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iTunes Apple Lossless Setting Mystery

Perhaps you can explain this peculiarity. I have my Import Settings set to Apple Lossless, and I use this whem ripping CD's or downloading from music sites. Yet when I am in my Library, and I right-click on a song, one of the options is Convert to Apple Lossless. When I choose that option, it looks like the song is being converted, based on what shows in the information bar on the top of iTunes. It shows time elapsed and conversion speed.

What is going on here? Have I not imported with Apple Lossless in the first place. Is there a duplicative conversion process going on? Anyone with an answer to this mystery? Thanks.

Neal
nglazer
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almarg
9,670 posts
 
I'm using Itunes 7 on Windows XP. It looks like whatever import format has been selected under Edit/Preferences/Advanced is the format that is offered as the "convert selection to" choice when you right-click on a selection.

Silly design, but that's the way it is. Very conceivably you did re-encode from/to the Apple Lossless format. To see whether or not it really did that you could check the date/time modified for the specific music file, under "My Music" or wherever your Itunes music files are stored.

Regards,
-- Al
dgaylin
255 posts
 
Yes, I have the same setting, etc. I am pretty sure that you are simply reading it in its stored format (Apple Lossless) and then writing it back as Apple Lossless.
mlsstl
1,436 posts
 
That is a convenience setting. Say you plug in an external USB drive full of MP3s but you prefer to have everything in Apple format. That setting will convert the file format to M4A format and copy it to your local iTunes drive. (It will leave the files on the temporary drive unaltered.)

The catch is the software isn't smart enough to see if your file is already in that format and in your local iTunes folder. As such it will repeat the process needlessly if you ask it to.
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