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iTunes not playing AAC files!

CrackedButter

CrackedButter

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jan 15, 2003
3,221
0
51st State of America
I was in the process of converting a few albums to AAC in order to save space but for some reason iTunes won't play my music files even though i imported them from itunes itself.

When i import them from the cd i encode at 256kbits as i do with my mp3 files, the files do play as mp3 from my music cd so it isn't a copy protected one or anything. the files play as mp3 but not aac basically.

But (and i don't know if this is it) the AAC files extension end with m4a and i was thinking this should be .aac. Am i wrong do you know whats going on in general?

I'm using itunes 4.0 on an ibook running on OSX 10.2.6.

To also note, itunes does read the file, it just doesn't play, i renamed these aac files with mp3 rage as well.
 
Just a short question:

Why on earth do you encode AAC at 256 kbits. You're not going to save any space doing that. The good thing about AAC is that it sounds better at lower bitrates. AAC sounds good at 128kbits, while you should go with 192kbits with mp3. Anything higher and you should just use uncompressed AIFF.

The m4a is the rigth extension. m4p is the protected ones you dl from the iTMS.

Have you tried to listen to the previews at the iTMS? If they won't play, then try to reinstall iTunes.
 
I have QT 6.2.

What is AIFF, how is that better at 256kbits?

Could i correct in thinking that mp3 Rage somehow caused this error, it is afterall for mp3's, but it did let me edit the acc files?
 
AIFF is the uncompressed music format on CDs. Try inserting a music CD and opening it up with Finder. You'll see "AIFF" as the format designation on the files on the disc.

Even at 256 kbps, I think AAC would still be smaller than AIFF. AIFF is a really big format... One CD will take up 750 MB under AIFF, but about 100 MB in 256 kbps AAC?

I can understand wanting to use higher bit rates. Kinda psychological for the most part. You want to make sure you are not losing too much quality, even if you can't always hear it... I was a bit hesitant about 128 kbps AAC, so I opted for 160 kbps. I tried 192 kbps but then my 10 GB iPod got too close to being full for my comfort.

m4a is the extension for AAC... It's the audio layer of mpeg-4... I heard somewhere that iTunes is pretty picky about playing AAC. The extension must be m4a (I haven't bought anything from iTMS, so I don't know about m4p.) and the "creator" must be "hook" or something...
 
the files are m4a so no problem there, but i am wondering if it is mp3 rage is messing up something, i think i will encode some more tracks but not use mp3 rage.
 
How wouldi go about renaming my aac files, it does now seem that my program MP3 Rage is messing the file up so iTunes cannot read it, i did some testing last night.

I know i can use iTunes to get the CD music track names but its not perfect, and simply renaming them doesn't work. Are there ID3 tags or something similar to aac files?
 
Originally posted by CrackedButter
How wouldi go about renaming my aac files, it does now seem that my program MP3 Rage is messing the file up so iTunes cannot read it, i did some testing last night.

I know i can use iTunes to get the CD music track names but its not perfect, and simply renaming them doesn't work. Are there ID3 tags or something similar to aac files?
Click to expand...

Yeah iTunes will organize and store your music according to their tagss and aac files do have similar tags, not sure what format they are tho.
 
Originally posted by crassusad44
Just a short question:

Why on earth do you encode AAC at 256 kbits. You're not going to save any space doing that. The good thing about AAC is that it sounds better at lower bitrates. AAC sounds good at 128kbits, while you should go with 192kbits with mp3. Anything higher and you should just use uncompressed AIFF.

The m4a is the rigth extension. m4p is the protected ones you dl from the iTMS.

Have you tried to listen to the previews at the iTMS? If they won't play, then try to reinstall iTunes.
Click to expand...

What on earth are you talking about??!?!

Do you have any idea how big an uncompressed AIFF file is? It runs about 5-8MB per minute of audio. Thats well over 10 times bigger than a 128kbs encoded file (either aac or mp3). Even at 256kbs there is a significant savings in size. And at twice the bit rate, the codec is able to capture much more audio information, making the files sound that much better.

My point is that ANY bitrate is going to represent a size savings over uncompressed audio like AIFF. And the bitrate to select is not clear cut; 128 aac doedsn't sound acceptable to many people, myself included. Its very subjective.

Sorry I can't help with the original posters problem, but I wanted to clear this up.

Taft
 
So what bitrate would be acceptable to encode .m4a files?

am i right, or am i wrong? one will hear the difference between 128 kbits and (for example) 160 kbits if one uses high grade speakers...?

i guess normal computer speakers would not show the difference...
 
Originally posted by Taft
What on earth are you talking about??!?!

Do you have any idea how big an uncompressed AIFF file is? It runs about 5-8MB per minute of audio. Thats well over 10 times bigger than a 128kbs encoded file (either aac or mp3). Even at 256kbs there is a significant savings in size. And at twice the bit rate, the codec is able to capture much more audio information, making the files sound that much better.

My point is that ANY bitrate is going to represent a size savings over uncompressed audio like AIFF. And the bitrate to select is not clear cut; 128 aac doedsn't sound acceptable to many people, myself included. Its very subjective.

Sorry I can't help with the original posters problem, but I wanted to clear this up.

Taft
Click to expand...

You didn't help but because of what you said i will still encode at 256kbits, i was going to knock it down to 192kbits. Either way i do save space but i thought i would mention this.

I just need something to edit the .m4a files with.
 
#1: AIFF files are 10MB per minute. They are, in fact, the uncompressed audio you hear on CDs (echoing from earlier in this thread).

#2: The acceptable bitrate to use is one, which satisfies you ears. There is no number for that.

#3: Mr. CrackedButter, if that is your real name, if you are trying to get iTunes to read those files you edited from MP3 Rage (shivers), drag the file to your iTunes application. You can also use iTunes to locate the file and add it to the library.

For beginners, drag the file into iTunes.

#4: Update your copy of iTunes 4.0 to 4.01.

#5: For audio editing, try Sound Studio and/or Spark ME (free), and don't try to make up a literal visual for the application Spark ME...
icon_twisted.gif
new_snipersmilie.gif
 
Thanks for your help, i'm going to leave it for now, i'll use mp3's until i can find a program which edits the files as well as Mp3 Rage does.

I'm very particular about naming files and if cannot do it i wouldn't be satisfied.

Until then, its mp3's with Mp3 Rage.
 
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