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Topic: QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc. (Read 687269 times) previous topic - next topic
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Re: QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #1125 –
can someone explain why qaac.exe and qaac64.exe does not make identical m4a file, from same source file, with same settings, -v 320 ? 🙄

Re: QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #1126 –
Slightly different order of operations -> slightly different result.

with floating point values, a*c + b*c isn't always equal to (a + b)*c, and even (a+b)+c isn't always equal to a+(b+c)

Re: QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #1127 –
Quote from: lvqcl on
Slightly different order of operations -> slightly different result.

with floating point values, a*c + b*c isn't always equal to (a + b)*c, and even (a+b)+c isn't always equal to a+(b+c)

that makes sense. thanks!

Re: QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #1128 –
... and (as far as I know) m4a files also contain metadata called "recording date" which is a time stamp down to a second.

Re: QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #1129 –
There is a warning on the changelog for qaac 2.69:

Quote
Note that opus support in libsndfile was committed VERY recently and it's not yet released officially.
Newest official release of libsndfile is version 1.0.28, which is some 3 years old and doesn't contain
opus support. So if you want libsndfile with opus support, you have to grab sources from github and
build it yourself.

I see that libsndfile 1.0.29 has in fact been released only 3 days ago and on my testing so far has meant that qaac has successfully used opus files as input. I have not tested extensively however and I would be interested to hear if others have tested with the new libsndfile?

Re: QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #1130 –
Hi
i have upgrade qaac to 2.69

but does apple upgrade recently the aac codec included in itunes ?
seeing in the qaac changelog there is nothing related to aac encoder
thanks

Re: QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #1131 –
I don't think so, I've recently checked if the killer sample "Fighter_Beat_Loop" still manages to defeat it, and unfortunately it still does.
If there were any improvements, I'd think they need to fix the obvious weaknesses first...
a fan of AutoEq + Meier Crossfeed
 

Re: QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #1132 –
Quote from: magicgoose on
I don't think so, I've recently checked if the killer sample "Fighter_Beat_Loop" still manages to defeat it, and unfortunately it still does.
If there were any improvements, I'd think they need to fix the obvious weaknesses first...

Synth's common in Ambient/industrial music have issues too. Not impressed some track's need 224 ~ 256kbps to sound fine, While Vorbis/Lame sounded the same at 130kbps.
Got locked out on a password i didn't remember. :/

Re: QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #1133 –
I noticed QAAC or apple application support is faster on my (admittedly unpatched) W7 SP1 installation than my W10 installation on the same PC. W7 is about ~330x and produces slightly smaller files, differences in KBs or 0-1kbps in bitrate, while W10 is at ~260x. LAME and OPUS run at the roughly the same speed on W7 and W10 (both ~330x) and produce the exact same files. This has me wondering.

Re: QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #1134 –
Sorry, what are low pass filter defaults for the apple encoder? I've looked in qaac and hydrogenaudio wiki and there is not info as how they implement this for different bitrates, as in fraunhofer or lame encoder.

Re: QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #1135 –
Please note that Apple changed the content of its iTunes64.exe installers for Windows. They do not contain AppleApplicationSupport{64}.msi anymore since version 12.10.9; the last version to extract the CoreAudioToolbox from, using makeportable.bat, is 12.10.8 (available e.g. in the VideoHelp archive of iTunes).

But there is a new makeportable2.bat which seems to extract the required files now from iTunes64.msi inside the newer installers (64 bit only).

Re: QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #1136 –
Hi,
it seems i've found some problems with synch and option --no-delay.

From a deep analisys with Adobe Audition (taking a plain 5.1 WAV and converting) it seems that qaac cut +22ms in excess from the source with the option.

As you can see in the screens the audio doesn't line up perfectly unless i go back on the aac file of 22ms.

To solve the problem i have to add manually +22ms at start of the WAV and then compress with --no-delay.

At this point the audio line-up perfectly (and so synch is ok).

So, pheraps 22ms has to be removed (not cut) from the --no-delay?

What do you think about it?

Wav


Qaac


Wav+22ms Qaac


Re: QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #1137 –
Forgot to write the command line

qaac.exe source.wav -V 127 --threading --no-delay

Re: QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #1138 –
Quote from: tlen on
Hi,
it seems i've found some problems with synch and option --no-delay.
Some decoders don't handle gapless metadata in m4a files.
Others blindly discard first full AAC frame (1024 samples).
Adobe Audition seems to do the latter.
Try decoding with foobar2000, ffmpeg or something, and let Audition read the decoded wav file.

Re: QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #1139 –
Confirmed the behaviour you say.
After having decoded the original .m4a (not fixed with ms by me) into wav with foobar and loaded it in Adobe Audition, it lines up perfectly.
So everything's good.
Thank you very much for the reply.

Re: QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #1140 –
Hi,

When I encode a 6.1 multichannel track with qaac, players report a different channel configuration than for the input file. Basically it goes from (input) to (output).

I know that qaac maps FL FR FC LF BC SL SR to C L R Ls Rs Cs LFE, what I don't understand is what do Ls Rs and Cs mean and where are these channels supposed to be positioned ? Are the players mapping the channels incorrectly ?

Thanks.

