Skip to main content ↑ ↓

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.
Topic: New free aacPlus playback plug-in for Windows Media Player (Read 40228 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

New free aacPlus playback plug-in for Windows Media Player

There is a new free plug-in for playing AAC and aacPlus files from within Windows Media Player. This is put out by Orban and Coding Technolgies. The aacPlus plug-in is still in beta, but should work with playing all your streaming aacPlus Internet streams in WMP 10.

http://www.orban.com/plugin/

Quote from their website about this plug-in:

"The Orban/Coding Technologies AAC/aacPlus™ Plugin is a free, full-featured software plug-in for Microsoft Windows Media Player. It is capable of playing AAC/aacPlus™/HE-AAC/eAAC+ audio files and streams in several standards-based, non-proprietary formats using the genuine Coding Technologies decoder. This is the good stuff from the company who invented the SBR technology to make AAC into aacPlus™. High quality, bandwidth-efficient audio is now a reality for Windows Media Player."

and

"Real-time file and stream information such as stream name, description, artist, title, and file media graphics are displayed in the video window of the media player. This information is rendered locally on the client computer, eliminating the need to include video in the file or stream. This real-time information can also be used in custom embedded and HTML view Windows Media Players. The best audio quality is finally available to the most versatile media player."

I am so glad to see a WMP 10 plug-in so every PC user can now play back aacPlus files and radio streams. This is a great addition and alternative to WinAmp for playback of aacPlus files.

This aacPlus plug-in is in addition to Spacial Audio who makes Internet broadcasting and DJ software, that is soon to release a new version (beta is out now) of their popular SAM Broadcaster 4 and other fine products to support the aacPlus audio format:

http://www.spacialaudio.com/products/aacPlus/index.html

Looks like both the aacPlus file format and Internet radio stations supporting aacPlus are going to have more potential listeners being able to playback their files/streams. This is good news.

New free aacPlus playback plug-in for Windows Media Player

Reply #1 –
Beware of this Orban plug-in for Windows Media 10.  It will only allow you to play streams that have been encoded by thier software, and then displayed on thier own directory "Tuner2". 

Streams from Shoutcast or any other aacPlus directory will not play....and crashed WM10 on my XP system.

New free aacPlus playback plug-in for Windows Media Player

Reply #2 –
This is completely NOT true. The plugin will play ANY AAC/aacPlus compliant HTTP/ICY or RTSP/RTP stream, or ANY .aac, .mp4, .m4a (unprotected Apple iTunes), and .3gp AAC/aacPlus file. It will even play RTSP/RTP AAC streams encoded with Apple QuickTime Broadcaster, which not even RealPlayer can play.

Also, the plugin works with Microsoft Windows Media Player versions 6.4 - 10.

If you attempt to play a SHOUTcast or Icecast2 MP3 stream, the plugin will fail to play, since that is obviously not an AAC/aacPlus bitstream. There have been known MP3 streams labeled as aacPlus showing up on Tuner2 by accident. We are working to resolve this issue.

Not all of the streams listed on Tuner2 are encoded with Orban Opticodec-PC. The encoder type is not included in HTTP/ICY streams, so there is no way to discriminate streams even if desired by design. The idea of this plugin is to allow standards-based technology to get wide acceptance and use for all, by making available higher audio quality at lower bitrates. 

Please get your facts correct before posting.

Enjoy the plugin.
We are interested in constructive accurate feedback.
An e-mail address is provided at: http://www.orban.com/plugin
Please read the included Read_Me file for detailed information about the plugin.

-greg.
Orban


Quote from: nite on
Beware of this Orban plug-in for Windows Media 10.  It will only allow you to play streams that have been encoded by thier software, and then displayed on thier own directory "Tuner2". 

Streams from Shoutcast or any other aacPlus directory will not play....and crashed WM10 on my XP system.

