FLAC ALAC M4A madness!

[MrSinatra]

I am wanting to transcode my FLACs to ALAC, so they are viable in mac/istuff. I want my tags to be intact via the process as well. I have no idea how to do this.

in the below thread from posts 75 to 82 it is discussed, but I didn't want to keep pulling that thread off topic and I thought it deserved its own thread:

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=347029&page=2

so my confusion is:

1. do I need winamp essentials or not?
1a. if I need it, what bit of it do I need as I don't want to install all of it?
1b. if I need it or not, what changes to plugin filetypes exts in prefs do I need to make?
2. do I need the files to have the m4a extension, in order to preserve tags, (including the flac ratings which can go in the %rate% atom using the same 0-100 scale)?
3. how do I actually transcode from flac to alac so it gets the proper extension and retains all the tags?

this is probably simpler than it appears, but I have basically no exp with alac, m4a, or transcoding within winamp.

reference:

http://www.winamp.com/plugin/winamp-...k-v5-58/150126
http://forums.winamp.com/showthread....ials#essential
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alac
http://alac.macosforge.org/

[DJ Egg]

There's no ALAC encoder for Winamp, just a decoder (currently only included in the Essentials Pack, and the Winamp Beta builds).

[MrSinatra]

ugh, oh. ok, Egg, thx for the heads up.

so I guess my orig request to TT stands, since I want a plugin to both decode AND encode ALAC, as well as transcode whatever to ALAC.

[thinktink]

Decoding and encoding are functions generated in separate plugins. And at that, encoding plugins don't have a mechanism for altering/including metadata, that's a task under the input plugins. So even if I were to make an encoder, you'd still need the input plugin to transfer the metadata over.

[MrSinatra]

ok, all this is way over my head. but here's what I see, and tell me where i'm going wrong...

apparently, right now, winamp can handle decoding alac if it's in a m4a container. based on the posts in your opus thread, its not clear to me if you actually need something out of winamp essentials or not to do that, but either way, it seems it can be done.

that suggests to me that the decoding part is done, and the tag handling could be handled by winamps built-in m4a/mp4 ability. is this correct? or am I way off base?

if true, that would suggest to me that only an encoder is needed, and the same m4a/mp4 tag handling could apply to that encoder, as it does the decoder. and it would apply to transcoding too. (is this not unlike the flac/vorbis paradigm winamp uses?)

surely, winamp must have figured out how to conquer the tower of babel when transcoding between formats yet keeping tags intact?

I would prefer a single plugin that could do it all, (apple lossless), separate from W.E. but i'll take whatever I can get. if some kind of Frankenstein monster of various existing pieces plus proposed pieces would work, that would be great.

EDIT:

maybe some help here?

http://superuser.com/questions/16289...lac-on-windows

[DJ Egg]

Yes, when alac.w5s is present then the Nullsoft MP4 Demuxer (in_mp4.dll) will see it and be able to decode/play any MP4/M4A files with ALAC audio content.

If the file extension is .alac, then ;ALAC will need to be added to the extension list in in_mp4 config,
and that's assuming it's just a renamed mp4 container
(I'm not sure if in_mp4 supports raw alac, maybe someone who's got some raw .alac files could confirm?)

As for encoding/transcoding, yes, a separate (currently non-existent) enc_alac plugin will be required.
As long as Nullsoft in_mp4.dll & alac.w5s are present, then everything concerning metadata should be ok...

Now that Apple has open sourced ALAC, we should probably think about at least getting native playback support into the Winamp distro.
I'm not sure about an encoder yet, but we shall see.....

(note, this isn't a concrete promise, the key words in the previous paragraph being "we should probably think about").

[kzuse]

Originally Posted by DJ Egg

(note, this isn't a concrete promise, the key words in the previous paragraph being "we should probably think about").

But a +1 from me to include alac.w5s in the official distro.

[MrSinatra]

thanks Egg,

and I hope winamp/TT will think about creating an ALAC encoder. this would be good for winamp, b/c there are a lot of people, like me, who want to be able to get their FLACs onto idevices.

afaik, converting (or transcoding on the fly during a xfer) from FLAC to ALAC is the only lossless (and tag-able) way to get FLACs into idevices or iTunes, short of inelegant and difficult hacks.

when you google about this, there's a lot of people seemingly looking for the ability, so it would serve as a way to bring those people to winamp.

btw, I don't have any ALAC files so I can't test anything, if anyone would like to post some raw ALAC and ALAC in a file with both m4a and mp4 exts, that would be great.

fyi, in the other thread, when they said "it works right out of the box?" and "sure" I think they meant "as long as the alac.w5s file is present" which they didn't directly say and led to my confusion. if I have that wrong, please correct me.

[kzuse]

Yes yes, when I asked that question whether .m4a with ALAC content would work "right out of the box", I assumed "when alac.w5s is present (thus, if Essentials Pack installed)". Sorry for the ambiguous question...

[MrSinatra]

its been reported that some plugins, like the media monkey one for idevices, will work when transplanted to winamp.

is it possible that a plugin or encoder for ALAC that may exist in MM or foobar or something else might also work in winamp? anyone have any exp doing this?

[MrSinatra]

just fyi:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/...owtopic=100473

i'd still like encoding native in winamp for alac tho, as it now is for playback.

[MrSinatra]

encode to ALAC direct with EAC:

http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index....e=EAC_and_ALAC

[MrSinatra]

hey ThinkTink,

just curious if you actually have any interest in creating a m4a lossless encoder (since winamp now natively decodes) as your opus seems fully fleshed out and u were asking about DSD? np if not, just thought i'd ask.

btw, cuetools has two lossless m4a encoding methods, one seems developed in house, and I think its open source maybe? (as is alac itself)

[stevecougar]

I feel like I just got ripped off.
I have used WinAmp for years on a PC with no problems.
Most of my music collection is in FLAC format and your advertisement says: "Supports FLAC Playback
(from Browse by Folders)"

I have NOT been able to play any of my FLAC files.
Everytime I try it KICKS ME OUT OF THE PROGRAM.
There is NO "Browse by Folders" button within WinAmp.

With WinAmps long history of music playback I would have thought that this program would have been flawless. So far it sucks!!!

If I can't get this thing to play FLAC as advertized I want my money back!!
HOW CAN I PLAY MY FLAC FILES ON MY HTC ONE?

[MrSinatra]

you posted in the wrong thread and the wrong forum.

having said that, did u pay for winamp pro for android? what ver r u running? what ver droid OS r u running?

do your flacs have tags? I don't know much about flacs on the droid, if they only work via browse by folders or not.

[stevecougar]

Sorry for the inappropriate posting but I'm a frustrated newbie here and thanks for taking an interest. I have re-posted, gotten 70 reads but no replies.

1. Yes I paid for WinAmp Pro for Android.
2. Version 1.4.15
3. HTC One with Android 4.2.2

I'm not sure about tagging my flac files or how to "browse" for them natively.

Thx for your help.

[MrSinatra]

lets continue here:

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=373144