tagging troubles - MP3 vs ALAC in iTunes

**LtData** · January 27, 2008, 02:28 AM

Re: tagging troubles - MP3 vs ALAC in iTunes

1. If you mean the Explorer Columns, see here: http://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showpost...24&postcount=2
2. Yes, the default naming scheme does this.
3. This is a known issue with the Multi-Encoder codec, which is fixed in the new version of the codec but requires r13.
4, 5, 6. Not sure

**jbmccune** · January 27, 2008, 04:26 AM

Re: tagging troubles - MP3 vs ALAC in iTunes

1. You know, I think I read that at one point and then forgot about it after reading other posts saying that it would work (not necessarily with Vista). Sorry...information overload.

2. I noticed that it does that for the file naming, which is nice, but I was referring to the tags themselves. If I leave the Album Artist blank in dBpoweramp, it just doesn't write that tag to the file, and it comes through blank in iTunes, etc. I was looking for a way to have it conditionally write the Artist value to the Album Artist tag - like being able to put conditions on an ID Tag Processing mapping.

3. Ahhh...sounds like R13 is my answer. I won't ask when that's coming, but when there's a fairly stable build out there I wouldn't mind beta-testing.

[COLOR="Green"]Some more information:[/COLOR]
4. An easy example is "Club/Dance" as a Style from AMG. Even with ALACs, the Grouping field in iTunes shows "Club/Dance/Dance-Pop/House" for "Club/Dance; Dance-Pop; House". Not a big problem, but not ideal.

5. I wonder if this is related to the problem that was fixed for #3...what I'm seeing just doesn't make any sense. How can MP3Tag show a tag that it wrote to the file exactly the same as a tag that dBpoweramp wrote, but only the one MP3Tag wrote affects iTunes?

6. Why do the Artist and Composer tags, for example, come through "/"-delimited, but "Content group description" doesn't have any (visible) delimiter at all? I don't mind using the ID Tag Processing DSP to map Style to "Content group description", but I'd like it to be delimited correctly.

Here are links to two small MP3s - maybe they'll help figure out what MP3Tag is doing differently from dBpoweramp...I can't figure it out.

BEFORE) direct from dBpoweramp CD Ripper w/ ID Tag Processing doing simple mappings of Style to "Content group description" and Compilation to ITUNESCOMPILATION: Test_dBpoweramp.mp3

AFTER) a copy of the above file, where I used MP3Tag to delete the CONTENTGROUP (that's how "Content group description" shows up in MP3Tag) and ITUNESCOMPILATION tags, then write brand new tags with the exact same names and values, except with "/"-delimited values for CONTENTGROUP: Test_MP3Tag.mp3

-Jesse

**jbmccune** · January 27, 2008, 03:26 PM

Re: tagging troubles - MP3 vs ALAC in iTunes

Regarding #5 & #6, I did a binary comparison of the two files, which explained a bit. Other than the order of the tags, there were only five differences.

The first explains the delimiter problem with TIT1 - dBpoweramp uses carriage-returns, which iTunes doesn't display as a delimiter. It does see it, as a smart playlist w/ [Grouping contains "DanceDisco"] doesn't return this song, but "Dance" or "Disco" does.

The second explains why the "Part of a compilation" flag isn't working. iTunes is looking for the standard(?) TCMP tag, but dBpoweramp doesn't write that tag. I even tried adding that tag manually, but it only created it as a custom tag with that name, rather than a straight TCMP tag. Maybe dBpoweramp has a friendly name for this tag, like "Content group description" for TIT1, but I'm suspecting dBpoweramp just doesn't support this tag, since it doesn't show up in the shell extension tag editor even for the MP3Tag-modified file, where "Content group description" does. By the way, notice the trailing null-byle after the 1 for the MP3Tag-generated TCMP tag...possibly significant?

The next two are odd - the only difference is a [40]-byte instead of a null for one of the leading character before the data. I have no idea why this would be, or why the [40] is there - these are the only two tags that have that.

The final difference just shows the MP3Tag trimming of the POPM tag that I observed, which I'm guessing is arbitrary.

I hope this helps!