New free aacPlus playback plug-in for Windows Media Player

Reply #3 –
Hmmmmm, good news, I get quite a few people asking me howthey can play AAC+ streams in WMP. I've checked a few streams, and some of them don't work. For instance ETN.fm's (here), or DI.fm's (here).

Also on your homepage (http://www.orban.com/plugin/) how did you get WMP to display the stream info? I'm not a big user but I'd like to know how u did it.

New free aacPlus playback plug-in for Windows Media Player

Reply #4 –
a bit offtopic:
Quote
Files encoded with Opticodec-PC can be experienced through RealPlayer® 10, QuickTime 6.5, or Winamp 5.08 as well as Apple iTunes and iPods® and all other AAC/aacPlus-enabled 3GPP cellular devices. Opticodec-PC FE is ideal for podcasters and can even encode ringtones, which are now an important new source of revenue for production houses.


qt and itunes support he-aac since when? 


hmm, this is interesting http://www.orban.com/products/streaming/op...ec-pc1010/cost/ 
PANIC: CPU 1: Cache Error (unrecoverable - dcache data) Eframe = 0x90000000208cf3b8
NOTICE - cpu 0 didn't dump TLB, may be hung

New free aacPlus playback plug-in for Windows Media Player

Reply #5 –
Please note the Orban/Coding Technologies AAC/aacPlus Plugin does not support .m3u or .pls URLs.
This is by design so that we don't create yet another conflict for users to complain about.
You must use the direct stream URL or an .asx file with the proper syntax.

Please read the Detailed Information about the Plugin here:
http://www.orban.com/plugin/Read_Me.html

Understanding how the Plugin works will save you lots of time and possible frustration. Getting all of this to work inside Microsoft Windows Media Player without breaking anything or creating additional conflicts is a bit tricky, as you might imagine.

We have created new UILs, icyx://, rtpx://, and htpx://, since http:// and rtsp:// are already claimed by Windows Media Player. These are used as Operating System redirectors. The UIL never appears as a network stream request. But in order to open a stream directly in Windows Media Player using the Plugin, you must substitute http:// with icyx://, and rtsp:// with rtpx://, and http:// with htpx:// for tunneled rtsp:// streams. This is all covered in more detail in the Read_Me.

Rather than using the traditional .m3u or .pls which are really for MP3 streams, a Windows Media Player .asx file should be used. This way sites can have a link for Winamp and Windows Media Player and they can coexist on the same computer, provided the computer has its file extensions in order. The .asx files have the added bonus of many other added features for displaying other information in the player, as well as the ability to run the player in different modes. The different modes of Windows Media Player can turn into yet another career, but references for that are also included in the infamous Read_Me file.

Streaming websites are already showing up with .asx files for the Plugin.
http://www.somafm.com

The stream and file info is locally rendered to a video frame and displayed in Windows Media Player as video.

BTW, here are the direct URLs to the streams you mentioned. They play just fine using the Plugin:
DI    icyx://69.60.112.49:7050
ETN  icyx://toronto.etn.fm:8400

Hope all of this helps.
-greg.
ORBAN



Quote from: senab on
Hmmmmm, good news, I get quite a few people asking me howthey can play AAC+ streams in WMP. I've checked a few streams, and some of them don't work. For instance ETN.fm's (here), or DI.fm's (here).

Also on your homepage (http://www.orban.com/plugin/) how did you get WMP to display the stream info? I'm not a big user but I'd like to know how u did it.



Unfortunately QT and iTunes still do not support aacPlus or HE-AAC. However, the Orban Opticodec-PC line of encoders and decoders supports both AAC and aacPlus. What the quote below actually means, is that one way or another, Opticodec-PC encoders can produce either AAC or aacPlus files that are fully compatible with QT or iTunes. aacPlus files will play in QT, iTunes, and, iPods, just with lower high frequency response because of the lack of SBR.

Hopefully, Apple gets with the program sometime soon. I would think with their 3GPP involvement alone, they would understand the importance of this. There are now more than 100 mobile phone models with aacPlus available in the world, and counting...