Re: QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #1141 –
Quote from: Cutter on
I know that qaac maps FL FR FC LF BC SL SR to C L R Ls Rs Cs LFE, what I don't understand is what do Ls Rs and Cs mean and where are these channels supposed to be positioned ? Are the players mapping the channels incorrectly ?
These are taken from here:
https://github.com/phracker/MacOSX-SDKs/blob/master/MacOSX10.8.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreAudio.framework/Versions/A/Headers/CoreAudioTypes.h#L1087

For many format, channel assignment/layout is not arbitrary. Often, it is determined only by number of channels:
https://xiph.org/vorbis/doc/Vorbis_I_spec.html#x1-810004.3.9
https://xiph.org/flac/format.html (see "Channel assignment")
https://github.com/macosforge/alac/blob/master/ALACMagicCookieDescription.txt#L149

Some formats/applications use back/rear channels for surround by default, others use side channels.
The difference between back/side is not that important unless both of them are in use.

Re: QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #1142 –
Thanks for your detailed answer :)

Re: QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #1143 –
Hi. I have tried to use foobar2000 qaac to convert FLAC to AAC (m4a) and failed. I realized I am using iTunes from Windows store.
Should qaac should support that iTunes version now because it's pretty convenient rather than traditional desktop version?

Re: QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #1144 –
Store version of iTunes is not supported by qaac. But since you use foobar2000 you could try http://www.foobar2000.org/encoderpack. The latest version should detect your iTunes and copy the required dlls for the encoder to use.

Re: QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #1145 –
Quote from: Case on
Store version of iTunes is not supported by qaac. But since you use foobar2000 you could try http://www.foobar2000.org/encoderpack. The latest version should detect your iTunes and copy the required dlls for the encoder to use.
Thank you for the reply.
I did use encoderpack and still got the error message. I could see I had installed encoderpack before installing iTunes from the store. So I have tried to install encoderpack again (already installed UWP iTunes), now foobar2000 works fine with the conversion.
Thanks for that idea.

Re: QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #1146 –
Quote from: nu774 on
Hi,
It will work only if you have folder.jpg in encoding destination folder.
Since foobar spawns CLI encoder in destination folder as it's current directly, if you have folder.jpg in somewhere else, it won't work.

I should have mention it more clearly in the usage page; updated it now.

Can foobar2000 copy the artwork file *before* using the encoder?  I can see that *when finished*, foobar2000 can copy other files, but it won't do it before.  This makes it difficult or impossible to attach an external image if we don't want to use embedded images in the source file.  (Same issue with the opus encoder.)

Re: QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #1147 –
Quote from: yindesu on
Can foobar2000 copy the artwork file *before* using the encoder?  I can see that *when finished*, foobar2000 can copy other files, but it won't do it before.  This makes it difficult or impossible to attach an external image if we don't want to use embedded images in the source file.  (Same issue with the opus encoder.)
How would copying it first change anything?
(If you don't want to use embedded images, does that mean you want to delete them?)

Re: QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #1148 –
Is there a way to extract Apple Application Support from the latest iTunes?

It seems that they have folded the codec support into the iTunes MSI installer itself. Would prefer not to install iTunes to be able to use QAAC, though of course it wouldn't be too difficult to lock it down from all angles if I do have to install it.

Re: QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #1149 –
Quote from: sld on
Would prefer not to install iTunes to be able to use QAAC
You can do that easy, the steps have been posted in the forum a couple of times but last September there were some changes made to the iTunes installer that require a slight modification of one step.  Here is a summary of how to use qaac64.exe version 2.71 in Foobar without installing iTunes:

A.  First you will need to download 3 files:

1. qaac_2.71.zip

https://sites.google.com/site/qaacpage/cabinet/qaac_2.71.zip?attredirects=0&d=1

2. Makeportable2.zip

https://sites.google.com/site/qaacpage/cabinet/makeportable2.zip?attredirects=0&d=1

3. The latest non-Microsoft Store version of the iTunes64Setup.exe file (do NOT install it!!)

https://www.apple.com/itunes/download/win64

(Note: due to changes in how Apple packages its libraries only versions of iTunes64 equal to or greater than 12.10.9.3 can be used with the latest version of qaac64 (2.71), which was modified by its developer to work with those changes.  Version 12.11.0.26 dated November 12, 2020, was used by me in these instructions.)

B.  Preparing the tools for use

1.  From makeportable2.zip, extract "makeportable2.cmd" to the same folder as the iTunes64Setup.exe file you downloaded.

2.  Double-click makeportable2.cmd and let it run; a command window will open and you'll see text scroll by, stopping momentarily with the message "All is OK!"--do NOT close the window, it will pause at this for about 10 seconds, then continue to run until completion, when the window will close on its own.

3.  You will then see that a folder named "QTfiles64" has been created inside the folder in which you ran step #2;  this contains all the files needed by qaac64 from iTunes64 to run portably.

4.  Move the folder itself "QTfiles64" you just created into the Foobar "encoders" folder.

5.  Next, open qaac_2.71.zip from where you downloaded it, and from inside the zip's "x64" subfolder extract the files qaac64.exe, libsoxr64.dll, and libsoxconvolver64.dll directly into your Foobar "encoders" folder.  You do NOT need to extract the "refalac64.exe" file.

6.  You can now delete the three files you downloaded originally.

Now you can set up an entry for it in Quick Convert with any encoding options you want;  mine for example look like this: