iTunes Music in FCP at DVinfo.net

Matt Elias · January 31st, 2005, 11:59 PM

I want to use some songs that I downloaded (and paid for) from the iTunes store. But for some reason, after I import them, they show up as blank in FCP HD. Is there some kind of encryption on these songs? Is there a way I can play these?

Thanks

Greg Boston · February 1st, 2005, 12:02 AM

What I did was burn the songs to CD then imported them into FCP. Kind of arcane, but it worked.

good luck,

=gb=

Matt Elias · February 1st, 2005, 12:04 AM

Wow thanks for the speedy response. I'll give it a try!

Matt Elias · February 1st, 2005, 01:38 AM

Yup, it worked!

Mark Sloan · February 1st, 2005, 12:50 PM

Anything you buy from the iTunes Music Store is DRM'ed and at a lower than CD quality. You can burn a CD of the music from iTunes to create non-DRM AIFF files, but you are starting with a compressed AAC file that has lower quality.

Mike Hanlon · February 1st, 2005, 01:14 PM

There's a better way.

I use iMovie to "place at playhead" the iTunes song I purchased. That places the song in the audio track. Then I "Share" the audio as an aiff file. The result is an aiff version of the song I purchased.

No need to burn a CD.

Patrick Pike · February 1st, 2005, 01:42 PM

Or you can use the program Hymn to strip the drm info from the file.

http://hymn-project.org/

Much quicker, without the CD middle man.

February 1st, 2005, 09:22 PM

mike,

ive got a *.m4a song file here and ive tried numerous times to place in playhead but each time imovie crashes and when i restart it the program asks me if i want to either ignore or trash the unused .m4a file which supposedly 'doesnt belong' in imovie.
any idea whats happening?

Matt Elias · February 3rd, 2005, 04:01 PM

Glad to see I'm not the only one with this problem

Patrick Pike · February 3rd, 2005, 04:05 PM

Just use Hymn to strip the DRM from the file, then do a normal conversion using Quicktime. It works like a charm, and takes less that a minute from bang to buck.

Mike Hanlon · February 3rd, 2005, 04:47 PM

Hymn doesn't work with iTunes 4.7.1, at least thats what some message boards are saying.

Patrick Pike · February 3rd, 2005, 04:53 PM

Hymn only works on the music file, not with iTunes. It strips the DRM part of the file so that it can be played in any other music player (in this case Quicktime -> FCP) but does not remove your personal info from the file. iTunes 4.7.1 picks up on this manuver and will not play the edited file. But for our purposes (converting an ITMS song to FCP) this is the most efficent way.

Sidenote- there is another program called JHymn that will remove EVERYTHING from the ITMS song file so that it can be played again in iTunes 4.7.1.

Mike Hanlon · February 4th, 2005, 04:29 PM

My previous post about how I use iMovie to convert from protected iTunes format to something else, like AIFF, still holds. At least it did for iMovie 3 and 4. I just tried iMovie 5 and found a little wrinkle has been added, but its not a big deal.

Open iMovie
Select Audio
Select a song from the list
Click on Place at Playhead (takes a minute to convert)
New step - Put some video in the timeline (any video, doesn't matter what, doesn't have to be same length as the song, in fact shorter is better)
Turn off the audio of the video clip with the check box on the right.
File->Share opens the Share dialog
Click on QuickTime, select Expert Settings popup, click on Share
Save file dialog appears: fill in song name, choose location to save it
Select "Sound to AIFF" in the Export: popup
Save

Bryan Roberts · February 16th, 2005, 09:53 AM

Is this AIFF only or will it work with mp3's as well in some other configuration? I have a ton of Mp3s I transferred from my pc to mini mac and FCP (as I've always known) hates mp3's. They skip and don't play back correctly, I even had this problem on a g5 so I always had to burn onto a cd then rip off wavs. Will this work to skip the cd middleman for mp3s as well?

Mike Hanlon · February 16th, 2005, 12:34 PM

Yes, it works with mp3 files as well.

Mike.

