I've downloaded some songs using the Zune Pass that I need to make DRM-free so that I can transfer the music to my iPhone as well & not be limited to listening to the music only on my 120GB Zune player.
Currently I'm using a notebook with Windows XP SP3 but soon I might be switching over to a notebook with either Windows Vista Home Premium or Windows 7 so actually, a recommendation for any [if not all?] of the OS's is fine.
I've tried out Protected Music Converter 1.0.0.10 from which works well but has a few drawbacks:
It is not consistent with the tags/metadata it copies over to the new DRM-free file & many times the information is missing so I end up having to add this information manually, as my collection grows this gets kind-of tedious so I'd rather move away from it. It does not support copying over the album artwork, which I absolutely want!
Secondly, it produces songs that occasionally skip, like maybe 1-in-30or40 songs will have a few hiccups in between which might not matter now as you'll probably not listen to all the music immediately but it gets annoying as you start noticing it more & more!
- I've also tried out Soundtaxi & this too had it's fair share of problems.
I have numerous albums that are non-stop so as you listen to the album you don't even notice the song changing but Soundtaxi always adds 1 sec before & after the track which cuts up this non-stop mix & messes up the audio length of each track. For non-stop albums this is a deal-breaker, for others I guess it doesn't really matter.
It is relatively consistent in copying over the metadata/tags, but it does not copy the album artwork & since I have the iPhone, honestly, the album artwork just makes the music experience better.
Any recommendations, ideas, or suggestions on what I could try are welcome & much appreciated.
I know I can add the metadata & album artwork manually using MediaMonkey but I'm looking for a more 'automatic' solution if possible.
Cheers