The bMighty Blog -- Apple

The world is filled with multimedia files, and if you receive files from a Windows user, it may be in a Windows format. The challenge can be to play them on your Mac, and to import them into iTunes.

A lot of audio files, for example, come in .wma (Windows Media Audio). A lot of video files are .avi (Audio Visual Interleave).

There are many other Windows-specific formats, too — you can see a list of them on the Microsoft support Web site. This week, I needed to deal with both wma and avi files, with the ultimate goal of importing them into iTunes so they could be loaded onto an iPod. Here's what I did:

Windows Media Audio: The Mac can't read this file format, so unless you have a third-party utility with the right codec, you really need to convert this on a Windows machine. The easiest way to do so is to install iTunes for Windows on a Windows machine (or under Parallels or VMware Workstation). You can drag a .wma file into iTunes on that machine. It will convert it to MP3 automatically. iTunes for Windows can then export the file out. Move it to the Mac, and iTunes will be able to read it.

Audio Visual Interleave: QuickTime 7 on your Mac can read .avi files and play your video, but iTunes on the Mac won't import them. You'll have to convert it to another format. If you have QuickTime Pro (a $29.99 upgrade), you can convert the file to MPEG-4 or H.264 video format; either one will do. If you don't have QuickTime Pro, or if you don't want to buy it, there's a free Mac utility called iSquint that will do the job for you. You can then import the video and watch it on iTunes or an iPod.

Do you have any tips or suggestions for working with Windows multimedia files on the Mac? Leave a comment and share your experience!

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