[elcasey]

Is this a licensing issue (assuming FLAC is GPL), or is this just typical Apple obstinacy? Going through all these hystrionics and gyrations of renaming files is fairly absurd if you have a large library of existing FLAC tunes. Much easier to use XLD to transcode them to ALAC.
It's a pain, in any case!

[Ryuichi]

There is no need to convert FLAC files, just find the .flac files in Finder and drag them to Fluke. Fluke will add them to your iTunes library (which can natively play FLAC.)

[jlinen]

To me, an audiophile of the type mentioned in Chris' article, the whole point of using FLAC as to listen to music at better quality bit and sampling rates than currently available in iTunes (limited to 24 bit/44.1 KHz). However, it seems iTunes/iPod will not support this (crazy -- why not??!).

Further, the Fluke page Chris linked to in his article says the following:


Known issues
Only 16bit/44.1KHz files play fine. Any other resolution affects the speed of playback which is a known Xiph.org issue.
Embedded artwork is not supported. However if you've got an iTunes Store account, select the songs you added, right-click and hit Get Album Artwork.
iPod, iPhone, iPad, Airport Express, Apple TV and other devices from Apple are NOT supported — Fluke uses a third-party library not available on those devices.
CD burning does not work for the same reason as the above.


So, after all this, one is left wondering, what is the point of all this?

[thewizardofaz]

I use Switch for all flac to aiff or other format conversions. I've set the standard default for flac files to switch by getting info. Then anytime I need to convert I just double click. It can be adjusted for format, bit rate, etc. Good little program and converted files then load up right into iTunes when double clicked.

jlinen, on 01 August 2010 - 09:06 PM, said:

To me, an audiophile of the type mentioned in Chris' article, the whole point of using FLAC as to listen to music at better quality bit and sampling rates than currently available in iTunes (limited to 24 bit/44.1 KHz). However, it seems iTunes/iPod will not support this (crazy -- why not??!).

Further, the Fluke page Chris linked to in his article says the following:


Known issues
Only 16bit/44.1KHz files play fine. Any other resolution affects the speed of playback which is a known Xiph.org issue.
Embedded artwork is not supported. However if you've got an iTunes Store account, select the songs you added, right-click and hit Get Album Artwork.
iPod, iPhone, iPad, Airport Express, Apple TV and other devices from Apple are NOT supported — Fluke uses a third-party library not available on those devices.
CD burning does not work for the same reason as the above.


So, after all this, one is left wondering, what is the point of all this?

[steftheref]

Easiest conversion I have found is to drop FLAC files onto All2MP3. Select the super setting and bingo! 320 bps MP3 files in seconds

[PeterShen]

Good pointers. Very useful. Though I agree with the previous poster that if you use Toast you don't have to burn a CD.

[JimmyKarner]

To play the .flac without doing all of that automater b.s. just open it with fluke instead of itunes. fluke automatically adds the file to your itunes library.

[FDSacerdoti]

To rename *.flac to *.mov:

1. Open a Terminal
2. cd folder
3. for i in *.flac; do echo $i; mv "$i" "${i/flac/mov}"; done

[MarilynReichert]

you noted in your article: Of those free converters, I’ve found NCH Software’s Switch to be helpful. However, the SWITCH software is not free. there is a free trial (which makes you think it's free when you first download and use it) but once you've used it 10 times, it then stops working and says you must purchase the full program for about $30. A bit of deceitful advertising to say it's "free converter"... only the trial version and 10 tries are free, after that it's not free. Unless, of course, I'm doing something wrong. Rather disappointing as I have a ton of digital audio files (from my music teacher) from my digital audio recorder that I can't load to my itunes to play for when I want to practice a long with my teacher.

[godjlove]

...is there a VLC player for iPad, iPhone, and iPod (Touch)!? if so, then just add your iTunes tunes to the VLC player and use the VLC player just like you would your iTunes player. 'Two players are better than One!' peace

[Alexj]

I use All2mp3