I have been a Mac user for almost ten years. However I made a grave mistake in building my original HTPC to be a Windows based machine. While it does work and does what it does well, it was never a Mac, I got tired of fixing stuff all the time. So anyways....on to the good stuff.

I just ordered a new MP single quad 2.8(Figure I can add the second one later, they use the same logic board)

One question I read is that if I use the Toslink available on the MP to connect to my stereo reciever I need some sort of an adapter? Can somebody provide a link or describe more what this is about?

Second one is. My current storage drive is NTFS with out about 300GB of WMA lossless. I should be able to plug that drive in the OS will be able to Read the drive but not write to it right? If that is correct can I install the drive convert the WMA lossless to Apple lossless as I move it to the installed drive on the Mac, then before moving back to my other drive reformat it in Apple Journaled? And can Itunes handle that conversion or do I have to find a 3rd party software to perform the conversion task? If so what 3rd party is recommended?

So far movie playback isn't a HUGE issue with me since I play mostly Blu-Ray from the PS3. But at some point I will start to convert my DVD collection to a digital back up to make it easily accessable. So for right now I am concentrating on getting my music back.

Thank you for all your help. And I am so excited to be back to a 100% mac home again. I was so bummed about it I actually asked Apple for Forgiveness. Read here (http://www.marykatejohnson.com/mikejblog/)

You will probably be better off converting from WMA lossless to Apple Lossless within Windows with dbPowerAmp. They reverse engineered the apple lossless codec and I believe it also reads wma lossless.

Yes, you can read NTFS drives from OSX.

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One question I read is that if I use the Toslink available on the MP to connect to my stereo reciever I need some sort of an adapter? Can somebody provide a link or describe more what this is about?
--snip--

go to monoprice.com, search for toslink adaptor. you can get a small plug or a wire with the correct ends.

One question I read is that if I use the Toslink available on the MP to connect to my stereo reciever I need some sort of an adapter? Can somebody provide a link or describe more what this is about?

I don't think you need an adaptor. That's a regular toslink in the rear of the mac pro: http://www.apple.com/macpro/specs.html

Or am I missing something?

Yes, you can read NTFS drives from OSX.

If you have done this, please share your experience.

Joel--read and write to NTFS volumes:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20070220150856279

http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/

I don't think you need an adaptor. That's a regular toslink in the rear of the mac pro: http://www.apple.com/macpro/specs.html

Or am I missing something?

You are correct a normal toslink cable will do the job.

go to monoprice.com, search for toslink adaptor. you can get a small plug or a wire with the correct ends.

I don't think you need an adaptor. That's a regular toslink in the rear of the mac pro: http://www.apple.com/macpro/specs.html

Or am I missing something?

I knew as soon as I wrote that that the MP probably had a regular toslink, and not the mini one that the mini has...:o

While you still have the Windows box up I've had good luck with the dbPowerAmp file converter. I ported all my Monkey's Audio files to Apple Lossless without a hitch.

Thank you all for the help. I didn't realize the Mini had a mini-toslink. Okay so problem 1 solved.

However in order to place the new MP on order I had to sell my windows box. So I dont have it anymore. I do have the drive. Like I said currently formatted NTFS storing all my WMA lossless. So I will be forced to convert in the apple enviroment. Will itunes not be able to do this? If it cant does anybody know of a good converter download I can use on the mac to convert from WMA lossless to Apple Lossless? I really dont want to reload all those CD's. It took me almost 40 hours to do it the first time. Then to have try to get back all my friends collections for the same thing. OMG that will be a nightmare. OHHHH why didn't I just go with Mac the first time? Stupid me.

Has anybody heard any rumors if Mac will be offering a BT keyboard with the Multitouch on it? I currently have the Logitech BT keyboard with the touch pad. It is very nice. But it doesn't have multitouch on it. Which is VERY cool.

i remember going through this about a year ago for some wma lossless files I had. iTunes won't (or didn't then) import wma files; and wma lossless is a bit of an odd beast not well supported on macs. If I remember right, I used a 2 step process that worked well. I used Flip4Mac (http://www.flip4mac.com/wmv.htm) Pro to read the wma lossless files, converting to AIFF (the mac lossless equivalent to wav uncompressed). iTunes would the import these and convert to Apple Lossless. There may be a more direct way now, but at the time I couldn't find a 3rd party Mac app that would read wma-lossless (and you have to verify lossless because many read wma but not lossless files) and also produce Apple lossless in the same app.

Apple lossless is much more common now, so something may now be available to do it in one shot.

ken

So I will be forced to convert in the apple enviroment. Will itunes not be able to do this? If it cant does anybody know of a good converter download I can use on the mac to convert from WMA lossless to Apple Lossless?

Nope, the OS X version of iTunes, unlike the Windows version, doesn't know what to do with WMA Lossless. It's too bad you didn't convert with iTunes or dBpoweramp before you sold your PC, that might have been the best way to retain tags and artwork. Once you get your Mac Pro, your could also convert within a Virtual environment a la Parallels, VMware or Boot Camp.

In OS X, I think the best you can do is go WMA Lossless to AIFF or WAV and then to Apple lossless, like Ken described. These guys:

http://www.linnrecords.com/linn-downloads-mac-users.aspx

sell WMA lossless downloads and some of their customers have successfully used this app to convert:

http://www.nch.com.au/switch/plus.html

Maybe try the demo version and see what the workflow will be like to do your whole library?

yep - ditto that from chef -
I used Switch to do exactly that on some of those linnrecords wma-lossless files (a cool service by the way); I only had a few to do, but it worked well - still a 2 step process, but results were just as good as the flip4mac route. Batch Workflow might be improved now as Switch is better than it was at the time I used it - It's free to try as chef suggests... Either way gives zero-loss in quality results;

ken

you could also use audialhub (http://www.techspansion.com/audialhub/) to convert WMA files. This would allow you to batch the whole job. Also, i'll chime in that OSX can read NTFS, just not write to it.

There is an exception to this rule. That is OSX can read and write to any drive it connects to across the network. If you can successfully connect to a shared drive, you can read and write to it. I haven't found a format that this isn't true for.

In your case, this obviously isn't possible since you said you got rid of the windows box. But it is good info to know.