Premise How to play m4a files?

Motorola Premise
Help!....in my rebuild, I can't a) Play mp4s thru the Premise Browser or b-) remember whether I ever COULD play mp4s thru the browser media player.....

Do any of you know whether I have forgotten that it is possible, or whether I need to install the 'Help, I've fallen and can't get up .xdo'? ;)
 
chucklyons said:
... I can't a) Play mp4s thru the Premise Browser...
Click to expand...

For me, things work like this:
  1. Main Server and Tablet PC can play MP3 and M4A files using Windows Media Player 11 (WMP).
  2. Main Server can play MP3 and M4A files via a MediaZone (currently, the server's audio card).
  3. Tablet PC can play MP3 files using Premise Browser's "Play in Browser".
  4. Tablet PC cannot play M4A files using Premise Browser's "Play in Browser".

I haven't investigated what Windows resource is called upon when "Play in Browser" is clicked. I would've guessed that it used some component closely related to WMP ... apparently not. I'll take a peek at the browser's code after I've released an upgraded version of my USB-UIRT driver.
 
123 said:
chucklyons said:
... I can't a) Play mp4s thru the Premise Browser...
Click to expand...

For me, things work like this:
  1. Main Server and Tablet PC can play MP3 and M4A files using Windows Media Player 11 (WMP).
  2. Main Server can play MP3 and M4A files via a MediaZone (currently, the server's audio card).
  3. Tablet PC can play MP3 files using Premise Browser's "Play in Browser".
  4. Tablet PC cannot play M4A files using Premise Browser's "Play in Browser".

I haven't investigated what Windows resource is called upon when "Play in Browser" is clicked. I would've guessed that it used some component closely related to WMP ... apparently not. I'll take a peek at the browser's code after I've released an upgraded version of my USB-UIRT driver.
Click to expand...

Thanks...what I was really looking for was mp4 (video)...(I'm converting videos for my frequent road trips and deciding whether to stay on the wmv path (which play in browser) or mp4s (which I can use more widely))
 
Hi Guys,

Did anyone get .m4a to play in the browser? I did all the stuff to get them playing in WMP ok but not via PHC server...

Cheers
 
Resurrecting this old thread...

Has anyone gotten Premise to read the tags from m4a files? Seems to be the last hurdle in converting my library so iTunes/iPhone/iPod can deal with it without duplicating everything.

Seems that it would be easier if Apple and MS would stop playing these stupid "mine is bigger (better) than yours games. Or to paraphrase Rodney King, "Can't we all just get all of our audio files to along?"
 
You can convert M4A to MP3 to have a try as MP3 has higher compatibality. If you prefer a tool, I recommned you Bigasoft Audio Converter. It is a quite nice tool. You can type it in Google or Yahoo to get it.
 
Well, this post is almost 4 years old :)  But I did end up converting my library over to MP3, even though I really wanted to stay lossless.  In the end comparability won out.
 
At the time I needed to also have the files work in my (then) iPhone and now Android phone.  So I didn't consider FLAC.
 
The iphone doesn't use FLAC?!?  I didn't know that.  Good thing you switched to Android :)
 
I haven't done it yet, but I plan to rip all of my CD's to FLAC using dbPowerAmp.  I was going to use wave files, but the problem with them is metadata.  Most programs can't handle metadata for wave files.  That's where FLAC comes in.
 
Obviously Sam knows this already, but in case anyone new ever reads this:  FLAC files are compressed copies of the original, just like when you zip a file to save space.  Even though they are compressed, they are a bit for bit copy of the original, just like when you unzip a file no data is lost.  I'm pretty sure they'll work with Premise as they can work in Windows Media Player.
 
And just to be clear as to motivation :)
 
I have been for many years, a musician and recording/audio engineer as a part time endeavor of love really.  I never made a living at it.  I just couldn't stop.  So I am VERY picky about my music files.  First I went with WMA lossless which was good.  Then I switched to Apple's lossless when I got my iPhone.  Quality was good, but I hated Apple's insistence on doing things in their incredibly narrow ways.  So I switched to Android.  At that point I also realized that I almost NEVER just sit and listen to music anymore.  But it is almost always on as background.  So mild compression versus lossless really didn't matter anymore.  I really couldn't hear the difference in my normal listening setting.  And I gain all the benefits of a more universal library:  management, metadata, portability, etc.
 
And if I ever want to sit and seriously listen, I can pull out the CD.
 
Do you know of any studio quality blu-ray mutli-channel discs?  I like classic rock, jazz, blues, folk and R&B.
 
I have several SACD and DVD-Audio discs that were studio recordings, remastered for multi-channel audio (Eagles - Hotel California, Deep Purple - Machine Head, BB King and Eric Clapton - Riding with the King, Fleetwood Mac - Rumors, Queen - Night at the Opera, Norah Jones - Come with Me, some Diana Krall, etc...).  However, as you can tell from the list, the artist selection is very limited on these older formats and the discs are also getting very hard to find (and expensive).  Some are also very old studio recordings too, and who knows what they did to remaster them to 5.1.  I know the Eagles album was remastered very well though.
 
I'd like to find some more recent studio recordings on blu-ray, and I'm also looking for a really nice blu-ray audio disc to show off my 5.1 setup.  I definitely don't like live recordings as they are hit and miss.
 
Also since we're talking about audio compression, what do you think about the loudness wars?  I can definitely hear that ;)  I suspect that's what the vinyl is better people are really hearing, but I'm a young guy, who never lived in the vinyl age.  To me the mastering of the disc matters more than the format (mp3, CD, vinyl, DVD-Audio, SACD, etc...).
 
I agree I won't be able to hear the difference between FLAC (which is bit for bit of the original so it's lossless too, the compression is only in file size and the file gets unzipped during playback) and a high bit-rate MP3.  When I transfer everything to my phone, since space is limited so I'll be using mp3's.
 
I never got into any of the hi-def audio formats.  I waited to see how it would fall out, not realizing it would completely disappear.  We used to use some when I was a factory rep for a few audio companies.  But I never bought any for myself.  No, it just doesn't matter to me anymore.  Although, now you got me thinking about it....  :)
 
As for the loudness wars, it's one of my biggest peeves.  We have the technology finally, to get the most dynamic range we've ever been able to get on recordings, and were squishing everything down more than ever.  Makes me nuts.  Some of the best recordings of the mid 70s had such a minimalist approach to compressions, that it was almost not there (on mastering).  Listen to Supertramp - Crime of the Century.  The dynamics were incredible.  Not to mention Dark Side of the Moon.  Then there are a myriad of Jazz recordings from the fifties through the sixties that are so alive, with very little compression.
 
As for formats and their compression.  If you sit and listen with a reasonably good system, you will hear differences in uncompressed versus lightly compressed MP3 or other formats.  Mostly in soundstage depth and width.  Things like that.  In a car, ceiling speakers, iPod, no.  You'll never hear it.  Not really.  So it really all depends on your listening habits, I guess.
 
I have Dark Side of the Moon on SACD and love it.  I think Fry's sells it if you look in their DVD audio and SACD section.  It's not compressed and sounds great (on the SACD layer).  The CD layer has some digital clipping, but it doesn't look too bad.  Probably far less than the normal CD.
http://www.stereophile.com/news/11649/
 
For others, this is great (and free) software to examine a CD's sound quality (for things like clipping):
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&u=http://www.lts.a.se/lts/masvis&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dmasvis%26biw%3D1422%26bih%3D693
 
So how do you listen to it (sacd)? Physical player or what..

its either age or twisted similarities, but Floyd Or Good Vibrations are my test tracks....
 
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