I'd like to transcode by entire PC based FLAC library into Nero AAC for use on a portable player. What is the best way automate this task and preverse the tags?

Hi!

I think Foobar2000 is the easiest solution for such kind of conversions.
Regards,
Irakli

dbpoweramp is a brain-dead way for doing this.

Why is that?

Either foobar2000 or dbpoweramp will do what you want. However foobar2000 may require a bit more work if you want to use your AAC files on a iPod. The iPod pretty much requires that all AAC files (except for those purchased off of iTunes) have a filename of *.m4a. dbpoweramp defaults all AAC encodings to use the m4a extension while foobar2000 uses the extension of *.mp4. It would require about 20 seconds more work out of you.

I don't see the problem. Just create in the converter preferences a new custom Nero encoder preset with a m4a extension...

Yep, that is why I said that foobar2000 would require about 20 more seconds of work to setup. I guess I should have put more emphasis that 20 seconds worth of work is nothing.

You could try this:

http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/nero_aac_ui.htm

Omni Encoder was designed to do this specific thing.

www.omniencoder.com

Not so on my 5.5G iPod. I'm not positive gapless is supported with .MP4s, but the files import into iTunes just fine, and ditto for the iPod. My iTunes library is pretty much comprised of Nero-encoded AACs I've spit directly out of foobar.

Ah, I forgot to add that the iPod (and iTunes) require that all AAC files have an extension of *.m4a to playback AAC files gaplessly. I was actually typing in two different threads about this very same topic in two different forum groups. I see that I repeated "playback of AAC files gaplessly files gapplessly" in my other post. Ooops.