Play iTunes M4P on Creative Zen

Zen is the first Creative player that supports unprotected AAC format, so you can enjoy up to 8,0001 of your favorite CD tracks that you've ripped through iTunes software. Zen also supports iTunes Plus tracks from the iTunes store, in addition to MP3 and WMA music tracks. It is also compatible with music subscription services such as Napster To Go and Rhapsody.

However, as the music purchased from iTunes Store is encrypted with DRM, you cannot directly play it on your Creative Zen. iTunes allows you to burn the protected AAC(M4P) files to CD-R or CD-RW disc to make a standard audio CD:

1. Insert a CD-R or CD-RW disc into your CD-ROM drive.
2. Burn your playlist to make an audio CD.
3. After the audio CD is successfully burned, insert the disc into your CD-ROM drive again. Then you can use iTunes or Windows Media Player to import the music tracks on the burned disc as MP3 or WMA files.

Or you can get some software to help you. I use TuneClone M4P Converter to do this. Though not free, it is very well worth a try. It generates a virtual CD drive to help to remove DRM from iTunes and convert the M4P music to MP3 or unprotected WMA format, which is compatible with your Creative Zen.



Here is the tutorial as to how to use TuneClone to convert iTunes M4P to MP3.

M4P converter - convert M4P to MP3 WAV WMA

Are you annoyed by iTunes DRM? Do you want to remove it because you want to play the iTunes music on non-Apple MP3 players like PSP, Zune, Creative Zen, BlackBerry, PS3, iriver, Walkman, mobile phone MP3 player, etc, use it as background music in a home video, or anything else that DRM limits it to do? Many people know you can remove the DRM from iTunes music by simply burning the song to a CD, and ripping it back over, losing very little quality (if settings are correct):

1. Insert a CD-R or CD-RW disc into your CD-ROM drive.
2. Burn your playlist to make an audio CD. You cannot select the "MP3 CD" option since it requires the DRM protected iTunes music files be converted to unprotected MP3, WMA or WAV files.
3. After the audio CD is successfully burned, insert the disc into your CD-ROM drive again. Then you can use iTunes to import the music tracks on the burned disc as MP3, WMA or WAV files.

And the method I am going to introduce does the same exact thing but you will not need a CD-RW disc, a CD ROM drive, or even need to burn anything! It's that simple. Let's show you how to perform this.

We are going to be using a program called TuneClone M4P Converter. TuneClone M4P Converter is basically a program that acts as a virtual CD drive that allows you "burn" MP3 from iTunes and "rip" it. TuneClone "lies" to your computer saying that you have a CD-RW drive that it will burn to (like Alchohol 120%). You can use this to move your library of M4P DRM protected music to the MP3 format that you can use on any player out there worth its salt. This is a useful tool for anyone looking to break their relationship with the iPod. The best part is that it maintains all of the music file's metadata. Below is the step by step tutorial that shows how it works:

1. Create a new playlist in iTunes.


2. Add the protected songs to your playlist. Since iTunes burns the protected music with TuneClone virtual CD drive, there is no limit as to music length so long as you have enough hard drive space.


3. Launch TuneClone M4P Converter. Click the "Settings" tab. In the pop-up window, you can specify output folder, output file name format, output format (WMA, MP3, WAV), etc for the output files. Note: You can check whether TuneClone virtual CD drive is successfully installed and where it is installed in the bottom left corner of the interface.



4. In iTunes, click the "Burn Disc" button.


5. In the pop-up window of "Burn Settings", select "TuneClon Virtual_CD-RW" from the "CD Burner" drop-down list, click the radio button next to "Audio CD" and tick "Include CD Text" option. Click "Burn" to start burning.



6. Upon the completion of burning the disc and encoding the music, you can open the TuneClone manager screen to show all the converted music files. To locate the output folder, simply click the "Folder" tab on the interface.

How to transfer Napster music playlist to iTunes playlist for iPod

Music purchased from Napster is under DRM protection, which stops customers from playing the downloaded music with other incompatible devices like Apple iPod and Microsoft Zune. If you don't continue to pay, you won't keep the music when the subscription expires. As we all know, iPod is one of the most popular and successful MP3 players. iPod owners can purchase various music songs from iTunes Store and listen to them with their iPods. However, if you prefer Napster and find some songs in Napster that are unavailable in iTunes store, yet you do want to enjoy these songs witn your new iPod, you are meeting the headache of Naspter being incompatible with iPod. So the following tutorial should be the solution.

The tools you will need:

TuneClone Audio Converter
Napster Software
iPod
iTunes Library

1. Make settings in TuneClone Audio Converter

Download TuneClone (fully compatible with Windows XP and Windows Vista) from http://www.tuneclone.com/index.php and install it. After launching TuneClone, click the "Settings" button. In the pop-up dialog of "Options", you can specify the "Output Folder", "Output Filenames", "Output Format" (here we choose MP3), etc. for the output files.

Tip: You can get the output protection removed MP3 music folder by clicking the "Folder" button after the whole process.



2. Create a new playlist in Napster

Under "My Playlist", click the "New Playlist" button to create a new playlist. Drag and drop to the playlist the music you are going to burn from your Napster Library.



3. Make CD burning settings in Napster

Click "Tools", and select "Preference..." from the drop-down list. In the left panel of "Options", navigate to "CD Options". In the right panel of "CD Options", choose TuneClone virtual CD drive as the preferred CD burner.



Note: Please tick "Burn CD Text" to preserve the metadata of the music.

4. Start to burn

Click the "Burn Disk" button to start the burning and encoding process.

After the burning gets started, TuneClone will automatically convert the music file to MP3. You can open the manager screen to show all the converted music files.



The most important step is to choose the CD burner. Then the software can convert the music files automatically. It is exceedingly easy when you want to batch convert lots of files.

After you get the output MP3 files converted from the Napster music playlist in your Napster, you can now begin to transfer the MP3 files to your iPod with the sync of iTunes.