-greg.
ORBAN


Quote from: smok3 on
a bit offtopic:
Quote
Files encoded with Opticodec-PC can be experienced through RealPlayer® 10, QuickTime 6.5, or Winamp 5.08 as well as Apple iTunes and iPods® and all other AAC/aacPlus-enabled 3GPP cellular devices. Opticodec-PC FE is ideal for podcasters and can even encode ringtones, which are now an important new source of revenue for production houses.


qt and itunes support he-aac since when? 


hmm, this is interesting http://www.orban.com/products/streaming/op...ec-pc1010/cost/ 

New free aacPlus playback plug-in for Windows Media Player

Reply #6 –
Greg:
- Do you plan to support video also in the future? (streaming h264 in mp4 is what i have in mind)
- also is there any mp4 p2p type of video straming in existance?
- About the page: it is full of of misleading info, maybe you should fix that if you wanna sell stuff to some broadcasters? (And i dont want to sound harsh or anything negative like that.)
PANIC: CPU 1: Cache Error (unrecoverable - dcache data) Eframe = 0x90000000208cf3b8
NOTICE - cpu 0 didn't dump TLB, may be hung

New free aacPlus playback plug-in for Windows Media Player

Reply #7 –
Yes, we do plan to support video in the near future. This will be done in two steps. First MPEG-4 Part 2 for audio stream information on 3GPP mobile phones, and then MPEG-4 Part2 and Part 10 H.264/AVC for full motion video on RTSP/RTP streams.

The only MPEG-4 video encoders I am aware of are Apple QuickTime Broadcaster, which is Macintosh only, and Vara Software Wirecast, which uses QuickTime Components. There may be some open source projects, but those are usually incomplete solutions. There are also some expensive 3GPP streaming solutions available, but most of those have limited resolutions.

Please let me know what you find misleading about the information on our webpages. Please also include which pages you think have problems. The intent here is not to be misleading, but as you know, there are lots of details which can be very confusing. Anything we can do to make this information clearer is in everyone's best interest.

If you want to take any correspondence off-line, I can be e-mailed directly at gregatorbancom.

Thanks.
-greg.
ORBAN


Quote from: smok3 on
Greg:
- Do you plan to support video also in the future? (streaming h264 in mp4 is what i have in mind)
- also is there any mp4 p2p type of video straming in existance?
- About the page: it is full of of misleading info, maybe you should fix that if you wanna sell stuff to some broadcasters? (And i dont want to sound harsh or anything negative like that.)

New free aacPlus playback plug-in for Windows Media Player

Reply #8 –
x264 is incomplete? What's incomplete about it? (really, I don't know)

New free aacPlus playback plug-in for Windows Media Player

Reply #9 –
Quote from: Firon on
x264 is incomplete? What's incomplete about it? (really, I don't know)

and where i can see (your) live stream which is being encoded with x264?

pls dont reply if you have no idea whats being talked about

New free aacPlus playback plug-in for Windows Media Player

Reply #10 –
No need to be rude, it was a legitimate question.

New free aacPlus playback plug-in for Windows Media Player

Reply #11 –
sorry, but your question was out of context, x264 is H.264 encoding library (with CLI and VfW encdoers), while Greg meant complete tools for capture/encoding/transmission

New free aacPlus playback plug-in for Windows Media Player

Reply #12 –
Following my earlier warning -- regarding the problem I had with the ORBAN plug-in, I am pleased to say I am now very pleased with the results.

I appreciate getting the additional information regarding by which means Windows Media Player recognises these aacPlus streams.  The player will crash "only" if the stream has the wrong type of syntax  ie: http rather than icyx.

Thanks to Greg for clearing this up, and congrats to all that have brought this new development to a much wider audience.  I sincerely regret scaring anyone away from giving this a try.  It really seems to do a very good job and I look forward to promoting it.


