iPod Tip #28
Although the iPod and iTunes supports many audio formats including AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Music Store), MP3 (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3 and 4), Apple Lossless, WAV, and AIFF. More than most of the competitors. However, it does not support FLAC, Ogg FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, and some other formats that are possibly not as popular. You may run into FLAC or Ogg on BitTorrent more from other sources. Thankfully, many these formats can be converted pretty fast for use on the iPod and iTunes with freeware.

Mac OS X Freeware
Try Max, Switch, or MacFLAC

Max Screenshot

Max is an application for creating high-quality audio files in various formats, from compact discs or files.

When extracting audio from compact discs, Max uses the error-correcting power of cdparanoia to ensure the true sound of your CD is faithfully extracted.

Once the audio is extracted, Max can generate audio in over 20 compressed and uncompressed formats including MP3, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, AAC, Apple Lossless, Speex, AIFF, and WAVE.

If you would like to convert your audio from one format to another, Max can read and write audio files in over 20 compressed and uncompressed formats. For many popular formats the artist and album metadata is transferred seamlessly between the old and new files.

Windows Freeware
Try Switch

If you do a search on VersionTracker or MacUpdate, you will find several other shareware and freeware that is up to the task.

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