Aac Questions
Reply #10 – 2002-11-01 12:28:46
rjamorim says, "The best freely available encoder is undoubtedly Psytel AACenc 2.15". Is this available only for Windows Machines (as implied by the .zip and .exe endings on the downloaded files) or can it also be used on a Mac? Windows-only for PsyTEL AACEnc v2.15, and as far as I know Nero does not provide a Mac version of its burner software, so you can't use Ivan's updates of his encoder, even if they are available via Nero.Currently, I'm encoding AAC files using QuickTime 6 Pro, but (especially if a later version has SBR) it might be useful to try the Psytel encoder, if it's possible. As far as I know, Apple uses the Fraunhofer AAC codec, but I'm not sure which version. Maybe you could look it up somewhere? Because the newest version (evaluation build from Aug 23, 2002) did sound very good in the 64 kbps c't listening test (for my taste), but your version is probably older than that.And do you think AAC-with-SBR will be available anytime soon in QuickTime Pro, or other Macintosh encoders? (Audion, maybe?) Like I already wrote, AAC+ will probably take some more months, before it will be available for the public. And QuickTime may integrate it, too, but my guess is that Audion would be quicker than Apple, because they already have a deal with Coding Technologies for mp3PRO. So you should ask yourself if you really need these low bitrates that AAC+ seems to be very good at (like 48 kbps), or if maybe 64 kbps is small enough for you, because then you can encode your analog tapes with mp3PRO, too. If you rather consider 80-96 kbps as a sufficient file size/bitrate, you should do some own comparisons between QuickTime 6 Pro and mp3PRO with Audion 3 (if you have access to this software), because normal AAC has its "sweet spot" at this bitrate (the best efficiency compared to other formats).