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

[nu774]

Weird, there is enough space on drive F..or does it actually run out of space on drive D (tmpdir)?

Tempfile for -N can be quite big (it is in the form of 32bit float raw PCM). If your input format is 48000Hz/6ch, it will consume 1MB/s or so.
You also need room for intermediate m4a file, which is about the same as the resulting m4a in size.

[kareha]

Wonder if anyone knows how to fix this problem I'm having with QAAC and dbpoweramp. For some reason when converting stuff from either CD or Lossless to AAC, dbpoweramp will not add the ITUNSMPB tag. This means that any mix CD's that I rip won't play gaplessly in Foobar which is my main music program. However, if I untick db Write Tags it does add the tag, but unfortunately none of my music gets tagged with anything else.

[nu774]

dbpoweramp will not add the ITUNSMPB tag

It's not dbpoweramp but the encoder who can (and does) write it.
Therefore, the problem seems not dbpoweramp doesn't write ITUNSMPB, but it actually removes the existing ITUNSPMB when it edits the resulting file to append tags.

[Soulvomit]

What should the two bit depth settings be set to using fb2k? I ask this because I notice when converting WAV to AAC with qaac using different combinations of those settings, the sizes of the outputted AAC files are the same and identical to what QuickTime (demuxing MOV) gives, yet if done with AC-3, they're aren't. What am I missing here?

This post has been edited by Soulvomit: Mar 18 2012, 02:01

[nu774]

What should the two bit depth settings be set to using fb2k? I ask this because I notice when converting WAV to AAC with qaac using different combinations of those settings, the sizes of the outputted AAC files are the same and identical to what QuickTime (demuxing MOV) gives, yet if done with AC-3, they're aren't. What am I missing here?

As is written in the help message, it is meant only for ALAC or WAV output, and has no effect on AAC encoding.

[Soulvomit]

Never mind. Lossy and 16 are the correct settings.

Is matrix mixing enabled for ALAC conversions? I get a code 2 error using:

CODE

-A --no-matrix-normalize --matrix-preset=62 - %d

Thanks again. And also for mp4fpsmod; such a great tool.

[nu774]

Is matrix mixing enabled for ALAC conversions? I get a code 2 error using:

CODE

-A --no-matrix-normalize --matrix-preset=62 - %d

You can use matrix mixer for ALAC.
What error message is displayed when you run it directly from command prompt?

[Soulvomit]

You can use matrix mixer for ALAC.
What error message is displayed when you run it directly from command prompt?

"Not supported sample format for ALAC: F32LE".

[nu774]

You can use matrix mixer for ALAC.
What error message is displayed when you run it directly from command prompt?

"Not supported sample format for ALAC: F32LE".

Oh, I see.
qaac/reflac converts internal sample format to 32bit float when DSP options such as --matrix-preset are specified. However, ALAC doesn't support float. This is the cause of that error.
In short, you have to specify -b option to convert it to 16 or 24 bit integer format before encoding.

In the past, qaac/refalac converted automatically to 16 or 24 bit for ALAC depending on the source bit depth. However I dropped the feature when -b option was introduced, so that user can control resulting output bit depth.

[nu774]

Updated to 1.32;
Now it will automatically convert to 16 bit integer format by default in this case, instead of just showing some error message.
You can still use -b option, but when you don't specify -b, this new default conversion is applied.
https://sites.google.com/site/qaacpage/news...se132refalac043

Anyway, thanks for reporting. I think this was the matter of usability (or bad documentation).

[Soulvomit]

Thank you for explaining, however, the error still persists with fb2k.

This post has been edited by Soulvomit: Mar 21 2012, 15:47

[nu774]

Thank you for explaining, however, the error still persists with fb2k.

Try

CODE

--log %d.txt

or something and let's see what is shown in the log.
Generally speaking, --log is useful when you are running from GUI frontend and you cannot see the error message.

[Soulvomit]

Thank you for explaining, however, the error still persists with fb2k.

Try

CODE

--log %d.txt

or something and let's see what is shown in the log.
Generally speaking, --log is useful when you are running from GUI frontend and you cannot see the error message.

CODE

qaac 1.32, CoreAudioToolbox 7.9.7.8

22.m4a
ERROR: C:\Users\Soulvomit\Desktop\22.m4a: No such file or directory

I don't have this problem using the matrix mixer with AAC conversions or converting stereo files to ALAC.

[edwrap]

hey nu774, first off - thanks for creating this great tool

two minor issues with the "writing application" metadata value created by qaac:
1) the TVBR value doesn't correspond to the encoder settings. ie. -V 90 (or default) registers as q91, -V 75 as q73, etc.
2) -q2 (or default) translates to Quality 96, though in the technical note you reference, that setting actually goes to 127

[nu774]

CODE

22.m4a
ERROR: C:\Users\Soulvomit\Desktop\22.m4a: No such file or directory

[/code]

A "-" (hyphen, meaning stdin input) might be missing from your CLI encoder setting.

