Wndows media player to Apple Itunes

Well, I don't have the absolute latest version of iTunes, but if it can convert WMA files to Apple Lossless, it's news to me. I'd check with a Mac list somewhere before I believed it.

I was talking to a saleman at Comp USA and he said that the mac would be able to read the windows losslees file and that I-tunes would be able to convert it to Apple lossless. I don't know if he was being honest or just said that to make a sale.I guess I-tunes will create a music library once it reads the file.

Smart Audio Converter doesn't appear to support Apple Lossless. But the one I mentioned above, dBpowerAMP Music Converter, might.

http://www.smartaudioconverter.com/?id=sacgg

Mine is the last of of there product line that has not changed processors, G5 to Intel Dual Core. It's not PC compatible nor do I want or need it to be. My Son has a new MacBook laptop with the newer processor. Other than hardware options I can’t see a difference. If your are not familiar the new/older mac’s below is a link the apples G5 page. Check out the spec’s and the way the case is engineered and constructed. The darn thing is built like a BMW. Very impressive design.

http://www.apple.com/powermac/

Vegasears: As you say, Macs can read a PC-formatted hard drive--and that includes a lot of older Macs, not just the new Intels. But that's not Bodine's problem. His problem is that his music files are encoded in a Windows Media format, and iTunes on a Mac cannot read those files, as far as I know. That's why he needs to find some sort of conversion software.

Vegasears
Is the apple you have PC compatible or an older model. I'm not sure but I think some Macs are not. I'm assuming all the new Mac models are PC compatible.

I’m still learning mac and use the following help page:
http://www.computing.net/mac/wwwboard/wwwboard.html

What's the advantage of converting from MP3 to Apple Lossless?

Yes and Yes. My seagate was and still is formated with MSDOS FAT 32 (Windows)and is still connected to my mac and working fine. I used iTunes to import and sort my music. Once on my mac HD I used iTunes to convert 50% from mp3 to apple lossless.

Vegasears,
Correct me if I'm wrong, I should be able to plug my external into the MAc and have no problems. What did you do to organize your music ? Did I tunes automatically set up a library?

I have a seagate portable hard drive I use for Music storage. The drive was originally used with a Gateway running Windows XP. When I switched to Mac last year I transfered a my files (music, pictures and doc’s) to the seagate. Then I just plugged it into the Mac and transfered the my files. There were no compatibility issues. I have a Power Mac G-5.

Buying a Mac shouldn't be just an iTunes decision. With the new Intel chip based Mac, there is no backwards compatibility with any Mac programs that are not based on its X operating system. I am still migrating files over from my original eMac to the new iMac and some files have been rendered useless because not all software makers (especially for games software) have upgraded their products to the X os.

With all that said, Mac is still the way to go. Just not having to worry about viruses and spyware makes Mac worth it. If you have the original CD's, it may just be easier (but longer) to reload them into iTunes.

Also, do not go with the wireless keyboard & mouse options on the new iMacs if you are purchasing now. The keyboard performs worse than the mouse ... less than a month battery life; typing skips; etc. Apple is working on it.

Regards, Rich

You can run itunes on either a window's based computer or Apple,

True, but iTunes through a PC runs the digital through the dreaded kmixer. Google kmixer and you'll see it isn't what any self respecting audiophile would want.

iTunes though a Mac is great so I agree with Vegasears.

No, you won't be able to just plug your hard drive into a Mac and use iTunes. But there is software out there that should let you convert Windows Lossless files to Apple Lossless files. Check out dBpowerAMP Music Converter.

Once you been Mac'ed you will never go back!

WMP is not the best music program for computers. Itunes is better simply because its not complicated with the ability to playback videos/movies. With the new intel dual core Mac's I am pretty sure you can run WMP on them, however, it may be beneficial long term to convert the files over to Itunes or another music only program. You can run Itunes on either a window's based computer or Apple, so you wouldn't have to deal with this sort of thing in the future.

I recently made the transition to a Mac and LOVE it, with this sort of stuff I just emailed the items to myself and then pulled them from my email onto the new computer. I don't know if you can group everything together with WMP but if you can that would be an easy solution to convert to Itunes.