Some media players can't play protected m4a's. This script converts the m4a passed on the command line to an mp3 that can then be copied to your selected media player:

#!/usr/bin/bash
#
# copy and convert
#
# Transcode m4a file to mp3
#
# This script is heavily based on the original here:
# http://www.minigeek.org/2007/07/linux-m4a-to-mp3-conversion-script
#
# Naturally, changes are licensed under the GPL
#

orig=$1
temp_wav=`tempfile --directory ~/tmp --suffix=".wav"`

mp3=`echo "$orig"|sed -e 's/\.m4a/\.mp3/'`
temp_trackinfo=`tempfile --directory ~/tmp --suffix=".txt"`

# deal with track info
faad -i ${orig} 2>$temp_trackinfo
sed -i '23s/unknown: /title: /' $temp_trackinfo
sed -i '24s/unknown: /artist: /' $temp_trackinfo

year=`grep 'date: ' $temp_trackinfo|sed -e 's/date: //'`

sed -i 's/unknown: iTunes/iTunes: iTunes/' $temp_trackinfo

genrecount=`grep -c 'genre: ' $temp_trackinfo`
unknowncount=`grep -c 'unknown: ' $temp_trackinfo`

if [ "$genrecount" -eq 1 ] && [ "$unknowncount" -eq 2 ]; then
    sed -i '25s/unknown: /composer: /' $temp_trackinfo
    sed -i '26s/unknown: /album: /' $temp_trackinfo
    genre=`grep 'genre: ' $temp_trackinfo|sed -e 's/genre: //'`
fi

if [ "$genrecount" -eq 1 ] && [ "$unknowncount" -eq 1 ]; then
    sed -i '25s/unknown: /album: /' $temp_trackinfo
    genre=`grep 'genre: ' $temp_trackinfo|sed -e 's/genre: //'`
fi

if [ "$genrecount" -eq 0 ] && [ "$unknowncount" -eq 3 ]; then
    sed -i '25s/unknown: /composer: /' $temp_trackinfo
    sed -i '26s/unknown: /album: /' $temp_trackinfo
    sed -i '27s/unknown: /genre: /' $temp_trackinfo
    genre='other'
fi

if [ "$genrecount" -eq 0 ] && [ "$unknowncount" -eq 2 ]; then
    sed -i '25s/unknown: /album: /' $temp_trackinfo
    sed -i '26s/unknown: /genre: /' $temp_trackinfo
    genre='other'
fi
	
title=`grep 'title: ' $temp_trackinfo|sed -e 's/title: //'`
artist=`grep 'artist: ' $temp_trackinfo|sed -e 's/artist: //'`
album=`grep 'album: ' $temp_trackinfo|sed -e 's/album: //'`
track=`grep 'track: ' $temp_trackinfo|sed -e 's/track: //'`

## convert to wav

faad -o $temp_wav $orig

## convert to mp3
lame --alt-preset 192 --id3v2-only --tt "$title" --ta "$artist" --tl "$album" --tg "$genre" --tn "$track" --ty "$year" "$temp_wav" "$mp3"

## clean-up

rm $temp_wav
rm $temp_trackinfo

exit 0

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