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...... because I need a quick answer.

What format are the files on ITunes in for downloading please?
Do I have to install ITunes software?

There is an album that I want to buy/download (Collide - Andy Hunter) but it's only available on ITunes.
I'm a PC man with a cheap Sony MP3 player so I'm unsure as to whether the ITunes downloads are compatible.

I think the answer is obvious but I may as well ask anyway so you can all laugh at me

AAC

you can easily convert the mp4 format to mp3.

with itunes, you can choose to import a given track to mp3 instead of the mp4 format it's in, or you can get one of many batch converters like Super c. http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html

Thanks for the replies

P.S. If you care about sound quality then lossy->lossy compression can be pretty nasty. Worth using your ears though, as it may be ok.

iTunes has a lossless codec (well Apple does) that is called ALAC, which is roughly equivalent to FLAC in terms of use and being lossless. It's unfortunately proprietary and so not as widely supported when not using OSX, but I would get the files in ALAC and convert to mp3 if possible. A good portion of my desktop purchases are FLAC or ALAC and get converted to mp3 for laptop/mobile use.

Thanks for your replies.

Gary - the SuperC link you gave me was fine, but it sends you around in circles and I still havent found the download.
All I get is a download for avsforyou - the audio version and it isn't free. It has to be registered.

Anyway I found a workaround
I burnt the itues trax to cd with Neor and them copied them back as wav files.

I'll probably get an iplayer or ipod anyway so it will not be a problem

Neil

yeah, the link is kinda hard to see. you have to scroll to the bottom and click on "start downloading super c". then lick on "Download and use" near the top of the next page, then click where it says "Download SUPER c setup file" near the bottom of the next page and the download will start.

it actually is a very useful program...

I'm not sure if I fully understand Neal's problem, but I bought quite some tracks from the iTunes store.
In my humble understanding there is (was originally ?) some digital right management stuff involved (which is obscure to me as I don't mind)...
Anyway, I picked a few tracks and converted them to mp3 just fine, played back with another media player instead of iTunes. Of course on the same machine, so there's a chance it may fail elsewhere.
Conversion done with FormatFactory, a very useful program with a million of formats, both audio and video, plus batch capability.

cheers, Tom

There's no drm on modern iTunes purchases afaik. It does tag the release with some info relevant to your iTunes account but that's about it.

All itune music tracks are in AAC which to me is a little burdensome.