OPPO BDP-105: how to convert Apple Lossless to a FLAC data base of music on external hard drives?

Hello - I'm new to the forum, so please excuse me if this subject has already been covered.

I have the BDP-105.

I also have a large iTunes music library on a Mac, all in the ALAC Apple lossless format - which (as I understand it) is not a compatible / readable format by the OPPO.

(Since ALAC is now open source and royalty-free, does anyone have an opinion of why OPPO hasn't made the 105 ALAC-friendly?

Here is my objective - any advice to make this happen is appreciated:

I'd like to have my entire iTunes library copied to an external hard drive, plugged directly into the OPPO 105 via USB, with the album cover artwork and other meta-data (album title, song list, etc), and be able to navigate through this library and select albums / songs to play through the OPPO 2 channel stereo analog stage.

The issues I can't seem to relsolve are:

1: Do I need to convert ALAC to FLAC or another lossless format (I'm only interested in lossless / audiophile grade sound)

2: If so, how do I "batch process" the conversion of 3,000 songs into FLAC or another OPPO-friendly lossless format, while still preserving the artwork and album and song data tags?

3. The OPPO 105 is part of a HT system. I'm happy to use the plasma TV as the visual navigation screen for selecting albums / tracks to play off the external hard drive. I'd rather not have to hook up a computer monitor to the HT system, just for the purpose of finding audio tracks on connected external hard drives to play. I realize that even if this works, I won't have the familiar "iTunes app look" to the search function - only whatever the OPPO has on its own. Will this work?

4. I see that a lot of people are hooking up a Mac Mini computer to this system. I don't understand how this will work - going back to the ALAC / OPPO incompatibility issues. Opinions? Insights? Advice?

All are appreciated!

Many thanks.

I have successfully converted my entire iTunes library (ALAC) to uncompressed FLAC, so that these audio files are OPPO compatible, via a USB external hard drive. It works! HOWEVER, The Mac OS creates an unwanted duplicate of each song file, with it's own prefix:

Example: if a folder containing an album has 10 songs, The FLAC songs are simply numbered 1 through 10.

BUT: in the same Album folder, , there are 10 more files, each with the unwanted mac prefixes:
._1
._2
._3 etc.

Of course, these songs won't play on the OPPO anyway - it's just creating a LOT (exactly double, in fact) of uneccesary file names, and a major hassle to navigate directly to the individual FLAC-formatted song I really want to play.

I have tried products such as CLEAN MY DRIVE, which does eliminate these prefixes from my still photo files. However, it doesn't work on these audio files. I've got 3,000 real FLAC songs and another 3,000 "phantom" doulbes with is Mac-generated prefix.

DOES ANYONE KNOW HOW TO DO A BATCH-ELIMINATE OF ALL THESE UNWANTED MAC PREFIX FILES?

many thanks to anyone who can help!