Comparison Among AAC, M4A, M4P, M4B And M4R

What is AAC?

Advanced Audio Coding, or AAC, is a MPEG (Motion Pictures Experts Group) audio standard first adopted as part of the MPEG-2 family of standards. Like its predecessor, MP3, AAC is a Lossy Compression format capable of delivering relatively high quality at relatively low bitrates. There are actually two AAC specifications. In addition to the MPEG-2 version of AAC, there’s a newer specification developed for MPEG-4. This version is normally found in the MP4 Container, either with or without accompanying video.

How to Convert AAC to MP3?

What is M4A?

Audio-only MPEG-4 files generally have a .m4a extension. This is especially true of non-protected content.

How to Convert M4A to MP3?

What is M4B?

Audio book and podcast files, which also contain metadata including chapter markers, images, and hyperlinks, can use the extension .m4a, but more commonly use the .m4b extension. An .m4a audio file cannot “bookmark” (remember the last listening spot), whereas .m4b extension files can.

How to Convert M4B to MP3?

What is M4P?

MPEG-4 files with audio streams encrypted by FairPlay Digital Rights Management as sold through the iTunes Store use the .m4p extension. iTunes Plus tracks are unencrypted and use .m4a accordingly.

How to Convert M4P to MP3?

What is M4R?

The Apple iPhone uses MPEG-4 audio for its ringtones but uses the .m4r extension rather than the .m4a extension.

How to Create iPhone Ringtones?

How to Transfer iTunes M4P M4A AAC to Zune HD?

This guide is going to show you how to remove DRM protection from iTunes music, convert DRM protected iTunes M4P to MP3, M4A to MP3, AAC to MP3 and transfer iTunes music to Zune HD. First, let’s take a look at the video/audio formats Zune HD accepts:

Video Support:
WMV
MPEG-4 (MP4/M4V) (.mp4) Part 2 video
H.264 video
DVR-MS

Audio Support:
Windows Media? Audio Standard (WMA) (.wma)
WMA Lossless
Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) (.mp4, .m4a, .m4b, .mov): .m4a and .m4b files without FairPlay DRM
MP3 (.mp3)

So, if you want to play DRM protected iTunes M4P, M4A, AAC music on your Zune HD, you just need to use TuneClone Audio Converter to convert the iTunes music to MP3 format and then transfer the output MP3 to your Zune HD.

Now let’s take a look at how it performs to convert the iTunes music to MP3 format for Zune HD using TuneClone Audio Converter:

1. Create a new playlist in iTunes.

2. Add the iTunes songs to the playlist.

3. Launch TuneClone Audio Converter. Click the “Settings” tab. In the pop-up window, you can specify output folder, output file name format, output format, etc for the output files. Note: You can check whether TuneClone virtual CD drive is successfully installed and where it is installed at the bottom left corner of the interface.

4. Switch to iTunes. In iTunes, select the playlist you just created and click the “Burn Disc” button.

5. In the pop-up window of “Burn Settings”, select “TuneClon Virtual_CD-RW” from the “CD Burner” drop-down list, click the radio button next to “Audio CD” and tick “Include CD Text” option. Click “Burn” to start burning.

6. Upon the completion of burning the disc and encoding the music, you can open the TuneClone manager screen to show all the converted music files. To locate the output folder, simply click the “Folder” tab on the interface.

7. After you get the output music files, connect your Zune HD to computer via the USB cable, drag and drop the converted MP3 files to the Zune Software, then you can sync the iTunes M4P music to Zune HD with the help of Zune Software at ease.

Extracted from http://www.tuneclone.com/transfer-itunes-music-to-zune-hd.php

AAC to MP3 Converter – Convert iTunes AAC M4A M4P to MP3

Author: terry007

AAC to MP3 Converter is a DRM removal for converting iTunes to MP3, AAC to MP3, M4A to MP3, M4P to MP3 for playback on non-Apple MP3/MP4 players and mobile phone players including Zune, PSP, PS3, BlackBerry, Creative Zen, iriver, Walkman, Pocket PC, Xbox, Nokia, LG, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Google Phone, etc.

Q: Why Use AAC to MP3 converter?

