How do I most easly rip to Apple AAC (iTunes/AppleTV/iPod)?

[flips]

Ok. After searching a the forum, I am now officially confused about m4a vs. AAC vs. iTunes/AppleTV. So helping me might be as easy as pointing to the correct codec or explaining some misunderstanding on my part ...

I have the Music Converter 12.4 Reference with working AMG subscription and everything. And now I got myself an AppleTV box, and I am planning on playing music off it ... And after a hard drive crash I do have to rip a lot of CD's anew.

Plan: Rip CD's to AAC (or whatever the Apple lossy, but quite nice, format is called) hoping to get album art and everything to work nicely. (Would also love to get a .cue file with gap info, but I guess that's for a future release.)

This is what I now tried:
I inserted the CD, used CD Ripper 12.4, chose m4a Nero (AAC), assuming that was the correct/wanted format.

The CD Ripper did not find any album art automatically from AMG I couldn't figure out how to somehow drag&drop/add the the album art I find/scan myelf. So I for now I decided to just manually add folder.jpg to the folder afterwards.

When I selected the codec, I followed the instructions on how to copy in the nero encoder to the encoder directory and I proceeded ripping the album.

Then I copied the files to my AppleTV box (using SSH/SCP for now) and tried playing the files (using the ATV files plugin). Apple TV is able to play the files, but the Album Art only shows when entering the directory, now when playing songs. And the metainfo/ID tags doesn't seem to work as it should either.
(The reason I use SSH, is that I hoped avoiding having to import into a local iTunes on Windows and then sync'ing it to the box.)

I did some searching on the forum here, but didn't really find the answer(s), so I figures I'd try asking here if maybe one of you do have some experience or ideas about what I should/shouldn't do?

--
flips
(I gave up getting OGG to work smoothly in FrontRow ...)

[LtData]

Re: How do I most easly rip to Apple AAC (iTunes/AppleTV/iPod)?

dMC r12 CD ripper doesn't have a way to add album art, dMC r13 (currently in alpha) does have a drag-and-drop feature or can add from a file or can add from the clipboard to add album art.
Try downloading the m4a utilities and running the "m4a optimize" utility on the files and see if that helps.

[Spoon]

Re: How do I most easly rip to Apple AAC (iTunes/AppleTV/iPod)?

Apple TV needs the Hint Track adding to the m4a file, so use te m4a Utilities codec to add.

[flips]

Re: How do I most easly rip to Apple AAC (iTunes/AppleTV/iPod)?

Hm, so I first rip (using CD Ripper) with the m4a Nero (AAC) codec, and then I process those same files with Music Converter, using "m4a Optimize" and selecting "Generate RTP Hint"? (Or can I use the Optimize function during ripping?)
I tried this, but discovered no difference.

I left the "Encoder >>" choice to "(no forced profile)", BTW.

So, I guess my use is different that the usual, as I am trying to avoid having to sync stuff through iTunes, I just want to copy the files/access them via a share.

In the Sapphire plug-in, the meta data turn up correctly (also before using the m4a optimize function), but not the album art. In the ATVFiles plugin, no meta data seems to be recognized correctly ... (it only shows folder.jpg upon entering the folder) ...

[Spoon]

Re: How do I most easly rip to Apple AAC (iTunes/AppleTV/iPod)?

>Hm, so I first rip (using CD Ripper) with the m4a Nero (AAC) codec, and then I process those same files with Music Converter, using "m4a Optimize" and selecting "Generate RTP Hint"?

Correct, use Batch Converter to select the root folder.

[flips]

Re: How do I most easly rip to Apple AAC (iTunes/AppleTV/iPod)?

This is an AAC file bought through iTunes:
01 I Can Only Imagine.m4p: ISO Media, MPEG v4 system, iTunes AAC-LC

This is one I ripped myself as described above:
01-Goodbye Ordinary.m4a: ISO Media, MPEG v4 system, version 2

(I used the unix command "file" in Cygwin BASH to get the output above ...)

Both files work in iTunes correctly, but AppleTV/iTunes will not stream the file I ripped myself. If I sync the file to the AppleTV device, it plays without problems. If I try to stream it (selecting my iTunes as source), I am told AppleTV cannot play the selected file ...

I'll try "Force LC AAC" to see if that makes any difference ...

Any idea what might be wrong? I have no idea. (I don't know the difference between m4a and AAC, LC, HC and so on ...)

Maybe I should just go for mp3, even when it's wasting more space for less quality (i guess?) ... The only comparison's I've done, is MP3 vs. OGG, and I found OGG to be superior -- to bad Apple ignores the free/open formats.

[flips]

Re: How do I most easly rip to Apple AAC (iTunes/AppleTV/iPod)?

Yes, when I used "Force LC AAC", streaming to the AppleTV device worked.

[Spoon]

Re: How do I most easly rip to Apple AAC (iTunes/AppleTV/iPod)?

Which bitrate, were you using?

[flips]

Re: How do I most easly rip to Apple AAC (iTunes/AppleTV/iPod)?

350 VBR, I think it was ... I really don't know which I should choose VBR vs. ABR vs. CBR. (I used to rip to q=0.85 or 0.9 in OGG ...)

[flips]

Re: How do I most easly rip to Apple AAC (iTunes/AppleTV/iPod)?

Yes, when I used "Force LC AAC", streaming to the AppleTV device worked.

Hm, this is weird: I tried again, I ripped three songs from the same album, forcing "HE v2" on the first, "HE AAC" on the next and "LC AAC" on the third. Then I used the m4a optimize utility to generate RTP hints. And this time streaming from iTunes on the PC to the Apple TV device worked, no problem with any of the files/songs.

Maybe I didn't entirely remove and re-add the files to iTunes the first time I tried this ... (I might have added the files before generating RTP hints and then maybe I didn't remove and re-add them or something ...)

Anyway:
1. Is there much difference in sound quality using LC, HE or HEv2?
(I have ripped quite a few CD's in LC AAC 350 Kbps VBR, should I re-rip them?)
2. Is there many players that doesn't understand HE or HEv2?

--
flips (dMc-Ref 12.4)

[Spoon]

Re: How do I most easly rip to Apple AAC (iTunes/AppleTV/iPod)?

I would have thought the Apple TV would only be able to play LC propperly and the others not as designed.

[flips]

Re: How do I most easly rip to Apple AAC (iTunes/AppleTV/iPod)?

I would have thought the Apple TV would only be able to play LC propperly and the others not as designed.

Well, I didn't have any problem with the HE and HEv2 songs I just ripped. I can stream them and everything ...

But high bitrate LC ("low complexity"?) is still best sound quality?
I am a little confused. I have selected VBR and q=0.85, indicated to be ~350 Kbps. And if I choose to force LC AAC, that's correct. (I have no idea if I should choose VBR, ABR or CBR, though, just left if where it was ... )

But if I choose HE or HEv2, the bitrate is set much lower. Like 150 Kbps with HE and 90 Kbps with HE v2. Is the HE stuff mostly intended for getting ok results at lower bitrates? (I'm really not interested in that, I want really high quality, I used to have everything in 350 Kbps OGG.)

--
flips

[LtData]

Re: How do I most easly rip to Apple AAC (iTunes/AppleTV/iPod)?

HE and HEv2 are designed to give better sound at lower bitrates, as you guessed. Go for LC if you want high bitrates.