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[WynnFire]

can put them on my unmodded xbox hard drive through Xbox Music Mixer?


I picked up the Xbox music mixer and put all of my mp3's on the xbox hard drive. Only problem though, is that the ones that I was able to put on there, are not copy protected. I have downloaded a few mp3's from Napster (the new one) and now that the files are paid for, they are protected and are wma's and they won't let me put it on the xbox. I'm pissed. Any suggestions? Is there a way I can un protect them? If I burn them to a disk, would they still be protected? I already burned one and played them on my cousin's computer and they worked but they won't play over my home network.

[Scan-C]

if you burn them as normal audio cd you should be able to rip them back to mp3. but i'm sure there is a better way

[Xbox_Owner_13]

I ran into this same problem just now.  I legally downloaded my music through the Musicmatch service.  They are in WMA format.  I transferred them to my Xbox but they don't play.  Unprotected WMA's that I ripped from original cd's do play.  This sucks, anyone know a workaround that's easier than putting all my files on cd-rw and then ripping to the hard drive?  I don't have a samsung drive :|

[Xbox_Owner_13]

** THIS SHOULD BE ADDED TO THE FAQ **


Ok, I found out how to put my legal music files on the Xbox.

Step 1, burn the tracks to a normal music CD.  You've probably already done this is you paid to download an album or songs.  

Step 2, use a software program to rip the tracks off your music cd into MP3 format.  I used my musicmatch software to do this.  The MP3's will be UNprotected.  

Step 3, convert the MP3's into WMA format (you should be able to find a software to do this), and the converted WMA files will be unprotected.  Move these to your Xbox and enjoy.

Note: There are 2 possibilities for the problem.  1) The xbox cannot play the protected WMA files, OR 2) The WMA files that are downloaded are at too high of a bitrate for the Xbox to play them, and thus, the bitrate must be reduced through converting the files in order for the Xbox to play them.  

The WMA's that I ended up with were 64K bit rate (CD quality in WMA).  THe originally downloaded WMA's are at 128k or higher I believe.

If someone wants to test, they can rip on original music cd through the Xbox dash, copy the files back to their computer and see what the format and bitrate of the files are.

This post has been edited by Xbox_Owner_13: Jan 19 2004, 03:03 AM

[Chicken Scratch Boy]

QUOTE (Xbox_Owner_13 @ Jan 18 2004, 08:27 PM)

** THIS SHOULD BE ADDED TO THE FAQ **

ha you wish, noob!

1 google search gets you to this:

QUOTE

either "unfuck wma" or "freeme wma" in google will get you what you need

further reading:

QUOTE

"unfuck" will decode the files to PCM and transcode back to a compressed format, while "freeme" will use OpenSSL to actually remove the encryption from the file without decoding it.

1 more google:

http://www.spinnaker.com/crypt/drm/freeme/

here is the MUCH better solution:

use freeme to remove the encyption, do the normal process to move the (assumingly) undegraded music onto the xbox

and that my newbie friend is how it is done  

[Xbox_Owner_13]

Well thanks.  I guess you were only willing to help out the newbies if you could prove them wrong?  Thanks.

Also, if you burn your legal music to a cd, you can rip the tracks straight back into WMA from the cd and they will work on the Xbox and be unprotected.  That's also pretty easy.

[Chicken Scratch Boy]

i am unsure, (since i dont own the music mixer) but if you can xfer them over the network with this, you might as well save cds....

ps i have helped alot of newbies, but they are usually in the dashboard hack section :rolleyes:  

[Xbox_Owner_13]

QUOTE (Chicken Scratch Boy @ Jan 19 2004, 04:11 PM)

i am unsure, (since i dont own the music mixer) but if you can xfer them over the network with this, you might as well save cds.... ps i have helped alot of newbies, but they are usually in the dashboard hack section :rolleyes:

Well, thanks for the links.  I use google, but I guess I wasn't searching with the right keywords