Great work Orban/CT

New free aacPlus playback plug-in for Windows Media Player

Reply #13 –
I've always used foobar2000 for the majority of my audio needs, and since 0.9.1 pretty much for everything these days despite the fact that a few of my favorite plugins still haven't been ported yet. However I really like this new plugin from Orban, which I installed this morning to try out ever since reading about the troubles other folks were having at a favorite online radio station of mine that finally added aacPlus as one of their options. Works fantastic with my installation of WMP10, and actually might become my preferred method for listening to this station, mainly because I can see the album cover and extra album related info, something I don't get with foobar2000. You have my thanks, and hopefully this will push other stations that have been on the fence to finally switch over to aacPlus. FWIW, my Windows XP Pro SP2 install is actually built on the update pack available from the RyanVM site, including the WMP10 addon available there. I find this to be a huge time saver when doing a fresh install, and recommend it to anyone who frequently formats their system. I do it at least twice a year just to keep things clean and tidy, sometimes more often if I've installed/uninstalled a lot of junk. Actually, I just recently did a fresh install a little over a month ago because I was overdue, and I keep the important things up to date through the automatic updates feature in XP. I suppose this could be one reason why I haven't encountered any trouble with this plugin yet. Don't know if my experiences will help anyone, but there is my setup in a nutshell.

New free aacPlus playback plug-in for Windows Media Player

Reply #14 –
Quote from: Greg on
Enjoy the plugin.
We are interested in constructive accurate feedback.
An e-mail address is provided at: http://www.orban.com/plugin
Please read the included Read_Me file for detailed information about the plugin.

-greg.
Orban


Hi Greg,

Glad to see that Orban is finally able to make use of the wonderful community resource we provide here at HA, which allows, for instance, honest companies to come in and get feedback on their products.

But does this mean that you guys don't plan to fill up my voice-mail with pseudo-legal threats while I'm in classes, and send me threatening letters at home anymore?  Just wondering...

Oh, and by the way, I guess that it must be OK for us to talk about Orban products again.  I got the impression for a moment that we were supposed to remove all discussion of anything related to you guys.  It's a bit of a relief to see otherwise.

At any rate, here's hoping the best for your product and feedback.

Sincerely,
Darin

New free aacPlus playback plug-in for Windows Media Player

Reply #15 –
How are you trying to play streams published on the SHOUTcast website?
The URLs on SHOUTcast.com are .pls URLs and are NOT supported by the Windows Media Player Plugin by design.
The Plugin supports .asx URLs or direct stream entries with the special UILs documented in the READ_Me.
It is necessary to know the direct stream URL.

The Plugin WILL play the AAC/aacPlus streams on the SHOUTcast website, but you must enter the URL directly using the following syntax:

If a stream URL is normally:
http://123.45.67.8:8000

Then you will enter in File > Open URL:
icyx://123.45.67.8:8000

This URL WILL NOT WORK for example:
icyx://123.45.67.8/stream.pls

If there is an .asx file associated with the stream (as many sites have already started to offer - and the syntax is covered in the Read_Me), then this WILL WORK.
http://123.45.67.8/stream.asx


This is all by design so that Winamp and the Windows Media Player Plugin can coexist on the same computer.

So far, every stream that anyone has submitted to me to test, has played here in our lab with no problem.
PLEASE - I urge you to read the Read_Me so that you understand how this works.
http://www.orban.com/plugin/Read_Me.html
Getting Windows Media Player to play something it was never intended to do is tricky business, but you need to understand what makes it tick. Once you understand the details, I think you will find it very convenient.

If you are still experiencing crashes for other reasons than above, then I suggest you check your system for DirectShow component conflicts. You can do this using GraphEdit, available from Microsoft or other places on the Internet. If an incompatible or non-compliant DirectShow component is included in the built Plugin graph, your results may be very unpredicable. We can't possibly test using all the available DirectShow components out in the world. But I do know for a fact, that many of them are non-compliant, or do not support all the necessary sample-rates to be used with the Windows Media Player Plugin.

