AAC => MP4

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AAC => MP4

2003-04-21 12:42:42

Out of curiosity I tried to convert some AAC files to MP4 by using Ivan & Menno frontend. However, when clicking the "Convert" button, nothing happens. I'll have to double click the "aacbatch.bat" file to get things goin'. I do think it's speek's intention to launch the process by clicking the button and I'd like to have it that way.
So, what can be wrong here? I'm using Ivan & Menno 1.62 and MP4creator60 (the latest from RareWares).

AAC => MP4

Reply #1 – 2003-04-21 15:47:04

I used it a little while back and had no problems! Just make sure all the codecs required are in the same folder as the actual program (.exe file)

AAC => MP4

Reply #2 – 2003-04-21 16:39:07

It still doesn't work :-(

In my folder:
aacenc.exe
faad.exe
mp4creator60.exe
Ivan & Menno.exe
aacbatch.bat
win2dos.exe

Excerpt from aacbatch.bat:
@echo off
C:
cd "C:\Program\Ivan & Menno"
win2dos aacbatch.bat
mp4creator60.exe -optimize -create="F:\AAC\Album\King, B.B. & Clapton, Eric - 2000 - Riding With The King - Riding With The King.aac" "F:\AAC\Album\King, B.B. & Clapton, Eric - 2000 - Riding With The King - Riding With The King.mp4"
if errorlevel 1 goto errormark
del "F:\AAC\Album\King, B.B. & Clapton, Eric - 2000 - Riding With The King - Riding With The King.aac"
:errormark

AAC => MP4

Reply #3 – 2003-04-21 18:04:01

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I'll have to double click the "aacbatch.bat" file to get things goin'. I do think it's speek's intention to launch the process by clicking the button and I'd like to have it that way.

What Windows version do you use? I have the very same problem with Win95b (aacbatch.bat is placed on my task bar instead of an immediate action), but Speek had never heard of this before when I reported the bug back then. So maybe you should mail him again...

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So, what can be wrong here? I'm using Ivan & Menno 1.62 and MP4creator60 (the latest from RareWares).

By the way, you could also ask him to release v1.63 beta that is able to use FAAC as the encoder, too. And you should keep an eye on any new mp4creator version that might appear on RareWares in the future, because it seems that v0.9.8 still has not implemented the last MPEG revision of the MPEG-4 AAC LC ADTS header. So all your MP4 files that you create with this Object Type (when using the MPEG-4 flag with PsyTEL AACEnc_MPEG4 or FAAC) will not be playable by the latest Winamp plugins.

AAC => MP4

Reply #4 – 2003-04-21 18:17:53

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And you should keep an eye on any new mp4creator version that might appear on RareWares in the future, because it seems that v0.9.8 still has not implemented the last MPEG revision of the MPEG-4 AAC LC ADTS header.

future == tomorrow morning

AAC => MP4

Reply #5 – 2003-04-21 18:31:19

Hmm... When looking at the path I see that "F:\AAC\Album\King, B.B. & Clapton, Eric - 2000 - Riding With The King - Riding With The King.aac" is not my actual path. It's "F:\AAC\Album\King, B.B. & Clapton, Eric - 2000 - Riding With The King\01 - Riding With The King.aac" so that maybe it has something to do with it?

BTW, thanks for the info.

AAC => MP4

Reply #6 – 2003-04-21 23:41:42

Quote

Quote
And you should keep an eye on any new mp4creator version that might appear on RareWares in the future, because it seems that v0.9.8 still has not implemented the last MPEG revision of the MPEG-4 AAC LC ADTS header.

future == tomorrow morning

Great News!
its very important for me!

Thanks!

AAC => MP4

Reply #7 – 2003-04-22 02:24:42

I remember in a previous thread http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....3&t=6447&hl=mp4 where I was having issues going the other direction (MP4 to AAC). This thread made me think back to something and I have a theory of what could be the problem. What I was getting before were small binary differences between "converted to MPEG-2 AAC from Nero MPEG-4 MP4" files and the original ISO MPEG-2 AAC files created by Nero, but the audio itself was staying completely the same. Could we have garbage being left over because of a slightly outdated header compatibility when processing and converting the Nero MP4 files to MPEG-2 AAC files through either a combination of mp4UI and Ivan & Menno or enry2k's modified mp4creator.exe (these in themselves produce identical results)? From how I understand it, the MP4 header is being removed, and we are forcing an MPEG-4 object type, that's all. There is no "interpretation" of the MP4 header when converting. So, when I read this:

Quote

And you should keep an eye on any new mp4creator version that might appear on RareWares in the future, because it seems that v0.9.8 still has not implemented the last MPEG revision of the MPEG-4 AAC LC ADTS header.

it hit me that maybe the slight difference is being caused by a misinterpretation of the header information because of slightly outdated MP4 header spec compatibility in mp4creator compared to Nero. As such both the addition AND possibly the removal could be just enough off of spec to cause a discrepancy. If Nero is using a slightly newer MP4 header configuration that is slightly clashing with how mp4creator handles its removal, this could be the problem. Yes, of course these end files both still function, and like i've said before, maybe this is seeking perfectionism, but that is what this board seeks, so I'm putting it out there.
What I'll do to test this is start with a clean AAC, convert to MP4 and then back to AAC, and see if I don't get identical results within the confines of enry2k's modified mp4creator executable.
Thanks

AAC => MP4

Reply #8 – 2003-04-22 04:10:59

Check out the mp4 'muxer' i use...
http://www.mediacruiser.de/mp4UI/

Enjoy B)

[edit]quick tip: to make new mp4 files, right click on the big white area in general, batch conversion[/edit]

AAC => MP4

Reply #9 – 2003-04-22 08:34:32

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to make new mp4 files, right click on the big white area in general, batch conversion

Hey, thanks. I didn't know you could create new MP4s that way with mp4UI.

