Downloading Music To Your MP3 Player - A Few Good Tips

First – the basics

Before you begin, a good idea is to go online and look at some of the download services available. There are literally hundreds of MP3 download sites from which to choose and more are starting up every day. They all offer specific features and benefits.

1. Make sure the sites you choose are approved by the music industry. For a full list of legal music sites approved by the music industry go to http://www.riaa.com/toolsforparents.php?content_selector=legal_music_sites. These sites include both subscription-based and per song services. Rhapsody is a great place for unlimited downloads for just $12.99 per month http://learn.rhapsody.com. Per Song downloads are great for users that want to download just a single track rather than the entire CD and some great places include www.amazon.com and Yahoo music where you can download songs for $.99 each.

2. Before you sign up, browse the site to make sure that they have the music you want. Most allow you to search their listing before signing up.

3. Make sure your MP3 player can handle the music files the sites offer. Most players such as the Sansa e200 series accept in addition to MP3 files, WMV, secure WMA and Audible files. Those that play video usually support MPEG4, WMV, and H.264.

4. Try before you buy. Most sites offer short clips of songs to listen to before you download.

5. For best results, use a broadband connection such as cable or DSL. Downloading audio files on a dial-up connection can take hours and video files even longer.

6. Don't forget about your current music. You can upload your existing music CDs, vinyl records, and cassettes on to your computer and then download them on to your MP3 player. To upload vinyl and cassettes to your computer go to http://www.worldstart.com for great tips and software.

Ripper and converter software allow you to grab digital audio from CDs and copy the audio digitally -- not through the soundcard to your computer. This enables you to make perfect copies of the originals. Free rippers include Audio Grabber, FreeRip and Exact Audio Copy.

Remember, you can only convert music you have purchased and only for your own personal use.

Download photos and videos on your MP3 player, too!

Many MP3 players also allow you to download video and still photos. The Sansa e200 and Sansa View MP3 players utilize the Sansa Media Converter to transfer photos and videos to your Sansa player. These Sansa MP3 players support a variety of still image data files including JPEG, TIFF, PNG, BMP, and GIF. For video they support AVI, MPEG-1 & MPEG-2 MPEG-4 in AVI format, ASF, H.264, QuickTime MOV, and WMV.

Remember the rules for downloading videos are the same as music and must be legally purchased and cannot be shared.

The Sansa Media Converter software is a really great tool and lets you convert photos and videos and then transfer them to your Sansa player. In addition, it allows you to crop, rotate and resize the images as well as the ability to transfer photo and video files to your microSD card.

Tools to record, organize and tag your music.

In addition to the software that comes with your computer and MP3 player, there are great free software tools available online that let you record, organize and tag your music. These Jukebox Programs include Media Monkey, J River Media Jukebox, and MP3 Tagger.