-greg.
ORBAN


Quote from: nite on
I still find that this plug-in crashes Windows Media Player on aacPlus streams posted by Shoutcast... and that is a FACT.    Whether these streams are compliant or not....WMP is crashing badly.

New free aacPlus playback plug-in for Windows Media Player

Reply #16 –
Hi Darin-

I have registered here a few years ago, and have been waiting until we actually had something complete to contribute here. I know the free stuff always gets everyone's attention. 

We of course have the industrial strength streaming and file encoding software, Opticodec-PC, as well as broadcast processing for netcasting, Optimod-PC.

You guys are more than welcome to talk about us here, and I wish you would; even behind my back, just be nice, please.  We are a fairly small company with several of us having professional broadcast technical backgrounds. Please don't get the idea we are a bunch of "suits." More hit music, news, and information has been exposed to the world through Orban Optimod signal processors than any other processor available. I can't vouch for the ones that are turned up to "11" and abused.
We do need to abide by our sofware and codec license agreements. We are not in this alone, so please understand that it is necessary to keep everyone legal and happy.

What's the deal about the voice-mail and letters? I'm not sure I even know or remember this?

BTW: Are you the Darin that wrote some software for accessing audio files on Dalet playout systems? If you are, you might also remember me from KBIG Radio - Los Angeles several years ago?


Thanks for saying hi.
Talk to you soon.
Regards,
-greg.
ORBAN



Quote from: Dibrom on
Quote from: Greg on

Enjoy the plugin.
We are interested in constructive accurate feedback.
An e-mail address is provided at: http://www.orban.com/plugin
Please read the included Read_Me file for detailed information about the plugin.

-greg.
Orban


Hi Greg,

Glad to see that Orban is finally able to make use of the wonderful community resource we provide here at HA, which allows, for instance, honest companies to come in and get feedback on their products.

But does this mean that you guys don't plan to fill up my voice-mail with pseudo-legal threats while I'm in classes, and send me threatening letters at home anymore?  Just wondering...

Oh, and by the way, I guess that it must be OK for us to talk about Orban products again.  I got the impression for a moment that we were supposed to remove all discussion of anything related to you guys.  It's a bit of a relief to see otherwise.

At any rate, here's hoping the best for your product and feedback.

Sincerely,
Darin

New free aacPlus playback plug-in for Windows Media Player

Reply #18 –
Quote from: Greg on
We are a fairly small company with several of us having professional broadcast technical backgrounds. Please don't get the idea we are a bunch of "suits." More hit music, news, and information has been exposed to the world through Orban Optimod signal processors than any other processor available.


I can vouch for that, as a broadcast engineer. Probably most of the radio stations you've ever heard in your life were processed by one of the Orban processors and most TV stations as well... And along the way Orban made several quantum leaps in audio processing engineering, always making broadcast audio louder, cleaner, more consistent, artifact free and more exciting as well.

In that regard, Optimod-PC processing card is a sum of their 30 years experience in audio dynamics processing and I would recommend it to everyone who wants to have a web stream that sounds - well, as good as your favorite radio station  Consistent in loudness and level, with automatic dynamic equalization meaning all your songs will have that nice, punchy bass and as much high-end as you set it, plus you can tailor your audio to better complement streaming codec (IOW, reduce artifacts)...

Well, I'm obviously a fan of dynamics processing so I better stop here before I get too much off topic! 


Regards,
Goran Tomas

New free aacPlus playback plug-in for Windows Media Player

Reply #19 –
Quote from: Goran Tomas on
you can tailor your audio to better complement streaming codec (IOW, reduce artifacts)...


I wonder how that is supposed to work.

