#the other option would just be to rip higher quality versions from youtube now that there are better tools for that

[cappurrccino]

i'm going to put all this effort into correcting the album info on all my pilfered music and then i just know i'm going to listen to it at some point later and go "ah. this sounds like gravel in a garbage disposal!" because i did not get high quality audio out of my high school shenanigans and i will want to delete it immediately

[hwxpatrick064458-blog]

Are On-line YouTube To MP3 Converters Just Lifeless?

A utility to transform a Flac library to MP3, Opus or Ogg Vorbis format. After the above setting, click on "Convert" button to start out converting Spotify music to MP3. Earlier than converting videos to MP3 files, users can set audio quality, quantity normalization and MP3 volume. MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer three) is a digital audio encoding format for client audio storage. An MP3 file can be constructed at higher or decrease bit rates, with higher or decrease ensuing high quality. This highly effective conversion software for Windows and Mac can help you not solely with changing FLAC to MP3 but additionally with a number of other media file conversion and compatibility issues. Simply download the appropriate version of Video Converter and observe the guide under. Choose Audio Recorder from the interface of Display Recorder, allow System Audio and Disable Microphone Audio, so you can get prime quality audio effect. Within the settings, click on Output - Audio format and set it in MP3. Click on OKAY to click on Rec to start out. With this free on-line mp3 cutter you may reduce a portion from any audio file, or convert a video to MP3 format, and save the result as a MP3 music file or ringtone for you cell phone such as Samsung Galaxy S8, Apple iPhone 8S Plus. It enables to cut an audio with an accurate starting time and ending time in milliseconds. Click the "Add File" icon to import your MP2 audio information. Or, simply select your MP2 recordsdata and then drag them to this mp2 to mp3 online MP3 Converter. Free DVD converter: Convert video to DVD, or convert DVD to MP4, MP3 and extra. An excellent Apple software however let's face it: there are various higher selections to convert MP3 and audio recordsdata than using iTunes. It's too difficult. Whole Audio Converter can easily convert almost any audio to WAV, MP3, OGG, WMA, APE, FLAC, MP4, AAC, MPC. Since converting CDA to MP3 online is not feasible, the first method to convert CDA is to use Home windows Media Player. Open Windows Media Player and swap to Library Mode. Library mode is better within the sense you could choose exactly which tracks you want to rip instead of ripping the complete CD. An MP3 CD is a KNOWLEDGE CD which accommodates music stored in a number of (often many) MP3 files. Free download this highly effective TTA Converter to convert TTA to MP3, FLAC, WAV, AIFF, WMA, M4A, AU and AC3 or to separate TTA with CUE file to a number of tracks. Now obviously if you end up time limited and because you would drive yourself insane having to sort in each and every filename it's better to jot down a script to transform all of the files. button and select flv recordsdata you want to convert within the pop-up dialog field. Instantly extract MP3, AAC, WAV, MP2, and so forth from MP4. Total Video Converter from EffectMatrix is without doubt one of the most complete and highly effective items of video conversion software program we evaluated. We would have preferred to put Complete Video Converter in of one in every of our prime spots. Obtain the video converter setup file from Movavi's website. After the download is complete, follow the instructions to install the software. A major draw back to utilizing STOIK Video Converter is that many of the modifying capabilities and file codecs you can save to are only usable if you have the Professional model. This App lets you go the videos you have got in your device to mp3, mp2, aac or wav audio format. Considering the fact that many video information are fairly large, the largest drawback with FileZigZag is the wait time to upload the video and receive your email. It's a life saver for Android customers, aTube catcher has own utility for Android customers with the identical features as properly. In keeping with these parameters, it must be named as among the finest YouTube to Mp3 converters. The AVI to Audio converter software program extracts audios from the AVI movies, and then encodes the audios in the format of MP3, WMA, AAC or any of the supported audio file codecs. Customers can select a segment of the AVI video to be transformed to audio file. Free Audio Converter supplies the most comprehensive options for music followers to transform audio between MP3, WMA, WAV, AAC, MP2, M4A and OGG codecs as well as convert different unprotected audio codecs. Lossless audio codecs like FLAC, ALAC, APE, and so forth. are additionally supported for top-quality enjoyment. It might probably deal with batch conversion up to sixteen simultaneous processes. MPlayer is a media player that supports a wide range of multimedia codecs. It's usually used for playing video with a GUI, however can also be used (in batch mode without a GUI) to transform the audio to WAV format. MPlayer is accessible for Linux (bundle "mplayer"), Windows and Mac OS X. The ATSC specification and MPEG-2 enable using progressive frames, even within an interlaced video sequence. For instance, a station that transmits 1080i60 video sequence can use a coding method the place these 60 fields are coded with 24 progressive frames and mp2 to mp3 online metadata instructs the decoder to interlace them and carry out 3:2 pulldown earlier than show. This allows broadcasters to modify between 60 Hz interlaced (news, cleaning soap operas) and 24 Hz progressive (prime-time) content with out ending the MPEG-2 sequence and introducing a a number of seconds of delay as the TV switches formats. This is the explanation why 1080p30 and 1080p24 sequences allowed by the ATSC specification aren't used in apply. Moreover customary MP3 format, MP3 Toolkit supports most of fashionable audio & video codecs like WMA, WMV, MP4, WAV, OGG, FLV, MOV, M4P, M4A and more, additionally helps prime quality audio like FLAC and APE. With MP3 Toolkit, you'll be able to convert, cut, merge, rip and document MP3. Properly, whenever you google Spotify to mp3 converter, you'll get all types of results. Most of them are Spotify converter however not Spotify to mp3 converter. They can convert Spotify playlists to different music providers like Deezer, Apple Music, and many others., however not offline mp3 songs. The way to discover actual Spotify to mp3 converters that work stably? Right here we'll listing the most common Spotify converters and Spotify to mp3 converters. , the individuals behind VLC, have also put collectively a collection of script information that use PowerShell or CMD in Windows or the terminal in Linux to batch convert tiles in VLC. When you desire doing issues with scripts, this web page is for you. After launch Faasoft Opus to MP3 Converter, follow the detailed information to convert Opus to MP3. Step three: Convert videos to MP4 or MP3. Simply with three clicks, you may get the wonderful movie with iwisoft free video converter. Easy to use for each newbies and superior customers.

[abrahamcline25-blog]

Shuangs Audio Joiner EXE Information

Helium Audio Joiner, as its name suggests, permits you to merge numerous audio tracks into one single file utilizing an intuitive interface and superior audio joiner apk instruments. The ensuing video exhibits the picture at the specified dimensions and performs the audio file in the background. Nevertheless, if you must merge songs in other formats, they are going to be mechanically converted and opened in the joiner. Magic Audio Joiner can join a bunch of knowledge in a variety of codecs, audio joiner apk producing a single monitor in a format of your choice. With our Free Merge MP3 adding + setting + merging one-step resolution, magicaudiotools.com you can easily merge your audio file right into a single one without reducing high quality.

You too can cut up and merge audio recordsdata particularly your MP3 tracks. After loading Free MP3 Cutter Joiner, you is perhaps met with the Cutter" side of the program. MixPad is a sound mixing software for audio and music manufacturing. Extract the audio from a video, convert it and export it as a MP3 file. Let's examine how one can mix songs with this highly effective and particular audio and video merger. There are tons of such instruments all around the web, nevertheless, I've chosen the very best MP3 cutter and joiner for you.

After importing a video, the editor will rip the audio from it and present the waveform. MP4Joiner is a free software that allows be part of a number of MP4 files into one with out reencoding and with out quality loss. • Supports a number of audio formats. Video Audio Merger Free Version merges audio and video file into a single video file. If need more superior options, MediaHuman Audio Converter does let you customise things just like the default output folder, whether or not you want to automatically add the converted songs to iTunes, and if you wish to search online for canopy artwork, amongst other choices. Nonetheless, except for merging MP3 recordsdata, this audio joiner seems taking endlessly to upload the other audio tracks for combining. Hope you'll be able to higher edit your audio files after reading this post. This on-line device allows you to easily cut MP3 and plenty of other audio recordsdata without installing any software. Free obtain wav audio turning into a member of software program program program to affix wav,merge wav,combine wav file. MP3 Toolkit helps most of well-preferred audio and video codecs like MP3, WMA, WMV, MP4, WAV, OGG, FLV and 's a tedious, time-consuming course of, made all the moreso having not too long ago switched from Mac to LAPTOP, and I can not seem to discover a freeware MP3 merging program that is not historic or bundled with malware. Within this set, one can find some capabilities that can permit you be part of two or extra OGG audio information into a single one. To hitch two or additional MP3s with Hokusai Audio Editor, receive and launch the app on your gadget and start creating a brand new enterprise by urgent the + button positioned at the prime proper. Obtain Audio Converter for Android to merge audio recordsdata on your phone offline. Observe that an audio file format is commonly used for the storage of digital audio knowledge in a computer system or other gadgets. Our main YouTube to MP3 Converter can be compatible with many different online video websites corresponding to Vimeo, Dailymotion and Liveleak. That is actually a program that may take audio file merging to a model new level. Audio information are often minimize for functions like ring-tone making and the like. Fairly often, you find yourself wanting to merge two audio clips, two MP3 information, or two favorite songs. As an audio splitter freeware, Any Video Converter might help you chop the audio information into segments as you want. This is a straightforward application to chop audio files (i.e., MP3, WAV), and as you'll be able to see in the screenshot shown below, you possibly can apply fade to your clip very simply. With Accord CD Ripper Xtreme you'll be able to rip audio CD to MP3, FLAC, M4A, WMA, WAV and many alternative digital audio codecs like OGG. Aside from compiling playlists of music into single files, it can be a helpful technique to create podcasts or different audio content as you possibly can document shorter clips then compile them later. With our MP3 Merger you can be a part of your chapters in the one massive audiobook or combine non-stop audio CD from many separate music tracks. Due to this fact, we want to recommend you another audio merger - Leawo's Video Converter, an expert video converter software program that lets you convert audio and merge audio information into one file. Have you ever wished to easily add audio to your video online? Talking of movies, the applying has a constructed-in editor so you possibly can simply edit each audio and video information. The app helps better than 300 audio codecs, robotically changing them to mp3 for quicker and simpler operation.

