Media player 11 - vista - m4a files

[eccl...@gmail.com]

I believe media player 11 supports m4a files, well I can't get it to
work. It says unsupported file type.

If it doesn't support m4a, does anybody know of a program which will
convert them (and retrain all the tags), all the convertors I've tried
lose the album art.

Thanks

[Mike Williams]

It doesn't support it directly (see the File Type tab in the Options
dialog). Add support here: http://www.softpointer.com/WMPTagSupport.htm

<eccl...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1162697666.6...@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...

[Neil Smith [MVP Digital Media]]

On 4 Nov 2006 19:34:26 -0800, eccl...@gmail.com wrote:

>I believe media player 11 supports m4a files, well I can't get it to
>work. It says unsupported file type.

It is, I don't know why you believe such an incorrect thing ;-)

>If it doesn't support m4a, does anybody know of a program which will
>convert them (and retrain all the tags), all the convertors I've tried
>lose the album art.

No need. WMP is broadly extensible with codecs and plugins to allow
for playback of a fair range of content. In your case, you'll need the
Orban plugin from here : http://www.orban.com/plugin/ (which is free)

HTH
Cheers - Neil
------------------------------------------------
Digital Media MVP : 2004-2006
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/mvpfaqs

[CyborgX]

Don't know about M4a files, but it doesn't support M4v files, but does at
least allow MP4 files to played. Sadly it crashed WMP11 as soon as I tried to
play one. Seemed like it was maybe trying to convert it, but didn't waste any
more time on this add-on since it didn't give me the M4v playing that I
wanted.

M4v and MP4 are already working with Zune, just need to get them working
with WMP11 under Vista somehow..... also AVI. Seems Vista is a lot harder to
get associations working well, and even prevents WMP11 from adding these
files to it's library or even playing them (both possible with WMP11 under
XP).

[John Lockwood]

It should be possible to play most m4a (MPEG4 Audio) files in WMP 11 using
one of the various AAC codecs (e.g. the Orban one mentioned below, or
ffdshow). However please note that the m4a file extension also applies to
files using the Apple Lossless (ALAC) codec, these files are also stored in
the same MPEG4 file format which is why they use the same extension.

WMP can also play Apple Lossless but whereas there are several choices of
AAC codec, there is exactly ONE directshow filter which can play Apple
Lossless (I know this because although I didn't write it myself I did come
up with the solution that created it). See
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=46551&st=0 this
codec does play both AAC and ALAC.

In addition WMP itself cannot read meta tags for mp4 files, to do this you
need to use the WMPTSE plugin. Note: this plugin does not currently support
embedded art for mp4 files so you will need to use the "Find Album Info"
command in WMP to add artwork later even if it has already been embedded by
iTunes for example. This again applies to both AAC and ALAC.

On 7/1/07 05:51, in article
291547CD-4C91-4433...@microsoft.com, "CyborgX"