Re: You have to let the Mac build a new library

Posted by marcusm (A) on September 26, 2006 at 00:06:44

In Reply to: Re: You have to let the Mac build a new library posted by jeffrey_t on September 25, 2006 at 19:46:33:

If you still have access to your Windows system and have enough disk space, probably the easiest thing to do would be to start up iTunes under Windows and tell it to convert all your wav files to either aiff (uncompressed equivalent to wav files, but unlike wav files, all the tag information is stored in the actual audio file rather than the iTunes database) or Apple Lossless format. Then you should be able to copy the files over without any problems. I'm afraid just moving the iTunes XML file over to the Mac probably won't work (the pathnames are all hard-coded, I believe, which won't transfer, even if the file formats are compatible). Try it on an album or two first to make sure everything works reliably, then start up the conversion and let it go (could take quite a while if you have lots of files). If you're short on disk space, do the conversion in chunks. This isn't really a Mac vs. PC problem, you would have a similar problem moving from one PC to a different PC (unless you could keep the path names identical); it's a weakness of the way iTunes stores tag data for wav files. Fortunately, I discovered this important difference between ripping to wav vs. ripping to aiff before I ripped my whole library (I have moved my library back and forth between a PC and a Mac several times).

P.S.: To avoid having 2 copies of each file in every directory (one wav and one aiff/ALAC), first set the iTunes "Music Folder Location" (under advanced preferences) to a new directory (could even be a shared drive on your Mac, if you have the networking set up), THEN run the conversion. That won't move the existing files, but the converted files will go to the new location.

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Follow Ups Full Thread

Topic - Switching From PC to MAC..Need Help!! - jeffrey_t 10:20:09 09/24/06 (12)

Re: Switching From PC to MAC..Need Help!! - division 13:10:57 09/30/06 (0)

congrats man!!! you won't regret it. - danny kaey 18:02:10 09/25/06 (2)

Re: congrats man!!! you won't regret it. - jeffrey_t 18:46:25 09/25/06 (1)

sorry don't have much experience with .wav files... - danny kaey 10:18:18 09/26/06 (0)

You have to let the Mac build a new library - hermanesque 10:50:11 09/24/06 (7)

Re: You have to let the Mac build a new library - jeffrey_t 19:46:33 09/25/06 (6)

Re: You have to let the Mac build a new library - marcusm 00:06:44 09/26/06 (3)

I think it will work - hermanesque 07:46:45 09/26/06 (2)

Re: I think it will work - marcusm 00:33:05 09/27/06 (1)

Re: I think it will work - e_desilva 13:38:10 09/28/06 (0)

sorry, I misread your original post, you may be screwed but there is hope - hermanesque 22:29:25 09/25/06 (1)

Why can't Apple make transfer of iTunes libraries easy? - dsdreamer 11:53:04 09/26/06 (0)

Follow Ups

Re: You have to let the Mac build a new library - marcusm 00:06:44 09/26/06 (3)

I think it will work - hermanesque 07:46:45 09/26/06 (2)

Re: I think it will work - marcusm 00:33:05 09/27/06 (1)

Re: I think it will work - e_desilva 13:38:10 09/28/06 (0)

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