Download iTunes & Insert Your Audio CD

To convert your audio CD to mp3, first download the free iTunes music program to your computer. You may already have iTunes on your computer, but if not, it’s definitely great software to have to manage mp3s and other digital music and media formats. Best of all, it’s free. You can easily convert the audio CDs you already have to mp3, but you can also purchase and download music and movies to your computer in the iTunes Store. iTunes is available for both Mac and PC, and you can download it here.

Once you have downloaded, installed, and opened up iTunes, insert your CD into your computer’s CD or DVD drive. iTunes will automatically recognize your audio CD and display it in the navigation column on the left-hand side of your iTunes window. You should now see a track listing on the main part of the iTunes window, and on the bottom right-hand side of the window, you should see two buttons. One will say “Import Settings…”, and the other will say “Import CD.”

Audio File Formats

If you really need to have your music in mp3 format (rather than another audio format – AAC, in particular), you will need to adjust your Import Settings before converting your audio CD. If you have an AAC-compatible digital music player, such as the iPod, you don’t need to worry about the settings. If you aren’t sure, try a google search, or this article on AAC-compatible digital music players. mp3 and AAC are essentially the same other than their compatibility with various digital music players. mp3 is more widely compatible.

So, if you do prefer the mp3 format, 1) click on the “Import Settings…” button. A dialog box will appear. 2) Where it says “Import Using,” choose “MP3 Encoder.” 3) The “Setting” preference below this changes the audio quality that your audio CD is converted at. If you have limited space on your hard drive or music player, and aren’t worried about the quality of the sound, “Good Quality (128kbps)” should be fine. Most people won’t notice the change in sound quality between this and “Higher Quality (192kbps),” but you may want to experiment just to be sure you are satisfied. If you click “Custom…” you can go as high as 320kbps, or even lower than 128kbps, if you like. Spoken word and audio book CDs can usually be enjoyed just fine at 96kbps, and take up far less space – which is good because audio books are often very long. Choose the settings that are right for you, and 4) press “OK.”

Import Your CD

Once you have the right settings, 5) click “Import CD.” iTunes will now convert your audio CD to MP3 (or AAC, whichever you chose), and organize it by Artist and Album in your iTunes Library. When the conversion is complete, you can find the digital copies of your music by clicking on “Music” on the left-hand side of your iTunes window. Click through and play a track!

You can now eject your CD by clicking on the eject icon next to it on the left-hand navigation of your iTunes window.

You now have your music in a digital format – ready to enjoy on your computer, laptop, iPod, or whatever digital music player you prefer. It’s that easy.

Mind you, there’s a number of different methods that someone can use to do this; but many of them are complicated, and they often require multiple software programs.

The Free (though more complicated) Way

One method, which is outlined in this great article, involves first getting the FLV file from YouTube. You can do this by using various software programs or browser plugins, or manually extracting the FLV file by hacking the URL a bit.

Another method, as described in this blog post, involves installing a bookmarklet. When you visit a YouTube video, you click on the bookmarklet, and it will generate a link from which you can download an MP4. Alternatively, you can also install a greasemonkey script – if you’re a Firefox user – to automatically place the link next to YouTube videos that you watch.

The Cheap (and easy) Way

The tool that I like to use is called Cucusoft YouTube Mate. You can download videos off of YouTube with it with the free trial; but to convert to the many available video formats, you can purchase it for a small price. You can try it out for free – it will simply put a watermark on your converted video.

First, download Cucusoft YouTube Mate for Windows, and install it on your computer.

Next, find the YouTube video that you want to download, copy the URL onto your clipboard (Edit > Copy).

Now, download the video off of YouTube. Go to Download > New Download Job… on YouTube Mate. The “Video URL” field will be automatically populated with the URL that you copied, but if not, just paste it into the field (Ctrl + V), and press OK. Depending on the size of the video file, it may take awhile to download the video. It will download the file as an .flv, which YouTube Mate will be able to convert into a number of other formats in the next step.

Now, convert the YouTube video into an iPod compatible format. Make sure the video you just downloaded is selected in the file list, and choose the appropriate format in the “Profile” drop-down menu. You can convert the video into a format compatible with iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch, Apple TV, PSP, or Zune. MOV, WMV, MPG, and MP4 are just some of the formats you can convert YouTube videos to.

Now, load the YouTube video into your iTunes library, and sync it with your iPod – or, if you sync manually, drag the video from your iTunes library onto your iPod. You’re now ready to enjoy your YouTube videos on the go.

So, there’s a simple way you can download and convert YouTube videos, and load them onto your iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch, or other device.

Just a reminder, make sure you review YouTube’s Terms of Service and Copyright Notices to ensure you are using content within their guidelines.