Converting .aa to wav/mp3/ogg in Win2k

[CapnBry]

I've got a clean Win2k install (under vmware) I set up specifically to convert .aa files to .ogg to be able to play them in my Rio Karma. I thought I'd outline the process I went through to get it working since it was all from information gathered from various forum posts.

1. Install the AudibleManager

http://www.audible.com/software/

2. Install the Audible "Windows Media Player Filter"

http://www.audible.com/software/

Note: This required getting MSVCR70.dll and MSVCI70.dll from another system and putting them in /winnt/system32

3. Install dbPowerAMP Music Converter

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc.htm

4. Install dmPowerAMP Direct Show filter

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/codec-central-directshow.htm

5. "Configure DirectShow Decoder" from the dbPowerAMP start menu item. Change .xyz to .aa

6. Install qedit.dll. This needs to be copied from a machine with directx 9 installed. WindowsXP SP2 or greater has it, or install directx 9 on the target machine. If you copy it, put it in /winnt/system32 then run:
regsrv32 c:\winnt\system32\qedit.dll

7. Run dBpowerAMP Music Converter and convert your file. I converted to OGG, so I also installed the SSE optimized OGG converter.

Note that once you convert a file once, the Audible directshow filter saves your position so if you try to convert it again, you'll get nothing. To get around this, open the file in windows media player, and rewind to the beginning.

Also, the audible files I had were 22KHz Mono if that helps anyone.