Make Preparation: Free acquire and arrange this highly effective Audio Joiner in your Mac or Windows, after which adjust to the step-by-step guide to combine audio information within minutes. To steer clear of this possiblilty Mac clients are suggested to rework their files using a web-based service much like (an advert-free service) or associated. Leawo Video Converter would instantly start to convert audio recordsdata into one file. Now you'll be able to convert audio tracks right in your browser. Step 1. Navigate to the web audio joiner major interface. It supports extraction of audios from videos. Alternatively, you possibly can Drag & Drop audio recordsdata into the main window of Easy MP3 Joiner. Methodology 2: Also, there's another approach to edit and join audio tracks with out installing software: taking online service. Xilisoft Audio Converter has an intuitive layout and imports and exports in all the important audio formats. Help many audio codecs - Weeny Free Audio Cutter helps in style audio codecs MP3, OGG, WAV and WMA. Overall, VSDC Free Audio Converter is just as quick as many of the other instruments on this checklist and is great for converting your files to a standard format.

[comicsinkcorporated-blog]

Interview with Screaming Villains, developer of Night Trap 25th anniversary.

CI: So how did development for Night Trap 25th anniversary first come about?

SV: It honestly started out as sort of a joke. Sometime after the failed Kickstarter, hardcore fans started attempting to recreate their own remake of Night Trap and some gaming sites were writing articles about it which I found kind of odd especially since they either didn't work or barely worked. I was already messing around with FMV stuff as a hobby and a friend of mine came up with the idea of myself making a working version running on a phone.

I threw it together in about 3-4 days, posted a video of myself playing it on Youtube and sort of remained anonymous about it. I got a local arcade owner that I know to post the video on his Facebook account since he was friends with an absurd amount of retro gamers and it started to spread and got about 5000 views within the first 24 hours.

The website fmvworld.com found it too and decided to contact Rob Fulop (one of the creators of Night Trap) to get his opinion on it. Another website called segabits.com also contacted Tom Zito (producer of Night Trap) to find out if he had any involvement so that sort of put me on their radar. After that I figured "what the hell?" and sent an email to Tom at about 3am and got a response in about 15 minutes. He just asked a couple of questions about it and asked for my phone number. The next day, he called me and 20 minutes into the conversation he asked if I would like to do an official version and I said yes.

CI: Limited Run Games PS4 version of Night Trap remains their fastest selling game, while the Nintendo Switch version may end up being their best selling game. Were you surprised by the popularity of this remaster?

SV: I don't think anyone was expecting that. It just came out of nowhere which I think helped a lot so thank god my friends were able to keep their mouth shut while I was working on it. Originally, there was only going to be 5000 copies of the game available. Once the announcement was made Josh Fairhurst from Limited Run Games and myself were pretty much stuck on Twitter the entire day so we definitely wasn't expecting the reaction it got.

After that, Josh said something like "We might need to increase the quantity" which at the time I don't think they ever exceeded 5000 on a game so it got bumped up to 6000. After that, he came back again and said "Maybe we should add a collectors edition" so now we're at 8000 for PS4. Then it was "Let's release a big box version for PC" so now there's another 2000. It just kept growing and growing and still didn't meet demand. What's funny is the guy that made the announcement trailer and myself was constantly googling Night Trap that day just to see what was being said but then we went to the trending section on Youtube and we're like "Oh my god! The trailer is trending higher than Gucci Mane!" For a brief moment a game that a lot of people considered terrible was all of a sudden popular and I think that's rad.

CI: What do you think it is about Night Trap that has made it so beloved amongst fans?

SV: It has a b-movie feel to it and doesn't take itself seriously. A lot of hate that it gets is sort of undeserving. The popular ones are usually "this is barely a game" or "this has bad acting". NT was made 5 years before it was finally released and intended for a console that used VHS tapes and the acting is very similar to 80's horror/thriller films. Unfortunately, it was the wrong time period when it was finally released in 1992 and at that point nobody was really reminiscing about the 80's like they do today. The fans that are super hardcore about Night Trap are usually gamers that have a great interest in movies in general. What surprised me was the number of people that I've talked to that said Digital Pictures influenced them to pursue a career in the film or tv industry.

CI: Were there any notable, unforeseen difficulties during development?

SV: Engine restrictions was the biggest issue. I figured out pretty quickly that a lot of the gaming engines available weren't really designed with FMV in mind so because of this I think the video quality suffered more than I would've liked. Luckily, this is no longer an issue with future releases.

CI: How did the Limited Run Games physical release come about?

SV: The dudes from My Life In Gaming actually brought it up. One of those guys lives down the street from me and very early in the development process I told him I was working on Night Trap and wanted a documentary to go along with it since it has a crazy history and I thought it'd be a cool promotional tool. He immediately suggested that I work with Limited Run Games. Over the next several months I kept telling him that I'd think about it whenever he brought it up.

About a month before the game was announced, Coury came to my house to film my interview for the documentary. After we were finished he brought up Limited Run again so I told him to go ahead and tell them what I was working on. Ten minutes later, I got an email from Josh Fairhurst. Limited Run is super rad and I honestly can't imagine doing any game without their involvement so I'll most likely harrass them with each release that I do. They actually ported Night Trap to Nintendo Switch. I can't say anything bad about those dudes. They've helped me tremendously.

CI: So the Nintendo Switch version of the game comes with Japanese & French audio, was this something Screaming Villains commissioned themselves? Did Night Trap have an original Japanese and French release? And what was the reasoning behind including the new audio?

SV: The Japanese and French audio actually came from previous releases. I got ahold of copies of the game that were originally released in Europe and Japan and just ripped the audio from the disks. Before it was released I started getting messages and emails asking for additional language options so that's where that idea came from.

CI: So Night Trap as a copious history with Nintendo, when the company called out the game out in court, vowing it would never appear on a Nintendo system, which lead to some bad blood between the original Devs and Nintendo. How did it feel to finally put Night Trap on a Nintendo System?

SV: I think it's cool. Digital Pictures always released their games on Sega consoles and 3DO so it's super rad that one of them finally ended up on a Nintendo console. Definitely long overdue. With Night Trap getting released on there with a Teen rating without cutting any content might hopefully stop people from claiming that the game uses violence against women to move the story further which is absolultely ridiculous along with everything else that people claim is in there that doesn't even exist.

CI: What was the decision to go with Double Switch as the next FMV game to remaster?

SV: Double Switch just seemed like the obvious choice since it's the same type of game as Night Trap but everything is improved on. You could I guess call it the spiritual successor to Night Trap. It's also my favorite game from Digital Pictures. I think it was expected too. Back in February, I met a lot of the people that worked on Friday The 13th The Game. When I was introduced to the Executive Director Randy Greenback the first thing he said to me was "Are you doing Double Switch next?!" Josh from Limited Run was campaigning for it pretty hard too since his aunt is a childhood friend of Debbie Harry who appears in the game. A very short teaser for it was showng during the Limited Run E3 conference. While watching the conference there were people leaving comments like "Just announce Double Switch already!"

CI: Night Trap special editions in the past have come with cassette tapes, patches, and even a VHS tape. Can you tell us if Double Switch special edition will come with anything like that?

SV: It most likely will but I have no idea what since I haven't really talked to Limited Run about those options yet. Usually what happens is they throw an idea at me and I pretty much agree to all of them. They're huge Sega nerds like I am so I trust them with their ideas. The idea of pogs came up for Night Trap but we ran out of time so it wouldn't surprise me if that happened with Double Switch.

I'm sure it'll come in a Sega CD jewel case too since Limited Run ordered about 15,000 of those. I will say that it's getting a completely new cover since the original ones are kind of lame and don't really fit with the type of game that it is.

It looks super rad! DS also has a super rad soundtrack that was done by Thomas Dolby, who wrote and performed the hit song "She Blinded Me With Science" so I was hoping that a stereo version of the soundtrack existed so we could release that but sadly it's all mono.

CI: There was some rumors that Screaming Villains have been working on bringing, Marky Mark: Make My Video to the PS4. Can you confirm this?

SV: Oh dear....that was a joke that went too far. What happened was Josh Fairhurst and I kept getting our tweets captured and used as news articles for very minor stuff. I hated it because I wasn't used to this sort of thing since Night Trap was my first console release and Josh was beyond frustrated with it because of a random person making a negative comment about Nintendo, which led to a gaming site writing an article claiming that Josh spoke negatively about Nintendo when it wasn't even him or even anyone affiliated with LR.

They were forced to update the article and admit that they were wrong. After that, we started tweeting each other about a re-release of Marky Mark but making it sound official like it was an actual thing that was happening just to see if anyone would start turning that into articles.

One night, I took it a step further and made a working version of the game running on a PS4 in about an hour and then the next day we both posted a link to a video showing it. That got yanked from Youtube within the first 20 minutes. We used to talk about it all the time trying to figure out how to make it happen since the idea is too ridiculous to ignore but no. No remake of Marky Mark Make My Video.CI: What other FMV games do you want to bring to modern consoles?

