INTERACT FORUM

More => Old Versions => Media Center 11 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: bspachman on August 12, 2006, 11:23:12 am

Title: Dead Horse - AAC Filename length restrictions
Post by: bspachman on August 12, 2006, 11:23:12 am

So I've been away from MC for quite a while, but recently upgraded to v11.1.191. I had a rather catastrophic crash of my music server a while ago and am just now reconstructing all of my lost information. There's no better tool for doing massive tagging & library organization than MC, so I'm relearning all of it's little quirks.

One that is biting me again is the restriction on filename length of my m4a files (AAC encoding). Like many people, I have my main music library encoded as APE/CUEs and a shadow library of those files encoded as m4a files. MC can playback both varieties, as long as the filenames of the m4a files are under 60-some-odd characters.

Now, one of the last things I'm going to do as part of my library clean up is to rename my files from their tags/library information. This will make many of my filenames even longer.... So some questions for the collective wisdom & developers:

1) Are there other file/pathname length restrictions I'm going to bump into?
2) Will MC automatically work-around and intelligently truncate these restrictions?
3) What can be done to make MC play my (long-named) m4a files? I mean, if foobar2000 can do it & iTunes can do it.... :)

Brad

Title: Re: Dead Horse - AAC Filename length restrictions
Post by: Matt on August 12, 2006, 11:27:36 am

If you use DirectShow for M4A playback (requires filters), there's no filename limit.

The limit is an artificial limitation of the QuickTime engine that MC uses for M4A in some cases.

Title: Re: Dead Horse - AAC Filename length restrictions
Post by: Alex B on August 12, 2006, 11:32:54 am

It is a QuickTime limitation. However, you can install DirectShow filters that can handle AAC playback instead of QT. DirectShow playback makes also possible to analyze the files and use MC's DSP options. You may want to search this forum for further information.

Edit, Matt was faster...

... and a recent link:

http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=34894.0

Title: Re: Dead Horse - AAC Filename length restrictions
Post by: bspachman on August 12, 2006, 11:51:49 am

Matt,

You beat me to it. I realized that about 15 minutes after my post. I used to have DirectShow filter playback working for my m4a files, but for some reason it's not working any more. I will have to investigate further....

Thanks for the quick response/reminder!

Brad