drlucky,
I checked all 13 files that took an eternity to load, but did finally load to the player and they were all using an mp42 MP4 v2 [ISO 14496-14] container and a mp4a: MPEG-4 AAC LC codec. Since these files play fine in the CZ, but load very slow, just what do you mean by not supported by the CZ?
As far as MAX being the source of this container, MAX has three AAC data format settings:
AAC
MPEG-4 HE AAC
MPEG-4 HE AAC V2
I tried each one of these settings with the same FLAC source file to see the impact on CODEC and Container.
The results:
AAC setting uses the MPEG-4 LC Profile Codec and the Elementary AAC Audio, ADTS hdrs container
MPEG-4 HE AAC setting uses the same Codec and Container as the AAC setting
MPEG-4 HE AAC V2 setting uses the same Codec and Container as the AAC setting
My conclusion is: MAX does not use the mp42 MP4 v2 [ISO 14496-14] container. This makes sense when I think about it. MAX uses open source and core audio api’s from Apple and is a Mac only product. MP42 is of Microsoft origin, from what I can tell, and is usually affiliated with Windows Media Video. So the question is where did my 13 files get the mp42 MP4 v2 [ISO 14496-14] container?
I only use MAX for FLAC conversions to get files iTunes will play since they don’t support FLAC playback. The other main sources of aac files on my Mac is iTunes itself or I possibly got the files already in aac format. You can set iTunes to convert files to aac or mp3 on import or you can just right click a file and convert to aac format. Up until the recent findings of problems with aac files with the CZ, I used an import as aac setting in iTunes. This import setting has a few options of it’s own and I had to try them all to see what happens. The results are interesting to say the least. The two main settings choices for AAC Encoding in iTunes are High Quality (128 kbps) and iTunes Plus. I found both of these settings produce aac files with the mp42 MP4 v2 [ISO 14496-14] container. This is the same container signature my 13 files in my previous test have. This implies those technology exchanges between Apple and Microsoft some years ago must have included this mp42 technology. This also means iTunes is the source of the container that you say the CZ does not support. That has major implications!
I did all these tests using a Mac with the Mac version of iTunes (10.4.1 - 64 bit version). If what you say is true, that CZ does not support aac files with the mp42 MP4 v2 [ISO 14496-14] container, then by extension, I can now conclude that means the CZ does not support aac files created in iTunes for the Mac. I’ll leave it to someone with iTunes for WIndows to test what the aac files situation is with that version of iTunes.
The only strange thing is the 13 aac files I tested did load and they did playback fine from the player memory. They just took forever to load, so I guess I need that explanation what you mean by “does not support”.
GPH
