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: QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc. (Read 678992 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic.

QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #975
I tested qaac on XP SP3. 2.51 works with flac files, 2.54 doesn't work. But --check shows that qaac 2.54 is able to find and load libflac.dll.
Another problem with _fstat64() or fileno()?

QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #976
It turned out that stat() family of UniversalCRT calls GetFileInformationByHandleEx() API that wasn't present in XP.

QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #977
The issue has been fixed with v2.55, it's now working as expected. Thanks for the update

QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #978
I use Qaac to encode my music for use on my portable device. I do not install Itunes but I use makeportable to extract the QTfiles. When testing the new Itunes QTfiles I discovered that one particular music track is not always encoded correctly.
When I encode this pcm wav 44.100 16bit stereo track multiple times then the resulting m4a's are not bit identical to each other.

I have encoded the test.wav as follow:

qaac 2.55 (x86)
CoreAudioToolbox 7.10.5.0 (iTunes6464Setup.exe 12.3.1.23)
qaac test.wav --cvbr 96 -o test 1.m4a
qaac test.wav --cvbr 96 -o test 2.m4a
qaac test.wav --cvbr 96 -o test 3.m4a
qaac test.wav --cvbr 96 -o test 4.m4a
qaac test.wav --cvbr 96 -o test 5.m4a
qaac test.wav --cvbr 96 -o test 6.m4a

I used foobar 1.3.8 to Bit compare the m4a's

result bit compare:
test 1.m4a = test 2.m4a = test 3.m4a = test 5.m4a
test 1.m4a and test 4.m4a => Differences found: 4096 values, starting at 0:34.410522, peak: 0.0037362 at 0:34.430862, 2ch
test 1.m4a and test 6.m4a => Differences found: 4096 values, starting at 0:34.410522, peak: 0.0037362 at 0:34.430862, 2ch

I also encoded this wav multiple time with Qaac64. The m4a's encoded with Qaac64 do not have this difference, all m4a's are identical to each other.

QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #979
I have encoded the test.wav as follow:

qaac 2.55 (x86)
CoreAudioToolbox 7.10.5.0 (iTunes6464Setup.exe 12.3.1.23)
qaac test.wav --cvbr 96 -o test 1.m4a
qaac test.wav --cvbr 96 -o test 2.m4a
qaac test.wav --cvbr 96 -o test 3.m4a
qaac test.wav --cvbr 96 -o test 4.m4a
qaac test.wav --cvbr 96 -o test 5.m4a
qaac test.wav --cvbr 96 -o test 6.m4a

Download the test.wav (encoded as flac) and the m4a's at https://sprend.com/download.htm?C=afc9ea276...250300233d90154

QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #980
Unable to download the file:
Quote
File was downloaded 2015-10-23 3:26 and has been permanently removed from Sprend.

Our terms for Sprend Free state that the file is removed 2 hours after a successful download.

If you need the file you have to contact the person who sent you the file via Sprend.
Sprend does not have any more information about the file or the sender.

QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #981
Unable to download the file:
File was downloaded 2015-10-23 3:26 and has been permanently removed from Sprend.


Hello nu774,

I have send you a PM with a new link to download the test.wav

 

QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #982
Hello nu774,

I have send you a PM with a new link to download the test.wav

Thanks. Tried with the same setting 50 times, and I got all identical files. However, they were different than yours.
Total size of AAC bitstream of mine: 537889 bytes
Yours (1-3,5): 537887 bytes
Yours (4, 6): 537895 bytes

Difference between yours and mine might come from difference of CPU in use.
I don't know why it is non-deterministic in your case since I don't know what Apple does in their encoder.
Anyway, difference looks so tiny that I don't think the result is incorrect.

QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #983
Difference between yours and mine might come from difference of CPU in use.
I don't know why it is non-deterministic in your case since I don't know what Apple does in their encoder.
Anyway, difference looks so tiny that I don't think the result is incorrect.


