You can work around Quicktime refusing to convert the m4p to aif by using Toast, without burning a CD. When you add the m4p to an audio cd, it will convert to aif. Now, either you can find the aif in your cache or you can simply "Save as Disc Image" from within Toast.
Maybe someone will write a wrapper for Quicktime's conversion.
Actually, you don't even need to simulate burning. If you have Quicktime 6.2, and Toast, simply drag the m4p's to a new audio CD within Toast and it will convert them to aif's. Now, you can root around in the cache for them, or simply select "Save as Disc Image" from the "file" menu of Toast. I don't know if there is a way to do this without commercial software, but since Toast is relying on Quicktime for the conversion, I bet writing a wrapper would be fairly easy.
By the way, after converting the m4p files to aif's, I then converted them to 160 kbps mp3's (using the Fraunhoffer encoding scheme). I have pretty good studio headphones, and am decent at picking out quality differences, and I cannot distinguish between the original m4p's and the mp3's.
However, once Audion can play m4p's, I probably won't use this process. Even better, maybe iTunes will someday include a directory hierarchy in the playlist, and I'll make the switch.
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You can work around Quicktime refusing to convert the m4p to aif by using Toast, without burning a CD. When you add the m4p to an audio cd, it will convert to aif. Now, either you can find the aif in your cache or you can simply "Save as Disc Image" from within Toast. Maybe someone will write a wrapper for Quicktime's conversion.
Actually, you don't even need to simulate burning. If you have Quicktime 6.2, and Toast, simply drag the m4p's to a new audio CD within Toast and it will convert them to aif's. Now, you can root around in the cache for them, or simply select "Save as Disc Image" from the "file" menu of Toast. I don't know if there is a way to do this without commercial software, but since Toast is relying on Quicktime for the conversion, I bet writing a wrapper would be fairly easy.
By the way, after converting the m4p files to aif's, I then converted them to 160 kbps mp3's (using the Fraunhoffer encoding scheme). I have pretty good studio headphones, and am decent at picking out quality differences, and I cannot distinguish between the original m4p's and the mp3's.
However, once Audion can play m4p's, I probably won't use this process. Even better, maybe iTunes will someday include a directory hierarchy in the playlist, and I'll make the switch.