CI: What other FMV games do you want to bring to modern consoles?

SV: My original goal was to get as many games from Digital Pictures as I can which is pretty much happening now. Night Trap and Double Switch aren't the only ones coming. Outside of DP releases the goal is D which was originally released back in 1995. I feel like there's a ton of different things you can do with that one.

CI: Lastly is there anything you would like to say to the readers?

The obvious thing would be thank you to everyone that played NT25. It was a stressful process so it made me happy to see that people that were fans of the original enjoyed it. Also, if you're a fan of Digital Pictures releases then stick around because some super rad stuff is coming!

[sugarbundust]

Hey, y’all! Got something different for you today.

Someone messaged me recently asking about my audio settings for when I listen to music (and am not multi-tasking, or the volume would be much lower ahahaha). I figured I could share it here with you, too. Maybe it’ll be interesting!

These options should work for both iTunes/Apple Music, but you might be limited in your choices for some audio quality settings in older versions (mostly the streaming aspect, as that’s new since they rebranded). Here I’m using MacOS 11.6 Big Sur and Music version 1.1.6.37. Highly recommend using these Equalizer settings and the Sound Enhancer, though! Got this sorted after researching “the Perfect EQ” ahaha. This has followed me for a number of years, tweaked from ye olden Winamp days, and from OSX Leopard onward. It sounds really good! ( ๑´･ᴗ･`๑) ❤ I think it might surprise you how much ‘brighter’ and ‘punchier’ it will sound!

The higher quality the actual track’s file is, the better this will sound! By that I mean 128kbps MP3 rips from YouTube or Soundcloud can only be enhanced so much... Try and aim for a higher bitrate if you can! (256kbps at the lowest, with 320kbps at the preferred.) The lower the number, the more its been compressed and you lose quality that way. Other filetypes (besides MP3) can sometimes impact your listening experience, too! MP3 is the default, but not the only thing available to try. (◍•ᴗ•`◍)*＊

If you need help figuring out what your song’s bitrate is, you can do it right within the program! In any Song view (Where you see only a downward list of songs. Don’t see it? Check your Finder bar, then click “View” to see if you’re in “Song” view), press Command+J and you can select “Bitrate” so it’ll show in your song table columns. (Lots of really great stuff hidden in this menu, by the way! I love using “Date Added” so I can sort with that and listen to all my latest tracks with ease right at the top of the list!) You can do this for Playlists as well, just make sure you first change “View” to say “Songs.” ٩(⁎❛ᴗ❛⁎)۶ The same keyboard shortcut CMND+J will give you the option if you’re in a Playlist or Album.

Keep in mind if you’re using songs added to your library that you got from Apple Music (where you do the + or “add to library” option, not in “Store” where you bought the individual track), you will not see a bitrate because you’re streaming it. This is why it’s important to follow the settings I’ve shown in the Playback menu pictured above. (Command+, or in the Finder bar, Music ›Preferences›Playback to access.) This way, you’re streaming the file in a higher quality bitrate! c:

Also should be worth noting that I use Airpods now (2nd gen, the new ones are on the way for some fun with spacial audio!), but I rocked these settings with both dollar-priced wired headphones and some professional studio grade ones, and it helps regardless of what your setup is. So don’t worry if you’re using some different equipment! It should still help out!

It goes without saying that if you’re an audiophile, you’re not using iTunes to play your FLAC, OPUS, raw WAV, etc. 😂 Don’t come for me, okay? I understand that, but I’m not a sound engineer, I just like music and this is easy. I’ve been down that road and I use other apps for that kind of experience lol. This is for your average listener who just wants to enhance their basic setup and doesn’t want to invest in more equipment or expensive services. c:

If you want more iTunes/Apple Music tips for organizing, tagging, transferring songs from other sources (like Spotify) etc, just let me know!

[crispydeersweets]

Free Youtube To Mp3 Converter Download Mac

Convert YouTube to MP3 and get Insane and Extreme 320kbps MP3 hi-fi files!

Also convert to AAC, OGG, M4A, FLAC and WAV lossless audio.

Download original audio quality files without conversion.

Convert any YouTube playlist to MP3.

Available for Mac, PC and Android. 100% clean and safe.

Free Youtube To Mp3 Converter Download Mac Full

Free Youtube To Mp3 Converter For Mac No Download

Today status

MacX Video Converter Free Edition is an impressive software, especially designed for Mac (macOS Mojave incl.) to free convert any YouTube to MP3 on Mac, irrespective of converting YouTube MP4 to MP3 music, YouTube FLV to MP3, or transfer YouTube 720p/1080P/4K UHD to MP3; it's just a piece of cake to handle YouTube to MP3 conversion on Mac. Guys, your yt to mp3 converter for mac osx absolutely rips! So nice to find a well designed program that works as it's supposed to, without any hassles and timewasting like so many others I've found. Nice logo, nice menus, user-friendly, worked first time out of the box just like mac stuff is supposed to! Download YouTube to mp3 Welcome to YTMP3 - a popular and Youtube to Mp3 Converter tool, It is a youtube converter that converts youtube videos into free mp3 files.

Download MediaHuman YouTube to MP3 Converter for Mac to save YouTube, Vimeo videos, or SoundCloud and Mixcloud tracks in MP3 format. MediaHuman YouTube to MP3 Converter has had 3 updates within. YouTubeConvert.cc is a YouTube to iTunes converter free online, which lets you convert YouTube videos to MP4/MP3 as well as download YouTube videos. There are some quality choosing options. The larger the file size, the higher the quality will be. It starts by pasting the video link into the box and click the convert button.

Free YouTube to MP3 Converter functions properly.

All YouTube videos are available for download.

As of November 5, 2020

November 2020 updates

03.11.2020 YouTube signatures updated

31.10.2020 YouTube signatures updated

26.10.2020 New version 4.3.33.1031 released

Bulk download

Get the whole world of MP3s. Find playlists and channels to match your mood. Download and convert YouTube Playlist to MP3. This is the unique feature of the program.

Pure sound

Convert to lossless and lossy. Formats available: MP3 (Lame Insane and Extreme Profiles), M4A (AAC), WAV, FLAC and OGG. Download the original stream to get hi-fi sound within the reach of the audiophile.

Functional

Enjoy multithreaded downloading. Download playlists and separate links — all at once. Customize output names easily. Fill MP3 tags and artworks automatically.

How to convert YouTube video to MP3 using Free YouTube to MP3 Converter

1. Run Free YouTube to MP3 Converter

2. Copy YouTube URL

Copy the link to YouTube video or click right button of your mouse on the video itself and choose 'Copy video URL'.

3. Paste the copied link to the application by clicking 'Paste' button

You will see your video in the program's download list.

4. Choose the extension

You can save YouTube video in MP3, FLAC, M4A, AAC, WAC, OGG. Default extension is MP3.

Program's distinctive feature is the opportunity to save in MP3 Lame Insane Extreme Standard Quality presets.

5. Click 'Download' button

You made it!

Now you can enjoy your favorite tunes brought to you by the best YouTube to MP3 converter!

Full Specifications

What's new in version 4.3.33.1031Version 4.3.33.1031 may include unspecified updates, enhancements, or bug fixes. Performance improvement.

GeneralApplication nameFree YouTube to MP3 ConverterDescriptionA lightweight and easy-to-use application that supports audio streams downloading from Youtube and converts them to all popular formatsRelease DateNovember 05, 2020Date AddedNovember 05, 2020Version4.3.33.1031Operating SystemsWindows 10, 8, 7, Vista, XP SP3

CategoryCategoryInternet SoftwareSubcategoryDownload Managers

Download InformationFile Size58.74 MBFile NameFreeYouTubeToMP3Converter_4.3.33.1031_u.exe

by Christine Smith • 2020-10-28 17:38:18 • Proven solutions

MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer-3) is a convenient, versatile, and popular way of storing music and other audio files. One of the main advantages lies in its comparatively small file size that saves storage space and bandwidth while sharing data. There are times, however, when you need to convert MP3 files into other audio formats such as WAV, AAC, FLAC, or OGG on your Mac due to compatibility issues with media players and devices. If you are looking for some good MP3 converters for Mac, you are in the right place. The sections in this piece not only inform you about some of the most robust and efficient audio converters, but they also give you a fair idea about the drawbacks those apps may have. This would help you decide which program to pick to fulfill all your conversion-related needs, and which among them is not suitable due to some missing ingredients or features that you feel are essential for your work-specific tasks.

Part 1. Best MP3 Converter for Mac

Wondershare UniConverter tops this list as the best MP3 Converter for Mac available today. It quickly and efficiently converts MP3 to numerous file formats for Windows, Apple devices, Blackberry, Zune, Android, video game consoles, YouTube to MP3 converter Mac and many more. Its main attractions are its quick conversion speeds and high-quality output while being economical on system resources. It also features an intuitive interface that is easy to use and allows for batch MP3 conversion as well.

Wondershare UniConverter - Best MP3 Converter for Mac/Windows

Supports the most popular video and audio formats, including MP3, MOV, WMV, and device-specific formats.

Convert to optimized preset for almost all of the devices.

30X faster conversion speed than any conventional converters.

Edit, enhance & personalize your video files.

Burn and customize your video to DVD with free DVD menu templates.

Download or record videos from 10,000+ video sharing sites.

Versatile toolbox combines with video metadata fix, GIF maker, video compressor, and screen recorder.

Supported OS: Mac OS 10.15 (Catalina), 10.14, 10.13, 10.12, 10.11, 10.10, 10.9, 10.8, 10.7, 10.6, Windows 10/8/7/XP/Vista.

