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[fidelio]

Dear JRiver team,

I have been using MC V10 for the past 1.5 years and state: It is the software Ihave learned to use and love most among all SW packages during this time!
Currently I hold about 3.500 songs in my MC library, all ripped with EAC from CD into FLAC (YES, support of FLAC in MC10 worked sufficiently for me with Oblong's plugin). Over the past months I added some AAC files via purchases in itunes.

This week I decided to upgrade to V11.1 - main reason was the announced better IPOD support.

Background is that I have used up to now always a Pocket PC as portable player and am pretty much tired of missing support in MC (lack of easiness of use = complicated transfer issues btw PC and pocket pc).

So I thought, hmmm, I should definitely go for the mainstream portable player and buy an IPOD Nano as soon as the're available again (currently sold out in USA, Europe and Asia).

MC11 + Ipod appeared to me THE great pair...  easily transfer& use all valuable information like tagging, cover art,  star ratings, playlists, etc. on the portable player (that's what I was interpreting from the MC 11.1.xxx relase notes).

Now, my biggest disappointment with MC11 so far is (after reading many posts in this board): The two best music formats which the Ipods offer (AAC and also ALAC) are still not supported by MC11.1. I am asked to stay with MP3 as format for the portable...
From one post in this formum I understand that MC would require a 10$ premium fee for aac support, due to Apple licensing issues. I for my part would be willing to pay for this, since I appreciate the by far higher functionality of MC vs. itunes or winamp.

BTW, I did many A-B listening comparisons with my Pocket PC (Ipaq) connected to my car stereo, and insist I can hear a difference btw. a 128k encoded mp3 and AAC file...

Is there any chance that JRiver would fulfill my Christmas wish?
Or provide at least a call interface with infos like %artist, %title to an external (AAC) encoder?

Anyhow, thanks to JRiver for a great software which hopefully will get even better...

[Mr ChriZ]

Dude, have you seen this under the 11.1 Release notes

_______________________________
Directshow support for AAC files
_______________________________

Personally I haven't tried it, nor am 100% certain what it means, so don't shoot the messenger 

[Mr ChriZ]

Oh hang on your talking about encoding, not
decoding...
Not to sure about that...
Don't listen to me I've had to many Glasses of wine this evening 

[fidelio]

obviously you're also from Europe & it's getting late here....

... I mean of course suuport of AAC encoding for transfer to the portable, since majority of my library files are in lossless (FLAC). Same story should apply for other users with APE as preferred format.

[Galley]

If I had realized that MC11 did not have an .m4a AAC encoder, I never would've upgraded. D'oh!

[ForsakenArdor]

My advice: Don't use AAC.  Don't use WMA.  Don't use anything with DRM or anything that limits when, where and how you listen to YOUR music.  And most of all, don't pay for something that can only be played in iTunes or the iPod.  What player besides the iPod uses AAC?  The best sound you can get is if you rip from CD yourself, and while it's a dollar or so more for a hardcopy of the album, if something happens to your computer, you can always rip the songs again whenever--and encode them however--and give to whoever--you wish.  If you just want to listen to one song you don't have, well, maybe you can ask someone you know to rip and encode that for you.  Or someone you don't know...

I'm happy using VBR LAME mp3s.  And for over 10 years, I've enjoyed 128 kbps with the -hq command using DOS command line interface L3enc, which sound indistinguishable from CD for about 95% of my songs.  Even though I'm in the process of switching from 128 to vbr, comparing the two is impossible for most songs.  They both sound precisely like the uncompressed rip.

If you must use AAC, doesn't iTunes do this for free?  Just make sure your iPod's undocked so it won't usurp it from MC.

[fidelio]

To my understanding AAC can come in both ways - unprotected  and protected (Apple calls it "fairplay"). When I ask for the  .AAC encoder in MC11, I of course refer to the unprotected version. The VERY few times I buy from itunes, I am fully aware of the DRM limitations and accept them.

I am sure that JRiver's MC could offer a competitive advantage if it supported encoding of unprotected AAC's (vs. itunes' shop DRM-based solution).

I know that even already today I can use the itunes engine (as an external encoder) for my library files - but then the limitations (as indicated in my original post) exist - like passthrough of tag information etc.

[pank2002]

External encoders such as Apple's, Nero's or FAAC can be used via command line scrips. Since AAC is supported (natively) in MC11.1 there should be no problem, since MC11.1 should fill in the tags the same way as if you were ripping using the LAME-encoder.

Also, MC's ripping engine is as good as EAC's. Thus, it's double work using EAC, since your tracks doesn't get analyzed etc.

As pointed out by other LAME is to be preferred. The mp3-players of tomorrow will surely support MP3, but how about AAC?

Finally, FairPlay is merely what Apple call their DRM-system. You can burn in to a cd x times and send it to a friend y etc. Ain't it fair?