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jbrave
Channel Surfer

m4a AAC from iTunes Purchases not playing

edit:

I'm trying to stream some music I just bought on Itunes to my Roku. These files will play in Flash players, quicktime and in Windows Media Player with the Orban plugin.

These are not protected files, Apple dropped the DRM in 2009. They are 256kbit AAC files. They just won't play on the Roku. Anyone else seen this? I get this:

If I use streamformat="mp4" I get

An unexpected problem (but not server timeout or HTTP error) has been detected.

Thought they fixed this in 2.9!

If I explicitly use streamformat="aac" I get:

Unsupported media format.
The format is not supported or the media is corrupt.

- Joel
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Musiclouds: The best free internet music, on your Roku!
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13 REPLIES 13
TheEndless
Channel Surfer

Re: m4a AAC from iTunes Purchases not playing

AAC is an audio file. MP4 is a video format, so it's no surprise that's not working. I'm not sure what you're referring to them "fixing in 2.9", but that error is valid if the StreamFormat doesn't match the file.

Silly question, but are you using the roAudioPlayer? Technically, per the documentation, AAC audio files aren't supported, but people have reported mixed success with it.
My Channels: http://roku.permanence.com - Twitter: @TheEndlessDev
Instant Watch Browser (NetflixIWB), Aquarium Screensaver (AQUARIUM), Clever Clocks Screensaver (CLEVERCLOCKS), iTunes Podcasts (ITPC), My Channels (MYCHANNELS)
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jbrave
Channel Surfer

Re: m4a AAC from iTunes Purchases not playing

Hi Steve, most AAC audio files (m4v) will play just fine on the Roku, one of my subchannels, 8tracks, is all mp4 AAC.

I didn't know it was not officially supported. There have always been a few Mp4 audio files that won't play, but I thought that was due to some kind of corruption, and not the majority. However it appears that mp4 purchased from iTunes won't play. They will play on iPad, Ipod, and Windows Media Player if it has the right codec installed.

- Joel
Screenshades: The first Screensaver for Roku2!
Musiclouds: The best free internet music, on your Roku!
Ouroborialis: Psychedelic Screensaver for Roku!
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stratcat96
Visitor

Re: m4a AAC from iTunes Purchases not playing

isn't m4v a video file container? Its confusing because you are talking about audio but saying "streamformat=mp4"..
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gonzotek
Visitor

Re: m4a AAC from iTunes Purchases not playing

.mp4 is a container format. It can contain video, audio, or both. m4a and (sometimes)m4v are just different file extensions for the same format, to indicate to the os what kind of content can be expected within the file. m4a is an Apple-invented file extension and you generally won't encounter them outside of Apple products, excluding user-uploaded content that originated from an Apple product. m4v is sometimes another alias for mp4, and sometimes the data in an m4v is just the raw video bitstream. Gotta love (non)standards! There's more info at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-4_Par ... extensions
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jbrave
Channel Surfer

Re: m4a AAC from iTunes Purchases not playing

Confusing because I got confused! it's m4a not m4v. My bad.

- Joel
Screenshades: The first Screensaver for Roku2!
Musiclouds: The best free internet music, on your Roku!
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smlsr
Visitor

Re: m4a AAC from iTunes Purchases not playing

Can you check something, the ONES THAT DO PLAY... What bitrate and channels (stereo, 5.1?) are they encoded at?

The ones which wont play, what bitrate and channels (stereo, 5.1 ?)

I am seeing some issues with AAC encoded movies, and wondering if it may be the bitrate and channels combination on the audio?

Shawn
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jbrave
Channel Surfer

Re: m4a AAC from iTunes Purchases not playing

Well, I just transcoded a wav file to mp4 AAC 256kbit using itunes, and that plays. Mp4 aac 64bit, most will play, mp3 of all bitrates seem to play. Itunes purchases transcoded to 256 kbit AAC don't play. That's with VBR turned on. Same deal with VBR turned off.

- Joel
Screenshades: The first Screensaver for Roku2!
Musiclouds: The best free internet music, on your Roku!
Ouroborialis: Psychedelic Screensaver for Roku!
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smlsr
Visitor

Re: m4a AAC from iTunes Purchases not playing

Channels? WAV will be 2 channel, it may be the AAC purchased is 5.1

Which I think could be the cause for it not playing? can you check that? if you are not sure how to check, right click on the file -> properties -> details... that should tell you
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gonzotek
Visitor

Re: m4a AAC from iTunes Purchases not playing

Use mediainfo ( http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en ) to see if you can sniff out any differences in the non-playing tracks.
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