Recognizing m4a files

[euclid]

I have several m4a files that don't show in my MM library. In Explorer they are flagged as Real Player files. I have checked all file types in MM Preferences. Is there a plug-in that I need, or do I have to rip them all over again? Euclid

[rovingcowboy]

Real player is a sticky subject they dont like anything playing their formats except their player.

but you can get them to play on others and i think that media monkey might play some of them.

what you might want to do instead of re ripping them is look for an input plug in at winamps site that will play them then see if the plugin works in media monkeys plug in folder.

if that does not work then you might as well do one of two things.

play them in a player that will play that format and use a wave editor to record them in wav form then save the wav format and convert it to your mp3 or ogg format.

or just re rip them and save them as mp3's

sorry but that is all i can think of to help you?

[rusty]

m4a files, are generated by Apples iTunes or Nero. They are MPEG-4 AAC encoded files without Apples DRM (the .m4p format includes the DRM protection).

I haven't tried it yet, but there are plugins written for Winamp that enable playback of this file type. Check out:
http://www.rarewares.org/aac.html
http://www.audiocoding.com

Please let us know if they work well or not.

-Rusty

[Addie]

I finally got this to work: MM can recognise and play m4a files.

I downloaded the Winamp plugin from http://www.rarewares.org/aac.html (it's called in_mp4.zip) and unzipped the dll into the MM plugins directory.

MM can recognise and play the M4a files.

To convert them to something else (I did this so my iRiver could play them), you can simply use MM to convert to, say, wma. I found that MM didn't understand the album or artist tags in the M4a (or perhaps they weren't encoded properly) so I had to re-encode those tags for every album. But this was less of a hassle than ripping the CDs all over again.

I also changed the track names using the Auto-tag from Filename function since all the track names still had the .m4a endings.

Hope this helps people who want to take AAC files from an iPod user (they are m4a files) and play them using MM and/or an iRiver.

Adam

[Lowlander]

MM generally doesn't support writing info to the files themselves if they aren't natively supported. It will only store the info in the DB.

[Guest]

Hey Adam,

I tried your suggestion using the in_mp4.zip file you suggested but can't get MM to recognize the m4a files. any suggestions?

[Guest]

After you unzip and copy plug-in to directory, scan for new files. I had to make sure m4a files were checked, other wise MM ignores them during the Add/scan.

[random kid]

i just wanted to say thanks for the helpful advice...

[Guest]

After you unzip and copy plug-in to directory, scan for new files. I had to make sure m4a files were checked, other wise MM ignores them during the Add/scan.

MM still does not find the m4a / aac files although all checkboxes are checked. Any ideas?

[rovingcowboy]

look for the tara plug in on winamp and see if that will play them.

and let them show up?

not sure of any thing though as it is tricky working with realplayer stuff.

[STabs]

I use a lot of m4a files (as my son uses them for his ipod) and I have used the in_mp4.dll from winamp. No problems. MM also finds and recognises these files.

I can't use MM for tagging so I use Tag&Rename.

STabs

[Digisurfer]

The in_mp4.dll from Coding Technologies would be your best bet. Also grab in_mp3.dll from the latest version of Winamp as well if you want to be able to properly play stuff from Tuner2.com (to MM developers: please add this under Web!), Shoutcast, and Icecast that are in ACC+. in_mp4.dll properly plays all types of AAC files, including aacPlus versions 1 and 2 (aka HE-AAC & HE-AAC+PS), but it won't play streams from the internet for some reason. Hence why I recommend grabbing in_mp3.dll as well. Note that the in_mp3PRO.dll plugin does not play nice with the above plugins, which can lead to the inability to play back certain files. Luckily MP3Pro is a dying format thanks to AAC+ (and is why Winamp will never support it naitively).

[jimjones]

so, is there support coming up for organizing/auto-tagging m4a files (which in my opinion is the best audio format available)

would be really great if mediamonkey recognized these files too

[Abraxas]

so, is there support coming up for organizing/auto-tagging m4a files (which in my opinion is the best audio format available)

would be really great if mediamonkey recognized these files too

strongly agreed! I'm a MMGold user and would really love to see AAC/m4a tagging be available! Please please, make this top priority!

[Shane]

Ive been asking for this for a freaking year. I always get the same response "soon"