UKC

Dear technologically virtuous of UKC,

I have a trusty Ipod classic 6g which I have used in conjunction with my hifi, using a decent dock system for some time. After getting fed up with fragmentatation of my itunes library, I've switched to a synology NAS based database of my CDs and re-ripped my entire collection to FLAC, as was recommended to me, which is great for playing via smart tv and through chromecast audio etc about the house, which all works great. However, I have ended up with a problem, which is that I need to convert FLAC to ALAC (.mp4) to transfer to my ipod. I have been looking for a means to do this on the fly, without duplicating my entire library, converting as it transfers to ipod. I'd checked that this was possible prior to re-ripping to FLAC, but I didn't test it first. So to do this I installed mediamonkey, which should in theory be able to do this, but, while it transferred to mp3 fine, it would not transfer to AAC/ALAC, despite purchasing the codec expansion.

Any ideas of a) how to get mediamonkey to do this, and what other tools/software people use to do this. I've managed to get the synology media server working okay, but wouldn't say I was the most technologically savvy, so any help in how to do this would be really really appreciated! Thanks!

In reply to Jimbo W:

Haven't used mediamonkey to do this, but I have used ffmpeg to convert FLAC to AAC (VBR). The command line is something like

ffmpeg -i input.flac -c:a libfdk_aac -vbr [1-5] output.m4a

In reply to Jimbo W:

Why not ditch iplayer and use something that plays FLAC on the ipod? Winning.

D

In reply to Dauphin:

I've looked to see if I can change the firmware, but unfortunately, rockbox seems the only option and they haven't got a successful firmware yet for the iPod classic 6G yet

In reply to planetmarshall:


Does that put things onto my ipod? Or does it just convert one file, or does it convert a whole library of files?

In reply to Jimbo W:

Have a look at dbPoweramp. You'll probably have to purchase the program suite to do what you want (which I haven't done myself, but I use the program happily for other things).

T.

In reply to Jimbo W:
I'll try to remember to have a look tonight. I don't have an iPod to try, but I'll have a look at the MM sync settings.

On-the-fly conversion during sync will obviously extend the sync time considerably, as the conversion process has to run.

Meanwhile, there are quite a lot of hits on the MM forums etc.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=mediamonkey+sync+conversion+alac

In reply to captain paranoia:

Thanks, any help appreciated! I've already had a good look at the MM forum, and have posted a question myself too. The first time around I'd tried using the AAC option, and had adjusted to VBR, 100%. That failed. I then re-synced the entire library for a second time (which as you say takes a very long time the 1st time you do it), and I used the advice in the link you've posted above, in which I created a rule using the .mp4 option, subsquently chosing the sub-option of the ALAC codec. Again, this has failed. The tracks are listed in the ipod fine, but clicking them doesn't play them, but the mp3 tracks I have play fine.

In reply to Jimbo W:


That suggests an encoding problem... Possibly in the MP4 container format (media generally has two formats; the codec format, and the container format that holds the codec data, and has information on the codec type, bit rate, etc). In this case, MP4 (MPEG-4) is the container format, and ALAC is the codec format.

You can pull the tracks back off the iPod using MM:

Select iThing in LH browser
Select 'Music'
select all music you wish to copy
right-click 'Auto-organise'
select 'copy files to new destination'
specify destination format:
e.g. E:/iPod/<Album Artist>/<Album>/<Track#:2> <Track>
untick the 'Add copied files to the Library' option
click 'OK'
off it goes...

Select a single album, and then see if you can play it under MM.

Or, try converting to ALAC locally (to a parallel directory), and then syncing the file to the iPod, and seeing if it will play.

In reply to Jimbo W:
I use Freemake Audio converter, seems to do all formats.


http://www.freemake.com/free_audio_converter/

In reply to Jimbo W:
Okay; first thing I notice with the trial codec pack is that there are three M** container formats: M4A, M4B and MP4.

I'm going to guess and try M4A, with codec set to ALAC. Currently transcoding. I'll try to sync the results to my iPad2 and see if it will play.

[edit]

yup; that works fine.

Give that a go with transcode on the fly...

[edit2]

Just tried transcode on the fly, and it needs the gold version. I still haven't coughed up... I'm waiting for v5 and then may go for the single version licence, rather than the perpetual...

I read your forum post, and thought perhaps you were being a bit cheeky about saying you were pissed off, but it you've paid for the licence, you're perfectly justified...

d'oh! I missed your comment on the MM forum about trying M4A...

hmmm... Maybe there's a problem with on-the-fly transcoding, but I can't think why.

In reply to captain paranoia:

Thanks for the help!

I saw your comment on the MM forum. Yes I did pay for the license, as it seemed to be able to do what I wanted on the tin, but needed to pay to be able to transcode. It's a slow turnover forum.. ..frustrating, an unrelated climbing forum is more help! I'm going to go through things bit by bit as you've described above and see if I can work out where the problem lies!

In reply to Jimbo W:

I like MM, as it 'thinks the way I do', and it does what I tell it, rather than the 'do what I tell you' of iTunes.
And it doesn't muck about re-arranging your files, and it can undo the clusterf*ck of iThing obfuscated file systems.

I have some user notes I wrote for a friend; PM me if you're interested.

I don't have much experience of syncing devices, as there aren't any devices that can hold 1.5TB of music... I do have a HDD of mp3 versions, transcoded from my master FLAC library using LAME, but I don't really use it... And it's still about 350GB...