Sincere apologies if this has been asked & answered a million times; I did search and came up empty.
I have a few AACs I encoded with dbpoweramp/Nero's extreme setting to AAC, and my 3G iPod doesn't seem to like them. They play occassionally, but usually the iPod just skips them. Every now and then I can force it by hitting pause as soon as the song comes up, forwarding a few seconds into the song, and then hitting play.
I suspect there's a simple & stupid answer to this, but I was under the impression that AAC is the iPod's preferred format, so it surprises me that these files don't work.
I use Winamp with ml_ipod plugin, so I don't know if iTunes can handle these files or not. Winamp tells me these files look like this: audio MPEG-4 AAC LC, 243 kbps, 44100 Hz
Any help would be appreciated, and again, sorry if this is an idiot newbie question.
nevermind
Both iTunes and RealPlayer 10.5 have 100% iPod-compatible AAC encoders.
So far I've had no problems playing files encoded with the latest Nero Reference AAC encoder on my iPod. Tags show up fine in both iTunes and on the iPod.
From what I've read and found in my own testing, everything is fine using this encoder and playing on the iPod as long as you don't use settings that produce SBR or PS-enabled files.
And the quality seems to be awesome.
If you haven't, update your firmware. Until the very last revision, AAC support on the 3G was HORRIBLE. I mean absolutely terrible. It would refuse to play certain AAC files for no reason, randomly skip or crash, etc. I couldn't believe Apple released the first two revisions of their AAC decoder for the 3G. They barely functioned.
The last update fixed most of the problems. It still skips maybe 1 in 100 (VBR) AAC songs, but thats worlds better then it was.
As far as skpping goes for VBR AAC files, Apple has long fixed this since the 4G iPod line. The 3G iPod series has some problems with VBR AAC's and some VBR mp3's (maybe 1 in 500 songs are affected). This has to do with the nature of VBR and the 3G's processor throttling techniques to save batter power. So, when the bitrate of a song drastically increased, the 3G iPod would introduce a slight pause in the track.
The 4G iPods don't do this with VBR AAC's but they still sometimes do it with VBR mp3's. 4G iPods include the older U2 edition and the iPod photo. The iPod mini's and iPod nano are also affected by the VBR mp3 playback problem but they are fine with VBR AAC's.
However, the 5G iPods are a totally different story. They playback VBR AAC's and VBR mp3's just fine without any skipping. The only problem that I have had with skipping is with VBR mpeg-4 (non-AVC) videos encoded at the 1.5Mbps bitrate. Some scenes of a video would spike up to 2.6Mbps which is a bitrate unsuported by the 5G iPod. This would cause a slight pause in the video. I imagine Apple will fix this problem with the 6G iPods.
You should try downloading iTunes and see if it plays the files. If iTunes plays them then your iPod will play them. You might want to think about throttling back on your bitrate setting though. The extreme setting will provide you with high bitrate VBR AAC's. The AAC format was formed in order to take advantage of newer technology so that a user could encode a song at a lower bitrate while still retaining the quality. Anyways, you might want to try a 192kbps VBR or 160kbps VBR setting instead of the highest VBR setting.
As far as skpping goes for VBR AAC files, Apple has long fixed this since the 4G iPod line. The 3G iPod series has some problems with VBR AAC's and some VBR mp3's (maybe 1 in 500 songs are affected). This has to do with the nature of VBR and the 3G's processor throttling techniques to save batter power. So, when the bitrate of a song drastically increased, the 3G iPod would introduce a slight pause in the track.
You're confusing a few different issues. Later ipods had the bitrate issue. The 3G, which is based on the older PP5002 processor never had that problem. The problem the 3G had was that it was the first player to get AAC support (along with the 1 and 2G), and Apple's first try at an AAC decoder crashed constantly. And by crash, I mean actually crash the decoder. There was no pause, the thing either locked hard, or simply stopped playing and returned to the menu. There was also a bug in the OS that prevented it from playing the first track in any album if it was a VBR AAC file. Again, there was no pause, it simply refused to acknowlege that a file had been selected. Apple fixed most of these problems 6 months later with a firmware update.
It did not have any issue with VBR MP3 files that I am aware of. I've listened to many thousands of them on the 3G and never observed it unless the files were damaged.
The VBR MP3 issue at high bitrates crops up on parts based on some revisions of the PP50xx processors. I don't know the details about it though since I never had one of those parts to test.
