How do I import MP3 files into iTunes?

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Level 1

95 points

How do I import MP3 files into iTunes?

I tried importing and playing music from MP3 CDs that I bought while travelling in the Middle East. For some reason, the software does not recognize these files as music files. They have .mp3 and .dat extensions and some of them are music videos that play fine when I run them on QuickTime.

Has anyone had a similar problem and can someone suggest a solution?

Posted on Sep 12, 2005 4:27 PM

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Answer 1

Sara.M.

Level 4

2,070 points

Sep 12, 2005 4:35 PM in response to dialectician

The import funciton is only for audio CDs. Since your tracks are already in MP3 format, you should use File->Add to Library and then select the folder which contains your tracks.

Does that work?

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Answer 2

dialectician Author

Level 1

95 points

Sep 12, 2005 6:06 PM in response to Sara.M.

Hi Sara, thanks for responding to my post.

Your advice has partially solved my problem. I have been able to add the MP3 files to my library and am happily listening away.

However, I do have a few video CDs that have DAT files instead of MP3 files. I can listen to them and view them on QuickTime, but not on iTunes. Any idea of how I could get them into iTunes?

Thank you for your help!

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Answer 3

Sep 12, 2005 6:27 PM in response to dialectician

A file type of .dat is not one that iTunes supports. If you can tell us what is on these Video CDs perhaps we can suggest a solution for you. For example is the contents of the disc just QuickTime videos are are they actual Video CDs that you can play in a DVD player that supports that format?

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Answer 4

dialectician Author

Level 1

95 points

Sep 13, 2005 12:43 AM in response to Michael Allbritton

Hi Michael,

Thank you for your reply. I'll try to give you as much specific information as I have about these CDs:

I don't thiknk the format of the files is QuickTime, but I can view it with QuickTime. The CDs all say "Best Vedio Clip" on the covers. I guess "vedio clip" is some kind of format for video clips, but when I googled it, I mainly came up with ****, so I don't really know what to make of it.

The folder structure of all of these CDs is as follows:

PICTURES
CDI
VCD
SEGMENT
EXT
MPEGAV

All of the folders contain some kind of files, but it seems that the main (.dat) files are in the MPEGAV folder and they are sequentially numbered, like AVSEQ01.DAT, AVSEQ02.DAT, etc.

I hope this helps. I don't know what else I could tell you.

Thanks again.

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Answer 5

Sep 13, 2005 9:59 AM in response to dialectician

This is good information. What you have there is an actual "Video CD;" this is a format for playing video, but it is not compressed like DVDs are. You will not be able to import anything off this disc into iTunes because there is nothing on the disc that iTunes recognizes as music.

Depending on what you want to get off the disc you might want to do a search on Version Tracker for an app that will let you rip the video off the disc. But I do not know what that might be; I don't have any experience on this subject.

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Answer 6

Sep 13, 2005 4:52 PM in response to Michael Allbritton

You've sussed the music part of things - as for the video, Michael's right - the video is in the "VideoCD" format. This is essentialy a way to encode video onto a disc, in much the same was as a DVD. Ripping can be done, but I guess your main aim is to watch that footage - you can do so with a program called VLC, available from http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-macosx.html

This program, for the record is very handy - it can play just about any video format you can think of, and is also a handy solution if you want to play a DivX encoded .avi but don't have the QuickTime codec installed and need a quick fix! To play, download and install the app, open it and go to:

File --> Open Disc --> VCD

🙂

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Answer 7

dialectician Author

Level 1

95 points

Sep 14, 2005 12:03 AM in response to Jefferson Regan

Thanks Michael and Jefferson for your posts! You cleared things up for me. At least I now know what kind of format of CDs I have.

I played the videos using VLC, but the truth is that I don't really care much about the video footage. All I really want to do is listen to the music. And it would be much more convenient to have all my music together at a single place, rather than having to use multiple software packages to listen to different CDs.

So is there a way to rip the video CDs and then export the video files as MP3 files into iTunes? I tried doing this using VLC, using the "Advanced Output" option in >File >Open Disk. Unfortunately, I get an error msg, whenever I attempt to output the music to any of the formats available.

Is there perhaps some kind of "converter" software that could convert the Video files into audio files?

Thanks again for all your help! You've been fantastic.

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Answer 8

Sep 14, 2005 12:15 AM in response to dialectician

You're welcome for the help.

If this were a DVD I could tell you quickly what software to use to rip the audio. But I don't have any experience with doing that type of thing with Video CDs. But you can start your search on the Version Tracker web site.

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Answer 9

dialectician Author

Level 1

95 points

Sep 14, 2005 1:37 AM in response to Michael Allbritton

I tried version tracker and did some more research. I tried the following programs;

OSEx
ffmpegX
iVCD
VLC

And the conversion from VCD to MP3 did not work with anyone of them. Can someone suggest a converter?

Thanks.

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Answer 10

Sep 14, 2005 7:39 AM in response to dialectician

Hello,
From what i gather, you are only interested in the audio on the VCD you have and not the movie itself. There is a program called Audio Hijack which will ''hijack'' or extract the audio from any application.
In your case, you will use VLC player to play the video file and while this is happening, Audio Hijack is extracting the audio into an AIFF file, which you can then convert into an mp3 file (and import) using iTunes.

Now i do not think there is a program or way i know off to just convert a VCD to MP3, but you can extract the audio using Audio Hijack.

It's a very useful and simple tool and i use it all the time.

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Answer 11

Sep 14, 2005 8:46 AM in response to David Osahon

Doh! Now why didn't I think of that suggestion. 🙂

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Answer 12

Sep 14, 2005 8:46 AM in response to David Osahon

dialectician,

Ditto on Audio Hijack. It's not the quickest way, as obviously you'll have to leave the file playing through it' whole length, but it is guaranteed to work. I'd have thought ffmpegX would have worked... maybe you could try specifying the .DAT files as MPEG-1 files, as I think that's what they are...

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Answer 13

dialectician Author

Level 1

95 points

Sep 14, 2005 9:57 AM in response to Jefferson Regan

Thanks so much for the help. I will try audio hijack tonight and will post the result!

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Answer 14

dialectician Author

Level 1

95 points

Sep 16, 2005 1:13 AM in response to Jefferson Regan

I tried Audio Hijack and it works.

But in the meantime, I also found a program that lets me conver the VCDs to MPEG files: VCDGearX. As MPEGs, I can either play them in iTunes, or use ffmpegX to convert them into MP3 files .

Thanks again to everyone for their help!

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