I recently purchased a 16 GB Creative Zen player, which is marketed as playing unprotected AAC. However, when I try to playback AAC files created with Nero digital, I get an "Audio format not supported error." The files do playback on my Archos 605 and on my PC using JRiver Media Center. Is there a difference between AAC files created with Nero Digitial and those from iTunes?

I bought a 4gb Zen and have got Nero AAC files to work fine with a couple of caveats:

1. You MUST rename them to .m4a

2. DON'T install the latest firmware - it has b0rked AAC support.

I had already renamed the files to .m4a. My Zen arrived with firmware 1.10.05, maybe that is the problem.

Firmware 1.10.05 shipped on my player. I downloaded firmware 1.03.04 and installed, but the ZEN wouldn't even start up so I went back to 1.10.05. Hopefully, Creative fixes this one soon.

Yes, 1.03.04e was the version I had to put on mine to make aac work correctly.

Are you sure the downgrade didn't work? Did you try resetting the device (with a needle or a tip of a pen)?

The later version not supporting aac is a known problem, but Creative as usual sit on their ass and pretend not to listen instead of providing technical support.

EDIT: I saw your post on the epizenter.net site - there's a lot of misinformation there. Did you try an itunes aac file? I think it's all aac files that don't work on the new firmware, not just Nero.

I tried the downgrade again after using a paper clip to go a hard reset. The player turns on, but the display never comes up. I have to use paper clip to reset it again, so it seems like the old firmware crashes the player part way through boot up before the display comes on. Maybe the 16gb version requires the newer firmware. Do you have a link to the 1.03.04 firmware? I found one on google posted on some non-Creative site so maybe it is corrupt.

I'll try some iTunes encoded AAC files tonight when I get home from work, but I am expecting they won't work either. I agree that few people seem to understand that the only proprietary form of AAC is the Apple DRM encapsulated FairPlay variant. All unprotected (no FairPlay DRM) ACC files created by any encoder should work with any decoder.

There was a small discussion about the latest Nero encoder producing files, which don't work with certain hardware devices, in this single case it was about the Xbox360. The guys found out that using the "optimize MP4 layout" function, available in MP3tag and foobar2000, fixes the problem. The actual reason for this behaviour is still unknown; I remember menno stating that the tagging was already in the "optimized" state, i.e. at the beginning of the file. Nonetheless, this small fix does the job for now.

I was one having issues with Nero AAC on my Xbox 360. I really don't want to run everything through the optimize mp4 layout so that is one of the reasons why I have held off using Nero AAC. That and the PS3 isn't compatible with any AAC tags that aren't in a 3gp container.

OK - I followed the suggestions and discovered the following:
1) Nero AAC will not play on the ZEN even if I run "Optimize MP4 format" from Foobar
2) iTunes AAC will play on the ZEN regardless of whether i run "Optimize MP4 format" from Foobar

This is frustrating for a number of reasons. Unprotected AAC should be unprotected AAC. The Nero AAC encoder has far better reviews than that in iTunes. I keep my entire library in FLAC and do a bulk conversion to AAC for use on portable players. Is this even possible with iTunes or can the iTunes encoder be run on from a command line on Foobar, EAC etc?

I still think one of the audio geeks on this forum will be able to figure out how to use the Nero encoder with the ZEN. I'll start a new thread a see who is up to the challenge. I'll also submitt to Nero technical support.

Sorry for bumping an old thread, but I'm curious what the current state of this issue is. Maybe I'll get a Zen myself.

Do Zen players still have trouble with Nero AAC files, and if so, can it be solved with Foobar's optimize MP4 layout function, or the Zen_Compatibility tool from this topic on the Creative forums?

I just checked what this ZenCompatibility application does. It changes the "mp42" compatible_brand into "M4A ", I will figure out if it is possible to just add "M4A " to the compatible brands in the encoder.

That would be great (and an easy fix!)

I have some Nero encoded AAC files (with both the February and August 2007 builds) and neither play natively. There is a little tool I found on the Creative Forums made by someone that fixes all problems though. It can be downloaded here. You can also look there for more information. I imagine that it is a very simple fix as it takes less than a second to fix one song. My only issue is that it broke Xbox 360 compatibility (I had to use foobar2000 MP4 compile feature) so now I am stuck with using either iTunes AAC or Lame mp3.

Edit: I just want to correct that it is the optimize mp4 feature in foobar2000, not the mp4 compile feature.

That's the tool I already tried. I'm guessing the problem here is that it removes 1 compatible brand and replaces it by another. We will have to test if adding both brands solves problems for all

If it's not possible to add both, maybe it is an idea to add command line options like "-mp42" and "-m4a"

But let's hope that just adding "M4A" works out.

http://kurtnoise.free.fr/index.php?dir=mp4...80201_msvc6.zip

So this tool already adds M4A to the compatible brands? Nice.

In that case it should be no problem to include it in the code for Nero AAC..

Sorry for being impatient, but any news Menno?

It looks like adding "M4A" (as M4Box does, I presume) is the solution for making Nero AAC files compatible with the Xbox and the Zen.

Yes adding "M4A " to the compatible brands list makes the files play on Zen, but this brand has to be the first one in the list!
I assume the Zen just reads 16 bytes from the file and checks if the last 4 are "M4A "...
Not sure yet if the files keep working on the Xbox this way, I hope so (otherwise it would mean that the Xbox checks for something else as the first compatible brand...)

Thanks for the reply!


If this works, can we expect an "updated" version of the Nero encoder soon?

It would be nice to have a patched or updated version of the Nero encoder so that we can make Xbox 360, Zen, and iPod compatible AAC files. I know that is a lot to ask of Nero devs and I thank you guys for coming on here, I identifying the problem, and trying to solve it.