Code:

MP3Tag:     TIT1[00][00][00][33][00][00][00]Club/Dance/Disco/Dance-Pop/Alternative Dance/House
dBpoweramp: TIT1[00][00][00][33][00][00][00]Club/Dance[0D]Disco[0D]Dance-Pop[0D]Alternative Dance[0D]House

MP3Tag:     TCMP[00][00][00][03][00][00][00]1[00]
dBpoweramp: TXXX[00][00][00][14][00][00][00]ITUNESCOMPILATION[00]1
dBpoweramp2:TXXX[00][00][00][07][00][00][00]TCMP[00]1

MP3Tag:     TLEN[00][00][00][06][00][00][00]29160
dBpoweramp: TLEN[00][00][00][06][40][00][00]29160
MP3Tag:     TENC[00][00][00][18][00][00][00]dBpoweramp Release 12.4
dBpoweramp: TENC[00][00][00][18][40][00][00]dBpoweramp Release 12.4

MP3Tag:     POPM[00][00][00][02][00][00][00][4D]
dBpoweramp: POPM[00][00][00][06][00][00][00][4D][00][00][00][00]

**jbmccune** · January 29, 2008, 02:03 AM

Re: tagging troubles - MP3 vs ALAC in iTunes

How odd...I feel like I'm talking to myself and publishing the transcript....

Anywho, as far as #4 and #6 go, I read the ID3v2.3 spec, which I believe is what dBpoweramp uses, and it does clearly say that multiple values should be separated by "/". It seems like a hole in the spec that they don't define how to handle a "/" in the data. Furthermore, they clearly say that the "/" should be used for the artist and composer fields, as well as a few others, but they clearly do NOT say that it should be used for the "Content group description" (TIT1) field. So, again dBpoweramp is not wrong according to the spec...not really anyways. The problem is that we aren't really using all of the tags the way they are meant to be used according to the spec - presumably because applications like iTunes don't follow the spec either, and data sources like AMG don't provide the data in a way that is well-suited to the spec. It's really quite a stretch of the definition of TIT1 to use it to store Styles in the first place, but that's where the Styles data ends up for ALAC files, so why not MP3s? TCON (Genre) would ideally be used to house the Styles from AMG, which are essentially sub-genres, but AMG separates Styles from a single Genre, and iTunes doesn't support multiple genres anyways. So the dilemma. Interestingly, the spec does say how to encode a "(" in the TCON tag (where it is used as a special character) by doubling it to "((", but it doesn't do the same for the "/" in other tags.

For #5, also according to the spec, it seems that TCMP isn't an officially standard tag after all - it's something Apple made up for iTunes. They describe it on the ID3 site, but they don't define it as part of any of the official specs. So, once again dBpoweramp seems to be following the letter of the ID3v2.3 spec by not supporting this field.

So...I wonder if it is the intention of the dBpoweramp folks (Spoon) to follow the ID3 specs to the letter, even if it reduces capabilities or compatibility with other programs...? That's a perfectly valid, if unfortunate, choice...it's just not my preference as a user. I'd prefer to have more control to make dBpoweramp output what I want. I don't have a solution for the "which tag should we use?" problem, or even the "what delimiter should we use, and what happens to the "/" if we use it as a delimiter?" problem - those things are probably best solved by moving to the ID3v2.4 spec and revising applications like iTunes to support it correctly. In the meantime though, I don't see why it should be a problem to map Styles to TIT1 since we don't have a better place for them and to use the same delimiter for it that we use for the other fields, or to set the TCMP field for compilations even if it isn't a part of the official spec. I think a definite goal should be consistency, meaning that if I rip a song as an MP3 and import it into iTunes it should look the same as if I had ripped it as an ALAC and imported it, and that definitely isn't happening today.

Well, you guys are probably getting bored with me talking to myself, so I'll shut up now. G'night!

-Jesse

**Spoon** · January 29, 2008, 08:47 AM

Re: tagging troubles - MP3 vs ALAC in iTunes

It is good you had a look into it, tags across programs are minefields, it is very difficult when say iTunes is only really ever going to support the tags from iMS, external programs? they are not bothered (iTunes does not even support multi artists correctly, atleast WMP11 does).

