Clip Jam won't play my aac/m4a files.

[bat999]

Hi
I’ve bought a SansaDisk Clip Jam.
It’s a neat piece of kit but it doesn’t seem to play aac/m4a files.
Will Sansa be able to fix this with a firmware update?

These files played OK on my iPod Shuffle before it shuffled off this mortal coil.
It could be that the Clip Jam is just too picky about which types of aac/m4a files it can and can’t play.
I will provide a sample non-playing aac/m4a file if you need it.

[macuser]

According to Sansa’s specifications neither the Sansa Jam or the Sansa Sport support the M4a format.

[bat999]

SanDisk Clip Sport/Jam supported file types includes AAC (Apple iTunes AAC-LC (.M4A) Audio)
according to this page —> http://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/14130

[bat999]

SanDisk Clip Sport/Jam supported file types includes AAC (Apple iTunes AAC-LC (.M4A) Audio)
according to this page —> http://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/14130

My Clip Jam will play files created by neroAacEnc, but it won’t play files encoded/muxed by FFmpeg.

I’ve raised a trac ticket with FFmpeg, maybe they will be able to sort it out.
Here —> https://trac.ffmpeg.org/ticket/4998

[miikerman]

The SanDisk Clip players sometimes have had some issue in playing aac files, depending on the encoder used to encode the files.

Are your files from iTunes, or did you encode them yourself/are they from some other source?

[bat999]

They are not from iTunes.
The troublesome files have been processed using FFmpeg.
See the trac ticket in my previous post

[tapeworm]

Why not just encode them in the trouble-free .mp3 format?

[bat999]

Hi
There is a problem with the Clip Jam and m4a files created by FFmpeg (or converter programs that use FFmpeg).

The FFmpeg people are working on a patch (for the FFmpeg program, not for the Clip Jam) .

If people have m4a files that won’t play on their Clip Jam (because they might have been converted using FFmpeg) they can probably be fixed without converting them again.

The process is known as “Re-multiplexing”.
It’s a lossless process, the sound quality of the fixed files is just as good as the originals.

I used this method here —> https://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php?showtopic=109931
(Post #6 and Post #7)

There are other ways to do the job.
Google search for terms such as " mp4 muxer".

[saratoga]

I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for ffmpeg to add a command line switch to work around whatever part of the spec the Jam doesn’t understand.  You should probably just avoid AAC since its not well supported.  

[black_rectangle]

You could also use iTunes to convert the AAC files to mp3. 

Open the album in iTunes, highlight all the files, right-click, Create mp3 Version. Then separate out the mp3 files and put them on the Sansa.