DMC mp4->m4a rename extension overwrites tags?

[pphome]

I needed to get my mp4 audio files onto my palm tungsten, which can play them using realplayer 1.51. However it only reads m4a extension files.

When I mass-converted all my .mp4 audio to .m4a using DMC utility codec for this express purpose, all of my tag information was overwritten! length, quality, artist, etc were all lost, and everyone became "unknown artist".

Does anyone have any idea what happened, or how I might fix it without re-ripping hundreds of albums? :(

[Spoon]

Re: DMC mp4->m4a rename extension overwrites tags?

How did you convert mp4 to m4a?

Rather than converting from mp4 to m4a you could have used the 'Rename Extension' codec at the bottom of Codec Central.

[pphome]

Re: DMC mp4->m4a rename extension overwrites tags?

That's exactly what I did.
I have to amend the problem - this all stems from RealPlayer's quirks, I think. [ I have to use RealPlayer on my Palm Tungsten, as nothing else I've found plays AAC files.] Normally, Realplayer only recognizes m4a or aac extensions, not mp4. All my music was in mp4. After using the rename extension codec, the ID tag can't be interpreted by RealPlayer. DMP is able to read the tags fine.

[ unrelated question - the RealPlayer AAC ripper is about twice as fast on my computer as DMC's version, using either the FAAC codec or the older MP4 [CLI] codec. It really rips quickly, and the files are recognized by DMP as .m4a files - the tag says it uses 'Helix Producer SDK 10.0 for Windows'. I would prefer to keep using DMC, as I can't stand these companies that prevent me from sharing my purchased music with my friends, and I like your package. Any idea why such a performance difference?]

Thanks much in advance for your reply.

[ChristinaS]

Re: DMC mp4->m4a rename extension overwrites tags?

That's exactly what I did.
I have to amend the problem - this all stems from RealPlayer's quirks, I think. [ I have to use RealPlayer on my Palm Tungsten, as nothing else I've found plays AAC files.] Normally, Realplayer only recognizes m4a or aac extensions, not mp4. All my music was in mp4. After using the rename extension codec, the ID tag can't be interpreted by RealPlayer. DMP is able to read the tags fine.

[ unrelated question - the RealPlayer AAC ripper is about twice as fast on my computer as DMC's version, using either the FAAC codec or the older MP4 [CLI] codec. It really rips quickly, and the files are recognized by DMP as .m4a files - the tag says it uses 'Helix Producer SDK 10.0 for Windows'. I would prefer to keep using DMC, as I can't stand these companies that prevent me from sharing my purchased music with my friends, and I like your package. Any idea why such a performance difference?]

Thanks much in advance for your reply.

Try to rename back one of those files. Use Windows Explorer and find your file and just rename it back to the original extension. Maybe your tag will reappear then and it's just a case that Real Player simply does not read those tags. I know it can read tags on Real Media files if they were created with tags.

[Spoon]

Re: DMC mp4->m4a rename extension overwrites tags?

Just different codecs, dmc supports 4 aac compression codecs - they will all compress at different speeds.

[hans-j�rgen]

Re: DMC mp4->m4a rename extension overwrites tags?

I have to amend the problem - this all stems from RealPlayer's quirks, I think. [ I have to use RealPlayer on my Palm Tungsten, as nothing else I've found plays AAC files.] Normally, Realplayer only recognizes m4a or aac extensions, not mp4. All my music was in mp4. After using the rename extension codec, the ID tag can't be interpreted by RealPlayer. DMP is able to read the tags fine.

That's interesting, so the RealPlayer version for Palm hand-helds supports *.aac and *.m4a files, didn't know that yet. My guess is that they simply haven't implemented MP4/M4A tag reading yet which is something completely different from ID3 tags for AAC or MP3 files and cannot be mixed with each other.

You could try to remux one test MP4 file to AAC with dbpowerAMP (needs another plugin) and then tag this file with ID3 tags which might work with your RealPlayer version. I don't know if there's an automatic method in dbpowerAMP for this, too.

[ unrelated question - the RealPlayer AAC ripper is about twice as fast on my computer as DMC's version, using either the FAAC codec or the older MP4 [CLI] codec. It really rips quickly, and the files are recognized by DMP as .m4a files - the tag says it uses 'Helix Producer SDK 10.0 for Windows'. I would prefer to keep using DMC, as I can't stand these companies that prevent me from sharing my purchased music with my friends, and I like your package. Any idea why such a performance difference?]

Helix/RealPlayer uses the Coding Technologies codec which might be optimized for a higher speed than FAAC. One reason surely is its CBR-only mode, because this is usually faster than the VBR mode that FAAC uses on default.