Hi!

Is there an M4A (AAC) player for Pocket PC. I currently use the excellent GS Player but it don't do AAC. So guys do I have to keep Ogg as well as MP3 and AAC rips? MP3 for my MP3 player (solid state), M4A for my iPod mini (next months purchase), and Ogg@128k for Pocket PC!

Cheers,
Fairy

On this thread, less than a month ago, you asked the same question. I'm afraid the answer is still no, there isn't an AAC player for PPC yet. If you complain about having to keep so many formats of the same songs, why not use MP3 for PPC, then?

Unforunately AAC and Ogg Vorbis are not as popular as MP3. If you want guaranteed portability on virtually everything then use MP3. Everything will definitely not support AAC and Ogg Vorbis even though these formats are superior to MP3. At the moment I'm only aware of a couple AAC portables: iPod and some flash memory portables. And a couple Vorbis portables: Rio Karma, iRiver iHP-120/140, Neuros portables (with firmware upgrade).

isnt gpac's osmo4 also available for pocketpc, or am i mixing up things here?

Philips' Platform4 player used to be available for PocketPC. But I'm afraid it's not available for download anymore.

OK, found a copy of it and uploaded to RareWares.
http://www.rarewares.org/mp4.html

Screenshot:


The Win32 version doesn't recognize the .m4a extension, but it played fine files created with Nero and iTunes (after being renamed to MP4).

Atlantis tested the PocketPC version, and it worked for him. (Thanks for testing)

Regards;

Roberto.

The tests were done on a Toshiba e750 (Intel XScale 400MHz), running WindowsMobile 2003.

... and are we to assume the PocketPC version does recognize the *.m4a extension?

- M.

I don't know, I don't have a PocketPC

I just specified it was the Win32 version, because who knows, maybe the PPC version does support m4a...

No, it doesn't recognize the m4a extension natively.
Platform4 for PocketPC supports the following formats / extensions:

- MP3;
- MP4 (uhm... I should try mp3 inside mp4... ), M4R (is it some kind of mpeg4 video ??);
- AMR;
- SMI;
- 3GP

Atlantis, this suggestion would probably violate the Platform4 EULA... but it's a dead program, so I doubt anyone would get worked up over it:

Have you considered hex-editing the installed executable? If you can locate the section which pegs the *.m4r extension, you might be able to safely change it to recognize *.m4a instead, without crippling any functionality.

- M.

MP4 remote. Probably some linking format, much like Microsoft's ASX.



It didn't work in my Win32 version, unfortunately

It complains about "Unsupported file type", loading a file that played perfectly while with the MP4 extension.

Version 3.0 for Windows PC, dated July 23, 2003, adds support for the popular MP3 format and may be downloaded here:
http://www.hwsetup.it/periferiche/audio/software.htm
The file is the English version.

Ahh... if it's a linking format, changing *.m4r to *.m4a within the executable would be sending the wrong set of directions for opening the file.

Did you also test what happens if you do the same modification to replace *.mp4 recognition with *.m4a? Obviously that would render the software suitable only for audio playback... but if it's a simple case of needing the proper directions related to the file extension, that might work. (Since *.mp4 and *.m4a are interchangeable extensions, aren't they?)

- M.

Edit: Fixed a spelling error.

Hi M,
tried, bur with no success: always the same "unsupported file type" error.



EDIT
Ok, now it works, I've replaced all *.mp4 to *.m4a pointers in the EXE.



But, now, MP4 are not recognized anymore

That's what I expected; glad to know it works! How many *.mp4 pointers were there, by the way? It might be possible to fuse an additional *.mp4 pointer into the EXE, to maintain dual-playback capability, using something like Resource Hacker... or you could simply leave an unmodified copy of the EXE (with a slightly different filename) in the same directory, using one for audio and one for video.

At any rate, it's good to know the substitution works, and PocketPC users have a viable *.m4a player.

- M.

There where 15 pointers, including message boxes.

The PPC or the Win32 version?

Mwahaha! I rock.

I got it to play both MP4 and M4A, with M4P gone.

@Atlantis: Please contact me through ICQ, let's see if we can do the same to the PocketPC version.

