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[bugmenot]

Any posibility to use the open source FAAC to encode to AAC??? website : www.audiocoding.com

Since AAC is suposed to be better than MP3, would be interesting to actually use it.

[modelmaker]

I think you'll still have to ask Apple.

[pank2002]

FAAC does not pay royalties. Thus it cannot be incorporated into MC. (I do not think LAME does either, but mp3 is another story). Anyway, “legal” mp4 encoders are very expensive. You can use FAAC or get one of the premium one. I like Nero’s aac encoder (the developer of FAAC’s paid-for project). They might have developed a iTunes AAC to CLI. If that is the case, you can use that in MC too. The key is to use a CLI interface. You will be able to encode AAC from MC via external CLI encoder.
If you search way back, you will be able to find something on external aac encoders. I, at least, made a post about at one time.

By the way, a well encoded LAME mp3 is as good, if not better, than AAC, and it is more portable. In my opinion that is worth a lot.

-Rasmus 

[JimH]

I think you'll still have to ask Apple.

Apple doesn't own it.  It's licensed by Dolby Labs.

[glynor]

As was mentioned the last time this came up... I think the simple solution is to make a GUI wrapper plugin for Nero's AAC Encoder so that it looks and works just like the LAME MP3 encoder in Options --> Encoding, but require the user to go and download the free Nero AAC Encoder themselves.  (Or maybe one that could use either Nero's or FAAC -- even though Nero's is better now, FAAC will likely eventually catch up.)

It wouldn't be hard to make work effectively.  You'd just need to have it check that neroAacEnc.exe (or faac.exe) exists in the proper location when the user selects AAC from the Encoder dropdown.  If it doesn't, simply pop up a message with a link to download it, and a browse dialog to point at the ZIP download when it's done (then the plugin could automatically extract the particular EXE that it needs and copy it to the correct location).

Unfortunately, I have absolutely no experience in C++ or in building an encoder plugin for MC, so I can't do it.   

However...

By the way, a well encoded LAME mp3 is as good, if not better, than AAC, and it is more portable. In my opinion that is worth a lot.

I have to agree here.  If you're encoding at VBR Normal or better in LAME, there is very little effective difference between using AAC and a good quality MP3 rip.  AAC matters quite a bit at very low bitrates (which is why it is often used for the soundtrack in videos, as those bits can be better spent on the video compression and saved on the audio), but for high-quality digital music, the benefit is dubious. I mean... Does saving 15k per MP3 really make that huge of a difference with 500GB drives at $99?

[bspachman]

I have to agree here.  If you're encoding at VBR Normal or better in LAME, there is very little effective difference between using AAC and a good quality MP3 rip.  AAC matters quite a bit at very low bitrates (which is why it is often used for the soundtrack in videos, as those bits can be better spent on the video compression and saved on the audio), but for high-quality digital music, the benefit is dubious. I mean... Does saving 15k per MP3 really make that huge of a difference?

Well, at 128kbps, I find that AAC makes a difference, and putting 128kpbs-encoded songs on a 30GB iPod also makes a difference...

I'd be happy with full tagging support for mp4/AAC-encoded files.... <sigh>

brad

[pank2002]

As far as I recall from my aac days, you were able to tag files if you ripped via MC. It is not that hard.
Use MC's external encoder feature.
Get Nero's free AAC encoder here: ftp://ftp6.nero.com/tools/NeroDigitalAudio.zip
In encoders under options select external encoder. Tell MC where nero's encoder is located. The parameter is -q x -if %IN -of %OUT where x is a real number and 0<x<1. q will give you a VBR file. This is recommended. If you want CBR (i.e. 128kbps all the way through) use the -CBR flag rather than -q. Please refer to this side: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t44310.html . The extension should be mp4, m4a, aac, whatever. . .
There are further instructions in this thread, but it is rather old.
Also, there is a program somewhere that will force cmd windows to be minimized automatically. That should be real nice if one uses an external encoder. I think some guy on the forum wrote the program. Search is your friend.

Bottomline: It should be manageable to have MC to support AAC.

[bspachman]

Yes, using an external encoder can work, but keep in mind that it's the EXTERNAL encoder doing the tagging, not MC itself. That means that any subsequent changes to the library will never be written to the files' tags. MC is pretty good about READING pre-written tags, but cannot WRITE tags of any kind to AAC/MP4/M4A/M4P files...

brad

[pank2002]

MC can store tags in its own db. They might not be visible in other program (i.e. it might not be proper aac tags). Nero did, however, include a cmd tagging program. I do not know whether MC can take advantage of this utility.