vB Easy Archive - Mac OSX users: Can P900 play iTunes' AAC file?

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Mac OSX users: Can P900 play iTunes' AAC file?
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Posted by: ascorve

Can anyone figure out how to play purchased music from the iTunes store? I've tried copying it from my mac to the memory stick duo but somehow the .m4p file does not appear in the music player. I know the file is protected, but is there anyway to override this?

Regular mp3s that are not from the iTunes store work OK, but not the purchased ones.

Anyway, I'm running OS 10.3.3.

Thanks in advance all!

Posted by: Cheech

There is always ways but not explained here.

AAC won't play on the P900. It has to be MP3, WAV, MIDI, AMR, RMF, AU, iMelody in the preferences although it can display the format I think. Third Party apps might be available.

Posted by: ill trooper

Well, the files that you purchase from the Apple iTMS are encoded as AAC with FairPlay, a copy-protection scheme that Apple is using. The AAC format is open, although it's not supported on the p800/900 as far as I know. This is not Apple jerking you around, other online stores use similar protection schemes on their Windows Media files, so those won't work either.

So you have three solutions:

1, Burn a CD from iTunes and re-encode it as MP3 files, then transfer it to your phone.

2, use AudioHijack or AudioHijack Pro from Rogue Amoeba software to record the playback from iTunes to new AIFF or MP3 files... Obviously the AIFF files are huge so you would need to re-encode as MP3 or ogg files. These programs create AIFF, MP3, etc. files from the audio output of any program, the DVD player, streaming audio from the internet, etc.

3, The newest option, an app called FairTunes, has become available but Apple legal is trying to stop it (these sort of things cause pressure on Apple from the recording industry, who has only started to enter into this online-sales stuff with the understanding that the copyrighted material will be safe from pirating). It's a cool little app that has replaced PlayFair, another app that did something similar, which is take your iTMS file and strip the digital rights managment (DRM) off (in this case it's the FairPlay DRM) and create a new AIFF file from it. Their defense is that you need your purchased and authorized (activated) song to create a new file from it, meaning that if you try to just grab your friend's iTMS file, not authorized for your Mac, it will only generate a silent file, no song present.

Anyway, good luck.

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