I have over 200 albums that have been ripped into itunes for use on my ipod.

The problem I have is that I cannot use these now for any other program due to the format they are in.
For example I am trying to add music to movies that I make in Windows MovieMaker but it states that it is not a valid file format etc.(mp4a) and cannot be used when I try to add some audio from itunes.

I do not want to rip all my albums again into WMP just so I can use them with other programs.

Is it possible to convert these files in itunes to a format that can be used by MovieMaker, WMP or similar.

One option somebody told me is to make a playlist of the songs I require and burn this to an audio cd then rip this cd into WMP.

Will this work and is it my only option ?

Tks

OK - here we go...., this is from a Mac perspective

In Preferences -> Importing select your desired target format (MP3?)

Then select all the tunes you wish to convert in the main library

From the Menu bar under Advanced you should now see an option "Convert to MP3". Hit that option and your selection will be duplicated as MP3 files. For 200 CD's, I suggest that you plan an evening in front of the TV, the computer will be busy.

Your can keep two sets and use AAC for the iPod, or if you need the space, dump the set you don't want. Let's not worry about arguing which is the best format!

Would you need to convert all of your music, or just the tracks that you want to use in MovieMaker?

If your only requirement for MP3 is for the tracks needed to accompany movies, why not just convert as you go, leaving most in the format they're already in?

I use a program from www.hymn-project.org to change all the songs I buy on Itunes to MP3, it is a small download but the conversion is a little slow.
Not sure how long 200 albums worth of music would take but I would definitely plan on doing something else that day (night)

If you convert from AAC (i.e., MP4A) to another "lossy" format like MP3, rather than reripping, you will lose a lot of quality. Not sure if that matters for your purposes, but keep it in mind.

You can set iTunes to rip your CDs into MP3 format originally. (Tunes bought online through iTunes will still be AAC, however.)

If you go here and download 3ivx D4 4.5.1, as well as the aac parser, WMP will play aac/m4a files. These two links will tell you how to get stubborn WMP to add aac/m4a files to the library. You do not have to reencode.

I have no idea if this works with Windows Moviemaker, since I don't have access to that program.

hymn doesn't do that. It just removes the FairPlay DRM from the file. It converts M4P -> M4A. You have to decompress/recompress to get from M4A to MP3, with a resulting loss in quality.

If the OP's ripped the CDs himself, they're already in M4A format.