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Topic: Car stereo plays M4As, but not purchased iTunes tracks (Read 9628 times) previous topic - next topic
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Car stereo plays M4As, but not purchased iTunes tracks

Does anyone know if purchased iTunes tracks are "special" in any way? My car stereo plays back M4As encoded with iTunes or Nero AAC perfectly, except files that I purchased via iTunes (and I don't mean protected M4P files). I also tried retagging the files and the Optimize feature of Mp3tag that removes free atoms and places the tag at the beginning, but it didn't change anything.

Car stereo plays M4As, but not purchased iTunes tracks

Reply #1 –
As far as I know, there is nothing special about them.  I would try using something like ffmpeg or mp4box to unpack the AAC stream and then repack it into a new container.  In my experience, mp4 is more often the problem than the AAC stream.

However, outside of Apple+Android, AAC hardware support is generally poor, buggy, and unreliable, so its hard to guess what the problem could be.

Car stereo plays M4As, but not purchased iTunes tracks

Reply #2 –
Have you tried solution as simple as changing file extension to .aac? Also, +1 for repacking AAC stream with new container.

Car stereo plays M4As, but not purchased iTunes tracks

Reply #3 –
I once had a player that wouldn't play anything if the extension had capital letters. This happened with MP3. Changing them to mp3 solved the problem. So, check your AAC files. It could be the same issue.
Surf's Up!
"Columnated Ruins Domino"

Car stereo plays M4As, but not purchased iTunes tracks

Reply #4 –
Can you send me one that does work and one that doesn't? Via PM of course.

Car stereo plays M4As, but not purchased iTunes tracks

Reply #5 –
I made the mistake of buying a couple of albums from iTunes. Never again. In Canada, iTunes does NOT allow you to re download tracks you have purchased. This was before I discovered said artist (Techmaster P.E.B.) distributes via bandcamp as well. Is this an anti iTunes rant? Yes it is. Xbox music and bandcamp have no restrictions on replacing lost files due to hard drive crash. ITunes, being the first of its kind has no excuse for this BS. You are better off using ABI, Anything But ITunes, Xbox Music and amazon give you perfectly clean mp3's, bandcamp gives you a CHOICE of lossless/lossy formats, if it's feasible, ditch iTunes.

Car stereo plays M4As, but not purchased iTunes tracks

Reply #6 –
Doesnot the traks contain some licensing information in metadata?
I would say that the player refuses to play them because of copyright protection.
Send me one piece too please. I'd like to see what's inside.

Car stereo plays M4As, but not purchased iTunes tracks

Reply #7 –
I could send you guys the first 100 KB for example, don't know if that's enough to track down the problem, though. I am currently remuxing some tracks.

Edit: Indeed, remuxing did the trick.

Car stereo plays M4As, but not purchased iTunes tracks

Reply #8 –
It probably wouldn't hurt to provide the make and model of your car stereo. Generally speaking, I've also found car stereos to be peculiar. E.g., the one I use (Mercedes Radio Audio 5 USB) refuses anything but FAT-formatted sticks and also refuses some file names and folder structures.

Car stereo plays M4As, but not purchased iTunes tracks

Reply #9 –
It's the Skoda Media-In interface with an USB cable (and a FAT32 formatted stick attached) and Bolero radio. The system should be identical to VW and Audi (the VW version of the radio is called RCD510 if I recall correctly). For some funny reason, the Media-In supports formats that are not directly supported by the radio itself. The radio has an SD card slot and supports only MP3 and WMA, the Media-In can additionally decode MP4 / AAC and Ogg Vorbis.

Car stereo plays M4As, but not purchased iTunes tracks

Reply #11 –
I get on all 3 samples error in foobar.

Code: [Select]
Decoding failure at 0:04.830 (Unsupported format or corrupted file):
"C:\Users\Anakunda\AppData\Local\Temp\Remuxed.m4a"

Decoding failure at 0:03.971 (Unsupported format or corrupted file):
"C:\Users\AnakundaAppData\Local\Temp\iTunesStore.m4a"

Decoding failure at 0:04.085 (Unsupported format or corrupted file):
"C:\Users\Anakunda\AppData\Local\Temp\iTunesRipped.m4a"


And if foobar can't something play then there's a real problem with the media.
I guess your car audio can't play these excerpts either.
qaac says "ERROR: Not available input file format"

Did U make the excerpts by just hard cutting the teack at 200k size? This may damage the index data making the track unparsable.
 

Car stereo plays M4As, but not purchased iTunes tracks

Reply #12 –
Well, sure, that's only the first 200 KB of the files. I cannot upload complete tracks here.  I thought somebody might find some issues in the tag or something that might cause the problem.