I Want to Break Free... (of iTunes)

Squarehed · 5 Jul 2007 at 10:13

OK, here's the deal. I have many CDs that I ripped in iTunes using the AAC codec. Now I'm getting sick of iTunes being pretty poor at many things, and would like to be able to have these files into my WMP11 library. Is there anyway to do this without re-encoding my CD collection into mp3?

I've managed to get AAC files to play in WMP11 using the Windows Vista codec package. But WMP doesn't want anything to do with them in a library way.

And btw, please don't tell me that I shouldn't be doing this, there's already a thread arguing on which media player to use here. I've used other media players in the past and want to try WMP for a bit. Having a full library would be useful in this test.

(Running Vista Ult. x64 If that matters)

Gigi · 5 Jul 2007 at 11:02

google for "K-Lite Codec Pack"

should allow WMP11 to play AAC files.

point decay · 5 Jul 2007 at 11:08

i had the same problem last year, my only solution was to re-encode them all to mp3 as i dont think AAC files handle tags in the same way, if you have to go down this road then MGTEK dopisp is a handy little plug in for syncing the ipod to wmp 11.

http://www.mgtek.com/dopisp/

Squarehed · 5 Jul 2007 at 16:29

I think I've cracked it. I've used the 'Vista Codec Package' and its included ffdshow to enable AAC playback in WMP.

I've also used a plugin called WMPTagSupportExtender and these combined have enable me to add my test album with AAC into the library. So in that sense, this is a success. But a problem comes in that I cannot seek through the tracks when they are opened through the WMP library. They can be seeked when I play through Explorer though, which I find odd. Not a HUGE problem but it stops my AAC tracks being scrobbled by last.fm as this same bug seems to report to last.fm that the track is 'too short'.

Anyone else got some experience of using AAC in WMP. Is there any other way to do it?

Also, unable to edit tags from WMP. But this is OK as all my tracks are tagged from when I ripped them anyway, and in future, rips will go to mp3. (also have tagging program just incase for AAC)