Security Verified, 5,942,222 people have downloaded it.

How to Convert Video to MP3 on Mac

Now let's have a quick overview of how Wondershare MP3 converter functions on Mac within three simple steps. Before getting started, install the video to MP3 Converter and

Step 1 Add Target Video into the best MP3 Converter.

Launch Wondershare MP3 converter, click the to import your target video to the program. You can also add your favorite YouTube video for MP3 extraction as long as you download YouTube videos on your Mac beforehand.

Step 2 Select Output Format.

Click the Output Format: and you'll get a full list of output formats, which consists of Recently, Video, Audio, Device and Editing. If you want to convert video to MP3, just go to Audio > MP3 and select a resolution in the right. The same goes for other video or audio formats.

Free Youtube To Mp3 Converter Download Mac Full

Step 3 Start MP3 Conversion.

Once you're satisfied with the output format, just hit on the Start All buttons in the right bottom corner to start converting video to MP3 or vice verse.

Pros:

Apart from MP3, Wondershare provides support for over 1000 video and audio formats to which you can convert your media files easily.

A ton of customization tools is not found in most of the other products on this list.

Super fast conversion.

High-quality output.

Cons:

While Wondershare Converter is easy to use, it may take some time to discover all of its features and use them to their maximum potential.

Conclusion: Mac and Windows users alike will enjoy using this all-purpose software to prepare MP3 files for instant playback on any device easily. Simply select the desired audio format or device from the extensive list of supported options, and your MP3 file will be ready in no time.

Availability: Paid or free trial version

Part 2. Other 7 Top MP3 Converters for Mac

1. Handbrake

Handbrake is an open-source video to MP3 converter for Mac that supports a wide range of formats. Apart from Mac, it is also available for Windows and Linux.

Features: Handbrake comes with a decent amount of features that allow for the conversion of MP3 audio files. It works with the most common audio files and formats and leverages tools such as Libav, x264, and x265. Handbrake is the right choice if you're looking to convert YouTube to MP3 Mac free.

Pros:

● It is open-source and widely available for free download.

● It gives users advanced control with customization settings.

Cons:

● The main disadvantage of using Handbrake is its intimidating interface that is difficult to navigate, especially for first-time users.

Conclusion: Other converters featured in this article have user-friendly interfaces, but the same cannot be said of Handbrake. The program is robust but utilitarian and will take some getting used to.

Availability: Free

2. FFmpeg

FFmpeg is a cross-platform solution to convert audio and video. It's the odd one out in this list as it lacks a graphical user interface. Users are forced to input instructions from the command line/terminal. FFmpeg is a truly free MP3 converter for Mac.

Features: FFmpeg can convert your MP3 files to and from most audio formats. It uses the free FFmpeg encoder and supports many audio and video formats, including MKV, AVI, WAV, MPEG4, ASF, Quicktime, WMV, M4A, MOV and more. FFmpeg also supports batch conversion.

Pros:

● It supports a wide range of codecs and filters.

● It supports most audio/video formats.

Cons:

● Difficult to use for beginners.

● Its official documentation is not clear and can be quite confusing.

Conclusion: While a powerful tool, FFmpeg's lack of a graphical interface makes it unsuitable for the average user. It is not recommended for anyone interested in learning how to convert YouTube video to MP3 on Mac.

Availability: Free

3. Movavi Video Converter

Movavi is a good YouTube to MP3 converter for Mac that will help you to convert your MP3 files to a wide range of formats. It is available for both Windows and Mac.

Features: Movavi Video Converter supports MP3 format well and is quite user friendly. Its user interface has improved in usability and navigation and can convert most of the common video and audio file types. This video converter also comes with predefined settings for various media players such as Windows Media Player and iTunes.

Pros

● Easy to use user interface

● It supports a wide range of audio and video formats

● It allows users to convert YouTube to MP3 Mac

Cons

● Poor support

● Limited period trial version

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Conclusion: While a good choice if you're searching for a YouTube MP3 converter Mac, its trial version isn't free. Some users have complaints against its asking for payment, even in trial versions.

Availability: Paid or free trial version

4. Leawo Video Converter

Leawo Video Converter is a multifunctional converter that allows Mac users to convert MP3 files to most audio formats. Popular among users searching for free YouTube to MP3 converter for Mac. It is available for both Windows and Mac.

Features: This YouTube MP3 converter for Mac is compatible with most audio and video formats. One of the best things about Leawo Video Converter is its ability to convert media files in any combination. For example, you can convert MKV to MP3, MOV to 3GP, etc. It also allows you to optimize videos for playback on specific devices, including media players, iPads, iPods, gaming consoles, etc.

Pros:

● Easy to use interface.

● It allows users to customize conversion settings.

Cons:

● It lacks many out-of-the-box tools and features found in other converters on this list.

● It asks that you buy additional features.

● Slow conversion speeds.

Conclusion: Leawo is a capable converter that produces good quality results. However, it comes with a limited feature set and requires that you buy extra features such as disc burning and online video downloading tools as separate modules. Unless you have hours to spare while waiting for Leawo to convert video to MP3 on Mac, we recommend you use a different program.

Availability: Paid or free trial version

5. Xilisoft Audio Converter

Available for both Mac and Windows platforms, Xilisoft Audio Converter holds a renowned place in the market.

Features: Xilisoft Audio Converter can accept audio and video files, and convert them to formats like AAC, AC3, AU, FLAC, MP3, OCG, etc. It is even capable enough to produce lossless output post-conversion.

Pros:

● It can export output files directly to the target devices.

Cons:

● It offers a limited number of output formats.

Conclusion: Even though the basic version can convert audio files, Xilisoft Audio Converter allows you to access many advanced features only in its Pro variant.

Availability: Paid or free trial version

6. Aiseesoft Audio Converter

Audio Converter by Aiseesoft is an efficient tool for Mac and Windows computers and is available for trial, so you can check its features before investing your funds in.

Features: In addition to being an efficient MP3 converter for Mac, the tool can also extract audio from video files, trim the video and audio clips before conversion, and even lets you choose your output preferences.

Pros:

● It supports almost all major formats for conversion.

● It supports batch conversions.

Free Youtube To Mp3 Converter For Mac No Download

Cons:

● It comes with a price tag.

Conclusion: The tool is, of course, efficient and robust, but the interface lacks many options that are usually available in other similar programs.

Availability: Paid or free trial version

7. Switch Audio File Converter

Developed by one of the renowned vendors, NCH Software, Switch Audio Converter comes for Windows, macOS, and Android platforms. For PCs, it can run on a 64-bit operating system, thus giving you comparatively better performance.

Features: The tool is capable of extracting audio from video files and DVD, can obtain song details from the online database, allows batch conversion, can be used as a CLI plugin for automated conversions, and much more.

Pros:

● It offers fast conversion.

● It performs automatic normalization.

Cons:

● Advanced features are available only in the Pro version of the app.

Conclusion: Even though the app is pretty robust and extremely efficient if you are new to computers or conversions, all the options the interface and the boxes are populated with may scare you. However, with regular use, you will get familiar with the tool and will learn to use it seamlessly.

Availability: Paid or free trial version

Conclusion

Converting audio files is not as complicated as it may sound to some people. In fact, the process is extremely simple if you have a decent MP3 converter for Mac that is efficient enough to get the task done quickly and without errors. Thankfully Wondershare UniConverter is available for both Mac and Windows platforms with an almost identical interface that helps you locate and access the features, options, and windows without any separate training or learning resources for the two variants.

[olderthannetfic]

Escapade 2017 Con Report

I gave @rhaegalks​ a lift, came home, and flopped on my bed for a few hours. It turns out that a gross head cold plus a ton of parties plus the hotel’s alarm going off at like 7am is not good for my ability to be upright and functional. Zzzzz.

This year, we were in a new and fabulous hotel. Let’s hope we can afford it next year too. (Check out Escapade’s crowdfunding campaign.) The rooms are big, with an excellent fold-out couch in the outer room and two TVs: it’s the perfect set up for room parties.

Not that I had any of those this year. I was too busy helping with the Friday night dance party and hosting the Saturday night after party in the con suite. I would have thought that the hotel’s layout made sound travel, but we had no security issues, so I guess the sound proofing is better than I thought or we just weren’t that loud.

Booze and food:

What? You don’t think those are the most important parts of a party?

The hotel has happy hour every day. All the ehhh wine or basic mixed drinks you can cram down from 5:30 to 7:30. I didn’t eat at the hotel restaurant; reportedly, the burgers were dry. The old hotel is just across the street, and its restaurant is very good, if overpriced. I brought some real food for the con suite. I wish I’d been able to do more. Maybe next year, a few more of us can bring entree type offerings. I love how BASCon let you just eat lunch out of the con suite to keep things cheap. (RIP, BASCon. ;__;)

Friday, there were three specialty cocktails served by the hotel bartender. Vodka (ew), more vodka (ew), and a specialty margarita (pretty good for a bar at a hotel event). The hors d’oeuvres were great: little egg rolls and beef skewers.

Saturday, a bunch of us went out for swanky Mexican a short drive away. (The con is in the cultural wasteland that surrounds LAX, so the options are mostly bad chains, plus terrible Mexican, better Mexican, and swanky Mexican. Not so much with the variety. There’s a Greek place I’ve still never been to.) I had duck molé and regaled @t-cupsandtime​ with my many lolwhut fandom adventures. (Yes, I talked about myself all through dinner. Why do you ask? ;D)

Later, after the vid show, I hosted the after party in the con suite, where I set up a bar to serve a variety of lovely cocktails, each a different color. (Predictably, I got caught up dealing with tech issues in another room, so people just drank all the vodka and poured themselves whatever they felt like, but I did have a cool cocktail menu in theory!) 

