BY VINCENT TODARO
Staff Writer

CHRIS KELLY staff Rich Phillips is the owner of Digitunes in Shrewsbury, which formats and downloads music onto iPods or MP3 players. SHREWSBURY –– However you may feel about its sound quality, there’s no doubt digital technology is more convenient than analog. Now a new local business is hammering the point home.

Digitunes, located on Shrewsbury Avenue, is out to make life even easier for those who use iPods. While the music-playing devices are small enough to be carried around without a problem, it can take a long time to get music loaded onto them. For those without the patience or time to “rip” CDs, Digitunes will do it for them.

The company, which full-time owner Richard Phillips founded in November, specializes in taking people’s CDs, ripping them into MP3 format, then placing them onto an iPod or any MP3 player.

“It can take someone as long as 10 minutes to put a single CD onto an iPod, a problem compounded by the fact most people want to put hundreds of CDs onto an iPod,” Phillips said.

“Having CDs on an iPod allows someone the ability to enjoy the music just about anywhere, due to the iPod’s light weight and portability.

“But most people simply do not have the time or means to sit and rip their CDs into MP3 format and then load them onto an iPod,” he said.

“That’s the real time consumption, taking a CD and converting it to MP3 format,” Phillips said. “It can take up to 10 minutes per CD.”

Most people use iTunes to get music onto their iPods, though there’s other software, he said. But the need to use such “ripping software,” as it’s known, is a hassle for most people who have other things to do.

“We throw more technology at it,” he said. “We have additional software we invested in that allows us to rip CDs concurrently, so I can rip up to six CDs on one PC. If I have several PCs set up, I can obviously do more.”

Not only can music lovers save the time it would take to fill their iPod, they can also save the music that doesn’t fit onto the iPod, Phillips said.

The capacity on most iPods is very limited, so people run into a problem deciding which to commit. While choosing favorites may not be hard for a casual music fan with 50 CDs, many music lovers own thousands of CDs.

So for those who can’t decide whether that last CD they want on an iPod is “Barry Manilow’s Greatest Hits” or Bruce Springsteen’s latest, Phillips has a solution — he will load your iPod to capacity but also rip all your CDs into MP3 format then onto DVDs.

“So in the future, you can move music off your iPod and you have other CDs already ripped, so you can substitute one CD for another,” he explained.

“You have all your music on the iPod and two DVDs, so you can move your CDs around,” he said. “This helps people with a lot of CDs but without the iPod that’s big enough to fit them.”

In addition, the DVDs can be used for backup in case the iPod breaks or gets lost, he said.

“[Customers] do not have to re-rip the music if they lose or break the iPod,” he said. “It’s all on backup DVD. Every CD we rip goes onto DVD in MP3 format.”

Having music on a DVD also allows someone to play the songs through a standard DVD player or computer, he said.

Digitunes charges 99 cents per CD, a flat rate, he said. As for the amount of time it will take before you get your beloved CDs back, Philips said Digitunes’ goal is to return the finished product within two to three days. The amount of time it actually takes depends on how busy Digitunes is.

The company has taken off, he said, doing especially well during the Christmas season. Even though demand was great, Digitunes still returned the iPods and CD to customers within a week, he said.

Digitunes also offers free pickup and delivery, Phillips said, although people are also more than welcome to visit the 621 Shrewsbury Ave. location.

Phillips, 37, is a Fair Haven resident who has worked in technology for over 15 years. Though he does gets some help running Digitunes, he said it’s largely a one-man show.

He said he started the business because he loved iPods but knew a sobering fact.

“I am a huge iPod user. But most people end up only importing 10 CDs a year because it takes so long,” he said.

“So the largest benefit {we offer} is time savings, which is huge because we allow people to use iPods fully loaded, and enjoy music anywhere and anytime. That was not being done due to technically challenged folks, or people who are afraid of technology, or didn’t have time.”

Philips said he’s looking to develop a reseller network of local retailers who would allow themselves to be authorized Digitunes’ drop-off centers. He is also trying to establish a car-dealer program for the service.

“Our growth plans are rather aggressive,” he said. “I can’t do that by picking up people’s CDs.”