A: When you purchase music from iTunes Store, they are actually DRM protected content and you will not be able to play the protected AAC (M4P) files on MP3 players which do not support their formats. In such case, the option is to Burn those tracks to a CD and then Rip them once again to the computer hard drive wherein the DRM will be removed and you will get the tracks in (DRM free) MP3 format. After this you will be able to transfer them to a memory card or to MP3/MP4 players.

In case you have purchased a great amount of music from iTunes Store, you can go ahead and use AAC to MP3 Converter which acts as a Virtual CD-ROM drive on your PC, and lets you remove the DRM element without having to waste actual CD’s.

How to: Convert iTunes AAC M4A M4P to MP3 Using AAC to MP3 Converter?

Step 1. Create a new playlist in iTunes and add the iTunes/AAC/M4A/M4P songs to the playlist.

Step 2. Download and install AAC to MP3 Converter. Run it. In the main interface, click the “Settings” button. In the pop up window, you can choose the output folder, output file name format, output format (actually you can choose MP3, WMA or WAV), etc for the output files.

Step 3. Back to iTunes. Click the “Burn Disc” button. In the pop-up window of “Burn Settings”, select “TuneClon Virtual_CD-RW” from the “CD Burner” drop-down list, click the radio button next to “Audio CD” and tick “Include CD Text” option. Click “Burn” to start burning. Note: You can check whether TuneClone virtual CD drive is successfully installed and where it is installed in the bottom left corner of the TuneClone interface.

Step 4. Upon the completion of burning the disc and encoding the music, you can open the TuneClone manager screen to show all the converted music files. To locate the output folder, simply click the “Folder” tab on the interface.

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Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – AAC to MP3 Converter – Convert iTunes AAC M4A M4P to MP3

Convert Your iTunes Purchases to MP3s

By Rick Broida, PC World
Source from http://www.thestandard.com/news/2009/01/07/convert-your-itunes-purchases-mp3s

As you’ve probably heard by now, Apple just announced plans to ditch DRM for good. That means all songs you purchase from iTunes will arrive on your PC without the usual copy-protection shackles.

However, this doesn’t give you carte blanche. Many music players and mobile phones will still not be able to play songs in the format Apple is using, because the company will continue to use its proprietary “AAC” files, rather than changing to the more universal MP3 format.

Fortunately, it’s fairly easy to convert iTunes Plus purchases (i.e. the DRM-free versions of songs) to the universally compatible MP3 format. Here’s how:

In iTunes, go to “Edit”, “Preferences”, “General”. Click the “Import Settings” button. Change the “Import Using” option to “MP3 Encoder”. In the “Setting” field, choose “Custom”, and then set “Stereo Bit Rate” to your desired setting (I recommend 256 kbps or 320 kbps). Click “OK” three times to exit the various windows.

Now you’re all set to convert any iTunes Plus download to the MP3 format. To do that, right-click the song and choose “Create MP3 Version”. Wait a minute or so and presto: iTunes plops an MP3 copy of the song into your library.

Note that you’ll have now both versions of the song in your library, so you’ll have to do a little housekeeping.

The bigger downside is that converting from AAC to MP3 necessarily involves some loss of audio fidelity. Not much, but if you’re a purist, you may want to skip iTunes altogether and buy MP3s outright from a store like AmazonMP3.

Note: If you want to upgrade your previously purchased tracks to DRM free, you need to pay 30 cents per song. And you can’t pick and choose which tracks to upgrade. Start by going to the iTunes Store home page, and clicking on “Upgrade My Library” under the “Quick Links” heading. Once there, you’ll see a list of all the songs and albums that are available for upgrading, with a price next to each. But the important number to look at is the price next to the buy button, since that’s how much it’ll cost to upgrade your library.

So, if you have a big collection of iTunes music tracks ready to upgraded to DRM free, you will have to pay not a small sum of money. And in order to listen to them with your MP3 player or mobile phone music player, you still need a further step – convert the AAC music to MP3 one by one. It is really a money-consuming and time-consuming process. My suggestion is that you follow this tutorial about how to convert iTunes M4P music to MP3 with the burn-and-rip method or using TuneClone Audio Converter.