We also watched a few vids and, more importantly, I was able to inflict Always Crashing in the Same Car on a whole roomful of fans. Come dwell with me in terrible kinky porn land, friends!

My cocktail offerings were:

Negroni - in honor of Killa always eying my sugar death bomb drinks with alarm

Moonlight - in honor of Joi McMillon’s gushing at Visible Artists over the editing process on Moonlight (you fangirl, you!)

Amaretto Sour - because I had a lot of home-grown lemons

Grasshopper - because SUGAR DEATH BOMB

China Blue - no, not that vodka bullshit in a martini glass: the tropical weirdness with lychee liqueur, blue curaçao, and grapefruit juice

White Russian - can’t go wrong with the Dude

Penguin - frothy, pink, and full of gin--in honor of Escapade’s mascot, gay penguins

Vids

This year, there was just a vidding 101 panel (which I did not attend) and vid review (which I did). The Friday dance party was my playlist, which you can see on Tumblr here. It wasn’t as OT3-y as I wanted, but it worked great as a dance playlist.

I’ll mention again that I started my vid search based on the fandoms on people’s profiles on the Escapade website. 90% of you didn’t fill anything out, so I didn’t look for your fandoms. Just saying! The dance party also takes suggestions, both for fandoms and for specific vids. Suggest early; suggest often!

I did a lot of my vid hunting on AO3. Unlike Tumblr or Youtube, you can search it properly for just things that are fanvids or just for fanvids in specific fandoms, and you can find things that were posted longer ago than last week.

The Saturday vidshow is the big one where vidders premiere their vids for a rapt audience as opposed to a bunch of loud drunk people... unless you’re in the loud room, in which case, it’s still a bunch of loud drunk people. This year, it was a little underwhelming. While the vids were all excellent--maybe even better than in other years--they were also heavily drawn from last Festivids and last VividCon. As often happens, many of them were rather heavy. For the dance party, I chose based on music, even if the only copy of a vid I had was grabbed from Youtube and full of pixilation. The real vidshow tries to keep image quality higher, and that makes finding vids much harder: most vidders don’t think in terms of HQ files that will look good on a projector. I think that’s a pity because, while our numbers at Escapade are small, we’re a very dedicated audience. Make pretty HQ versions, vidders! Let us love you! And post to AO3! Let us find you!

Panels!

Lots of meta and recs panels for me this year. I ran a panel on films about fandom: the problematic ones that exist, the ones we’d like to see, and my grad school thesis that I’d like you to donate to when the indiegogo goes up.

I also ran The Fannish Dating Game, the panel where you pimp your fandom by being a bachelorette and answering our lovely contestant’s questions. Certain People having failed with McHale’s Navy last year were determined to drag everyone into Barney Miller this year. When I was a contestant, the three options turned out to be The Eagle, Master and Commander, and Cardcaptor Sakura--all fandoms I used to be in. Heh. I think I’m due for a turn back through Hornblower, to be honest, but maybe another Age of Sail frenzy will follow.

The Kids Are Not the Problem: I know I attended this, but I can’t remember a thing about it other than who the mods were... Doh.

Home on the Web: This was a panel about what’s missing in Tumblr or other alternatives today and where we should go. The discussion circled around the idea that there needs to be a fannish-run social media site and that we need a good backup/download tool for Tumblr lest it go away some day. I don’t think we really discussed what’s wrong with Dreamwidth: many things are great about it, but it lacks some of the audiovisual aspects that I’ve grown to love elsewhere. One thing that came up again and again for me is that some of the requested things exist or could exist, but we either aren’t making use of tools we should, like filling out our AO3 profiles or using AO3′s bookmarks feature, or we don’t know where to find the good fuckyeah tumblrs and other replacements for fannish newsletters. In my opinion, everyone should go ahead and invest time in tumblr even if its economic model is unsustainable, but we should figure out how to back it up ASAP. Everyone should also go have the threaded discussions they want to in AO3 fic comments.

Let’s Collab! New Forms of Collective Fan Creativity: I couldn’t make it to this since it conflicted with Home on the Web. I’d love to know how it was.

How to Threesome: We played with posable dolls and nattered about what kinds of sex we like in OT3 fic and whether or not it’s similar to what makes sense in real life. (Answer: of course it’s not. It’s exactly like two-person couples in erotica and romance in that there’s lots of Souls As One simultaneous shit and much less realistic sex where one person takes a lot longer than another.)

The Slash Book: This is really cool. There’s talk of a slash book that combines fan and academic perspectives.

OT3 for Me: Another panel of OT3 squee. (It’s Escapade 27, so the theme is OT3s.) We all wanted more canons with OT3s and other poly arrangements. What year is this again? Surely, there should be more in self-published ebooks at least by now? Lots of us talked about shipping teams together: buddy cops = OTP, Leverage = 2+3, MCU = team orgy.

It’s Canon, but is it slash? I proposed this but didn’t run it, so it spent a lot of time on the meta question of what defines slash. I was more interested in the question of whether pro m/m is scratching the same itches and what’s good. We concluded that it theoretically could, but the vast majority of it doesn’t because it’s just not good enough at setting up the iddy character dynamics before it gets to the fucking. Give us buddy cops and superhero-supervillain feuds before they bump uglies, please!

You’re Totally Welcome on my Lawn, but I Wish You Wouldn’t Pee on the Grass: Not, as it happens, my panel. Anyone have a panel review?

We’re All Going to Hell: Obviously an amazing panel full of all of My People. Now where are my noncon xeno recs?

Wank: It’s Coming from Inside the Fandom: We tried to define both ‘wank’ and ‘The Discourse’ and never really settled on anything, but we did get to explain His Wife, A Horse to the unwary. Muahahahaha!

[componentplanet]

How to Upscale Video Content to 4K, 8K, and Beyond

For the past three months, I’ve been working on what I’ve named the Deep Space Nine Upscale Project (DS9UP). The goal of DS9UP is to create a new, much-improved version of the show by applying modern processing techniques to the original DVD source before using AI-based software to create a higher-resolution version of the show. It’s had me thinking about upscaling and upscalers in general. Upscaling isn’t a feature we talk about much, but how your TV handles it (or, alternately, how you use the capability on a PC) can have a significant impact on how you experience content.

The word “upscale” generically means “to improve the value or quality of something.” In the video and PC space, it’s almost always a reference to increasing the effective resolution of a piece of content. There is typically an understood difference between upscaling and native resolution. If you upscale a 1080p video into 4K, it means you are taking a 1080p input and using a combination of hardware and software to create a larger image. This upscaled image will not be identical to a native 4K signal, but it should offer a better picture than what was previously available on your 720p or 1080p television.

Keyword: “should.” Video scalar quality in TVs can vary widely between different product families. In some cases, you might be better off using a GPU to drive a picture than relying on the TV’s native rescaling capability, while other TVs have excellent upscalers. Manufacturers rarely disclose their upscaling hardware choices, but higher-end TVs should have improved upscaling capabilities. If you have a UHD Blu-ray player paired with an older or lower-quality 1080p or 4K TV, you might even get better results by running all video signals through the Blu-ray player rather than the television. Generally speaking, a good TV upscaler is considered to be as good or better than a GPU.

How the Scalar Sausage Gets Made

The most basic function of a video scaler is to take whatever image it receives — 480i, 720p, 1080p — and stretch it across the entire screen. Without this functionality, a 1080p signal would take up just a fraction of a 4K television’s display. This simple resizing is typically done by taking each individual 1080p pixel and creating four pixels out of it (remember, 4K is four times the pixels of 1080p).

But many TVs and Blu-ray players do more than just perform a simple 1:4 mapping. They also use video processing techniques to extrapolate what details ought to be present in the scene. How well this works depends on the type of content being

Image by DisplayNinja

In the image above, you can see how the upscaled 4K is much more nuanced than the simple 1:4 mapping in the second grid from the left. If you’re having trouble seeing the difference between the 1080p upscale and the native 4K, look at the left-side blocks in the very first row and the right-side blocks in the very last row. The native 4K image resolves into distinctly different colors than the 1080p image in R1C2 (That’s 1st row, 2nd column), R1C3, and R8C8. As the amount of available horsepower in televisions has improved, the quality and sophistication of their integrated upscalers have grown as well. Some modern TVs have sophisticated sharpening algorithms to reverse the blur created by upscaling and interpolation algorithms good enough to almost match the precision of a native 4K signal.

How does all this look with real content? A 2017 Rtings article can help answer that question. The first image below is from a 4K set displaying 1080p in upscaled 4K, while the second is native 1080p.

Image by Rtings

If you have trouble seeing a difference between the two images, open both of them in a new tab and focus your eyes near the center of the image. See the house with a brown roof near the center of the image, with three windows facing approximately south-southwest and a fourth pointed east? (All directional cues based on north being “up”, not the direction of the sunlight). Look at that specific spot in both images, and the roofs in the buildings immediately adjacent. The difference should jump out at you. In this case, even using TVs that date back to 2015, the 1080p upscale to 4K is better than the 4K image.

Image by Rtings

If you have an older TV or a budget 4K model, there’s one obvious method of improving your TV’s upscaling: Buy a better television. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to predict how well this will work without knowing exactly what you own now and what you plan to purchase to replace it. The older your current TV, the better the chances that a new set will deliver upgrades in all respects, but many of those improvements may have nothing to do with the way your upscaler handles <4K content.

