I just got off the phone with Scott Kroeker of Imagine Technology who just today released their Adobe Audition MEPG 4 Audio LC AAC commercial plug-in. The price is $29 and Adobe will soon be selling it from their web site, but it is available now directly from Imagine Technolgies: http://www.imaginetechnology.net

They have given me permission to post this and are seeking comments/suggestions from developers and audiophiles on enhancements and features for this Adobe Audition (formerly Cool Edit Pro) plug-in.

Scott will be happy to send you a 30 day evaluation version of their Adobe Audition plugin if you E-mail him asking for it.

Scott Kroeker would also greatly like your comments/suggestions about the plug-in via E-mail to: skroeker@imaginetechnology.net

Mention you saw this on HA from my post. He is aware of and approved my posting of this announcement and his E-mail address on HA.

The plugin does LC AAC MPEG 4 encoding/decoding, but does not currently use the MPEG 4 container format.

I called Scott after receiving the evaluation version from him today and told him of the importance for the plug-in to support the MP4 and M4A file extensions and for it to be iTunes and Nero compatible using the MPEG 4 container format.

He asked that developers of other MPEG 4 Audio products E-mail him so he can forward this request to his developers so they will be able to know how to implement the MPEG 4 container format. They are primarily a DSP manufacturer for MPEG 4 Audio products and deal mostly with straight AAC files for hardware manufacturers, hence I believe they don't use the MPEG 4 container format. But he is open to implement this if enough people request this feature.

Please E-mail Scott and let him know of your interest in the Adobe Audition plug-in supporting the MPEG 4 container format and not just raw AAC files. Also that will help him see the level of interest in this Adobe Audition plug-in.

The plug-in sells for $29 and will soon be sold by Adobe directly from their web site. Let's help get this plug-in fully MPEG 4 container format and iTunes/Nero compatible so we don't have yet another WinAmp raw AAC implementation on our hands that would further split the MPEG 4 Audio file format into incompatibale file formats between products/software encoders.

As many people use Adobe Audition and Cool Edit Pro, this plugin will be quite popular and should (in my opinion) support the full MPEG 4 file format (container) and be iTunes/Nero file compatible.

Good news! And yes, of course it's better if it supports the MP4 file format.

But maybe a plugin that makes the Nero audio plugins available in Cooledit/Audition is a better idea

Menno

Menno, can you or Ivan contact Scott and give his developer some pointers in helping to implement the MP4/M4A container? Perhaps you guys want to license your implementation to them also?

I just don't want to see a partial AAC only MPEG 4 audio implementation out there for Adobe Audition/Cool Edit Pro users. In my opinion full MP4 and M4A file extension and container format support by default is a must if files created by Adobe Audition are to played on the Apple iPod/iTunes, in Nero or other software MP4/M4A players. Hopefully WinAmp 5 will get with the program soon also!

Since Adobe has agreed to sell this plug-in on their web site, anything less than MPEG 4 container file format support will limit the appeal of this plug-in and also serve to fracture the MPEG 4 Audio international standard (as far as file level compatibility goes).

I contacted him few minutes ago.

I agree on MP4/M4A issue - I am sure that there is an easy way to cover MP4 I/O in their plug-in, after all - there are fully free solutions that do that (ISO mp4file library, etc...)

Thanks Ivan. You developers all working together will help make MPEG 4 Audio a better and more compatible audio file format/standard that people all over the world can enjoy...

I just received a copy of the full version of the Adobe Audition plug-in put out by Imagine Technology today (I was the first customer to buy a copy of it they said). Seems to work great. Waiting on .mp4/.m4a file encoding/decoding support. Right now it only read/writes straight .aac files.

What do you think of the quality?

Menno

Let's be polite and say they have quite a bit of room for improvement still

The decoder also seems to be of the limited accuracy type, can someone confirm that? This is ok for portable playback, etc, but not for audio editing if you ask me.

Menno

I gave this a try, first version here.

Case, omfg, sweeeeeet dude! /me immediately tries to get this working in EAC

Works great case, thanks so much!