**jbmccune** · January 29, 2008, 11:20 AM

Re: tagging troubles - MP3 vs ALAC in iTunes

Well, there you have it. So, to wrap up this thread, here's a summary:

[COLOR="blue"]1) the Windows Explorer shell extension doesn't seem to be working for ALAC files in Vista - all of the columns are empty even after a restart[/COLOR]
[COLOR="Red"]known bug, look for R13[/COLOR]

[COLOR="blue"]2) can dBpoweramp CD Ripper automatically copy Artist to Album Artist if it's not a compilation and Album Artist is blank?[/COLOR]
[COLOR="red"]only for the file names, not for the tags, and no plans to add such an ability. I'll have to manually make this determination and set the value pre-ripping in dBpoweramp, or post-ripping using another program, like MP3Tag or iTunes directly.[/COLOR]

[COLOR="blue"]3) some tags are not being written to the files when using Multi-Encode with same settings as individual codecs directly (both ALAC and MP3): AccurateRipDiscID, AccurateRipResult, replaygain_album_gain, replaygain_album_peak[/COLOR]
[COLOR="red"]known bug, look for R13 and the new Multi-Encoder[/COLOR]

[COLOR="blue"]4) is there some standard way to encode "/" in tags when there are multiple values? since "/" is used as a delimiter for multiple artist for example, the "/" in an individual artist name "breaks" the delimiter[/COLOR]
[COLOR="red"]no, ID3 does not define a standard for this in v2.3, which is what dBpoweramp follows. I'll have to manually replace the "/" with something else, like a dash, pre-ripping in dBpoweramp (and make sure I'm consistent), if I want it to be clean - there's no way to automate such a replace in dBpoweramp, and no plans to add such a feature.[/COLOR]

[COLOR="blue"]5) is there ANY way to get iTunes to set "Part of a compilation" for MP3s through dBpoweramp CD Ripper? I think I've tried just about everything. It works for the ALACs, but not the MP3s. MP3Tag does it somehow, but I can't replicate it through dBpoweramp, even if the tags look exactly the same in MP3Tag. The ITUNESCOMPILATION tag that MP3Tag adds doesn't show up in the dBpoweramp shell extention at all, and if I add the exact same tag using dBpoweramp, it shows up the same in MP3Tag, but still doesn't have any affect on iTunes.[/COLOR]
[COLOR="red"]no. TCMP, which is what iTunes uses for this, is not defined in the official ID3v2.3 spec, so dBpoweramp does not support it. I'll have to use some other program, like MP3Tag, post-ripping to add this flag.[/COLOR]

[COLOR="blue"]6) Similar problem for the Style tag coming from AMG. For the ALACs it shows up in the Grouping field in iTunes, but it doesn't show up at all for the MP3s. I did manage to get it to show up by using the "ID Tag Processing" DSP to copy Style to "Content group description" (that's how the MP3Tag-fixed version looked in the dBpoweramp shell extention), but it shows up without any delimiters. The only way I could get it to show up the same way the ALACs do (with "/" delimiters) is to manually add the tag using the DSP with "/" delimiters.[/COLOR]
[COLOR="red"]no. Although AMG Styles come through as Grouping in iTunes for ALACs, the corresponding TIT1 flag will not be used by dBpoweramp because it is not really a good fit for the data(?). Even if I add a mapping from Style to "Content group description" (dBpoweramp's designation for TIT1) in the ID3 Tag Processing DSP, there is no way to make the delimiters match with what comes through for the ALACs ("/"). For whatever reason, dBpoweramp chose to use carriage-returns to separate "; "-separated values in tags where "/"-delimiters are not specifically defined in the ID3 spec (rather than just leave them "; "-separated, which would make more sense to me), and there are no plans to change that. I will need to manually modify the data either pre-ripping in dBpoweramp, or post-ripping using another program, like MP3Tag or iTunes directly.[/COLOR]

I hope that helps those who don't want to read my whole rambling journey through the frustrating world of music tagging.

Back to my hole now...while I wait for R13 (for #1 and #3), let's see if I can find a tag editor that I can call programatically post-ripping, using the Run External DSP, to make at least some of the changes I want.... If I manage to solve any of the others, I'll post an update to the thread, cause I know everyone's dying to solve these same issues. :P