If you aren’t happy with your current TV, can’t replace it at the moment, and happen to own a high-end Blu-ray or UHD player, you can also try running content through its upscaler rather than relying on the television to handle it. In some cases, a top-end UHD Blu-ray player may deliver a better experience than an entry-level 4K TV from a few years back. If you’re still using a DVD player to feed a picture to a mediocre 1080p or 4K panel when/if you play DVDs, and you can swap over to a high-end Blu-ray / UHD Blu-ray player instead, I’d try it. It may or may not help, but it definitely won’t hurt. What you’re trying to do here is route the signal through the upscaler that’ll give it the best quality kick.

Still need a higher-quality picture? You’re in luck.

Real-Time AI Processing

I haven’t tested the most recent Nvidia Shield myself, but there’s a demo you can actually play with on Nvidia.com to apply the effect the TV offers. Here’s a screenshot of the effect. I’ve positioned the slider over the lizard’s eye because it’s the easiest place to see the upscaler’s impact:

Left: Regular upscale Right: Nvidia Shield

Still not clear? Here’s an enlarged version of the same screenshot.

The image on the left is a traditional upscaler, the image on the right is Nvidia’s Shield when asked to scale up 720p or 1080p content to 4K (content below 720p is not supported for upscaling, at least not yet). The AI component of the upscaler obviously improves the overall image quality. In my experience with applications like TVEAI, this is a fair representation of the improvements that can be achieved.

Third-party reviews of the Shield agree. Slashgear writes that when it works, the effect is “fairly astonishing.” So far as I’m aware, the Shield is currently the only set-top or 2D box offering this kind of functionality.

Video Upscaling via Third-Party Software

Finally, there’s the option to use a third-party upscaler, like Topaz Video Enhance AI. I’ve made extensive use of TVEAI as part of the Deep Space Nine Upscale Project, and can confirm that the application is capable of yielding stunning results. One major limitation of TVEAI, however, is that it currently only supports Intel and Nvidia platforms for GPU-accelerated processing. CPU processing is available, but likely too slow to be all that useful.

Thanks to AI-based upscaling, historic sci-fi canards like the “Enhance” function are now a reality. It’s a truism in video encoding that no application on Earth can put data back where it never existed, and that’s still true today. The reason we can now “enhance” images to improve their clarity is that AI-based applications are capable of analyzing a video field and estimating what detail would exist if the image were in higher quality already.

One of the typical ways to train a video-enhancing application like TVEAI is to provide the neural net with the same image or video in both high and low quality. The neural net is then tasked with finding a way to make the low-quality source look as much like the high-quality source as possible. Instead of trying to teach a computer what lines and curves look like by providing painstaking examples, we’ve developed the ability to make the computer do the work of teaching itself. That’s why “Enhance” has gone from a complete joke to a plausible reality in a matter of a few years.

You may need to zoom to see subtle differences, but this isn’t an upscale comparison. It’s a comparison of performing my upscale work in separate applications and steps (left-side) versus ingesting the entire video workload into Topaz Video Enhance AI using the AVFS virtual file system and performing the entire operation at once. If you’re thinking “Wow, that’s a tiny difference, who would even care?” well, you may be right — but I wasn’t kidding when I said I was going to use the highest-quality source possible.

Applications like Topaz Video Enhance AI can cost several hundred dollars and they don’t run in real-time — the RTX 2080 appears capable of 90-110 frames per minute when upscaling 640×480 video to 2560×1920. The result of using these applications, however, is a vastly better picture than you’ll see from any other source.

DVD source on the left, upscale on the right.

I suspect we’ll see AI video processing and upscaling become more important over time as Intel, Nvidia, and AMD introduce their next-generation graphics processors. There’s an awful lot of old content orphaned on bad-quality source, and building specialized AI processors to fix it will likely consume some silicon for all of the concerned parties over the next few years.

Finally, I’ve embedded the current version of DS9UP’s opening credits for the show below. This is new footage that hasn’t appeared in a previous DS9UP article. There is no audio in this clip and you’ll need to raise the resolution to 4K, but I’ve created this file based on the DVD source with modifications in AviSynth, DaVinci Resolve, and Topaz Video Enhance AI.

Compare that to the actual credits ripped from the DVD and uploaded to YouTube by yours truly:

This is what the credits look like if you watch them on the source DVDs. The improvements from this version to my own are not small.

Upscalers are amazing and only getting better. That’s true no matter how you consume content or what technology you use to do it. Depending on the shows you like and how much time you want to sink into the project, there are tremendous improvements to be had… or you can just wait a few years, and buy a better TV. You can read more about DS9UP at the links below.

Now Read:

Deep Space Nine Upscale Project Update: Variable Frame Rate DVDs Can Burn in Hell

Deep Space Nine Upscale Project Update: ‘Sacrifice of Angels’

Upscaling Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Using Topaz Video Enhance AI

PCMag: The Best TVs for 2020

from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/310029-how-to-upscale-video-content-to-4k-8k-and-beyond from Blogger http://componentplanet.blogspot.com/2020/05/how-to-upscale-video-content-to-4k-8k.html

[jamesbyerj]