January 31st, 2005, 11:59 PM	#1
Matt Elias Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: California Posts: 149	iTunes Music in FCP I want to use some songs that I downloaded (and paid for) from the iTunes store. But for some reason, after I import them, they show up as blank in FCP HD. Is there some kind of encryption on these songs? Is there a way I can play these? Thanks

February 1st, 2005, 01:14 PM	#6
Mike Hanlon Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: San Jose, CA Posts: 180	There's a better way. I use iMovie to "place at playhead" the iTunes song I purchased. That places the song in the audio track. Then I "Share" the audio as an aiff file. The result is an aiff version of the song I purchased. No need to burn a CD. __________________ VM Productions

February 3rd, 2005, 04:47 PM	#11
Mike Hanlon Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: San Jose, CA Posts: 180	Hymn doesn't work with iTunes 4.7.1, at least thats what some message boards are saying. __________________ VM Productions

February 4th, 2005, 04:29 PM	#13
Mike Hanlon Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: San Jose, CA Posts: 180	My previous post about how I use iMovie to convert from protected iTunes format to something else, like AIFF, still holds. At least it did for iMovie 3 and 4. I just tried iMovie 5 and found a little wrinkle has been added, but its not a big deal. Open iMovie Select Audio Select a song from the list Click on Place at Playhead (takes a minute to convert) New step - Put some video in the timeline (any video, doesn't matter what, doesn't have to be same length as the song, in fact shorter is better) Turn off the audio of the video clip with the check box on the right. File->Share opens the Share dialog Click on QuickTime, select Expert Settings popup, click on Share Save file dialog appears: fill in song name, choose location to save it Select "Sound to AIFF" in the Export: popup Save __________________ VM Productions

February 16th, 2005, 12:34 PM	#15
Mike Hanlon Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: San Jose, CA Posts: 180	Yes, it works with mp3 files as well. Mike. __________________ VM Productions

February 1st, 2005, 12:02 AM	#2
Greg Boston Wrangler Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: DFW area, TX Posts: 6,117 Images: 1	What I did was burn the songs to CD then imported them into FCP. Kind of arcane, but it worked. good luck, =gb=

February 1st, 2005, 12:04 AM	#3
Matt Elias Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: California Posts: 149	Wow thanks for the speedy response. I'll give it a try!

February 1st, 2005, 01:38 AM	#4
Matt Elias Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: California Posts: 149	Yup, it worked!

February 1st, 2005, 12:50 PM	#5
Mark Sloan Major Player Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Venice, CA Posts: 346	Anything you buy from the iTunes Music Store is DRM'ed and at a lower than CD quality. You can burn a CD of the music from iTunes to create non-DRM AIFF files, but you are starting with a compressed AAC file that has lower quality.

February 1st, 2005, 01:42 PM	#7
Patrick Pike Major Player Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Mariposa, CA Posts: 200	Or you can use the program Hymn to strip the drm info from the file. http://hymn-project.org/ Much quicker, without the CD middle man.

February 1st, 2005, 09:22 PM	#8
Guest Posts: n/a	mike, ive got a *.m4a song file here and ive tried numerous times to place in playhead but each time imovie crashes and when i restart it the program asks me if i want to either ignore or trash the unused .m4a file which supposedly 'doesnt belong' in imovie. any idea whats happening?

February 3rd, 2005, 04:01 PM	#9
Matt Elias Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: California Posts: 149	Glad to see I'm not the only one with this problem

February 3rd, 2005, 04:05 PM	#10
Patrick Pike Major Player Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Mariposa, CA Posts: 200	Just use Hymn to strip the DRM from the file, then do a normal conversion using Quicktime. It works like a charm, and takes less that a minute from bang to buck.

February 3rd, 2005, 04:53 PM	#12
Patrick Pike Major Player Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Mariposa, CA Posts: 200	Hymn only works on the music file, not with iTunes. It strips the DRM part of the file so that it can be played in any other music player (in this case Quicktime -> FCP) but does not remove your personal info from the file. iTunes 4.7.1 picks up on this manuver and will not play the edited file. But for our purposes (converting an ITMS song to FCP) this is the most efficent way. Sidenote- there is another program called JHymn that will remove EVERYTHING from the ITMS song file so that it can be played again in iTunes 4.7.1.

February 16th, 2005, 09:53 AM	#14
Bryan Roberts Major Player Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 436	Is this AIFF only or will it work with mp3's as well in some other configuration? I have a ton of Mp3s I transferred from my pc to mini mac and FCP (as I've always known) hates mp3's. They skip and don't play back correctly, I even had this problem on a g5 so I always had to burn onto a cd then rip off wavs. Will this work to skip the cd middleman for mp3s as well?