I'm currently ripping all my CDs with EAC and encoding with Nero (5.5.10.35) using the MPEG-4 AAC format.

Are there any playback programs that completely address AAC/MP4 files? As it is now, I can play back in WinAmp using a plug-in I found on Audiocoding.com, but I can't get WinAmp to interact with the tag data in its Media Library. In fact, it won't even add the files to the Media Library at all. They only appear in the Playlist.

I know the files themselves have valid tag data, because my friend can see the information I entered in EAC when he plays the files back in iTunes on his Mac. Am I going to have to wait six months for iTunes to come out for PC before I can have a player with a media library again?

Thanks in advance, Greg

LocusMote on AIM

Foobar2000...

Neither EAC nor Nero AAC encoder are adding tags in the ripping process you described, the iTunes of your friend must take that information you entered in EAC from the filename itself

Not sure about Winamp, but I think it doesn't allow tagging because.. well.. there is no tagging standard everyone has agreed on.
Maybe you should wait with tagging .mp4 files completely until there is a standard, and keep a tight name scheme for all your files so you can mass-tag them very easy later.

Thanks for the help!

Looks like i've found my way from the cutting edge to the bleeding edge of technology.
Right now I've got it set up to name the files with the following convention:

Artist - Year - Album Title - Track Number - Song Title

I figure that's good enough for now.

As far as a player goes, I downloaded Foobar, but it's a little lean as far as the interface goes. Is there any documentation as to how it actually works? Is there anything a little more intuitive?

I just read somewhere that Nero will write tags if it finds them in the local machine's CD Database. Perhaps when i'm putting them into EAC, EAC is saving them to the database and then Nero is picking it up from there...

BTW: If Apple is distributing music from their servers in MP4/AAC and (i'm assuming) you can encode it with iTunes as MP4/AAC, then what tagging convention are they using? Is it proprietary? Do you think it will be adopted by everyone?

It seems odd that companies like Ahead would distribute commercial versions of an encoder that doesn't tag. Especially if they aren't informing the buyers before they pay. I'm not complaining, mind you, just playing devil's advocate. it's easy for me to picture someone griping about half-baked products.

Roughly how far off is a tagging scheme from being hammered out? Weeks, Months, a Year?

Thanks for the time guys,

-Greg

Menno is working on a tagger compliant with iTunes' tagging system, and it seems it's pretty near completion.

I would believe it would be released together with Nero6. But it's just a supposition, Menno didn't tell me anything about it, so don't treat it as "inside information"

Also he plans to include this tagger in the Winamp and Foobar plugins.

Case has compiled the MP4 plugin for FooBar that supports the reading/writing for the iTunes compliant tagging method used by apple that Menno has now finished

Foobar2000 V0.7 Beta9 with the foo_mp4.dll included in Cases install packager
http://www.saunalahti.fi/cse/foobar2000/fo...00_0.7beta9.exe

or

If you already have Foobar2000 V0.7 Beta9 installed
http://www.saunalahti.fi/cse/foobar2000/fo...foo_mp4_0.7.zip

Now MP4(AAC) should be able to grow as a widespread format now... Just need the PC iPOD loaders to now read the iTune/Foobar tags for MP4's (such as Sveta and Ephpod)

I will update my codecs ASAP (first I had heard of the new tagging).

Thanks guys! The Foobar beta with the new MP4/ACC module works like a charm.

Should you use foobar's masstagger to write iTunes compliant tags? If not, what should you use to write iTunes compliant tags?

Is there a stand-alone tagger? An update to Case's tag program would be great!

Hey, Case, please provide us with an updated Tag!

In the meanwhile, can we use Foobar 0.7b9 and the plug-in to write Itunes mp4 tags?

If so, do we use the masstagger in Foobar, or is there another function?

>>Case has compiled the MP4 plugin for FooBar that supports the reading/writing for the iTunes compliant tagging method used by apple that Menno has now finished>>

This post certainly suggests that we can now write iTunes mp4 tags.

Haven't tried it, but beta 12 seems to be available:

http://www.saunalahti.fi/cse/foobar2000/fo...0_0.7beta12.exe

How about not recommending untested beta versions to new users ?

Is there any documentation on this tagging system available yet? Preferably as text, but code is fine too.

The code is available somewhere in the Audiocoding CVS, mp4v2 library.

And here's probably the closest you can get to a text description:

http://www.audiocoding.com/phorum/read.php...1&i=3243&t=3223

The mass-tagger works fine. (I believe you need to have installed the MP4 Plug-In with iTunes Compliant Tagging to use it, however. There is a link to it on this page, above.)

I use the mass-tagger for the redundant information and then right click each file individually to select "Show File Info" and enter the remaining information in the resulting dialog box.

The files that I have produced using this method have been tested on Macs using iTunes 6.3 and the tags work fine.