I am looking at buying an Acura TSX. The vehicle has a USB interface for playback of MP3/WMA/AAC files from a USB mass storage device or iPOD. The manual says it will only playback AAC files created with iTunes. I am wondering if the latest Nero AAC encoder solves this problem as it solved playback of AAC on the Creative Zen by changing the header format. Has anybody tried AAC files created with the newest encoder on a Honda or Acura? I plan to try it myself at the car dealer soon.

I tried it at the dealership and Nero AAC files will play back, but the tags are not recognized. iTunes AAC work with tags.

I wasn't impressed with the USB audio playback feature on Acura/Honda as the navigation is only by folder. I guess I may have to bite the bullet and get an iPod. This leads to the next question, do Nero AAC files playback on iPods without issue?

They play fine on my iPod Classic and on my 2g iPod Nano, with tags and gapless support.

I have a 2009 Honda Fit w/Navi and use the USB interface with a 60 iPod Video (5G). I've never had a problem with Nero AAC Codec 1.3.3.0 encoded files. All my tags show up properly. My only complaint is that browsing using the navi interface is a little clunky and often very slow, but I'm typically listening to audiobooks, podcasts or 100 track Genius playlists, so this really hasn't been an issue for me.

NOTE: Although I've been told it's not strictly necessary at high bitrates, I add -lc to my command line to guarantee the low complexity profile is always used.

doubrown, what program are you using to encode these Nero AAC files? I haven't had any tag issues with with Nero's AAC encoder and USB playback in my friend's Honda. I have a Honda Civic but use an iPod interface with my non-navi deck (I didn't like Honda's navigation system so I ended up purchasing a $200 TomTom) but my friend has a Honda Fit (almost went with that but thought it looked too much like a bug). I am able to playback my Nero AAC files all the time with the track tags showing up. I have a 1GB USB thumb drive (ie not an iPod) that I plug in and use.

Just to add to what dbAmp said, you don't need to force the -lc option with the Nero AAC encoder when using certain -q settings and higher. Just make sure that you are using a -q value that produces LC AAC files.

If my memory serves me correctly, I believe the cutoff for LC is 0.3, though I could easily be wrong.

The number is not as readily available as I think it should be (I couldn't find it in either the in the wiki or the sticky).

Everything bigger than or equal to 0.31 is LC AAC.

Edit: thanks for the clear up menno. I thought that -q0.3 was about right. So anything at or above -q0.31 is LC-AAC.