mp3's to clie using mac

[Unregistered]

I have a ton of MP3's on a Mac which is at work. Rather than ripping a the same amount of CD's onto my Windows machine is there a way I can us the MS export program to take those MP3's from Itunes or Windows Media Player and download them onto my Clie. Any help or info would be greatly appreciated.

[oldmicah]

If you are using Missing Synch, I believe that your memory stick shows up automatically in iTunes. The catch is that there are some limitations to what mp3's can be played on a Clie. (has to be above a certain bitrate and I think that it has problems with VBR)

[wmoritz]

By all means if you don't have Missing Sync run don't walk ;-) to MarkSpace and buy it. Not only will your Clie Show up in iTunes but iPhoto as well. They have full instructions on there site.

And yes I found out the hard way the my NZ90 does not like VBR. I converted my entire MP3 to a lower bitrate (to save space on my Memory Stick) using Cleaner 6 with VBR and not one would play so I had to redo all of them.

wmoritz

[EvilErnie]

I am sorry... what is a "VBR"???

[wmoritz]

No need to be sorry.

I should have explained. VBR stands for Variable Bit Rate and some programs that encode MP3's have the ability to encode them this way.

The short general explanation is the higher the Bit Rate the Better the quality and the larger the file. However, some parts of the song may not require the full bit rate and could be encoded with a lower bit rate and save space with no significant loss of quality. VBR encoding allows the program to adjust the bitrate up to the maximum selected to create the smallest and at the same time highest quality MP3 (in theory at least).

The problem is that not all MP3 players can play back VBR MP3's.

wmoritz

The above is intended to get the general idea across and is in no way to be mistaken for a detailed and complete explanation of anything ;-).

[EvilErnie]

Thanks for the explanation. How many megs can you save encoding mp3s with VBR? What bitrate do you normally use? I encode mine at 128, at least.

[jmrtnko]

128kb/s is already pretty low quality-wise. you'd probably just be better off leaving them as is than re-encoding them.

VBR is best when you're encoding from the original uncompressed source. a better explanation for what VBR does is actually the reverse of the one above. it allows you to decrease the compression in more complicated parts while keeping a baseline of quality for the simpler ones. once the audio has already been encoded, the more complicated parts have already lost most of their complexity, so by re-running it through VBR after the fact, you're only further reducing the quality of the "simpler" parts.

now if you were starting out with a 256 or 320kb/s file, it might be worth it. but 128? nah. you wouldn't be saving enough.

[DaVinci's Palm]

I have a ux50 and alot of my music is encoded at a higher bit rate. (160-192) and thus doesn't work in Audioplayer. I'm looking for an easy way to convert my entire collection (~10G) to a lower bitrate so that everything will work on the UX.

I see that some one above was using cleaner to do the job. Are there any free utilities to do the same thing?

thanks,

davinci

[dmale7]

hello guys...Happy New year! This is a bit off topic but when I open data import on my mac neither Iphoto nor itunes open. I just get a message on my th55 to check connection with host. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong? I have Missing sync installed.

[LWAA]

do you need a memory stick to be able to play mp3's on a clie tj37? I'm getting one, but wanted to try different mp3 software first....thanks!