QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc., [originally a thread for a feature request] Options

[kareha]

Please try again with

CODE

-o %d --artwork folder.jpg -

-o is a option to specify output file name. Therefore, %d (placeholder for output filename used by foobar) must come just after -o.

Perfect, thank you very much for the help, very much appreciated

[ainou]

Hello all,

Can someone explain me why this comands

CODE

C:\conv\qaac_0.96>qaac.exe --cbr 96 01.WAV -o 01_AAC.mp4
initializing QTML...done

qaac 0.96, QuickTime 7.7.0

01.WAV
Estéreo (E D) -> Estéreo (E D)
Codificador MPEG-4 AAC 1.7.1, Taxa de bits constante 96kbps, Óptima
[25.0%] 3:33.840/14:15.360 (32.2x), ETA 0:19.919
9430344/37721376 samples processed in 0:06.660
Overall bitrate: 96.019kbps
210/210 chunks written (optimizing)

are producing mp4 files with this information (as returned by mediainfo)?

Audio
ID : 1
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 3mn 33s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 96.0 Kbps

Whatever option I use with -c I seem not to be able to get any Constant Bit Rate file. Any clues

Thanks

AM

[YumeYao]

I've encountered some problem:

I'm running Linux (Ubuntu 10.04 64-bit) and using foobar2k and qaac in a VM (VMWare Player 4.0.0) with Windows XP SP3 installed.

On Windows,
D:\ is mounted as a network drive, and all musics are stored in D:\.

So when I'm using foobar2k to convert a music, if the destination directory is in d:\, the file results to be corrupted no matter --no-optimize is tagged or not. But if destination directory is in c:\ (not a network drive), the converted file is ok.

QT version is latest, 7.7.1.



Then I just have done several tests by command line (to bypass foobar2k's touching mp4 container)
used the commands below
type xxx.wav | qaac.exe -i -o "d:\xxx.m4a" -
type xxx.wav | qaac.exe -i --no-optimize -o "d:\xxx.m4a" -
qaac.exe -i -o "d:\xxx.m4a" xxx.wav
qaac.exe -i --no-optimize -o "d:\xxx.m4a" xxx.wav


So there seems to be something wrong when qaac is used with foobar2k, because when I use faac or neroaacenc, I never encountered such problems.

[nu774]

Whatever option I use with -c I seem not to be able to get any Constant Bit Rate file. Any clues

It's because they are not constant bit rate file.
"CBR" mode of QuickTime AAC encoder is actually just a more constraind ABR mode. Therefore each AAC audio frame can differ in size.

It's technically possible to pretend to be CBR for mediainfo (it's just looking at stsd decConfig descriptor), but qaac rather sets them actual values.

[nu774]

CODE

So when I'm using foobar2k to convert a music, if the destination directory is in d:\, the file results to be corrupted no matter --no-optimize is tagged or not. But if destination directory is in c:\ (not a network drive), the converted file is ok.

Could you try the following?

CODE

-V64 -o %d.m4a --log %d.txt -

If you set like this, output filename is different from what foobar2000 expects (extra ".m4a" is appended on the end). Therefore foobar2000 will show error, but the result will be actually in the destination folder, untouched by foobar side.
With --log option, log file will be written by qaac.

Also, console message of foobar2000 will be useful (view->console).

[YumeYao]

Sorry,
in my last post I was to say all 4 tests by CLI are fine, just missed them.

I have followed your instruction to get the logs and foobar console, finding that is should be some problem with foobar.