AAC => MP4

Reply #10 – 2003-04-22 14:26:34

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future == tomorrow morning

As promised.

http://www.inf.ufpr.br/~rja00/

AAC => MP4

Reply #11 – 2003-04-22 16:26:37

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future == tomorrow morning

Err... as far as I know the MPEG4IP version from March (which is still the current one, or not?) is v0.9.8, so this issue probably isn't fixed yet. There was a bug report on Audiocoding.com recently where a user had compiled v0.9.8 himself and still couldn't convert FAAC v1.16 files with MPEG-4 ADTS header to MP4 correctly. Menno answered that he would "patch something", but nothing happened since then, as far as I know. The patch would have to happen at MPEG4IP anyhow, so I'm not sure what he meant there - and he's probably much too busy at the moment to figure something out.

By the way, could you also provide a mp4creator-only binary maybe, so people wouldn't have to download the whole package if they only need mp4creator?

AAC => MP4

Reply #12 – 2003-04-22 16:36:27

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Hmm... When looking at the path I see that "F:\AAC\Album\King, B.B. & Clapton, Eric - 2000 - Riding With The King - Riding With The King.aac" is not my actual path. It's "F:\AAC\Album\King, B.B. & Clapton, Eric - 2000 - Riding With The King\01 - Riding With The King.aac" so that maybe it has something to do with it?

Did you change the output file directory in the GUI perhaps? If not, it seems to be a bug... But I always use the same input and output directory for everything (encoding, decoding, converting), and have that problem all the time.

When looking at the aacbatch.bat, it seems odd to me that it somehow calls itself in the win2dos line (some character conversion, as far as I remember). Maybe this is something that older Windows version can't understand and/or accept. Which version do you use?

And there's also a PIF file "aacbatch" which could have an influence here, too. For example mine doesn't define the working directory...

AAC => MP4

Reply #13 – 2003-04-22 16:58:28

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Err... as far as I know the MPEG4IP version from March (which is still the current one, or not?) is v0.9.8, so this issue probably isn't fixed yet. There was a bug report on Audiocoding.com recently where a user had compiled v0.9.8 himself and still couldn't convert FAAC v1.16 files with MPEG-4 ADTS header to MP4 correctly.

You are so smart, Hans. That's why I love you.

Have you taken a look at the link I posted, at least?

Well, the case is that I have a very good friend called Menno P. Bakker, that happened to patch the sources of MP4creator, and sent me a binary. It's linked at RareWares' main page, and also available at the MPEG4ip.server.tools package at the mpeg4 page.

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Menno answered that he would "patch something", but nothing happened since then, as far as I know. The patch would have to happen at MPEG4IP anyhow, so I'm not sure what he meant there - and he's probably much too busy at the moment to figure something out.

Go to the link I posted.

Quote

By the way, could you also provide a mp4creator-only binary maybe, so people wouldn't have to download the whole package if they only need mp4creator?

For the third time, go to the link I posted.

Here it is again: http://www.inf.ufpr.br/~rja00/

AAC => MP4

Reply #14 – 2003-04-22 17:09:28

Quote

Check out the mp4 'muxer' i use...
http://www.mediacruiser.de/mp4UI/

Enjoy B)

[edit]quick tip: to make new mp4 files, right click on the big white area in general, batch conversion[/edit]

2 Observations:

First, I believe (pretty sure) MP4ui is not yet compatible with AAC files using the revised ADTS headers. I believe Menno already sent the revised MPEG4ip sources to the MPEG4ip crew, let's hope the MP4ui author updates his program soon.

Second: Menno promised a tool to convert old AACs into AACs compliant with the ADTS revision. (might take some time since he's very busy, though)

Regards;

Roberto.

AAC => MP4

Reply #15 – 2003-04-22 17:16:32

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From how I understand it, the MP4 header is being removed, and we are forcing an MPEG-4 object type, that's all. There is no "interpretation" of the MP4 header when converting.

No, mp4creator isn't forcing the MPEG-4 AAC LC Object Type while extracting, it's only copying the "MPEG-x" flag from the MP4 header to each ADTS header that gets inserted in each frame of the extracted AAC file. So if there was a MPEG-4 flag in the MP4 header, this caused an MPEG-4 ADTS header which meant 2 additional bits for the emphasis field until December 2002. If there was a MPEG-2 flag, this emphasis field wasn't used in the ADTS header. See http://www.audiocoding.com/wiki/index.php?page=MP4 and also the ADTS page for more information.

AAC => MP4

Reply #16 – 2003-04-22 17:21:19

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For the third time, go to the link I posted.

Here it is again: http://www.inf.ufpr.br/~rja00/

Calm down.

AAC => MP4

Reply #17 – 2003-04-22 17:24:47

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Calm down.

I am calm. Calm and laughing. Didn't you notice?

AAC => MP4

Quote
What I'll do to test this is start with a clean AAC, convert to MP4 and then back to AAC, and see if I don't get identical results within the confines of enry2k's modified mp4creator executable.
Thanks

I just tested it. The original aac file in the test and the aac->mp4->aac file in the test are identical. This means that Nero is using some sort of slightly different MP4 container format (or something other) than mp4creator. The 31 differences are stemming from converting Nero MP4 to AAC, so there you go.

BTW, a new mp4creator was released recently. IIRC it is the one in the updated Mp4UI package at Rarewares. This update to compliance does not fix this issue of 31 binary errors when converting Nero MP4's to AAC, so I assume they are completely unrelated.

Any progress or findings on this?

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