qtaacenc: a command-line QuickTime AAC encoder for Windows Options

[[JAZ]]

Offtopic to understand file permissions under Windows NTFS filesystem.

NTFS filesystems allows to:
- Set ownership of a file or directory to one user or group.
- Set permission (access, write, read, create, control permissions,...) over a file/directory to users and groups (can be several).

Each file/folder has its owner and permissions, they are not heretated. Only at creation time, the permissions of the folder determine the permissions of the file, and the user that creates it becomes the owner.
The owner is always able to change permissions (and owner), but does not give permission over the file itself. For that, it is needed to set the concrete permissions of the desired user or group.

So it is important to get ownership only to get control permissions, and once you have control permissions, do change the permissions to those that you need. A "shortcut" permission is there that says "Total control". That means enabling all permissions.
It is also important to note that this only changes the file being modified, and that there is a second option that says "replace all permissions on secondary objects ....". This setting is important for a directory, so that it can fix the permissions of the files it contains.

The setting "include permissions that can be heretated..." helps to fix the permissions of a file/folder that has been moved to another place, and so the permisions should be different. That would be faster than using the setting mentioned above.

Addenum:
Understanding the default groups in Windows:
There are three groups that are worth mentioning (there are others, but they are for more specific roles).
- Administrators
- SYSTEM
- (Autenticated) Users

The group Administrators is self explanatory, and are users that have been given the Administrator role in the User control panel.
The group SYSTEM is the operating system itself (as in Windows Update or execution of system services)
The group Users is every user (not only real) defined. One user is, for example, the "Guest" user. Administrators are also Users. SYSTEM is not an user.

Conclusion: Generally speaking, you would like the C:\Music folder to be owned by your user, and set the permissions of Users in that folder and all that it contains to "Total Control". Alternatively, you might set only read permissions to Users group and set total control for your specific user.


Addennum bis:
Do not mix (network) shared permissions with filesystem permissions. Sharing permissions allow Networked access, and add upon file permissions (i.e. the most restrictive of both, shared and file, is applied).

[Daffy]

@ [JAZ] - I appreciate your post, however I don't understand 99% of what you wrote. All I'm trying to do is use foobar and qtaacenc.exe to make M4A files in some other directory other than C:\Users\* without foobar showing a locked (but still fully functional) icon. I've been making FLAC, MP3 and just about every other type of file you can think of using a host of programs, but this is the first time I've experienced this. Since the icon lacks the lock when encoding directly to the C:\Users\* folder I assume it's the *.exe file that's creating this in the other folder(s). The question is why?

Edit: I'm using Windows 7 if that matters.

This post has been edited by Daffy: Sep 12 2012, 05:05

[Frankie]

How to avoid resampling to 48k?
I have one album, mostly acoustic instruments, and using tvbr 67 profile to encode it - ending in unusually high bitrates (130-160 kbit) and album is resampled to 48 kHz.
Why? Input is FLAC image of the album.
I've searched the forum but couldn't find any info.
Additionally, if I force it to encode with --samplerate 44100, is the encoder doing resampling twice? When I turn on "keep" option, it resamples to 48k.

I'm not sure since I don't use AAC myself but I think you have to add "--samplerate keep" to the command line.

[greensdrive]

this is so far off topic, but I feel a need to chime in.

@Daffy:
the "C:\Users\<your user>\" folder is special. it allows you, that user, to create files in that folder for your use. if you go anywhere outside that folder, you suddenly require admin privileges to do much of anything. therefore, you can either encode audio into your user's folder (anywhere in there you like), OR encode all the audio you want outside your user's folder, then take control of that folder using a very uselessly complicated series of menus.

to correct you, though - it's not the program that creates the files, it's the fact that they're outside of your user's folder that makes them somewhat inaccessible.

at this point I think you'd have to look elsewhere (because it's not directly audio related), like here.

[[JAZ]]

@ [JAZ] - I appreciate your post, however I don't understand 99% of what you wrote.

I thought you already managed to go to setting file permissions. You can do all that I explained following these steps:
(If you have a friend that knows more about computers, you might ask him to verify that you do it right)

Open Windows explorer
Select the C:\Music folder
Right-click, properties
Select "Security" tab
At the bottom, press "Advanced" button.
Select "propietary" tab
Select your user (it should appear in the list below. If it doesn't, use the Edit button and search it). You can skip this if the "Current proprietary" is already your user.
Switch back to the "permissions" tab
Press "change permissions" button.
If the group "Users" (spoken in your language) is not there, press the Add button. Write "Users" there (again, spoken in your language), press check name to verify it is correct and accept.
Once the group "Users" is already on the list, select it and press the Edit button
On the top of the list, there's an option that says "Total control". Enable the check in the "allow" column and accept.
On the botton screen, enable the check "Replace all permissions on secondary objects ...." and accept.
It might take some time (from seconds to minutes, depending on the amount of files you have inside the C:\Music directory).
Accept, and accept to close all opened windows.


If you got that right, existing and new files stored in c:\Music folder and subfolders will work as you expect.

This post has been edited by [JAZ]: Sep 12 2012, 20:07

[LigH]

The fact that Windows treats some of its folders in such a special way, like a virtual directory, or a kind of "soft link", makes some security specialists call Windows a Rootkit on its own, due to its purpose: Hiding the "physical" structure of a harddisk (partition) from the user.