-Jesse

**garym** · January 29, 2008, 02:17 PM

Re: tagging troubles - MP3 vs ALAC in iTunes

Thanks for this analysis. I've been playing with the compilation tag issue as well. I notice the same behavior as you with regard to mapping "compilations" to ITUNESCOMPILATION. If I run the ID TAG Processor DSP on an existing MP3 and do the mapping, this shows up in mp3tag as you note, but ITUNES doesn't recognize the tag as indicating a compilation. However, I've now noticed that if I'm going from a FLAC ripped from disc in dbpoweramp, and then use dbpoweramp to map the "compilation" tag to ITUNESCOMPILATION when creating MP3 files from the FLAC files, ITUNES does in fact recognize it correctly. Very odd. By the way, I do use an "action" in MP3TAG to simply assign the value of ITUNESCOMPILATION from %compilation% and this works fine (and I can automate this to run through my 50,000 mp3s with a couple of mouse clicks). When done, if "compilation" is blank, ITUNESCOMPILATION is blank, but if "1" then ITUNESCOMPILATION is "1" and ITUNES recognizes this just fine.

**Spoon** · January 29, 2008, 02:56 PM

Re: tagging troubles - MP3 vs ALAC in iTunes

1) the Windows Explorer shell extension doesn't seem to be working for ALAC files in Vista - all of the columns are empty even after a restart
known bug, look for R13

Not a bug, Microsoft have pulled the old method and replaced with a new way of doing it, it could take 2 months of work to implement!

2) can dBpoweramp CD Ripper automatically copy Artist to Album Artist if it's not a compilation and Album Artist is blank?
only for the file names, not for the tags, and no plans to add such an ability. I'll have to manually make this determination and set the value pre-ripping in dBpoweramp, or post-ripping using another program, like MP3Tag or iTunes directly.

It is possible in Batch Ripper with the 'tag mappings', this code will make it over to (R13 or R14) when tested, we have spent about 4 months on getting tagging a good as it can be (using 4 meta data providers), CD Ripper will see big improvements when implemented there.

3) some tags are not being written to the files when using Multi-Encode with same settings as individual codecs directly (both ALAC and MP3): AccurateRipDiscID, AccurateRipResult, replaygain_album_gain, replaygain_album_peak
known bug, look for R13 and the new Multi-Encoder

This is implemented right now in R13 and the new Multi-Encoder.

**jbmccune** · January 29, 2008, 03:31 PM

Re: tagging troubles - MP3 vs ALAC in iTunes

Originally posted by Spoon

Not a bug, Microsoft have pulled the old method and replaced with a new way of doing it, it could take 2 months of work to implement!.

OK, difference noted - as a software designer/developer/architect what-have-you I know how much the word "bug" hurts. From my point-of-view as a user though, it's still a feature that doesn't work.

Originally posted by Spoon

It is possible in Batch Ripper with the 'tag mappings', this code will make it over to (R13 or R14) when tested, we have spent about 4 months on getting tagging a good as it can be (using 4 meta data providers), CD Ripper will see big improvements when implemented there.

Awesome, I look forward to it. Maybe some of my other problems are addressed as well (#4-#6).

Originally posted by Spoon

This is implemented right now in R13 and the new Multi-Encoder

That's what I understood. I'll be happy to beta when you're ready.

I hope I didn't come across as overly critical - I really do love the software. This whole space is just rather frustrating, and I was getting amused with the length of my own follow-up posts on this thread. Keep up the good work! This is what I get for being on the bleeding edge of these things - my parents' generation is perfectly happy with their CD collections and 5-disc changers...if only I was so easy to please.

-Jesse

**jbmccune** · January 29, 2008, 03:43 PM

Re: tagging troubles - MP3 vs ALAC in iTunes

Originally posted by garym

However, I've now noticed that if I'm going from a FLAC ripped from disc in dbpoweramp, and then use dbpoweramp to map the "compilation" tag to ITUNESCOMPILATION when creating MP3 files from the FLAC files, ITUNES does in fact recognize it correctly..

I'm sure this is because it is writing it as a custom TXXX tag in the one scenario and as the TCMP tag in the other. An interesting inconsistency between the Ripper and the Converter...could almost be called a *whisper* "bug". Maybe the R13/14 changes to tagging that Spoon mentioned will solve these kinds of things - a shared library for tagging sounds like a good idea.

Originally posted by garym

By the way, I do use an "action" in MP3TAG to simply assign the value of ITUNESCOMPILATION from %compilation% and this works fine (and I can automate this to run through my 50,000 mp3s with a couple of mouse clicks).

