When I try to tell amarok, to transcode files before transferring them to my iPod, the checkbox is greyed out (have a look at the attached screenshot)

How do I make this checkbox selectable?

You need to install the "TransKode" extension. Check http://kde-apps.org

Mark Kretschmann wrote:You need to install the "TransKode" extension. Check http://kde-apps.org

Do I need to recompile amarok?

Edit: I've put the transkode binary into my /bin directory, but the transcode option is still greyed out. What have i done wrong?

Ok. I've managed to install the transkode script, but I can't work out how to configure it.

Before I carry on, I need you to know that I use ubuntu - so I need ecact instructions as to where to move move my mouse and what keys to press...
I've attached a screenshot of my transkode configuration. I have selected the transcode files when possible ckeckbox in the iPod's configuration, but when i try to transfer files, the status bar stays at 0% and doesn't do anything and I have to stop it. I've installed the gstreamer0.8-lame and lame packages.

What have I done wrong?

You mainly need to configure it in the media device tab. Here click configure and tell which formats are supported and into what format you want  to transkode.

Then you can use the transkode configure to tell transkode the parameters you want to use (e.g. bitrate etc).

I want to transcode to MP3 when I transfer songs to my iPod, because I've heard that AAC support in linux isn't very good.

Currently, transcoding to anything besides m4a when transferring to an ipod is not possible. m4a should work best on ipods. But as this topic seems to pop up on a regular basis, we might consider to change this.

But the iPod can play MP3's I'm sure of it. Before I discovered amarok, I stored all of my files in MP3 and transferred them using gtkpod. The iPod even has a copyright notice on it saying that MP3 is trademark of Fraunhofer. It wouldn't say that if it didn't have an MP3 decoder would it? But if I have to use AAC/M4A, how do I do it?

Bump?

Bump...

Install some packages starting with faa, e.g. faad2, faac, ... and transKode should be able to deal with it.

Thnaks. It's working now. I've found out that it was becuase I didn't have the oggdec decoder.