Project Spotlight: Daggerfall Unity

[b]Today we are talking to Interkarma, developer of [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/daggerfallunity]Daggerfall Unity[/url] a Unity port of The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall that brings the classic RPG to a new engine substantially improving upon stability and playability. Curious to try it out? Follow the steps outlined [url=https://forums.dfworkshop.net/viewtopic.php?t=2360]here[/url]. [center][youtube]RPEmRzxtJnA[/youtube][/center] First and foremost: could you give us a bit of an introduction to who you are and how you got into modding / programming?[/b]   I’m just a normal geeky guy. I was born in Australia and have lived here my entire life. Most of my early life was spent in rural/outback regions due to my father being an opal prospector. I often didn’t have any technology around, not even a television. But comics, board games, and books were usually there to fill in time.   I’ve always enjoyed pulling things apart to see how they work. Once I got into computers, I started doing that with software. Early on, I had an Action Replay cartridge for the family C64 that let me pause games at runtime, inspect their assembly code, make changes, rip out sprites, etc. I had a tremendous amount of fun working out how these games did some of the things they were doing and used this to write my own small games and tools. I built tools like a sprite editor, ADSR sound editor, a basic word processor, and games like a side-scrolling shooter, that kind of thing. I kept doing this as I grew up, trying to rebuild small parts of other games to see if I could do it. I didn’t make mods so much as hack around with code and try to understand how the original game was created.   I’ve always wanted to create my own original games, and have dozens of ideas I want to work on. It’s only lately though that I really have the time and experience to make that a reality.   [b]For those who have never heard of it, how would you describe what Daggerfall Unity is in your own words?[/b]   Daggerfall Unity is a superset of classic Daggerfall. I like to describe it as “Classic Daggerfall Plus”. It’s not a remaster in the sense we’ve come to expect when this is done commercially. Rather, it’s a ground-up recreation of the classic game plus quality of life features and modding capabilities. The foundation of the idea was to port the classic Daggerfall experience into a modern game engine and give it modding support like later Elder Scrolls games. The default experience should look and feel a lot like classic, while providing for modders to remix, upgrade, and extend the base game in ways not possible in classic Daggerfall. With some of the mods available now, such as new guilds and airships, I feel like everything is working out even better than I’d hoped.   Daggerfall Unity is very much its own game though and doesn’t always do things exactly the same way as classic. Usually, this is due to bug fixes in Daggerfall Unity, or platform differences as the result of playing on a different engine, modern hardware, or higher resolutions. But we’ve worked very hard to ensure the game can be enjoyed extremely closely to its roots. Options like Retro Rendering mode are there to deliver a true 320x200 experience, most QoL features can be toggled on and off, and many control element can be finely tuned. With a bit of patience, players can dial in either an pure retro experience, or mod things closer to Morrowind/Oblivion quality levels, or find something in between. Daggerfall Unity is very flexible in what you can do with the game and most people can find a setup they enjoy playing.   [center][img]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/93729/93729-1572271568-1148969596.png[/img] [img]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/93729/93729-1572271572-2031988629.png[/img][/center] [b]From what I have learned, the whole project has kept you busy for an unbelievable amount of time. If you had to give an estimation: how many hours/days/years would you say you have put into creating Daggerfall Unity and what kept you going during all this time?[/b]   This all began in the year 2001 when I started building tools to explore Daggerfall’s textures, 3D models, map layouts, etc. These were Daggerfall Explorer, Modelling, Imaging, Cartographer, and Jukebox. I started with information on Daggerfall’s file formats available from the UESP and gradually built on this with my own discoveries. I did this on and off for around 12 years, picking away at Daggerfall’s file formats and little mysteries just for my own amusement. I even had a shot at recreating Daggerfall in 2005, but lacked the experience and community then to make much progress. While learning Unity in 2014, I wanted something more challenging to work on. My wife suggested I try porting some of my Daggerfall code into Unity, to use something familiar while learning a new tool. Because most of my code from 2009 was written in C#, it was fairly trivial to port it to Unity. This is how Daggerfall Tools for Unity (DFTFU) was born. I had model importing working in a day, locations in under a week, and the whole world working within a few months. At this stage though, it was just a toolset to import assets. There wasn’t any real gameplay. This all re-sparked interest in recreating Daggerfall, something I was interested in again by that stage. I officially started work on Daggerfall Unity in August 2015 and it has been like a second job ever since. For the next four years, I would spend roughly 6-40 hours per week working on Daggerfall Unity, building a community, managing the codebase, and so on. I’d make the time a by creating a few hours each morning and evening, and basically sinking every weekend into it.   [b]What would you say is the main lesson you learned from your time working on this project? What would you tell your younger self about going into a massive undertaking like Daggerfall Unity?[/b]   If I was being fair, I’d probably tell my younger self to do something easier instead. Daggerfall is a huge and complex game, and my younger self made the mistake of thinking it was a simple game because it was an older game. That’s just not true, something I worked out really quickly once it came time to build some of the game systems.   But now that I’ve come out the other side, I wouldn’t want to change a thing. I’ve become a better programmer, learned how to manage a large project with several developers, and grow an online community. All of this will be invaluable as I move on to creating my own games, something I wanted to do in 2014. I just had to get Daggerfall out of my system first.   [b]Did you get a lot of support from the Daggerfall community during development?[/b]   Absolutely! The support from the community has been incredible, and it’s the main reason I was able to make it this far. For those first couple of hard years when I was mostly working alone, the love and support I received was the only thing that kept me going. And from around 2017, the number of top-notch contributors exploded and we suddenly had brilliant devs like Hazelnut, Pango, Nystul, Allofich, Lypyl, Ferital, TheLacus, Numidium just pushing things forwards every day with a seemingly endless stream of quality updates and information. Even when I thought we had all the people we needed, devs like Meteoric Dragon came along and added loads of improvements, JorisVanEijden helped expand knowledge of the quest system, Jay_H built, tested, and fixed hundreds of quests, and Pango became an overmind generalist who can help with practically anything including community management. I maintain a full list of contributors at the below forum link.   [url=https://forums.dfworkshop.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=233]https://forums.dfworkshop.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=233[/url]   [img]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/93729/93729-1572271564-410713571.jpeg[/img] [b]Daggerfall (The Elder Scrolls II) was released in 1996, the same year Bill Clinton was re-elected, and Pokemon was first introduced to the world. My point is: Daggerfall came out a very, very long time ago! That being said, what makes Daggerfall as a game special to you and what made you want to revive it by developing Daggerfall Unity?[/b]   I played a lot of tabletop RPGs when I was in my teens and twenties. Games like Daggerfall gave me the feeling I was playing the videogame version of a tabletop adventure run by a great DM. There were just so many deep systems to explore and things to discover.   When I was playing Daggerfall back in 1996, the web was nowhere near as developed as it is now. Information was a lot harder to find. Daggerfall felt like this big black box to tease open and see how it worked. There were rumours about a dragon being in the game somewhere, and I’d set off into the wilderness looking for it like an idiot. There was always this feeling every time I went into one of those procedurally generated dungeons that I might really be the first person to explore it. There was just something very special about this game back then, and I couldn’t help but want to understand it more.   Everything since then has just been a gradual evolution of my love and interest in the game. It’s not something that happened all at once, but rather grew slowly over many years.   [b]What can you tell us about the Daggerfall and Daggerfall Unity community? Other than diehard fans who grew up with the game, do you get a lot of people who are only now picking it up to see what it’s all about?[/b]   I’m amazed how many younger players are still trying out Daggerfall and Daggerfall Unity in 2019. This isn’t just the domain of older gamers like myself.   I feel that Daggerfall Unity helps make the game more accessible to new players. It’s a smoother and more comfortable experience with a lot of QoL features and new stuff to explore through mods. Given the modern popularity of The Elder Scrolls in general, I feel like it’s a great way to experience the series roots in a more comfortable and stable manner. I also encourage die-hard retro gamers to try out the original so they can experience what Daggerfall Unity is building upon.   [b]Have you taken notice of [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/29416]Skygerfall[/url] - a mod for Skyrim that aims to bring the entire main quest of Daggerfall into Skyrim? What are your thoughts on it?[/b]   It looks amazing! I haven’t had time to play it yet, but I can tell it was made with love and attention to detail. I’m looking forward to giving it some playtime in the future.   [b]Other than Daggerfall (Unity), do you have any other favourite games? Ever done any modding for those?[/b]   A few modern favourites are Elite Dangerous, World of Warcraft, Subnautica, Void Bastards, and Outer Wilds. I’ll play almost anything, but I prefer games that give me fun systems to explore and then just take their hands off. I get really annoyed when games constantly try to guide me, or too frequently break gameplay to show me a cutscene, or take away control of my camera to force me to see something.   I’m not much of a modder and have only tinkered with creating mods for other games. I tend to fall in love with systems first and gameplay later. Maybe because I grew up with basic stuff like card games and board games before I ever saw a video game, it feels like understanding rules and systems always comes before actually being able to play them. I’m the rare kind of person who prefers a heavy spiral bound manual filled with tables and formulas over an in-game tutorial.     [b]Daggerfall Unity is currently released as an alpha. How can people get set up and help you with development going forward?[/b]   There’s not much left on the development side that isn’t already allocated out or being worked on by someone. Insofar as the core gameplay, everything is done now and it’s just bug fixes, refinement, and features unique to Daggerfall Unity. It’s hard to imagine getting more help than I already am. There’s always room for more mods though. I strongly encourage anyone interested in developing for Daggerfall Unity now to check out the mod scene and build something awesome.   Other than that, the best thing everyone can do is just keep being awesome to each other and help others create new stuff for the game. If we all continue lifting each other up, there’s no telling what people might be creating for Daggerfall Unity in a few years. [center][img]https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/110/images/93729/93729-1572272157-1762324444.png[/img][/center]  [b]Is there anything else you would like to say to the Nexus Mods community?[/b] I’d like to thank Nexus Mods for supporting Daggerfall Unity and making the lives of our players easier. I also hope [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/daggerfallunity]the mods available today[/url] inspire other creators to make something new for the game. Considering some of the mods starting to appear, I can only imagine what the scene can look like in a few more years. I’m looking forward to seeing where it all goes. [line] A big thank you to Interkarma for taking the time to respond to our questions. As always, if there are any mod authors or mod projects you'd like to hear about, don't hesitate to send a message to [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/31179975]Pickysaurus[/url] and [url=https://www.nexusmods.com/users/64597]BigBizkit[/url]. Published first at Project Spotlight: Daggerfall Unity

[derick31210239-blog]

MP3 Converter

Converting a video file to an audio track is made extraordinarily simple with the help of the media encoding talents of Mac OS X which can be constructed straight into the Finder. When it comes to properly-identified website to convert YouTube videos to MP3, one software that certainly be included is the YouTube-MP3. This is because of the fact that this internet-based app can flip your YouTube video to MP3 within seconds and you can grab the converted file within jiffy. It is compatible with mobile platforms, and works usually on iPhone, Android and Home windows phones. The only disadvantage is that you just cannot apply it to Chrome browser for it has been warned by Google. Get excessive-quality surround sound once you buy the DTS-HD® Plug-in for DivX Software (or DivX Pro ). Enable the conversion and playback of DivX video with DTS-HD audio, including HEVC video content material as much as 4K. The DTS-HD Plug-in allows you to convert and play videos with DTS audio tracks for studio-quality sound. Whether or not enjoying leisure at home or on the go, DTS aims to offer the best audio experience potential it doesn't matter what machine you are using. To see just how straightforward it's to use WinX DVD Ripper Platinum, check out this guide on DVD to MP4 converting We've also included a step-by-step guide beneath displaying you how you can get the fastest ever DVD ripping speeds with WinX DVD Ripper Platinum. QtlMovie will first convert your MP4 video file to DVD format after which burn it to DVD. This may take a while. The period of time it takes will depend on your laptop's hardware, the software program, most velocity capacity of your DVD, and the file size of the video. permits for secure and handy file conversions from MP4 to MP3. The process is initiated by importing the MP4 file. Then select MP3 as your desired output format earlier than clicking on convert. Allow the process to be completed in just a few seconds. A hyperlink will seem on your display to which your transformed file is prepared. You'll be able to download it instantly or ship it to your mail for backup. MP4 file is a multimedia file commonly used to retailer a movie or video clip, but may additionally include subtitles or photographs. MP3 is an audio file that makes use of a compressed audio format to retailer music recordsdata and audiobooks on a hard drive.

Add MP4 file(s) that you want to convert. After supply MP4 file is imported, you could set MP3 as output format. You can also regulate audio parameters if you are not satisfied with the default parameters. The 5 alternative ways has already been launched. If you happen to like the simplest approach, you'll be able to choose from the three online converters. And if you're a Windows or a Mac user who need extra capabilities, you are able to obtain AnyMP4 Video Converter Final. Also, Free MP4 converter is suitable for Mac customers. With Aura Video to Audio, the free video to audio converter and free audio converter, you'll be able to convert WMV, MPG, VOB, DV, MOV, MP4, 3GP, FLV and RMVB videos to audio recordsdata equivalent to MP3, WMA, AAC, OGG and WAV. CONS: The free version solely converts a part of a video., Professional software provides a wider range of options. Now go to Format" button and click on on the drop down menu down it. From there, scroll down and click on on MP3" format. You can too set the bitrate of the audio. Step 4: Once the upload has completed, you will be seen that the video is converted from MP4 to AVI. The one other superb device I like to recommend is Streaming Audio Recorder Apart from fundamental recording function, this instrument also offers customers with constructed-in audio converter. It allows you to convert M4A file to various codecs like MP3, WMA, AAC, FLAC, WAV, and so forth. which caters a number of calls for of users. What makes it distinguishable from others is that this program empowers you to convert audio files in batch and might help users to merge series of files into one file. Changing M4A to MP3 is no more a problem by using this powerful utility. Just to update this reply, I would not recommend using Miro Video Converter any extra. It was my weapon of alternative for creating HTML5 video for http://www.audio-transcoder.com/how-to-Convert-mp3-files-to-mp4 internet, but the current model three of this system has points with converting into ogg theora: the quality of the transformed video is far too low and to create a higher quality version it's important to use ffmpeg command line utility. Moreover, it will probably convert video or audio files to MP3, WAV, WMA, M4A, AAC, DTS, FLAC, OGG adn and many others. Obtain Free MP4 to AVI Converter. The freeware from the official developers' webpage easily works on Windows Vista, Win 7 and higher OS variations. Please notice that Freemake Conversion instrument cannot be launched on Mac OS. Double-click to run the set up file and observe the process step-by-step. Free MP4 Video Converter makes it straightforward to convert movies to MP4. Simply choose your exact gadget, screen decision and other parameters from the bigger submenu of MP4 Converter. 7. At Audio bitrate, you choose the same audio bitrate as your MP4 video file. Now you can convert aac file to mp3 with the free AAC to MP3 Converter, which additionally allows you to convert AAC to AIFF, FLAC, WAV, AC3, OGG, converting mp3 to mp4 linux and WMA. As well as, the following formats are supported for converting to AAC: MP3, AC3, WAV, AC3, APE, OGG, RA, FLAC, and many others. You can convert your AAC information to numerous audio formats with the Free AAC Converter.CloudConvert may still be within the public beta part, however the intuitive cloud-based mostly service is a standalone choice that requires little more than an Internet connection and your file. It is solely free, requires no extra software to run, and helps fast conversion between more than a hundred formats — most notably MP4 to MP3 in our case. Whereas the ensuing audio high quality is great, as is the conversion velocity, a free account can only deal with files lower than 100 MB. Nonetheless, it should suite your wants should you're information aren't overly giant.