Interesting - I haven't looked into "actions" yet. It isn't possible to run this action from a command line though, is it? The problem is, I'll be ripping my CDs over the course of the next months, and I really don't want to wait until I'm done to run something like this on the batch before I start uploading my songs to MP3Tunes, nor do I want to have to manually run it after each few CDs if I can avoid it - this is going to take a long time, the more I can automate, the less likely I'll get frustrated half-way through and throw my CDs out the window.

**garym** · January 30, 2008, 11:40 AM

Re: tagging troubles - MP3 vs ALAC in iTunes

Originally posted by jbmccune

Interesting - I haven't looked into "actions" yet. It isn't possible to run this action from a command line though, is it? The problem is, I'll be ripping my CDs over the course of the next months, and I really don't want to wait until I'm done to run something like this on the batch before I start uploading my songs to MP3Tunes, nor do I want to have to manually run it after each few CDs if I can avoid it - this is going to take a long time, the more I can automate, the less likely I'll get frustrated half-way through and throw my CDs out the window.

It turns out for me that there is another very important reason I run all my final mp3 files through mp3tag. That has to do with converting the replaygain album values to the soundcheck values used by itunes/ipod. I find this very useful as I can use the itunes/ipod soundcheck feature yet get the benefit (for me) of album level adjustments in playback. I much prefer this.

First, you'll need the latest development build of mp3tag (ver. m currently).
1. create a new action with "format value" to ITUNESCOMPILATION from %compilation%
2. Next you'll need the action that converts the replaygain album number to the soundcheck (Comment ITuneNorm). You should create a new action with
"format value" formatting the field "COMMENT ITUNENORM" (that is a space between COMMENT and ITUNNORM) with the following format string: $rg2sc(%REPLAYGAIN_ALBUM_GAIN%)

When I load up mp3 files into mp3tag, I can select both of these actions to run simultaneously on the files. Regarding running a batch, I have recently run these actions on 20,000 files at a time with no problem. [note that this works fine on my newest laptop but bombs with too many files on my old computer....I think this is memory limitation issue on the old machine.]. So in terms of ease of doing all this at once, you can basically make a few mouse clicks, walk away for a few hours, and come back and the files are all done and ready to import into ITUNES. If the files are compilation albums, itunes will know it. And you'll notice that itunes doesn't try to determine soundcheck values when importing because it recognizes that that info is already there.

**jbmccune** · January 30, 2008, 02:32 PM

Re: tagging troubles - MP3 vs ALAC in iTunes

Originally posted by garym

I find this very useful as I can use the itunes/ipod soundcheck feature yet get the benefit (for me) of album level adjustments in playback..

That is cool...it was on my wish list. I had no idea MP3Tag could do that conversion. Album-based is definitely better in my opinion as well.

Originally posted by garym

So in terms of ease of doing all this at once, you can basically make a few mouse clicks, walk away for a few hours, and come back and the files are all done and ready to import into ITUNES.

Well, as I said I'm going to be doing them in smaller batches so that I can upload them to MP3Tunes, but still.... If I can get MP3Tag setup right so I just process the new stuff consistently with a few clicks and I get all of the right tags with all of the right formatting, including the iTunes compilation tag, soundcheck tags based on the album gain, AMG Styles copied to the Grouping (TIT1) tag with good ";" delimiters, and possibly even the corrections that I wanted for the album artist tag, I suppose it would be worth the extra step after each mini batch. I'll have to seriously look into MP3Tags actions....

Thanks for the tip!

**garym** · January 30, 2008, 03:15 PM

Re: tagging troubles - MP3 vs ALAC in iTunes

I hear you on the "doing in batches". That's what I do now with 10 or 20 CDs at a time: (1) dbpoweramp to rip to FLAC (2) clean up tags if need be, (3) dbpoweramp from FLAC to MP3 (lame), (4) run mp3 files through mp3tag to add soundcheck (album), create itunescompilation tag, etc., (5) import MP3's into ITUNES. I only did a big job like this on a bunch of existing mp3's that I wanted album gain on. But I'm also in the process or reripping a few thousand CDs into FLAC for archive purposes, with a separate mp3 library for my ipods. Unfortunately, I was an early adopter of digitizing my music, but my education on secure ripping, lossless codecs, and quality lossy codecs didn't come until much, much later. My new plan is to rerip to FLAC, and then I can create new lossy files anytime I want in the future (e.g., a new codec comes along that produces high quality at 1/4 the size).