I have a 3G iPod and use iTunes encoded AACs quite a lot (much more than MP3). My experience has been universally good, with absolutely no problems to report in 2 years of very heavy use. I use AAC VBR settings at 128 and 160kbps, and some Apple Lossless.
I have encountered the issue of LAME MP3s being truncated by a few seconds, but that is all. Even this is very rare indeed.
I don't know if Nero's encoder has issues with these old iPods, but iTunes 6.0.4 works just fine thanks.
You're confusing a few different issues. Later ipods had the bitrate issue. The 3G, which is based on the older PP5002 processor never had that problem. The problem the 3G had was that it was the first player to get AAC support (along with the 1 and 2G), and Apple's first try at an AAC decoder crashed constantly. And by crash, I mean actually crash the decoder. There was no pause, the thing either locked hard, or simply stopped playing and returned to the menu. There was also a bug in the OS that prevented it from playing the first track in any album if it was a VBR AAC file. Again, there was no pause, it simply refused to acknowlege that a file had been selected. Apple fixed most of these problems 6 months later with a firmware update.
It did not have any issue with VBR MP3 files that I am aware of. I've listened to many thousands of them on the 3G and never observed it unless the files were damaged.
The VBR MP3 issue at high bitrates crops up on parts based on some revisions of the PP50xx processors. I don't know the details about it though since I never had one of those parts to test.
I have experienced the pausing issue with high bitrate AAC's encoded with FAAC. They were purchased from the iTunes music store and were in the non-standard 128kbps iTunes AAC format, they were encoded with FAAC at around the 300kbps VBR bitrate. My 3G paused with these songs anytime the song complexity would drastically change. I also experienced the crashing with the first song from that album (like you described). Apple did fix the crashing issue as you stated but I didn't update my 3G for quite some time. I also experienced the Lame mp3 VBR (encoded a preset standard and -V 2) skipping issue with my 3G and my 4G. My 3G always skipped when playing back Ozzy Osbourne - See You On The Other Side from his 2 disc greatest hits collection. Out of my then 3000 song collection, only a select few would skip. Over spring break, I listened to my entire audio collection through my 3G and 4 songs skipped so that wasn't too bad at all. My 4G iPod had the same problems with high bitrate Lame mp3's but with completely different songs. Out of my then 4000 song collection, my 4G would skip on 7 songs, still not bad ag all. My 4G was perfectly fine playing VBR AAC's.
People are still having issues with high bitrate Lame VBR files on their 4Gs, iPod photos, 4G iPod color, iPod U2 Edition (4G and 4G color), iPod mini (both 1G and 2G), and the iPod nano. I haven't heard of anyone having issues with their shuffles but who knows?
So there were other problems with VBR AAC playback on the 3G, it would pause on some songs and it would crash on other songs (mainly the first VBR AAC songs in a album). Apple did fix these issues with firmware updates.
However, the 5G shouldn't have any problems with VBR AAC's or VBR mp3's (encoded with Lame or other mp3 encoders).
I've been having a problem with 2 AAC files encoded with the Nero stand alone encoder, my 5G tries to play them, gives up then skips them. If I jump forward into the track a couple of seconds, the file will play all the way to the end correctly.
I've been having a problem with 2 AAC files encoded with the Nero stand alone encoder, my 5G tries to play them, gives up then skips them. If I jump forward into the track a couple of seconds, the file will play all the way to the end correctly.
What -q setting?
I've been having a problem with 2 AAC files encoded with the Nero stand alone encoder, my 5G tries to play them, gives up then skips them. If I jump forward into the track a couple of seconds, the file will play all the way to the end correctly.
What -q setting?
0.6
I have a 60 GB iPod Photo and tinkering around I discovered that...
Files with AAC extension couldn't be transfered to my iPod. I just renamed them M4A and MP4 and voila! I always use Nero's LC AAC Extreme.
I have a 60 GB iPod Photo and tinkering around I discovered that...
Files with AAC extension couldn't be transfered to my iPod. I just renamed them M4A and MP4 and voila! I always use Nero's LC AAC Extreme.
.AAC usually means a raw AAC stream, which is not supported on the Ipod. If your ipod plays your .AAC files, they're probably MP4/M4A files that were misnamed.
Oops! My bad. I misunderstood the question apparently.