Author Topic: ALAC encoding  (Read 20565 times)

bbutlerau

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I want to rip my CD's in a lossless format but seeming ipods dont play flac i would like to use apple lossless.
is this possible to do within musicbee if i get an encoder?

Steven

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its not supported but could be added. However does a command line encoder for ALAC exist? I believe encoding to ALAC requires a license

franlor123

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just a thought, you could do the rip in iTunes which gives you the lossless ALAC and use MusicBee to add the ALACs to you library.

Antonski

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I don't know how legal is to encode to ALAC, it should be the same as AAC, maybe. For personal use there should be no problem, I guess.
As for the command line encoder, what I've found is:
- qaac (doom9 discussion), it requires QuickTime, though.
- dBpoweramp's library (Hydrogenaudio discussion), only dll, no standalone cli application.

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Last Edit: September 16, 2010, 09:04:58 AM by Antonski

bbutlerau

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there are a few CLI encoders out there, sadly encoding is proprietary so not sure bout that, decoding is OSS
I currently use itunes to do this but would love to just use the 1 program

Steven

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do you have a link for one of the command line encoders?
from MB's perspective, all the is required is the CLI encoder accept stdin for input of wav data and of course take any parameters you wish to set via the command line.
I dont think there are any issues for you to encode your own files. I just didnt think there were any CLI encoders because of legal reasons.

rognvaldr

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I have an iPod Classic. I use XRecode II for alac encoding. http://xrecode.com


...almost forgot... for hirez audio I use DBPoweramp with the ALAC plugin... also great for converting rips from HDCD cd's into 24bit ALAC audio files (Use HDCD effect for that). 24bit ALAC plays perfectly on my iPod.

Rogn
Last Edit: September 19, 2010, 05:44:11 PM by rognvaldr

Antonski

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Some time ago I've tried Xrecode, it is GUI program which allows for some arguments, but not really a CLI program, IIRW.
On the other hand, ALAC encoding in DBPoweramp is done via DLL, not standalone executable.

I've googled a bit and guess... It appeared that ffmpeg supports encoding to ALAC since 2008 (link).
Last Edit: September 20, 2010, 09:58:57 AM by Antonski

rognvaldr

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True, they are not cli executables. I missed that one.

Rogn.

Antonski

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Latest ffmpeg build can be found here.


... or here
Last Edit: September 20, 2010, 03:13:03 PM by Antonski

Steven

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i'll move this to the wishlist so its not forgotten about

bbutlerau

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if ffmpeg supports ALAC, it it possible to add it into musicbee as an external encoder?
what parameters are used for ffmpeg alac encoding, tags etc

Antonski

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The command line for alac encoding is:

Code
ffmpeg -i input.wav -acodec alac output.m4a

However I didn't have luck with adding tags. I was not so insistent, though (I don't use alac).

bbutlerau

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so where do wee add this to music bee do do it when we select rip cd?

Steven

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i've added ALAC in the File Converter preferences for the next update
All you will need to do is get ffmpeg.exe (see above) and save to the Codecs folder, then enable ALAC in the File Converter preferences
It should show a default set of parameters, but if it doesnt click Reset
You can then choose ALAC in the encoder drop-down whenever ripping or converting files