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Author Topic: What happens to FLAC files when making a playlist, like to iTunes?  (Read 2021 times)

PeterGregg

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I am making playlists for my iPhone and for my Motorola Android.

What happens to the files i have bought that are FLAC? Is there a place to control that, like to make them mpg in the playlist that is exported?

I need to read more on getting playlists and music into these phones, where is that info?

Peter
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PeterGregg

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Re: What happens to FLAC files when making a playlist, like to iTunes?
« Reply #2 on: January 23, 2015, 01:00:25 pm »

Thanks for someone paying attention to my question, it is appreciated :)

So, here is the story:

I discovered high quality music files for sale which led me to discover JRiver as the new Central Station for controlling my music.

I buy my music as FLAC files thinking I am doing something positive there.

I already have tons of mp3 files from purchases and rips of my CD's.

I am going to make playlists. One for my 87 year old dad, important because the music is one of the very FEW things he responds too. I also let the kids make playlists for their iPhones and now have added a couple of Android phones that I am going to be switching to as contracts expire.

I make a playlist, the intention is for an iPhone being used for my dad's nursing room. it has 200 songs 10 of which include some new FLAC I have purchased. In the Playlist view, I sort by "type" and convert those FLAC songs to mp3 files sending them to a folder I created for that purpose.

So far so good. Here is where I get confused. When I update that playlist and there are another 10 FLAC songs added so now there are 20 FLAC songs. I think i would probably sort again by "type" and convert to mp3. So the question is how will I know which are the new songs now verses the songs already on the playlist? Ill have to add a step and work a duplicates angle to this workflow.

Is there a better way maybe? I know JRiver is quite developed so I am thinking I am doing a lot of juggling that maybe is not necessary. When I just export to iTunes straightaway, none of the FLAC songs show up in iTunes even though they are in the playlist in MC20. I didn't mention this, but I am using iTunes to get the songs into the iPhone and don't think I can do that straight from MC20 right?

Thanks, confusing for me, so thanks for the help. The important aspect of this is the playlist for my elderly dad's room, the music is all he has to look forward to during his day, so i try to keep it fresh for him.

Peter
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BryanC

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Re: What happens to FLAC files when making a playlist, like to iTunes?
« Reply #3 on: January 23, 2015, 01:12:31 pm »

Peter,

Since you are (at least partially) living in the world of Apple, I'd highly recommend that you convert all of your existing FLAC files to ALAC in MC20. ALAC is Apple's proprietary lossless format. This will be a lossless to lossless conversion so the audio will be identical to when you purchased it. FLAC is normally preferred because it is open-source, but iOS's default media player does not support FLAC (as you have already discovered) but they do fully support ALAC.

The easiest way to do this is to create a smartlist in MC20 and set filetype to FLAC. This will display all FLAC files in the library. You can then highlight all of the files and covert to ALAC using (right-click) Library Tools->Convert Format.

If you have further questions, please ask. There are some advanced measures you can also take to automate your existing workflow using MC20's handheld sync feature to keep an updated catalog of your dad's playlist in a specified folder. Honestly, for simplicity's sake it sounds like you should use iTunes primarily to handle playlist and iPhone syncing and use MC20 for your home audio needs.
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6233638

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Re: What happens to FLAC files when making a playlist, like to iTunes?
« Reply #4 on: January 23, 2015, 02:25:05 pm »

ALAC is Apple's proprietary lossless format.
ALAC is open source, not proprietary.
 
Personally I'd do a one-time conversion for the selected tracks rather than converting the entire library, unless you plan on doing a lot of library management on the portable device.
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