[nu774]

1) the TVBR value doesn't correspond to the encoder settings. ie. -V 90 (or default) registers as q91, -V 75 as q73, etc.

At the interface level, TVBR quality parameter accepts values from 0 to 127.
However, the QuickTime AAC encoder actually has only 15 quality steps. Therefore, parameter is get rounded to the nearest functional value, which is saved into the "tool" tag.

2) -q2 (or default) translates to Quality 96, though in the
technical note you reference, that setting actually goes to 127

Same story as TVBR quality. only 32, 64, 96 are actually functional values.
I could choose 0-127 option style, but is using 0-2 by historical reason (0-2 was more natural when qaac was using QuickTime API).

[nu774]

CODE

-A --no-matrix-normalize --matrix-preset=62 - %d

Sorry, I should have looked at your command line closer.
You just need "-o" before %d.

[edwrap]

1) the TVBR value doesn't correspond to the encoder settings. ie. -V 90 (or default) registers as q91, -V 75 as q73, etc.

At the interface level, TVBR quality parameter accepts values from 0 to 127.
However, the QuickTime AAC encoder actually has only 15 quality steps. Therefore, parameter is get rounded to the nearest functional value, which is saved into the "tool" tag.

2) -q2 (or default) translates to Quality 96, though in the
technical note you reference, that setting actually goes to 127

Same story as TVBR quality. only 32, 64, 96 are actually functional values.
I could choose 0-127 option style, but is using 0-2 by historical reason (0-2 was more natural when qaac was using QuickTime API).

Ah, I see. Thanks for the explanation and apologies for the needless concerns!

[Soulvomit]

Sorry, I should have looked at your command line closer.
You just need "-o" before %d.

Thanks. I got it working with "- -o".

[Soulvomit]

Do you think you can add an m4a muxer to qaac for ADTS AAC and raw ALAC (demuxed M4A with MP4Box)?

Thanks again.

[nu774]

Do you think you can add an m4a muxer to qaac for ADTS AAC and raw ALAC (demuxed M4A with MP4Box)?

No, I don't think it is the encoder's task, and have no plan for it.

As for "raw ALAC"... why do you want that?
As far as I know, there's no defined elementary stream format for ALAC as in MPEG family.
mp4box seems to able to just extract the mdat content without headers or something. Since it lacks ALACDecoderConfig (which holds information mandatory for decoding, such as rice parameters), I don't think this "raw" ALAC bitstream is quite useful for something.

[silverbear]

'Hope I'm posting this in the correct place.

Re qaac and ipod chapters:
I'm using qaac to join several flac files with embedded cue sheets (an audiobook) into a single m4b file with chapters.
If I run qaac from the command line, the chapters appear in foobar, iTunes and my iPod.
However, if I try to do this processing from within foobar, only foobar will recognise the chapters. In ITunes and my ipod, the file appears as one huge chapter.

I know it's been mentioned that when mp4 files are processed in foobar, foobar will 'touch' the headers as part of the final process. Do you think that this is wiping out the ITunes version of the chapters and leaving only the nero type chapter headings in tact?

By the way, many many thanks to the developer of qaac - most impressive and gratefully received.

[nu774]

If I run qaac from the command line, the chapters appear in foobar, iTunes and my iPod.
However, if I try to do this processing from within foobar, only foobar will recognise the chapters. In ITunes and my ipod, the file appears as one huge chapter.

That's because fb2k writes Nero style chapters and QuickTime/iTunes/iPod doesn't read them (When you encode from fb2k, metadata and chapters are basically written by fb2k, except for a few encoder specific tags).

mp4chaps.exe will be your friend... You can inspect/import/export/convert MP4 chapters with it.

[Mix3dmessagez]

Hey, does tvbr support 16 bitor 24 bit depth?

[silverbear]

If I run qaac from the command line, the chapters appear in foobar, iTunes and my iPod.
However, if I try to do this processing from within foobar, only foobar will recognise the chapters. In ITunes and my ipod, the file appears as one huge chapter.

That's because fb2k writes Nero style chapters and QuickTime/iTunes/iPod doesn't read them (When you encode from fb2k, metadata and chapters are basically written by fb2k, except for a few encoder specific tags).

mp4chaps.exe will be your friend... You can inspect/import/export/convert MP4 chapters with it.

Ahh, I was hoping to get around this by calling qaac as a post process in foobar. Never mind, mp4chaps it is. Many thanks for replying so quickly.