New free aacPlus playback plug-in for Windows Media Player

Reply #20 –
hehe, i wonder if 'my station' is the only one using stuff like RG at the moment? 

bit offtopic, more and more music videos that we get need -18 dB or even more....
PANIC: CPU 1: Cache Error (unrecoverable - dcache data) Eframe = 0x90000000208cf3b8
NOTICE - cpu 0 didn't dump TLB, may be hung

New free aacPlus playback plug-in for Windows Media Player

Reply #21 –
Quote from: Garf on
I wonder how that is supposed to work.


Well, multiband dynamics processing provides automatic equalization. That means all your program material will have roughly the same frequency balance and so you can set whatever frequency balance works best for your codec. We all know that codecs have most problems with high-end. Some work better when there is a lot of high-end density present as it masks the artifacts. Others exhibit even more artifacts if there is lots of high-end energy. By processing audio with something like Optimod-PC 1100, you can have predictable output which you can tune to minimize codec artifacts.

There's also an adjustable low-pass filter available which you can use to set the high-end cut off frequency. Particularly at lower bit rates, codecs exhibit less artifacts if audio is band limited (lower than what the codecs does internally).

Additionally codecs genrally work better if audio is high in level than low and dynamics processing produces a very constant audio level...

Orban announced the new Orban 6300 processor (for HD radio, DAB, streaming, etc) to be available in autumn. It will feature a PreCode technology that will also work to minimize the artifacts. I don't know the specifics on how it works, but maybe Greg can shed some light. HD radio uses a codec very similar to aacPlus (also uses SBR).

Other processing manufacturers are doing similar things. Omnia has an Omnia Multicast processor (also for HD radio) that uses Sensus technology, which should do the same. And also Neural with their NeuStar codec conditioner...


Regards,
Goran Tomas

New free aacPlus playback plug-in for Windows Media Player

Reply #22 –
Quote from: smok3 on
hehe, i wonder if 'my station' is the only one using stuff like RG at the moment? 


If by RG you mean Replay Gain, yes that's very useful stuff! It certainly helps to have all audio RMS normalized.

But it's no substitute for what a dynamics processor can do! Dynamics processors have several stages, the first one being slow AGC or leveller. That stage "rides gain" and deals with varying input levels in a manner somewhat similar to what RMS normalization does. But there are subsequent stages that bring much more to the table!

It will certainly help to have audio RMS normalized on cut-to-cut basis. Whether you're using processing or not, it's a good practice. Provided the process does not employ limiting for peaks that would otherwise clip. If it does, you should be careful on the type and quality of limiting performed.

Optimod-PC 1100 actually has a preset for dubbing audio to PC, which can be used for real-time RMS normalization. It uses powerful, high-quality look-ahead limiter for peak control, so you can be sure you won't cripple your audio with crude limiting or God forbid - plain clipping 


Regards,
Goran Tomas

New free aacPlus playback plug-in for Windows Media Player

Reply #23 –
Quote from: Greg on
Also, the plugin works with Microsoft Windows Media Player versions 6.4 - 10.

Will this plugin work in the soon to be upcoming Windows Media Player 11 for XP (beta of which is rumoured to be released to the public on May 19th)?

Knowing you guys have tested the plugin with WMP 11 for Vista and XP would make me sleep better at night, as I understand from people who have tested it that The Ogg Vorbis/FLAC directshow filter from http://www.illiminable.com/ogg/ crashes under WMP 11. Did Microsoft keep the plugin APIs or change everything around for WMP 11?

Thanks.

New free aacPlus playback plug-in for Windows Media Player

Reply #24 –
What about plugins for WinMobile Smartphones?
I'm asking in part because I saw one blog Technorati-tagged with HE-AAC (very rare!) describing enthusiam on playing HE-AAC on a brand-new Sprint cellie.  When I offered a heads-up on the new Nero encoder, he said he chooses to create files in version 1 HE-AAC (using foobar2000!).
Since he evidently didn't like outsiders meddling with his ears, I daren't discuss it further there.  But, is there any possible benefit in using older HE-AAC versions in the newest phones?