Thank you for answering my question.
I think I will use Qaac 64bit for the meantime. So far I found no difference after encoding with Qaac64.

QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #984
Hello, first off, I apologize if this has been asked before. If it's been answered, I ask if anybody could point me to it.

I am trying to convert/encode my audio files to iTunes Plus quality and format, so I did a test comparison between an .m4a file converted using the latest version of iTunes (12.3.1.23) and qaac 2.55, and I couldn't get them to match up. (I'm pretty much just re-encoding .m4a to .m4a, since iTunes won't be able to convert .FLAC files.)

My goal is to convert .FLAC files into iTunes Plus .m4a using Apple's encoder, so I'm using qaac. So my question is, what is causing this discrepancy between the one converted using iTunes and one using qaac and how can it be resolved?

Here are some screenshots of their properties: (File properties were viewed with dBpoweramp)

[!--sizeo:3--][span style=\"font-size:12pt;line-height:100%\"][!--/sizeo--]iTunes12.3.1.23:[/size]
It gives out a file with a slightly lower bitrate but dBpoweramp says the "audio quality" is very high. (Whatever iTunes output is the one I prefer)
Encode settings:

Output:


[!--sizeo:3--][span style=\"font-size:12pt;line-height:100%\"][!--/sizeo--]qaac 2.55:[/size]
It gives out a file with a slightly higher bitrate but dBpoweramp says the "audio quality" is low.
Encode settings:
Code: [Select]
qaac64 --no-smart-padding -v256 -q2 *.m4a
Output:


Additional info:
Qaac outputs a similar file when I convert .FLAC to .m4a.
I've also tried using dBpoweramp with qaac(through it's command-line encoder option) but the results are the same.

QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #985
Hello, first off, I apologize if this has been asked before. If it's been answered, I ask if anybody could point me to it.

I am trying to convert/encode my audio files to iTunes Plus quality and format, so I did a test comparison between an .m4a file converted using the latest version of iTunes (12.3.1.23) and qaac 2.55, and I couldn't get them to match up. (I'm pretty much just re-encoding .m4a to .m4a, since iTunes won't be able to convert .FLAC files.)

My goal is to convert .FLAC files into iTunes Plus .m4a using Apple's encoder, so I'm using qaac. So my question is, what is causing this discrepancy between the one converted using iTunes and one using qaac and how can it be resolved?

Here are some screenshots of their properties: (File properties were viewed with dBpoweramp)

[!--sizeo:3--][span style=\"font-size:12pt;line-height:100%\"][!--/sizeo--]iTunes12.3.1.23:[/size]
It gives out a file with a slightly lower bitrate but dBpoweramp says the "audio quality" is very high. (Whatever iTunes output is the one I prefer)
Encode settings:

Output:


[!--sizeo:3--][span style=\"font-size:12pt;line-height:100%\"][!--/sizeo--]qaac 2.55:[/size]
It gives out a file with a slightly higher bitrate but dBpoweramp says the "audio quality" is low.
Encode settings:
Code: [Select]
qaac64 --no-smart-padding -v256 -q2 *.m4a
Output:


Additional info:
Qaac outputs a similar file when I convert .FLAC to .m4a.
I've also tried using dBpoweramp with qaac(through it's command-line encoder option) but the results are the same.

I would say the audio quality is highlighted as low because dbpoweramp loses iTunes id tag info when encoding using qaac as you can see nothing is showing up under bit rate on audio properties. As for file size differences im not sure.

QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #986
So my question is, what is causing this discrepancy between the one converted using iTunes and one using qaac and how can it be resolved?

Difference in file size is insignificant, since that can come from difference of container. Use Binary Comparator of fb2k or something for comparing audio signal.

As for blank bit rate property, see posts from https://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php...st&p=902359 .
I guess "Audio Quality" portion is judged from bit rate, so is derived from the same issue.

QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #987
As for blank bit rate property, see posts from https://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php...st&p=902359 .
I guess "Audio Quality" portion is judged from bit rate, so is derived from the same issue.


Thanks for pointing me to the right direction, at least I've got an answer now. It seems that it won't be resolved because it's not broken, and it's not an issue with qaac. Anyway, since that "0 average bitrate" will bother me when looking at audio properties, I'll settle with encoding .FLAC into ALAC instead with dBpoweramp, and if necessary further re-encode it into lossy .m4a (with iTunes).

QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #988
I'm trying to encode 24/48 FLAC with it's cue file as input file with plain QAAC command line. But always end with this error: "ERROR: cuesheet: Invalid INDEX time format at line 33". Foobar2000 with QAAC doesnt' have this problem.

Here's the track content at line 33:

Code: [Select]
  TRACK 07 AUDIO
    TITLE "Loving Sea"
    PERFORMER "Steve Hackett"
    INDEX 01 36:18:80

QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #989
INDEX 01 36:18:80

The format of cuesheet index position is mm:ss:ff(minutes-seconds-frames), where frame is 1/75 second. Apparently, 80 is out of valid range (00-74).


QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #991
Is that mean, when using QAAC, Foobar2000 can tolerate that invalid range of frames?

Maybe fb2k treats 36:18:80 as 36:19:05. It has nothing to do with qaac or whatever encoder you run from fb2k.

QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #992
anybody knows the switches for qaac to produce output in the following folder/name structure:

artist/album/track - title.m4a ?

I tried everything but i am probably missing something....


Thanks in advance

QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #993
No, qaac doesn't automatically create folders for you.
If you try --fname-format="${artist}/${album}/${track} - ${title}", this expression will be evaluated to something like "Coralie Clément_Bye Bye Beauté_03 - L'Enfer". So, All invalid characters for a file name (including slashes/back slashes) are replaced into underscores.
Slashes in a title is quite common, and you usually don't want them treated as path separators.

QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #994
No, qaac doesn't automatically create folders for you.
If you try --fname-format="${artist}/${album}/${track} - ${title}", this expression will be evaluated to something like "Coralie Clément_Bye Bye Beauté_03 - L'Enfer". So, All invalid characters for a file name (including slashes/back slashes) are replaced into underscores.
Slashes in a title is quite common, and you usually don't want them treated as path separators.




So that's why it didint work


Thanks...

QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #995
Code: [Select]
qaac64.exe --tag "gen:J-Pop" --tag "geID:27" -o output.m4a input.wav

From the above code qaac just want to save "gen" tag,  but do not want to save "geID" tag.
Why?

QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #996
Code: [Select]
qaac64.exe --tag "gen:J-Pop" --tag "geID:27" -o output.m4a input.wav

From the above code qaac just want to save "gen" tag,  but do not want to save "geID" tag.
Why?

Thanks for the report. Was ignored due to a typo, and fixed in 2.56.

QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #997
Glad, could help and fast too.

Other thing, can you make qaac get "comment" tag read from a file (UTF8 Without BOM), so I can insert non english comment.

QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #998
Is it possible for "--gapless-mode 2" (qaac 2.55) to actually cause small gaps during playback on an iPod Classic?

I was listening to a live album today that I encoded using that option, and noticed some tiny gaps that are not in the source.

QAAC: discussion, questions, feature requests, etc.

Reply #999
Is it possible for "--gapless-mode 2" (qaac 2.55) to actually cause small gaps during playback on an iPod Classic?

I was listening to a live album today that I encoded using that option, and noticed some tiny gaps that are not in the source.

Well.. Only thing an encoder can do is to write some metadata describing amount of gaps.
Basically, gapless playback is a player side task. It's impossble for an encoder to make a player play gaplessly when the player doesn't properly support gapless playback.

Having said that, why do you use --gapless-mode 2 ? Have you tried the default ?