Escape iTunes With the TuneClone Audio Converter

[David Tucker]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.tuneclone.com/' target='_blank'>http://www.tuneclone.com/</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"You are considering buying a Microsoft Zune as you broke your iPod or had your iPod stolen. And you bought a lot of songs from iTunes store because you had money left on your iTunes gift card. You still want to enjoy those purchased songs on your Zune MP3 player. Or you own an iPod while your boyfriend/girlfriend has a Zune. And you hope to share the library of M4P music songs purchased from iTunes store under your account with your boyfriend/girlfriend. Here comes the headache! The M4P music you bought from iTunes is DRM-laden! You cannot transfer the iTunes M4P music to the Zune software, not to mention playing the iTunes M4P music on your Zune player."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/zt/auto/1217961692.usr307.jpg" border="1" /></p><p>So, you want to migrate from the iPod to the Zune but the main reason you haven&rsquo;t made that jump is because you have your iTunes library. I&rsquo;m sure that&rsquo;s a very common reason for not coming over to the Zune world. (Ok, maybe not, but I&rsquo;ll maintain my delusion.) This is a serious issue though and if you do want to change platforms, then your only options are mostly time consuming and wasteful.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.tuneclone.com/" target="_blank">TuneClone Audio Converter</a> has come to the rescue! You can use this to move your library of M4P DRM protected music to the MP3 format that you can use on any player out there worth its salt. This is a useful tool for anyone looking to break their relationship with the iPod. This software does cost $34.95 to register but that price does give you what appears to be a full feature application. The best part is that it maintains all of the music file&rsquo;s metadata. <a href="http://blogs.digitalmediaonlineinc.com/m4ptomp3/category/General" target="_blank">DigitalMediaOnline has a nice little tutorial </a>that shows how it works.</p>

[chucksteel]

I used DoubleTwist to convert my purchased content to MP3s.

http://www.doubletwist.com/dt/Home/Index.dt

The program is setup to do more than just convert the media, and that other stuff was a little annoying, but once it was all converted, I was able to import the mp3 files into the Zune without any problems.

[Jason Dunn]

So does this program essentially expand the AAC/WMA track into a WAV file, then re-encode into an MP3 file? It must be similar to that...

[The Yaz]

I've always had iTunes do the conversion for me. When I've bought a significant amount of music, I make a playlist of the songs and burn to a cd or dvd. Once the burn is complete iTunes asks if you would like to import and replace the songs in your library.

I have the import default set to mp3 at 192 kbps. When I'm done I have drm-free mp3s, the metadata is retained by iTunes and I have a physical backup of my purchased music.

If I had to convert 100's of songs, I could see a need from a time constraint, but $35 seems to be pretty steep.

Steve

[David Tucker]

Yeah, its not cheap. This is useful if you have a lot of songs to convert though. I don't know how many people out there have actually bought that many songs off iTunes to make it worth it but if you have purchased that much music then it certainly is worth it. And that amount of music would also be a major reason why you'd stick with the iPod even if you didn't want to!

[Jason Dunn]

And that amount of music would also be a major reason why you'd stick with the iPod even if you didn't want to!

The sad part is how people don't even realize they're locked into the iPod ecosystem until they try to switch - I've seen lots of people on YouTube ask how to import their iTunes songs onto the Zune, and be pretty upset when I tell them they can't without various workarounds...

[David Tucker]

To be fair that's also the case if you try to do the same with the Zune ;)

Of course, for me as a Zune Pass subscriber its not a big deal. If I went to any other player that supported subscription of some sort then I just sign up and start downloading new music again :D

[Kacey Green]

as I did with the URGE shutdown (even though they promised the DRM was compatible, and it wasn't) and again when I left that Rhapsody garbage in the dust.

[Dyvim]

Sounds like a lot of money for something iTunes can do for you for free (burn and re-import as mp3 or whatever). Esp. considering that there's some loss of quality on the re-encode.

There are some free tools (albeit technically illegal in certain countries) that will strip the DRM without any loss of audio quality (or loss of meta-data). Since Zune supports the AAC codec, I'd personally go this route if I were to switch to Zune. (But since even the Zune tattoo guy has jumped ship to iPod (http://www.iphonesavior.com/2008/07/zune-tattoo-guy.html), it doesn't seem like the way for me to go- sorry I couldn't resist :p).

Also, if you stick to buying iTunes Plus tracks, this isn't an issue. And I think to Apple's credit they've pointed out the DRM on their regular tracks since the debut of iTunes Plus ... and the only reason they're not 100% DRM-free on music is because certain music labels refuse to let them (afraid of ceding even more control to Apple) even though those same labels allow Amazon and other stores to sell the same music DRM-free.

[rockbox1590]

I used DoubleTwist to convert my purchased content to MP3s.

http://www.doubletwist.com/dt/Home/Index.dt

The program is setup to do more than just convert the media, and that other stuff was a little annoying, but once it was all converted, I was able to import the mp3 files into the Zune without any problems.

I second the use of double twist. I'd like to also point out that it does nothing to the original files, so you still have them, and it automatically detects when you have new music. The only downside I can see to the application is that you don't have the option of choosing the tracks you want converted. After I moved the converted tracks to me external hard drive, Doubletwist wanted to reconvert the entire library again.

[tbird]

To be fair that's also the case if you try to do the same with the Zune ;)

Of course, for me as a Zune Pass subscriber its not a big deal. If I went to any other player that supported subscription of some sort then I just sign up and start downloading new music again :D
Agreed! Not a Pass user here, don't like to rent music, but if it works for you then go for it. I always burn to cd any music I get off of ZMP. Just in case!;)