converting wma to mp3s/4s

[Lord Mhoram]

Anybody have any programs to help me out here? EasyWMA was the only I could find but it costs $10.

[matrixman]

I use dBpowerAMP Music Converter. It's user-friendly, flexible and fast. It also doesn't secretly install any crap spyware or whatever onto your system. Last but not least, the basic program is FREE for personal use. Check out their website: www.dbpoweramp.com/

dBpowerAMP can decode/encode almost any format under the sun (except for certain proprietary ones). The LAME mp3 codec is built-in, the others are just a simple matter of downloading them as you need 'em from their codec page.

[Revan]

cool. MM. I'm having trouble with downloading files from Bittorrent. They won't play the files I download from there. Can you help with that?

[Lord Mhoram]

Argh, yours is not for Mac, MM, unfortunately. Thank you anyways though.

[Drundaar Rockheart]

I'm not sure if we can but a few of my friends are designing a program in our free time for just macs (we're just amateurs though.....just learning and on loaned cpu's) we need another person to help us, but we are learning...As soon as we get it finished I will let you know. (progress is slow)

[Lord Mhoram]

Thank you, keep us posted.

[Nav]

I did once use a convertor to change wma files to mp3 and the results were truly awful. Although there is little difference in sound quality, wma files are more compressed than mp3s, so you lose a lot of quality when you convert that way. The resulting mp3s i got had a bit rate of 32 kb/s, which is pretty terrible.

[Lord Mhoram]

Well my problem is that for some reason iTunes won't convert the .wma files, and without them in iTunes I cannot upload them onto my iPod.

[The Laughing Man]

Unprotected wma files are automatically converted when you bring them into iTunes. You can bring them in by dragging them into iTunes' main window or use File > Add to Library to import them. iTunes won't convert protected wma files.
As for your other tunes, just use the Add to Library command and navigate to the folder that holds your music. If you want to be a little more organized, after you've added the tunes to iTunes, choose Consolidate Library from the Advanced menu. That will place all your files in the iTunes Music folder.