M4A files

[Jaylamar]

Hi all, m4a is going to replace mp3 in the very near future (higher sound quality/lower file size) and you folks should get on supporting it real soon.

I tried to play one with JetAudio and it "generated errors and had to be shut down by windows" I lost all of my settings (EQ settings/custom bar colors, custom hotkeys, file associations, etc) essentially everything went back to default .

JetAudio is a fantastic player, the best in my opinion, but settings should be saved/loaded so a fatal error wont revert everything back to the default settings and a m4a patch should be in the works.

Keep up the good work,

Jay

[plonkeroo]

Very interesting. Thanks for the info.

[Jaylamar]

No problem, check out this site if you want more info http://www.m4a.com/

[MythSpell]

I have played about 20 .m4a files and although none of them caused a crash, they all exhibited track length problems. For instance, the track position slider either wouldn't move at all or would immediately jump almost all the way to the right, etc.

[Jetisfy]

I also have same problems as Mythspell.

Unfortunetly the expensively licensed .aac audio is becoming common instead of
.mpc, ogg, and the best containers like .mkv. Thanks to the boneheads at Apple and Nero.

Since jetAudio is using Quicktime components to play files such as the .m4a I hope you guys can get this worked out and maybe include it also in your file type associations.

Jetisfy

[woeger]

For your information, I wrote the text at the page at www.m4a.com that you cited, and I used to own m4a.com. I have been an M4A (MPEG 4 Audio) advocate for about a year. Now that RealPlayer 10.5, WimAmp 5.07, Apple iTunes, Apple iPods and Windows Media Player 10 (and any other DirectShow compatible player which can use the www.3ivx.com Directshow plugins) will play .M4A files, and now that they are becoming very popular and the "new standard" for compressed audio, I would like to see my favorite media player, JetAudio support .M4A playback (including playback of HE-AAC/AACPlus encoded .M4A files).

Does anyone know how to get JetAudio 6 to recognize the DirectShow .M4A filters from www.3ivx.com? I have a registered copy of them, but for whatever reason JetAudio refuses to playback .M4A files with anything but Quicktime. If I turn off QuickTime support and just have DirectShow support enabled in JetAudio 6, then nothing plays, even though the filters are installed. Do the filters need to be put in a special directory others than the default one for Windows Media Player for Jet Audio to find/use them?

Note: Apple QuickTime and iTunes will play .M4A files encoded with standard AAC LC encoding, but will not play back properly the "SBR part" of the .M4A file as QuickTime currently doesn't handle AACPlus/HE-AAC .M4A files "SBR" playback other than in normal AAC LC mode (without the "SBR" part). That is why I would like to use my 3ivx DirectShow filters which can playback both AAC LC and HE-AAC/AACPlus encoded .M4A files.

I even tried removing Quicktime and uninstalling JetAudio and re-installed JetAudio 6.06 . Now JetAudio uses RealPlayer 10.5 to play .aac files by default, but complains with a "Can not find QuickTime engine" error if I try to play back .M4A files. So the problem appears to be in JetAudio being "hard-wired" to play back .M4A files with only QuickTime and not allowing either a DirectShow filter (3ivx) or RealPlayer 10.5 to be used to to play back .M4A files (even if the Quicktime player option in JetAudio is de-selected when it then it plays nothing).

Thanks!