mp3DirectCut Support for aac

[tony yyy]

It may be of interest to some that mp3DirectCut now supports aac. I think it's been available for a few months but I've only just noticed.

[PJPJ]

Ah, that is good news. Thank you!

[PJPJ]

People will need, if they haven't got it, libFAAD2.dll and add it to the mp3directcut folder in "Programs"

http://www.rarewares.org/aac-decoders.php

Do be aware you can't do simple fades in and out on aac files. Unless I'm missing something there.

[Bryn]

It may be of interest to some that mp3DirectCut now supports aac. I think it's been available for a few months but I've only just noticed.

Many, many thanks for advising of this oh so useful update to mp3directcut. Now, anyone know of a way of converting from aac to m4a without decoding/re-encoding? It should be possible but I have not found a successful method as yet.

[tony yyy]

The free version of QuickTime Player will convert to .mov, which seems to be equivalent to .m4a for audio-only. I think it does it without recoding (it says it's 'flattening'), but I'm not absolutely certain. I find the distinctions between mov/aac/m4a/mp4 rather confusing - I've consulted Wikipedia several times and then forgotten almost immediately.

[Bryn]

The free version of QuickTime Player will convert to .mov, which seems to be equivalent to .m4a for audio-only. I think it does it without recoding (it says it's 'flattening'), but I'm not absolutely certain. I find the distinctions between mov/aac/m4a/mp4 rather confusing - I've consulted Wikipedia several times and then forgotten almost immediately.

The annoying thing is, quite a few items of equipment I have claim to be aac compatible, but they will not even recognise the .aac suffix. They have to be fed the aac wrapped up in m4a clothing. Even those, like the Archos and Arnova tablets, which recognise and play .aac files, will not navigate within them (fast forward, etc.) but happily do so with .m4a files. I doubt you can get away with using QuickTime Player to convert from .aac to .mov, then renaming the suffix as .m4a.

[tony yyy]

It's worth a try. I think the .mov container is in some way equivalent to the m4a one, at least for audio files. Renaming the mov as output by QuickTime to m4a works for my ipod, even thought it doesn't recognise the original aac. I haven't investigated it in any more detail.

[Bryn]

It's worth a try. I think the .mov container is in some way equivalent to the m4a one, at least for audio files. Renaming the mov as output by QuickTime to m4a works for my ipod, even thought it doesn't recognise the original aac. I haven't investigated it in any more detail.

Too tired to struggle with it tonight, but will certainly try when wider awake.

[johnb]

Many, many thanks for advising of this oh so useful update to mp3directcut. Now, anyone know of a way of converting from aac to m4a without decoding/re-encoding? It should be possible but I have not found a successful method as yet.

It is pretty simple to convert aac to m4a with MP4Box and there is no decoding/re-encoding.

MP4Box is a command line utility but there are graphical front ends for the programme. However, I have created a 'drag and drop' batch file for the programme.

The command line for MP4Box is: MP4Box -add "file name.aac" "new file name.m4a" ("file name" and "new file name" can be the same, of course.

The double quotes are only needed if the filenames contain spaces.

To make things quicker and easier I wrote a small batch file, then created a shortcut to it (right click in Windows Explorer and select Create Shortcut) and finally copied the shortcut onto the Windows Desktop. This way I can drag a file from Windows Explorer onto the shortcut icon (on the Desktop) and it will automatically convert the aac file to m4a. No more messing about with command lines or batch files once this is set up. Easy Peasy.

The contents of the batch file are as follows and can be copied to NotePad and saved with a ".bat" filetype, e.g. aac2m4a.bat. The batch file should be in the same folder as the aac files that are to be converted and the resulting m4a file will be saved in that folder:

set FILE=%~n1
F:\Music_Misc\aac_tools\MP4Box-0.4.6\MP4Box -add "%FILE%.AAC" "%FILE%.m4a"
PAUSE

Explanation:
set FILE=%~n1 sets FILE to the part of the filename (of the file that was dragged and dropped) that is before ".acc"

F:\Music_Misc\aac_tools\MP4Box-0.4.6\MP4Box is the path to MP4Box.exe on my PC (substitute your path).

PAUSE halts the batch file after converting the aac file so you can see whether there are any error messages, otherwise the batch file window just closes.

Note - the batch file should be in the same folder that as the aac file. (I always save the aac files in a specific folder, which also contains the batch file.

It sounds more fiddly than it actually is - honest.

(Of course you can use MP4Box to convert back to aac by swapping the .aac/.m4a around.)

[Bryn]

Thanks John, I will have a look at that tonight.