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Topic: Pioneer MVH-P8200 AAC compatibility (Read 7513 times) previous topic - next topic
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Pioneer MVH-P8200 AAC compatibility

I own a Pioneer MVH-P8200 Car Stereo.

According the the manual, it supports AAC but says: "AAC encoded by iTunes". Indeed, I have tried using Winamp's FhG AAC encoder, with various settings and all have failed. Shouldn't the files generated by both encoders by 100% AAC compatible?

I have tried all the combinations of settings I saw possible, in order to test LC, HE and HEv2 compatibility. I tried VBR settings 1 thru 6; CBR settings forced to LC at the minimum and maximum bitrate possible; and same for HE and HEv2. Finally I tried CBR forced to LC at 320kbps.

The specs on the manual or as follows:

Quote
Compatible format: AAC encoded by iTunes
File extension: .m4a
Bit rate: 8 kbps to 320 kbps
Sampling frequency: 8 kHz to 44.1 kHz
Apple Lossless: No
AAC file bought on the iTunes Store (.m4p file extension): No


My guess is the the Pioneer radio is looking for some specific iTunes headers.

Pioneer MVH-P8200 AAC compatibility

Reply #2 –
Some alternatives to "hacking" your AAC files:

- Try MP3
- Try an iPod (I assume iPods can play Nero AAC)
- Get a different car stereo

I use an iPod Classic (loaded with MP3s) and a Sony car stereo.  You are stuck with the software (firmware) loaded into the stereo.  Since the iPod dock/interface is very-common and standardized, it should work with anything "iPod compatible".  That's why I decided to go with the iPod.

Pioneer MVH-P8200 AAC compatibility

Reply #3 –
Quote from: Makaki on
I own a Pioneer MVH-P8200 Car Stereo.

According the the manual, it supports AAC but says: "AAC encoded by iTunes". Indeed, I have tried using Winamp's FhG AAC encoder, with various settings and all have failed. Shouldn't the files generated by both encoders by 100% AAC compatible?


AAC support on simple hardware devices is usually pretty awful.  I would start by trying to repack the MP4 stream into something "optimized" or "ipod compatible".  That tends to fix a lot of strange compatibility problems. 

Failing that, you could just use iTunes, as its probably what your stereo is meant to work with.

Pioneer MVH-P8200 AAC compatibility

Reply #4 –
I take issue with the concept of being Apple-compatible and the idea that it’s really a thing: AFAIK, Apple does nothing special with its AAC, MP4, or tags, other than to add just enough little idiosyncrasies that players who assume Apple are a reference for these formats risk losing compatibility with files created by non-Apple encoders. Is this deliberate? I couldn’t possibly speculate!

Pioneer MVH-P8200 AAC compatibility

Reply #5 –
Quote from: db1989 on
I take issue with the concept of being Apple-compatible and the idea that it’s really a thing: AFAIK, Apple does nothing special with its AAC, MP4, or tags, other than to add just enough little idiosyncrasies that players who assume Apple are a reference for these formats risk losing compatibility with files created by non-Apple encoders. Is this deliberate? I couldn’t possibly speculate!


Usually its the layout of the mp4 stream that causes this.  The underlying AAC-LC bits are straightforward, but there are an enormous number of possible ways an mp4 stream can be encoded.

Pioneer MVH-P8200 AAC compatibility

Reply #6 –
Fair enough. I was assuming, perhaps rashly, that it would be something like in my first link, where only a few bytes would need to be changed. Still, just as much if it’s an issue of layout, it would be nice if Apple and everyone else could agree enough for them to be interoptable, especially if the differences are ultimately small.

Anyway, we won’t know what the cause is until Makaki tries the methods already suggested, and any others that might be found, and reports whether any of them fix compatibility in their specific case.

Pioneer MVH-P8200 AAC compatibility

Reply #7 –
MP4 is really complicated since its a general container format.  Pathological examples of it can require huge amounts of memory to properly index; much more than common hardware devices have available.  The solution to this is of course to not write pathological MP4 streams and accept that if you do your file won't work with some devices.

Unfortunately this implicit assumption that its ok to fail to parse valid files means that in practice a lot of decoders only parse whatever type of file the manufacturer tested with.  Generally once you stop trying to target the spec and instead target a specific implementation, this is what happens. 

On the upside, its pretty easy to repack an AAC stream, and of course its lossless.  So if you can find a tool that writes a stream your hardware likes, you can probably batch convert all your files.

Pioneer MVH-P8200 AAC compatibility

Reply #8 –
Quote from: saratoga on
On the upside, its pretty easy to repack an AAC stream, and of course its lossless.  So if you can find a tool that writes a stream your hardware likes, you can probably batch convert all your files.

MP4Box being one of the better known tools for that. There are many front-ends for it, I have been using Yamb for quite a long time and even though it's not been updated in a while can still recommend it.

Pioneer MVH-P8200 AAC compatibility

Reply #9 –
I tried mp4box on the 6 VBR files (quality settings 1 thru 6). I used the option: -single 1
Which is supposed to extract the 1st track and put it on a new file.

Out of the 6 VBR files, the first two worked, the rest didn't. That is, the HE and HEv2 files worked. Or the way I see it, the LC files with the SBR and PS extensions.

Why didn't the other VBR files work? I have no idea. I then decided to give up on MP4 on that Car Stereo. I wanted to test it once, but so far MP3 is A LOT easier.

I might look into it more at a later date. Or if relevant technical information appears where I don't have to do more guess work with the files.

Pioneer MVH-P8200 AAC compatibility

Reply #10 –
I have since tried using QAAC instead. The installation of the program is a bit trickier, but there's enough documentation to get it right. All the AAC files I tried worked.

I've installed it with FLAC, Wavpack and TAK support as indicated in the docs. I've converted directly from my FLAC files, which were created with EAC. Most of my tags were copied across, except album art.

I've only done a test so far, so I'll have to see how to use the command line more efficiently when converting multiple files. Compared to LameDropXpd, it's losing on easy of use. I think I will try a batch file next time.

I tried TVBR (all quality steps), and CVBR (from 64 kbps to 320 kbps in various common bitrates). And they all worked on the car stereo.

Note: I didn't have neither QuickTime nor iTunes installed before I started. I know you can install CoreAudioToolbox by extracting it, but to make things easier I opted to simply installed QuickTime regularly. I noticed that even after updating, It doesn't have the latest CoreAudioToolbox. So if you want the latest DLLs, you have to extract the updated installer from the iTunes package, which I had to do in the end.