Need help converting from MPEG 4 to MPG 3
I bought a new Subaru BRZ and it has a port for plugging in a flash drive to play music. So I bought a bunch of new stuff off iTunes and loaded it onto a flash drive, along with some of my older tunes. Then I learned that, unfortunately, the audio system won't play MPEG 4, it only plays up to MPG 3 from a flash drive. I tried converting the 4 music to MPG 3 in iTunes and then loading the converted MPG 3 onto the flash drive. I was able to do a conversion and get both the 4 and 3 versions of the songs, but I'm still having trouble getting it to play so I'm not sure I converted the music correctly. When I load the music onto the flash drive, I'm having to load it off the hard drive's music folder. I can't load it off iTunes. I'm using OS 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard, I think) and iTunes 10.6.3 (25). When I put the flash drive in the car's player, the drive shows 2 versions of each song, on preceded by a number, then a ._, then the name of the track. The audio system won't play any of the tracks in that version, but will play the tracks without the #._ in front of the song name. When I open the drive on my computer, only 1 version of each song appears.
Can anyone help me figure out what I am doing wrong. How should I be converting the songs? Should I be doing something else to the 3's to get just the 3 version on the flash drive? How can I delete the #._ versions from the drive when I don't even see them on the computer? I've tried wiping the drive and reloading the 3's but it still comes up with 2 versions on the car's audio system. The drive comes up fine in my neighbor's Acura MDX audio system so I don't really know what the problem is. I really am kinda' tech challenged, not really up on all this stuff so really need help. Anyone have any idea's?
Thanks in advance for any help you can give.
ps: please be kind, I'm really trying to figure this out.
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MP3 is MP3; if you're converting in iTunes the songs should play fine assuming the target system can read them, which based on what you're saying about filenames, is what my gut is telling me is the problem.
First, convert everything in iTunes. 192k joint stereo is a good baseline. Then create a new folder in Finder and open it, so you have an empty window. Go back to iTunes and search for "mp3"; this should leave you with only the mp3 versions listed in the iTunes window (it will list ALL the mp3s you have in your library, if you only want some, you need to make a playlist with just those tracks). Select everything in the iTunes window and drag-and-drop them to the empty folder (it helps if you shrink the iTunes window a bit and move it off to one side so you can see the empty Finder window peeking out from behind). Then copy that folder to your flash drive, it should work fine.
The files that start with "." aren't showing up in OSX or playing in the Subie because in Unix and Unix-like systems, which OSX is, files that start with a "." are invisible, meant to be seen and used only by the operating system at a low level. I suspect they contain specialized data about the songs that is only needed by iTunes and that would "break" the MP3 files if it were included directly. I'm not sure if exporting the files by drag-and-drop will also export the dotfiles; if it does you're going to need to get your hands a little dirtier to erase them. Let me know and I'll be happy to help! 
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