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Topic: ADTS AAC or MP4 in audio library? (Read 4785 times) previous topic - next topic
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ADTS AAC or MP4 in audio library?

I'm just about to encode my CD:s to AAC and have some questions..

I see three alternatives to do this:
1 - Encode to AAC with ADTS header.
2 - Encode to AAC and then use mp4creator60 to create and optimize MP4 files. These files get a little smaller than the ADTS files.
3 - Same as 2 but also hint the tracks. This does make the files ~10% bigger.

The setting I use when encoding is -streaming.

Which of these will be streamable, 1 and 3 only or also 2?
What music players can play the files generated by these methods (more than Winamp with Menno's plugins)?
Portables or set-top boxes?
Are there any advantages to use the MP4 file format instead of ADTS AAC or vice versa?

At the moment I'm leaning towards 2, but I'm definitely not sure.

What would you use?

One final question: Are there any good methods to batch convert the AAC files to MP4?
Maybe a drop frontend for mp4creator would be nice..

ADTS AAC or MP4 in audio library?

Reply #1 –
Quote
Originally posted by Fredde

What music players can play the files generated by these methods (more than Winamp with Menno's plugins)?
Portables or set-top boxes?


Theoretically, any player that recognizes Winamp input plugins will recognize Menno's plugins. There are many players like that around.
I don't know about any hardware player that supports MP4 files.
But the Philips Expanium and some other players can play AAC fine.

Quote
Are there any advantages to use the MP4 file format instead of ADTS AAC or vice versa?


See above. But, of course, if you don't have a hardware player that supports AAC and don't have any plans on buying one, than there's no big advantage in using AAC instead of MP4.

Quote
At the moment I'm leaning towards 2, but I'm definitely not sure.

What would you use?


I would keep my AAC files and, if, in the future, a MP4 hardware player appears (I'm pretty sure that'll happen), I will then convert my AACs to MP4.

Quote
One final question: Are there any good methods to batch convert the AAC files to MP4?
Maybe a drop frontend for mp4creator would be nice..


Unfortunately not.

I suggested Speek to build a frontend like that, but he's not really willing to deal with video tools right now.

Regards;

Roberto.

ADTS AAC or MP4 in audio library?

Reply #2 –
I too would like to use AAC to encode my music, but one of the things that  is holding me off at the moment is the lack of a tagging provision. Is AAC going to get a standard tagging method? I know you can add ID3v2 tags but it seems a bit of a hack. Will/does mp4 have tagging?

Cheers

ADTS AAC or MP4 in audio library?

Reply #3 –
Yes.

Since MPEG4 container is the same as Apple's Quicktime (mov), it has the same tagging scheme.

Unfortunately, I don't know of any tool that performs tagging on MP4 files ATM.

And yes, AAC with ID3v2 is a hack. It won't be played on hardware players.

Regards;

Roberto.

ADTS AAC or MP4 in audio library?

Reply #4 –
I see the future... people switching to "emmpeefours", tagging them with id3v1 and/or id3v2. Some using ADTS AAC and some with the full MP4 container, with id3tags braking them all.

If the mp4 format is like the mov, that means there is utilites and sourcecode out there? Someone who knows more is probably even hanging around this forum. A simple solution would be a small utility which rips out the tags from already damaged files, extracts the data and puts it in the metadata format appropriate for mp4.

This souds like a wanted feature in mp4creator:
-create=<input-file>    Create track from <input-file>
input files can be of type: .aac .mp3 .divx .mp4v .tag
-id3convert    Create metadatatrack from id3v1/2 tag

Problem solved?

Edit:
The quicktime 'udta' atom:


    Meta-data handling when metadata from ID3v1-style MP3 files is imported into the QuickTime movie:
    Title maps to kUserDataTextFullName, artist maps to '©ART', album maps to '©alb', year maps to '©day', comment maps to '©cmt', and track number maps to '©des'.
    Software required QuickTime 4

    Where no QuickTime equivalent exists, the metadata item’s four-character code is modified by replacing the initial character with a ©. All other characters
    remain unchanged.

    Mmmm... who is developing mp4creator? He could save the world.

ADTS AAC or MP4 in audio library?

Reply #5 –
Quote
Originally posted by rehgf
*lots of text*
Do you have a link to the docs/specs of the QuickTime tag header? I've done my share of ID3v2 programming and creating a ID3v2 to QT converter shouldn't be a problem... It can't be more complicated than ID3v2 or I'll shoot whoever decided to make it so... 

ADTS AAC or MP4 in audio library?

Reply #6 –
Got that one right.

Well I took a minute and browsed the cvs:
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs...ver/mp4creator/
There are lots of goodies in there, it was just waiting for an id3v2 library.

The specs are actually:
http://mediaxw.sourceforge.net/files/doc/M...04%20System.pdf
but since they rely on quicktime, these are better for the purpose:
http://mediaxw.sourceforge.net/files/doc/Q...le%20Format.pdf

Good Luck!

ADTS AAC or MP4 in audio library?

Reply #7 –
Thanks for the replies.

Does anyone know the answer to my question about which files will be streamable, i.e. do I have to hint the tracks to be able to stream them?