Re: itunes and wmp
- From: John Lockwood <john.lockwood@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 16:26:31 +0000
I started off ripping CDs to AIFF in iTunes, because it was lossless and I
knew WMP could play it (the Microsoft specs webpage of WMP said so). When I
came to actually trying to add it to WMP I was amazed to discover Microsoft
would not let me because as usual they had only done half the job (they
cannot read AIFF tags).
I then (having already discounted WAV, Ogg, FLAC and WMA) had reluctantly
decided to settle on AAC as I could not see any other Lossless solution that
was sufficiently cross platform (since everyone at the time said it was
impossible to play Apple Lossless in WMP) and AAC was the next best option
(although it is lossey).
AAC certainly worked but after having Googled for an Apple Lossless for WMP
solution and failed to find one, I tried a bit of lateral thinking. I then
Googled for Apple Lossless for Windows solutions in the hope that one might
be adaptable to WMP.
I found Apple Lossless plugins for Foobar 2000 and WinAMP but they could not
be adapted to WMP. I then found mention of an Apple Lossless module for the
BASS music library, I then searched for someone having used BASS with WMP
and found mention of an MP3 module for BASS having been repackaged as a
directshow filter for use with WMP. Eureka! I thought, all I have to do is
get the BASS Apple Lossless module similarly repackaged as a directshow
filter.
BASS is written by http://www.un4seen.com/bass.html
The Apple Lossless module is/was written by http://maresweb.org but has been
discontinued (but fortunately the source code has been released)
The BASS MP3 module repackaged for WMP was here http://www.dsp-worx.de (hey
I'm famous! I notice Milenko Mitrovic has updated his front-page with a news
article about his and my Apple Lossless solution :-) ).
So the Apple Lossless solution required code from THREE different
developers.
On top of that I also needed to use the WMPTSE plug-in for WMP but by now I
was already using WMPTSE anyway to read the meta tags of AAC files and both
AAC and Apple Lossless use the same m4a file and tag format.
So it was a long battle but I finally achieved the holy grail of a cross
platform Lossless music format. And yes the irony of it being Apple Lossless
supposedly one of the most proprietary formats in existence was not
missed!!! ;-)
Having now got all the music in Apple Lossless format in both iTunes and
WMP, it is possible to share it via iTunes, Firefly, SlimServer, (which I
do) and I believe even Windows Media Connect! (Even all at the same time!) I
have even had reports that an Xbox 360 can play it via Media Center 2005 and
WMP (which Microsoft say should be the case if you have a matching
directshow filter in WMP for the music).
Apple even added support in iTunes 7 for the Album Artist meta tag (which
WMP requires) in response to a request from me and I am sure others.
Adding and sharing Lossless music between iTunes 7 and WMP 10 is now a
pretty smooth and easy process :-)
Note: Apple Lossless also works in hardware devices from Roku, SlimDevices,
and Sonos (not to mention Apple's iPod, iPhone and AppleTV of course).
On 25/1/07 10:33, in article
87100E80-6E87-44E9-906E-ADFF8B1B4DE4@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, "thokas"
<thokas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Ha, ha - John, so you've been down the same road trying to solve the "loss
less" issue around FLAC, WMP and Apple - not getting stuck at a dead end? And
you decided to take a bite of the Apple in the end? Sounds like a good
solution to the original problem.
I find it however odd that we have to comply with the most "propreritary"
platform in order to secure integration between the platforms - but that's
how it goes... ;-)
The second good thing is the "sharing" abillity in iTunes - it works s
absolutely brilliant also across PCs and Macs (not like WMP sharing that only
works on xbox and Vista, uhh?). By using that feature you sort of end up only
using iTunes ( if you don't want to use xboc or MCE), which might not be a
bad thing as iTunes has some neat features as well.
I'm not sure we stick to the original question, but I agree in the Apple
Loss Less approach, and confirm that it works very well with Slimdevices
Squeezebox - what brilliant box that is, btw!
"John Lockwood" wrote:
iTunes for both Mac and Windows (with an additional QuickTime component) can
play FLAC and OGG but apparently not FLAC in the standard file format (only
in the Xiph format). See http://www.xiph.org/quicktime/download.html
This workaround (Mac only)
http://barelyfocused.net/blog/2006/10/12/native-flac-in-itunesquicktime/
helps get round some of those problems. Basically it is an alternative FLAC
file parser and still uses the Xiph FLAC decoder. Even this does not provide
perfect tag support.
Literally the ONLY lossless format that can currently be fully and easily
shared between iTunes and WMP as a Windows solution is amazingly Apple
Lossless (I know this because I came up with the Apple Lossless solution).
WMP will play AIFF but not let you add them to its library, and WAV does not
support tags well enough to share so those options are excluded.
I have an Apple Lossless directshow filter installed, and also WMPTSE (to
let WMP read M4A meta tags). This lets me share Apple Lossless between
iTunes, WMP, Media Center 2005, iPod, and even an Xbox 360 Extender. Not to
mention also devices like Slim Devices Squeezebox, Roku SoundBridge, and
Sonos Zone Player.
See this thread
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=46551&st=0 for more
info about using Apple Lossless with WMP including where to download the
directshow filter.
On 23/1/07 05:57, in article
D7707B87-9729-4134-8CA6-4B2F8CE3C4FC@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, "thokas"
<thokas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
It's rather simpel. You just uncheck the box in iTunes under "preferences",
"Advanced", "General", "Copy files when added to library" - that should stop
iTunes from copying all the files and just point at the other files.
However if you have ripped the files in WMA format iTunes will allways
convert them into the format you have chosen in iTunes (under "import" in
the
same menu as above"). But if you rip your files in MP3 in WMP you can avoid
this.
However you should consider ripping the files in a lossless format like FLAC
and the copy the files from there. By doing that you allways have a "open
source" library and don't get stuck with either iTunes og WMP.
PS: I have the danish version of iTunes so I hope it's translated acording
to the english version.
"willin14@xxxxxxx" wrote:
I was wondering if someone could help me with a problem i have been
having for a while now, and this might sound very stupid because I
don't know too much about WMP and Itunes. I want to use itunes for my
ipod and then wmp for just listening and sorting my music. The poblem I
have is when I sync with itunes and it has to copy music files.
Somewhere along the line there becomes multiple files for the same
songs in both my itunes and my windows media player. Its really
annoying because I cannot just play music in my library because they
repeat and also it is a pain in my ass to have to delete all the
doubles and triples. Now I know that wmp uses wma file formats and
itunes uses mp3, but is there any way to have my music in both places
without having them copied in each if the programs i want to use???
this has been a very big problem and I would very much appreciate any
one who can help me figure it out. Thanks
.
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