m4a file conversion

I just got a new mp3 player(Dell Ditty). It has 512 mb of memory and is supposed to hold up to 220 songs. Right now it is full at 87 songs and almost all of the memory is used. I was told that to get more songs on the player I would have to convert the mp3 file to m4a files. I tried this using the Switch program found on an m4a website but it wouldn't convert the file because of copyright protection. I also tried converting the music files through Windows Media Player Audio Converter but it wouldn't do it for the same reason. What am I doing wrong? I am not very computer literate if that helps to know at all. I have a subscription to Napster and that is how I download all my music. Is there a different way I should be trying to convert these files? Any and all help is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

Dont sweat the m4a conversion for now. You can simply shrink the existing MP3 to a lower bit rate. My guess is they are now either 128, 192 or even 256kb.
That is the bit rate it is sampled at. Regular CD music is around 44,100 kb. thats why a cd is 650 megs or so. Anyway, using a free program like Music match you can take the bit sampling down to 96kbs. That will half the size and double your song capacity. You will suffer a tiny bit of audio quality but it will still sound better than what you hear on a radio or TV.
You may also want to look into conveting them to WMA (windows media audio) Im pretty sure almost ALL mp3 players will play that format too and it also has a nice compresion ratio.

 

Thanks for the help. I will give it a shot. Can I format my downloading program so that it downloads that way or do I have to do the conversion post-download?

 

More than likely you will have to do it post download. As far as programs go, dont get stuck on Music Match, there are dozens of other free ones out there that do the same. Maybe other readers can give you some more recommendations.
good luck