The missus has a load of music that she legally downloaded in the US from a service that she can't access here, the MP3 player says she needs to "sync" the files because they are WMA files, which we did in Sept in the US but can't do now. These are WMA format file, I've done a search online and there are quite a few shareware applications available to convert from WMA to MP3 format. Has anyone used such an application that they could recommend?
CDex is a freeware converter Your favourite search engine will find. Are the wma files protected with DRM? If so then it's not so straightforward but if not, CDex should do it. Open the program (get version 1.5 btw not the beta version) and select Convert menu > Re-encode Compressed Audio files.
Can you play them on the PC If your media player can obtain a licence to play the files, it should be possible to strip the DRM. Worst case scenario if not - burn the files as an audio cd from Windows Media Player then rip that to mp3 with CDex Time (and disc) consuming (unless you have rewritables) but may be the only way. But if you can play them on PC then let me know and I'll try and talk you thru DRM removal.
Probably stuffed then How many songs are we talking? Cos we may be talking about buying them again. DRM works by having encrypted file content for which the media player obtains a licence from the vendor's server on playback. The licence file contains a passkey to decrypt file content. Circumvention requires using a program to extract the key from RAM while the file is playing and then using a second program to decrypt the data and dump it to a non-DRM wma file. Which means no licence, no way to circumvent. That said, be honest if she's paid for them once I don't see why not download another copy from less, um, legit sources. I do believe in buying music and rightly rewarding artists I like. But if I've paid for a track I want use of it and personally will get around measures designed to obstruct me in this with clear conscience.
