IPOD Classic (newest) versions. Do some searching on this topic.

Also, not sure why you say ITUNES converts everything to M4A.  Maybe this is the nano?  I don't have one, but recall that maybe on this everything was automatically converted to a smaller size when syncing to the ipod. Or that this is an option at least. I recall looking at someone else's setup of their new IPOD shuffle and there was a box to check that converted any song > 128 to 128 before syncing. Again, I only have the classic and the ver 5 so not sure about this.  But in general, ITUNES does NOT convert everything to M4A. I assume you do know that in the ITUNES preferences/ADVANCED, importing tab, you can set the options for what type of files you want created by ITUNES (mp3, mp4, different bitrates, apple lossless, etc.). 

This said, I wouldn't suggest ITUNES as a secure ripper. I use dbpoweramp to rip to FLAC, then batch convert to MP3 for my IPOD. (I maintain a mirror library of mp3 files of all my FLAC files). I use foobar as my main player, etc., but still use ITUNES for syncing to the IPODs.  You can also use foobar to rip your files to FLAC, mp3, etc. and still add those files to your ITUNES library for the purpose of syncing.

Moving from Itunes to foobar2000

Reply #4 –
Quote from: smkk on
It plays m4a/aac files (lossy) but not m4a/apple lossless ones created by iTunes.


It plays them (the lossless files, I mean) with the ALAC input plugin that can be loaded from the 'optional components' page of foobar's homepage.

Moving from Itunes to foobar2000

Reply #5 –
Quote from: garym on
depends on type of IPOD I believe.  I'm not sure these will work on IPOD Classic (newest) versions. Do some searching on this topic.


foo_dop does work on the new Classic (I have one myself ), and has support for the iPhone and iPod Touch as well.
"Lifting Shadows Off a Dream"

Moving from Itunes to foobar2000

Reply #6 –
Quote from: smkk on
Quote
Does foobar2000 create a 'top rated' playlist?

Yes, foobar is capable of creating auto playlist, they are like iTunes smart playlists but more customizable (and complicated).

Anyone knows how to?
Actually im using fooplaycount to rating songs...