Could we add gapless to Apple's AAC encoder?, task for iTunesencode or other? Options

[guruboolez]

I have a question about a possible new iTunesEncode feature (or any other program driving Apple's AAC encoder). Wouldn't it be possible to add a gapless feature? It might sound silly, but after all, nyaochi did it with the latest Fraunhofer MP3 encoder (here and here). I'm not a coding expert -I'm not a coder at all- but I think that doing it wouldn't be an impossible task.

Adding somewhere in the tags the precise offset (constant for Apple's encoder) and calculating the amount of padded sample maybe suffice? I don't really know. faac and Nero AAC are gapless, and apparently Apple is not hurry to implement this feature. It's a pity, because Apple's encoder is pretty good. Gapless playback is not possible on any iPod, but on a computer (playing with foobar2000 as exemple) users would benefits from it.

Could we reproduce Nyaochi's ACMenc patch to work with iTunes? Or make something similar? What do you think?

[Tropican]

1) but Ivan posted in the thread, "Next revision of nero encoder will have Nero Digital Gapless data embedded in the MP4 file, fully compatible with the ISO File Format guidelines." I'm not a developer of MPEG-4 AAC encoder and don't want to propose another specification while Nero Digital Gapless data is about to be released (or already been released?) by a major MPEG-4 AAC developer.

Yes, perhaps it is best to wait. The really nifty part is since Apple does not seem interested in 'true' gapless then perhaps only Nero's spec will become common in the AAC gapless world, allowing for greater compatibility.

Very good work nyaochi with your earlier test, I think now it is better understood (at least by me) where we stand on iTunes gapless.

This post has been edited by Tropican: Jun 29 2005, 02:59