I'm a newbie at the MP3tag actions, but once I got started it seems fairly intuitive. MP3TAG also has a forum section that can be helpful.

p.s. If you want to add replaygain(album) to AAC files, you can use the same script I provided above, but the field you are copying to is "ITUNNORM" rather than "COMMENT ITUNNORM".

**jbmccune** · January 31, 2008, 03:27 AM

Re: tagging troubles - MP3 vs ALAC in iTunes

Originally posted by garym

If you want to add replaygain(album) to AAC files, you can use the same script I provided above, but the field you are copying to is "ITUNNORM" rather than "COMMENT ITUNNORM".

Awesome...I'm a big fan of consistency.

So, as a follow-up, I did manage to solve almost all of my basic questions with a combination of dBpoweramp Ripper and MP3Tag actions, with the exception of #1 for the time-being. It's not completely automated from dBpoweramp, which would be my preference, but it's not too bad.

First of all, I realized that I'm a dork and that I already had access to a beta of R13 and the Multi-Encoder update, which is supposed to solve #3. [COLOR="DarkOrange"]Spoon et al[/COLOR] - since R13 is still in beta, can you tell me if the changes that were made are likely to affect the quality of my rips at all? I read the list of changes in the post, but I'd still like to hear it from you that I'm not really risking having to re-rip everything by using the beta now. As long as everything looks good from the tags, I'm pretty safe?

Here's what I setup in MP3Tag to handle my issues with #2, and #4-#6, for both MP3s and ALACs - one action group for all regardless of type, which makes it really easy to use and hard to make mistakes.

Code:

- Format value "ITUNESCOMPILATION": $if($neql(%itunescompilation%,),%itunescompilation%,%compilation%)
- Format value "CONTENTGROUP": $if($eql(%contentgroup%,),$replace(%style%,$char(13),;),%contentgroup%)
- Format value "COMMENT ITUNNORM": $if($eql(%_extension%,mp3),$rg2sc(%REPLAYGAIN_ALBUM_GAIN%),)
- Format value "ITUNNORM": $if($eql(%_extension%,m4a),$rg2sc(%REPLAYGAIN_ALBUM_GAIN%),)
- Format value "BAND": $if($or($neql(%band%,),$or($eql(%compilation%,1),$eql(%itunescompilation%,1))),%band%,%artist%)

There are really only three remaining annoyances:

1) Related to my original #3, dBpoweramp is writing the AMG Styles into the "grp" tag of the ALAC files automatically, and it is using "/" as a delimiter. Since some of the styles from AMG have "/" in them, it means that "Club/Dance; House" is turning into "Club/Dance/House". Unlike with the MP3s, the Style tag is not left in the file, and there is no extra carriage-return delimiter in there, so I have no automated way of changing the delimiter from a "/" to a ";". I tried copying the value to a different tag with the ID Tag Processing DSP in dBpoweramp, but it comes through the same way. The easiest solution I can come up with is to manually replace the "/" in styles that have them with some other character, like "+", in dBpoweramp prior to ripping (so it would look like "Club+Dance; House"), and then do a conversion in MP3Tag to replace "/" with ";" and then "+" with "/". That adds a corrective action for the Style tag, and changes the CONTENTGROUP action above to:

Code:

- Format value "CONTENTGROUP": $if($eql(%contentgroup%,),$replace(%style%,$char(13),;),$replace($replace(%contentgroup%,/,;),+,/))
- Format value "STYLE": $replace(%style%,+,/)

2) When an album is a compilation and doesn't have an album artist, AMG/dBpoweramp is setting the compilation flag correctly, but is also setting the album artist to "Various Artists", which I just don't like - why not just leave it blank? So, I changed the BAND action above to:

Code:

- Format value "BAND": $if($or($neql(%band%,),$eql(%compilation%,1),$eql(%itunescompilation%,1)),$if($neql(%band%,Various Artists),%band%,),%artist%)

3) [COLOR="DarkOrange"]Spoon et al[/COLOR] - Album Gain tags are still not being written to the files w/ the latest R13 and Multi-Encoder versions. The AccurateRip tags are back, but not the Album Gain. I uninstalled everything, used the utility to wipe all trace of dBpoweramp, installed R12.4 Reference Trial from scratch, installed R13 overtop without uninstalling 12.4, installed the m4a codec, and installed the latest Multi-Encoder version from the beta forum.