The log seems fine (I'm chinese so the parameters are in chinese):

initializing QTML...done

qaac 0.96, QuickTime 7.7.1

<stdin>
立体声 (L R) -> 立体声 (L R)
MPEG-4 AAC 编码器 1.7.1, 可变位速率 q91, 最佳
8313144/-1 samples processed in 0:14.281
Overall bitrate: 187.008kbps

there are problematic messages in foobar console:

CLI encoder: qaac.exe
Destination file: D:\02 Rolling star.m4a
Encoder stream format: 44100Hz / 2ch / 16bps
Command line: "D:\WinTools\foobar2k\qaac.exe" -V 90 -q 2 --no-optimize -i -o "02 Rolling star.m4a" -
Working folder: D:\
Encoder process still running, waiting...
Encoder process terminated cleanly.
Track converted successfully.
AAC decode error when analyzing first frame
could not enumerate tracks (Unsupported format or corrupted file) on:
D:\02 Rolling star.m4a
Total encoding time: 0:12.828, 14.69x realtime

So it seems foobar is to blame. So I tried faac....

CLI encoder: faac.exe
Destination file: D:\02 Rolling star.m4a
Encoder stream format: 44100Hz / 2ch / 16bps
Command line: "D:\WinTools\foobar2k\faac.exe" -q 700 - -o "02 Rolling star.m4a"
Working folder: D:\
Encoder process still running, waiting...
Encoder process terminated cleanly.
Track converted successfully.
AAC decode error when analyzing first frame
could not enumerate tracks (Unsupported format or corrupted file) on:
D:\02 Rolling star.m4a
Total encoding time: 0:12.265, 15.36x realtime

So definitely the bug belongs to this version of foobar (1.1.1). Sorry for mis-reporting.

[subinbar]

nu774, would it be possible to use only qaac.exe along with the Apple Application Support .dll's in the same folder in a portable manner, without the need for registry keys and a separate installation? (now that it bypasses quicktime)

[nu774]

nu774, would it be possible to use only qaac.exe along with the Apple Application Support .dll's in the same folder in a portable manner, without the need for registry keys and a separate installation? (now that it bypasses quicktime)

Yes. They are searched in the following order. No registory setting is required.
1) The directory where qaac.exe is placed
2) Windows system directory
3) "QTfiles" sub directory
4) The directory in a registry key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Apple Inc.\Apple Application Support" (This can be overriden with qaac.reg)
5) Directories in the PATH environment variable

[subinbar]

nu774, would it be possible to use only qaac.exe along with the Apple Application Support .dll's in the same folder in a portable manner, without the need for registry keys and a separate installation? (now that it bypasses quicktime)

Yes. They are searched in the following order. No registory setting is required.
1) The directory where qaac.exe is placed
2) Windows system directory
3) "QTfiles" sub directory
4) The directory in a registry key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Apple Inc.\Apple Application Support" (This can be overriden with qaac.reg)
5) Directories in the PATH environment variable

awesome, thanks! Do you mind listing the exact DLL's that are needed?

This post has been edited by subinbar: Nov 11 2011, 04:02

[nu774]

awesome, thanks! Do you mind listing the exact DLL's that are needed?

Direct dependency:
CoreAudioToolbox.dll, CoreFoundation.dll.
Indirect dependency:
ASL.dll, icudt46.dll, libdispatch.dll, libicuin.dll, libicuuc.dll, objc.dll, pthreadVC2.dll.

Of course, these might change in future (Especially ICU version).
You can check dependency rather easily with tools like Dependency Walker.

[Xenion]

I'm very impressed by the continuity qaac is developed and want to thank nu774 once again.

[DARcode]

I'm pretty impressed too, just switched to qaac for my lossy encodes, do you accept donations nu774?

[nu774]

I'm pretty impressed too, just switched to qaac for my lossy encodes, do you accept donations nu774?

Thank you, but currently I'm not accepting donations.
(It seems that paypal private donation is somewhat restricted in my country, for legal reason).

[DARcode]

I'm pretty impressed too, just switched to qaac for my lossy encodes, do you accept donations nu774?

Thank you, but currently I'm not accepting donations.
(It seems that paypal private donation is somewhat restricted in my country, for legal reason).

A wish list on Amazon.co.jp maybe?
Alternatively, anything I can send you from Italy?