[stephmolliex]

Getting started with playing your own music in iTunes on the Mac

If Apple won't chop iTunes up into separate apps, we will. AppleInsider takes each element of iTunes and shows you how to get the best out of it. First up: simply playing your own music collection. The typical and maybe general consensus today is that Apple's iTunes app for Macs is too complicated. That would be because it really, really is -- but it got that way through accretion. The original MP3 music player has steadily become where Apple expects you to manage your iOS backups, buy TV and movies, stream Apple Music and more. Subscribe to AppleInsider on YouTube Only, if you came in late, or if you're new to Macs as a result of an iPhone halo effect, you're faced with everything at once and it's a wall of options and features. If you're a long-time AppleInsider reader, you're probably an old hand at all this -- but you probably know somebody who isn't. Regardless, if you started with iTunes back when it first launched in 2001 and you've stayed with it, you've seen these new features being added. You've had time to understand how iTunes works and then to absorb each additional feature. We wouldn't be shocked if Apple eventually breaks up iTunes into separate apps. Frankly we'd prefer it at this point. But, the company could've done that at any point and so you'd assume Apple prefers centering everything on iTunes. However, Apple is soon to launch a video streaming service and has already demonstrated moving iOS apps to the desktop in macOS Mojave. So you can imagine a time in the near future when the TV app from iOS comes over to the Mac. If it does, that would presumably mean television and film leave iTunes. In the meantime, though, if Apple isn't going to break up iTunes, at least we can break it down. Imagine, if you will, that iTunes is solely for your music or solely for backing up iPhones, and so on. Find out how each element of iTunes is actually a hugely powerful and adaptable tool that makes sense. First up, music. Using iTunes purely as player for your music -- not even including online purchases from the iTunes Store. We're going back to how iTunes originally was, just with all the relevant features of today's iTunes version 12.8. Music Today iTunes is as much a retail store as it is something that stores your music. Originally, though, there wasn't a lot you could do without adding some songs and you did it through ripping CDs. Subscribe to AppleInsider on YouTube The only surprise is that you still can. If you've still got some shiny discs around the house, get them into iTunes. Or if you ripped them all many years ago but haven't thrown any away, rip them again. Macs are faster, storage space is cheaper and iTunes rips at a higher bitrate than before. These all combine to let you grab music off your CD and have it in excellent quality. These days your CD drive may be as hard to find as your discs but if you have one connected to your Mac and pop a shiny disc into it, this is what you get. Depending on the speed of your drive and how surprised your Mac is to see a disc in there, it could take a few seconds for iTunes to prompt you with this. When it does, though, just say yes. Notice, though, that the prompt is specific: it's asking if you want to import this particular CD. Not just whatever CD is in the drive but specifically this one by title. Then notice behind the prompt: it's already got the title of every track on the CD. This will seem as nothing to you if you've only ever used Apple Music but when CD ripping was the only thing you could do, it was a revelation. Rather than importing an album and then having to figure out which Untitled Track was "Blinded by the Light," iTunes could then and still does now get all of that information for you. However, don't trust it. The information comes from a database called Gracenote which is filled with details typed in by listeners. So maybe you don't have to type the track names in for this album but someone has. Hats off to them for taking the time. We just wish they'd taken an inch more care, though. It is common to find typing mistakes and other errors. If you spot one or if the album you're importing doesn't have any track details yet, you can type them in yourself. Then click on the cog wheel icon and choose Submit CD Track Names. You're giving back to the internet and you're doing it better than they did. Is it done yet? Importing a CD isn't lightning fast but it's not bad. Still, you do have long enough to wait that you start remembering it's possible to have songs at different bitrates or even formats. You have long enough to wonder whether you should've set it up to import as MP3 or whatever. By default, iTunes will be importing that CD in Apple's AAC format and at 256kbps. Unless you really know what you're doing with audio, leave it as that. And go look for some album artwork. Naturally, you're going to take the cover out of the CD jewel case and then scan it in. You're not going to just do a Google search and hope the images are free of copyright. Whatever way you want to get the album artwork, get the album artwork. It turns iTunes from a dull list into feeling like a true collection. Click on the album -- not the individual tracks, specifically the album -- and choose the Edit menu, then Get Info. You're editing one solitary album but it contains many tracks so iTunes will check you want to "edit information for multiple items." You do. You first see a Details tab with track name, artist and so on. You can add or amend these but for now click on Artwork. Drag your artwork into this panel and then wait a few moments while iTunes applies that image to the album and each track on it. Now listen Honestly, going back through doing this felt like a history documentary. Except as we struggled to remember what it was like ripping hundreds of CDs, we did find some in our collection that we hadn't done. Most were non-commercial releases and many weren't even music. We have 40 or more CDs of BBC Radio dramas that we recorded off air and now popped into iTunes. The process was the same, the sole difference is that nobody's ever entered these track details into any database. So we had to do a lot more typing but the result was a hundred hours or more of drama to listen to. It might, however, be a bit jarring to be listening to Bruce Springsteen one moment and then because we're on shuffle find ourselves deep in Act III, Scene II of "King Lear". One thing about shuffle. The iTunes app can play all of your music in a completely random order -- except it won't. No randomizer is really entirely random. It works by a sequence of math that ultimately will repeat itself, will be the same as the start. However, that mathematical and computing necessity has been added to. Reportedly, Apple got so many complaints about iTunes on iPods not being random that it changed the system. It wasn't to make it more random, it was to make it less. People apparently complained that if you got two songs by the same artist one after another then it couldn't be random. Of course it could. And in a truly random system then at some point you would get the same song by the same artist twice in succession. There's no telling some people, though, so now iTunes has a random shuffle that won't play you a song entirely randomly. Playlists This jump from drama to disco, from comedy to country, has happened to us. Sometimes it's been remarkably appropriate as we skip from "Atlantic City" into the demise of Lear. However, we can avoid this by choosing the album we want to play. We can choose the artist and listen to just their work. Or we can create playlists. There's not a lot of mystery to a regular playlist. Just choose File, New, Playlist, give it a name and start dragging songs into it. Or you could select some songs first and then choose File, New, Playlist from Selection. Or create a smart playlist. This is a simple list of songs or tracks but which you didn't pick. Instead, you told iTunes what sort of thing you want and it has found songs for you. In this example, we've said we want an hour of music, please, made up of songs that we've played more than 75 times. The play count on iTunes isn't accurate; depending on whether you listen to silence at the end of some tracks may make a difference, for instance. Yet a higher number suggests music we like so that's what we asked for here. You could go into gigantically greater detail. Or even impossibly greater detail. You can ask for a playlist made up of all the jazz music you own played either by Monk or Beiderbecke, which you haven't played since that hot night last 4th of July, and which is between 11 and 13 minutes long. You could throw in that the tracks must be ones you've rated as five stars. We have never though it sane to go through every track giving it a star rating but then we've gone through every album adding artwork. What do we know? Well, we know that Apple has rather hidden away the star ratings since the move to Apple Music. It's not likely they'll vanish completely but still, we wouldn't embark on a fifteen-thousand track star-rating expedition. Apple Music and Other Stories That's a case where iTunes has been changed by the addition of something else. Throughout the app, you'll find places where you get choices to move on from your own CD collection to, say, Apple Music. For now, though, with a single Mac iTunes installation, don't do it. We'll talk more about this later, including when it's probably safe to do so, and some cases where it isn't. You'll also find that you can plug in your iPhone and back it up while perhaps copying some music over to it. How you handle plugging an iOS device into your Mac's iTunes and how you buy or stream music are topics for another day, though. Sorry to dangle both of those in front of you and leave you hanging, but consider this. You've just seen how to get CDs into iTunes and listen to your music -- and it seemed easy to you, didn't it? That's the thing with iTunes and that's why we're doing this series. In nearly every case, every single part of iTunes is actually fine. It's only the sheer weight of options that makes this a bloated, complex app. Keep up with AppleInsider by downloading the AppleInsider app for iOS, and follow us on YouTube, Twitter @appleinsider and Facebook for live, late-breaking coverage. You can also check out our official Instagram account for exclusive photos. https://goo.gl/KubfqU