[ekirchner]

Hello. I was looking for some advice/tips for trouble shooting I'm having with Windows Vista Premium. I don't consider myself very tech savvy, so here it goes. My operating system is windows vista home premium. I am trying to create a slide show for my daughters' 2nd birthday using Windows DVD maker. Everything was going smoothly until I tried to add background music. I manage my music through iTunes and every time I try to add a song, I get an error message that states something to the effect that the file format for the music file is not compatible with with the software. It appears the format is: MPEG-4 Audio File (.m4a). I had the same problem when I tried windows photo story 3.

Can anyone give some advice? Is there a way to change the file format? If not, does anyone know of a free slide show maker software that supports that type of file? Is there anything that I'm missing that may be a possible solution?

Thanks for any help!!!!!!

[Rommel]

I'll be surprised if you can pull it off using I-tunes.
I believe the way they are set up they do that on purpose to avoid copyright stuff. Though I know you own it, it is dedicated through there media only.
I may be wrong here but thats the way I understand it. Thats why I prefer downloading from walmart so I can burn it anywhere I wish, play it on where ever I wish
and use an mp3 player.
Anyway, if that is the absolute must have background music, try getting it from a different source that offers a usable format.

Perhaps someone else has a better solution but I think this is how it works.

Rommel

[piyushsingh]

It can either be a DRM problem as stated in the above post or just a file format not supported error. But most probably its not protected file (m4a isnt). WMM wont import m4a files. Convert those to some supported format and then import in WMM. mp3 would work. Download SUPER , its a powerful multimedia format converter. Hope this works.

You can also get around DRM stuff easily but you would have to search for that on your own as such topics are not allowed here on a public forum. As far as I know m4a files are unprotected , so a coverter will work for you.

[smax013]

Where did you get the music? I would assume it is from the iTunes Store or your ripped it using the default ripping settings in iTunes. M4a is the file extension that Apple uses for their AAC format. M4a is usually the unprotected AAC format (M4p is the protected/DRM'd).

My guess is that Windows Movie Maker just does not support AAC. As such, you just need to convert it to a format that it will support...maybe such as MP3. You can do that with iTunes or any number of other programs. If you want to do it with iTunes, then you need to set iTunes to rip to MP3 (this will be under the Preferences...under the General settings, there should be an Import Settings... button...click it and then in the resulting window set the Import Using pull down menu to MP3 Encoder and then set the "Setting" pull down menu to what quality setting you want...I would recommend at least 160 kbps) and then select the song in the iTunes list and right-click it...there should be a Create MP3 Version command of the pop-up menu...select it. This will create a MP3 version in addition to your AAC version.