Cyrillic characters lost during conversion of M4A to WAV.

[albaranov]

Hi!
Just reporting an issue. I converted an M4A file with Cyrillic characters in metadata and the file name to WAV. After the conversion all Cyrillic characters in metadata got replaced with ? ??????????? ?????. The file name was O.K.
When I tried to convert the same M4A file to FLAC the Cyrillic characters were O.K. This is the first time the Cyrillic characters are not displayed correctly after the conversion (from M4A to WAV). Is there any explanation and fix for that? The help page speaks about WAV files not supporting Unicode. But then why all other formats always worked correctly when converting to and from WAV?
I am using the latest version of dBP. My OS is windows 7 (64).
Thank you in advance, Alex

[dbfan]

Re: Cyrillic characters lost during conversion of M4A to WAV.

As a test convert to m4a file to mp3, are the characters preserved?

[albaranov]

Re: Cyrillic characters lost during conversion of M4A to WAV.

As a test convert to m4a file to mp3, are the characters preserved?

*********,
Thank you for replying. When converted M4A to MP3, the situation is the same as M4A to FLAC - the Cyrillic characters are preserved. Alex

[Spoon]

Re: Cyrillic characters lost during conversion of M4A to WAV.

Then the issue is the Wave tagging which cannot hold such characters (we tag wave files using LIST chunk and id3 chunk, the id3 chunk can hold unicode, but your player must not read that).

[Porcus]

Re: Cyrillic characters lost during conversion of M4A to WAV.

from M4A to WAV

This is off-topic to your question, but:
- if the m4a contains AAC, then do not transcode unless you have to.
- if the m4a contains Apple Lossless, then by all means convert to another lossless format, but there is no use going by way of WAV.


(There are other streams containable in mp4 containers, but you will not so often encounter these.)

[albaranov]

Re: Cyrillic characters lost during conversion of M4A to WAV.

This is off-topic to your question, but:
- if the m4a contains AAC, then do not transcode unless you have to.
- if the m4a contains Apple Lossless, then by all means convert to another lossless format, but there is no use going by way of WAV.

Porcus,
Thank you for your comments. I believe they are very close to my question.
- how can I tell an M4A file with AAC or Apple Lossless from a M4A without AAC/Apple?
- my strategy: FLAC is the target, but I convert other formats to WAV first, then to FLAC (e.g. if I have an APE file I convert it to WAV then to FLAC).
Alex

[Spoon]

Re: Cyrillic characters lost during conversion of M4A to WAV.

If using dBpoweramp the there is no need to use WAVE as an intermediate step.

Hold the mouse over the file and dBpoweramp will tell what the m4a file contains (aac or apple lossless).

[albaranov]

Re: Cyrillic characters lost during conversion of M4A to WAV.

If using dBpoweramp the there is no need to use WAVE as an intermediate step.

Hold the mouse over the file and dBpoweramp will tell what the m4a file contains (aac or apple lossless).

Spoon,
Will check the AAC/Apple lossless issue after work. As for the "intermediate step", I think I borrowed this strategy from the conversion of 24-bit files, thinking that it would be a double warranty. Thanks, Alex

[albaranov]

Re: Cyrillic characters lost during conversion of M4A to WAV.

Then the issue is the Wave tagging which cannot hold such characters (we tag wave files using LIST chunk and id3 chunk, the id3 chunk can hold unicode, but your player must not read that).

Spoon,
Thank you. I use two players - MediaMonkey and Foobar2000. The above file was checked with MediaMonkey. You are saying that the Wave tagging cannot hold the subject characters. Then I am curious why does the Wave tagging hold these characters when I convert APE and WV to WAV?
Thank you.

[Porcus]

Re: Cyrillic characters lost during conversion of M4A to WAV.

- how can I tell an M4A file with AAC or Apple Lossless from a M4A without AAC/Apple?

In addition to spoon's reply:
You are using foobar2000. Open the file's properties (highlight, and alt+Enter and the Properties tab), and it will tell you the codec and the codec profile.

If it is AAC, then leave it as is unless you really have to.

- my strategy: FLAC is the target

Lossies are best left without transcoding, if you can avoid. You will only increase file size, you will never recover the “loss” in “lossy”, and if you ever convert to a lossy again in order to fit it to a portable player, the generation loss could make it sound just as bad as youtube videos (which have often been through that very process).

but I convert other formats to WAV first, then to FLAC (e.g. if I have an APE file I convert it to WAV then to FLAC).

That is a redundant step. dBpoweramp can convert to FLAC. And verify.

Also, since you use foobar2000, you can use http://www.foobar2000.org/components...foo_bitcompare to compare original and copy.

[albaranov]

Re: Cyrillic characters lost during conversion of M4A to WAV.

In addition to spoon's reply:
You are using foobar2000. Open the file's properties (highlight, and alt+Enter and the Properties tab), and it will tell you the codec and the codec profile.

If it is AAC, then leave it as is unless you really have to.

Lossies are best left without transcoding, if you can avoid. You will only increase file size, you will never recover the “loss” in “lossy”, and if you ever convert to a lossy again in order to fit it to a portable player, the generation loss could make it sound just as bad as youtube videos (which have often been through that very process).

That is a redundant step. dBpoweramp can convert to FLAC. And verify.

Also, since you use foobar2000, you can use http://www.foobar2000.org/components...foo_bitcompare to compare original and copy.

Porcus,
Thank you for all clarifications, very helpful. So it was Apple lossless, no problem to convert directly to FLAC with all original characters.
As for lossies, I just ignore them. When I said that FLAC was my target I meant that I convert all LOSSLESS formats to FLAC.
Thank you again, Alex

[albaranov]

Re: Cyrillic characters lost during conversion of M4A to WAV.

In addition to spoon's reply:

That is a redundant step. dBpoweramp can convert to FLAC. And verify.

Porcus, one more question about conversion, please.
Since the time when dBPoweramp introduced the uncompressed FLAC format I prefer to convert various lossless formats to uncompressed FLAC. There are still some compressed FLAC files left. What is the best strategy for converting the compressed FLAC files into the uncompressed FLAC files? Should I use WAV as an intermediate step? Thank you in advance, Alex

[Spoon]

Re: Cyrillic characters lost during conversion of M4A to WAV.

dBpoweramp never needs intermediate wave for any conversion.

[Porcus]

Re: Cyrillic characters lost during conversion of M4A to WAV.

What is the best strategy for converting the compressed FLAC files into the uncompressed FLAC files? Should I use WAV as an intermediate step?

No, as Spoon says. And I'd add: Why use uncompressed FLAC?

[albaranov]

Re: Cyrillic characters lost during conversion of M4A to WAV.

Spoon, Thank you.
I was mislead by one of the sites: "To convert or to record albums with 24/192 data releases you must decompress to WAV. To do this, use the following programs: Monkey's Audio for APE, FLAC frontend - for FLAC; wvunpack for WAVpack; Foobar2000 (with plug-ins) - for all formats.
This release you can record as the DVD-audio, or convert it to a convenient format using the above programs."
Based on the above I was under impression that a quality conversion should be done through WAVE.
Alex