I'll test some more and then upload patches to RW.

http://iplay.40th.com/

is the only thing I need to use on my iPAQ: plays ogg, wav, mp3 (all perfectly gapless, even mp3), aac, records to wav, mp3, does dishes, cooks. Yes, windows, too. Nothing to DL, though, zozorry.

OK, I finished the patches (thanks again to Atlantis for helping out). They are available at the MPEG4 section of RareWares

These patches allow the playback of .MP4 and .M4A files. You can't play M4R anymore, but I doubt anyone needs that feature.

I also updated the Win32 player to version 3.0

The PocketPC patch only runs on Windows. Does anybody know of a patch engine for PocketPC? :B

Regards;

Roberto.

iRiver iFP-300 & 500 series have limited ogg vorbis support too (not only iHP) (I think it's "> than 64kbps") with a firmware upgrade. iFP-1xx series cannot unfortunally (no ram).

Thanks, I had looked for this and not found it in the past!

Fairy

The player doesn't seem to see any files on my Storage Card. Any ideas how to browse to my storage card in Platform4PocketPlayer?

Greg

Never mind, the folder appeared once I ran the m4a patch on the exe.

I feel like such a dipstick, please disregard my last comment ( I forgot I copied the file to main storage). Platform4PocketPlayer still won't see any files on my storage card.

Greg

Can someone help me?

http://www.rarewares.org/mp4.html
Philips MPEG4 player 2004-03-17
PocketPC version (2261Kb) - M4A Patch for the PocketPC version (patch only works on Windows).


I downloaded the PocketPC version (2261kb) from the website shown above and installed it successfully on my iPAC. Then I tried to install the M4A patch from above so that I can play m4a files on my PocketPC and it won't install. The patch seems to be looking for a file name "Platform4PocketPlayer.exe" which doesn't match the PocketPC version name of "platform4_player_for_pocketpc_3.0.exe". What am I doing wrong? I tried modifying the name to what the patch was looking for and then I get the error "Platform4PocketPlayer.exe - File size/version missmatch!"

If anyone can help me, that would be great!

For it to work, you must copy the player program from your iPaq to your PC, patch it and move it back to the iPaq. You are trying to patch the installation program, and it won't work. You must patch the installed program.

Thanks! That worked great. Now I can listen to the 500 m4a files I have from my husband's iPOD on my iPAC!

OK, Philips sent me a nasty e-mail demanding I take their player offline. So I'm replacing the link to it with a link to another site hosting it.

I will keep hosting the patches in Brazil.

If you badly want this player, get in touch with me and I can arrange a way to point you in it's direction.

Regards;

Roberto.

following thris thread i am truly amazed having finally found a software that would let me run .aac files on pocket-pc - does seem very strange to me that none of the numerous ppc-players commercially available allows .aac . actuall i have seen quite a few people looking for a pocketpc-aac.player in various ppc forums.

just too bad platform4 player (and your great mp4 fix) appears not to run on my pocketpc 2003 ipaq 2210. following installation routine everything runs fine except one prompt asking to replacing file windows/gx.dll of 05.07.03 against a version of 10.11.2001. Either way I decide: I get a new entry with symbol in start menu, I start platform4 player which opens only to close itself immediately less than a second later. Have been installing and re-installing a few times - always same story.

any ideas?

julia, does your ipaq run pocket pc 2003?

thanks for help,

@swim2birds

Resurrecting this thread once more as the latest version (Unstable) of betaplayer has support for AAC http://corecodec.org/projects/betaplayer/

Even better news is that it also supports HE-AAC - You just need the aacfull plugin from here http://forge.topcat.hu/frs/?group_id=5

It supports also MP4.

OT = It plays flawlessy videos made with latest Nero Recode (not AVC).

Betaplayer roxxxx !!!

Another famous Corecodec project ......

Christian
matroska project admin
http://www.matroska.org

I installed the aacfull plugin, but BetaPlayer still says the m4a files are of unknown file type.

I assume you tried with unstable 0.095 player version (not the "stable" 0.04 or older unstable). Could you send me a sample m4a (only non DRMed) that doesn't work? picard at demoscene dot hu