[lvqcl]

Direct dependency:
CoreAudioToolbox.dll, CoreFoundation.dll.
Indirect dependency:
ASL.dll, icudt46.dll, libdispatch.dll, libicuin.dll, libicuuc.dll, objc.dll, pthreadVC2.dll.

And also msvcr80.dll / msvcp80.dll (ver. 8.0.50727.6195).

[nu774]

And also msvcr80.dll / msvcp80.dll (ver. 8.0.50727.6195).

Yes, thanks. They are the latest security update version of MSVC 2005 SP1 runtime.
If you have Visual C++ 2005 SP1 redistributable package installed and running MS update, probably it's already installed in your system.

[Larson]

nu774, first of all thank you for the impressing work you're doing!

I wanted to ask you one thing, when converting with -q 2 in the tag it is reported as "Quality 96" which is "Better" according to these scheme on Apple developer site

Better
kAudioCodecQuality_High
96 (0x60)
Best
kAudioCodecQuality_Max
127 (0x7F)

is it the same as Max or there's another setting for that?

[nu774]

Yes, it is same as kAudioCodecQuailityMax, as for AAC codec.
If you set larger value than this, it's just rounded to 96.

[awx]

Hi,
It will work only if you have folder.jpg in encoding destination folder.
Since foobar spawns CLI encoder in destination folder as it's current directly, if you have folder.jpg in somewhere else, it won't work.

I should have mention it more clearly in the usage page; updated it now.

However, if you have folder.jpg (or somehing) in your source folder and it's different from destination folder, you have to pass fullpath of folder.jpg to qaac. Therefore, your setting option will gets more complex

Hi,
and what the command line must be if I have folder.jpg in my source folder?

[lvqcl]

AFAIK it's not possible to pass the name of the source folder from foobar2000 to an encoder.

[LigH]

ExactAudioCopy 1.0 b2 supports qaac well, the options set was improved since EAC 0.9x and almost completely supports qaac's options set (except "--compilation"):

CODE

-V 80 -o %dest% --title "%title%" --artist "%artist%" --band "%albumartist%" --album "%albumtitle%" --track "%tracknr%/%numtracks%" --disk "%cdnumber%/%totalcds%" --genre "%genre%" --date "%year%" --comment "%comment%"%hascover% --artwork %coverfile%%hascover%%haslyrics% --lyrics %lyricsfile%%haslyrics% %source%

[nu774]

ExactAudioCopy 1.0 b2 supports qaac well, the options set was improved since EAC 0.9x and almost completely supports qaac's options set (except "--compilation"):

I'm thinking that current --compilation option design is not friendly to GUI front-end usage.
Since it takes no argument and just controlled by the presense of --compilation option, it might be difficult or sometimes impossible to use it from GUI front-end (it will require some conditional control).
It would be much simpler if you could just use --compilation=%compilation% or something.

[LigH]

Regarding the philosophy of the EAC 1.0 option set, its support would probably become (a guess into the blue):

%ifvarious%--compilation%ifvarious%

I'm more curious if any player is interested in that flag at all ... possibly Apple iTunes only.

[nu774]

I'm more curious if any player is interested in that flag at all ... possibly Apple iTunes only.

Yes, I don't know other than that
Since iTunes already supports sorting/grouping by album artists like other players, probably it won't be so important for iTunes users, too.

[Soren]

I don't what i'm doind wrong, but i can't produce a non-corrupted alac file using Foobar. I always get this error in the console :

An error occurred while finalizing the encoding process (Unsupported format or corrupted file) : "C:\Users\Philippe\Desktop\El Camino\11. The Black Keys - Mind Eraser.m4a"
Conversion failed: Unsupported format or corrupted file
could not enumerate tracks (Unsupported format or corrupted file) on:
C:\Users\Philippe\Desktop\El Camino\11. The Black Keys - Mind Eraser.m4a

I use the default commande line (-A -o %d -)

Someone have a clue about what's going on ??

This post has been edited by Soren: Dec 19 2011, 07:07