I even found an eternal recursion in the branches inside the Users directory, related to the "Application data", in Windows 7, using alternative file managers like the "Far manager 2".

Therefore, it is always recommendable to use directories which are not at all related to Windows' logical structure. Experienced users will probably have distinct partitions for the system on one hand and data on the other, possibly even distinct physical drives.

[[JAZ]]

NTFS filesystem has supported soft links since Windows XP (Not sure if from the start, or after a SP), but it has had no way to use it until recently.

As for "hiding the physical structure", I am convinced that this is much better than using shortcut link files like what existed in Windows XP.
Also, I doubt power users should feel worried about this. Especially if such power users are familiar with linux/unix, of which several filesystems have had support for this for many years.

I do have three partitions, and user data is on one of them. This doesn't prevent me from having an access from the default folders, and even the "Download" folder is mapped to a folder on this separate partition.

Anyway, this has nothing to do with file permissions.

[LigH]

I don't mean "soft links" as a feature of the file system, but as a feature of the user interface "Explorer". Logical objects like "Control center" or "My documents" are presented like folders even though they don't exist in the file system's directory tree at all or in this position (in the case of "My documents", you can choose a physical folder as its target).

[Citizen_Skin]

I forgot to mention, but 8.0ch is also supported. The bitrate limits (@48kHz) are:

• LC-AAC
  
  • Quadraphonic : 640 kbps
  • 4.0ch : 640 kbps
  • 5.0ch : 768 kbps
  • 5.1ch : 768 kbps
  • 6.0ch : 960 kbps
  • 6.1ch : 960 kbps
  • 7.0ch : 960 kbps
  • 7.1ch : 960 kbps
  • 8.0ch (L R C Ls Rs Cs Rls Rrs) : 1280 kbps
• HE-AAC
  
  • Quadraphonic : 160 kbps
  • 5.1ch : 192 kbps
  • 7.1ch : 256 kbps

The actual limit changes according to the input samplerate.

@nao: How exactly did you calculate these limits? Does it depend on the particular encoder used or are they fixed by the sample rate and number of channels for each encoder?
Many thanks for your information :-)

[nao]

Not calculated; obtained from QT's GUI (encoder option interface). Of course it depends on the encoder. LC-AAC and HE-AAC have different limits.

[kode54]

It would be really cool if this tool could be adapted into a portable stand-alone front-end for fdk-aac, since ffmpeg/avconv is lacking in the gapless encoding department. Writing both encoders and decoders based on fdk-aac is pretty simple, if all you care about is raw AAC. It calls for a complete package like this to wrap it up in an MP4 container and supply tags.

Portable would also be nice, so that it could be compiled and used outside of Windows. That sort of makes sense since it would be entirely open source. I think the only problem with that would be use of non-portable code in qaac itself, since it was originally designed to interface with QuickTime, which is a Win32 binary package.

EDIT: Arse, I thought this was a qaac topic.

[Nologic]

Well I updated my AutoIt conversion of lvqcl batch script that creates a portable package from any of the following Apple Installers: iTunes64Setup.exe , iTunesSetup.exe , QuickTimeInstaller.exe

For QtAACenc the script needs the QuickTime installer.

For QAAC any of the three will do.

QAAC doesn't require any of the QuickTime files or directories.

I would have edited my original posting...but I seem unable to do that.

MediaFire Link to Script.

Main difference is that this build should be faster that the prior one.

This post has been edited by Nologic: Jan 10 2013, 03:20

[Elbart]

Thank you!

[Mix3dmessagez]

hello, i have a question, i have a 24bit/44 hdtrack album i bought, and am wondering how to go about converting to tvbr.

how does quicktime handle 24 bit files?Not ones that need resampling but are just 24 bit?

i have izotope mbit, would that be better?

[LigH]

I believe: They will simply be used as high-precision audio source. IIRC, the AAC format uses the frequency domain, and converting 24-bit sample windows to frequency spectrums is just more precise than using 16-bit samples.

No guarantee.

[superbu]

I just attempted using qtaacenc for the first time in a couple of years. For some reason, using the exact same command lines I'd used in the past (which I saved in a document), I can't get it to work with either Foobar or dBpoweramp.

With Foobar, I'm getting the error message, "An error occurred while writing to file (The encoder has terminated prematurely with code -1 (0xFFFFFFFF); please re-check parameters)."

Does anyone know what might be causing this? I'm using the command line that is recommended at this link, and I did change the extension to .m4a:

http://tmkk.undo.jp/qtaacenc/

I originally tried it with a slightly older (early 2010) version of qtaacenc, then I tried it with the latest version. Exact same result. Anyone have any ideas?

[sneaker]

I don't know what's causing your qtaacenc problem, but maybe you should take a look at qaac. It's very similar to qtaacenc but is actually being actively developed.

https://sites.google.com/site/qaacpage/
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=85135

[LigH]

The other project, qaac, has developed further in the meantime. Seems also more reliable, qtaacenc never worked for me in EAC.

[lvqcl]

Does anyone know what might be causing this?

It requires QuickTime 7.6.2 or later and MSVC 2008 runtime. Make sure that you have them installed.