know nothin bout music

[renegade600]

All I wanted to do was to upload my christmas music collection  to amazon music so I can play them over the echo. 

The files are m4a but was unable to upload because of an error message about the files being corrupted.   I am assuming it is because of the file extension m4a and will need to convert them to something else, like mp3.  I have no problems playing them on other devices. 

I think I can use itunes to convert them but really do not want anything to do with apple so looking for another win10 bulk conversion utility.  Any suggestions?  I found all kinds of them in google but in the past when I installed unknown utilities, I ended up with nasties so asking about those actually used and are clean. 

thanks

[mindmagic]

I've had this problem too, but with an mp3 player. I used the free program "Any Video Converter" to convert from m4a to mp3.

[jwlv]

If you already have iTunes installed, you can use it to convert m4a to mp3.
See http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/how-to-convert-m4a-files-to-mp3-format/

[mike27oct]

There is nothing "weird" about uploading m4a files to Amazon; no more so than uploading mp3 files.  I have a mix of them uploaded to Amazon and they all play.

The thing similar to them all is, I either created them (m4a and mp3 files) from my CDs with iTunes or they (mp3) were downloaded from my music download service called eMusic.  To upload them I first had iTunes make a playlist from the random tracks, copied the playlist contents to a folder on desktop and the actual tracks (not just their names) were in the folder.  To upload to Amazon, I just pointed the Amazon uploader program to send them into Amazon music.  Done, all 250 of them.

So, you have another issue going on if they got rejected.

[jwlv]

mike27oct is right. m4a files are just another type of audio file.

But with most digital content, it may be contain DRM protection. Put simply, that means that the file will only play on the device or the account that purchased it. It is essentially locked to that device or account.

For example, you purchased an album on iTunes from your iPad. You can play that album on your iPad. If you copy the file to your friend's iPhone, it will not play. But it could play if you logged into your friend's iPhone with your iTunes account.

That said, if your m4a files are DRM protected, Amazon will most likely reject it because Amazon is not the device or account holder that purchased the content. They cannot be the intermediary that provides the DRM protected content to you, even if you intend to play it back on the device that originally purchased it.

Regarding the topic of DRM, there has been numerous discussions in A/V forums. Personally, I really hate DRM protection. I still have several movies that I've paid for on Google Play, Amazon, UVVU, and iTunes. But I have not purchase any new digital content in a few years now.

One service that I used in the past was Target Ticket. It was a streaming service similar to Vudu or Ultraviolet. They touted that you can watch your movies from anywhere and on any device, provided that you login first. That sounds like a great idea. I can go to my friends house and play any of my purchased movies without having to lug a stack of DVDs with me. The only problem was they shut down in 2013. My movies were supposed to automatically transfer to UVVU but they didn't. It just sat in "processing" for several weeks. At the end of that, it finally showed that I have no content available. So all the movies that I had already paid for just vanished into thin air. DRM prevented me from downloading and keeping my own copy of the movies. So that's the end of the story. Lesson learned. I have not bought any digital content since then.
 

[renegade600]

the music should not be drm protected.  I ripped them off of cds years ago and have been on every device {apple and android) I own since the original iphone.   would it not say protected or drm protected instead of corrupted?   I did have some that were drm protected that were purchased from apple but removed the protection years ago when I gave up on itunes .  Any way, gave a previous mentioned utility a try and did a test conversion of one album to mp3 and those would not upload either because of corruption. 

I guess I could pull the cds and copy them again.  but since I only wanted christmas music and not much of a music listener anymore, it would be a waste of time - a failed experiment.  Well saved that 25 buck I was planning to spend for the eventual upgrade to amazon music

Thanks all - consider this thread close.