How to convert Itunes into MP3 format?

[corvette1989bham]

I spent a entire week burning all my collection of CD's to my Itunes library and now unless I buy a Ipod I cant download any of my music into my existing Mp3 player - says unknown format. Does anyone know how I can get mu itunes to mp3 format?

[illinest]

I'm not particularly savvy on Apple products, but I would not be surprised if the music that you downloaded is encoded in a proprietary music format that resists conversion to other formats.
(AAC as I recall...)
If you want to convert your AAC files to MP3, you MIGHT need to find an unsupported "homebrew" program (assuming that one exists)
Another way to say that would be... You need to hack the files into a new format, which would be in violation of your user agreement.

That's how they screw you....
Now it may be that there is a perfectly legal way to convert the AAC files into MP3, but I would not be surprised if my earlier assumptions are correct.

[corvette1989bham]

The music 90% of it was my own store bought music that I loaded from actual cd's. The rest of it was itunes music that I BOUGHT from itunes and now that are telling what and what not I can do with it.

[markcz]

If you look at the description of iTunes for Windows at download.com it makes it sound like you can do what you want to, but then at the bottom in the very last paragraph they complain about the exact same problem that you're asking about

I use MusicMatch Jukebox, and have no complaints at all. It burns my Cd's straight to MP3's and puts them exactly where I tell it to, and can easily be copied/pasted to wherever else I want.

[LarryW]

iTunes will allow you to store your music in mp3 format:

1. Launch iTunes.
2. Edit -> Preferences -> Importing -> Import Using -> select MP3 Encoder, then click Ok.

From this point onward, whenever you rip tracks from your sources, all of your tracks will be stored as mp3; however, this doesn't apply to any tracks that you purchase from the iTunes store I believe; you have no choice, AAC is the only game in town here.

For your existing collection of tracks already ripped to iTunes, I'm thinking you may need some sort of converter, something like this: dBpower AMP.

What I would do is go over to iPodLounge; Scan through the FAQ and then maybe post a similar question on the forums

[TerryMathews]

It's not like iTunes prevents you from transcoding tracks you made into MP3s... Right click and select "Convert to MP3". You can select multiple tracks too, using shift+click.

[JimNY]

If you convert your iTunes files to MP3's you're re-ripping already compressed files, so the quality may degrade a bit.

You might want to give it a shot on a couple of CD's worth of music first to see if the quality of the output is acceptable.

[bdjones]

You can make an MP3 CD from your itunes library. On the top right corner is an icon to make a CD, there is an option somewhere to make it an MP3 CD and not an audio CD.

There is a work around if you really want MP3s on you computer from the itunes format. Burn an audio CD and rip that back to MP3. Of course you will be re-encoding so you will lose some quality.