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gomariners · May 13, 2004, 08:14 PM

Here is my request for iTunes 4.5.1 (I know everyone has one)

Allow me to rip CDs to BOTH ALE and AAC but think of them as ONE track in two formats. This way, I can jukebox off my HD, but use my (now aging) 10GB ipod to play the AAC without keeping separate playlists for different formats. (i.e., iTunes would know to transfer the AAC to the iPod but play ALE on the computer) and I could keep track of playcounts together, etc., etc. Is this totally stupid or would anyone else appreciate this?

kpne1home · May 13, 2004, 08:27 PM

You could just make 2 library's and switch them when you want to do whatever you want. I forget what program does this, if someone knows could you refresh my memory?

mitchell_pgh · May 14, 2004, 08:33 AM

It doesn't sound ridiculous that you should have to maintain two copies, but it's almost like they should offer a pairing option for ALE (I have a vision of Photoshop where you can lock two layers together), but it would be difficult to translate to a basic user.

jac · May 14, 2004, 09:27 AM

It shouldn't be hard with smart playlists. Create one to contain all AACs and another one to contain all ALEs. Sync the first one to your iPod, use the second to stream you tunes. Voil�!

jfinete · May 15, 2004, 12:35 PM

This would triple the disk space used your music library. I can't imagine that many people are willing to do that.

gomariners · May 15, 2004, 01:03 PM

Originally posted by jfinete:
This would triple the disk space used your music library. I can't imagine that many people are willing to do that.

Are you saying that you can't imagine anyone will encode their CDs with ALE? Because adding an AAC layer to it would be a negligible change to the size of the file (like 20% at 128kbps). Anyone who owns an ipod and wants to use AAC on the ipod, but wants to use ALE to keep all the files on their hard disk would use this, I bet. Like me, for instance.

mitchell_pgh · May 15, 2004, 05:39 PM

It's important to remember that ALC users aren't average users.

Think production studio or radio station etc. etc. where buying a larger HD isn't a big deal. This codec also is designed for audiophiles and wanna-be audiophiles.

Think about it this way.

Pearl Jam - Jeremy - 4:51

49MB - Size of original AIFF file from the CD
34.4MB - Apple Losless Codec (ALC) file
5.5MB - MP3 and AAC encoded at 160kb/s
4.4MB - AAC encoded at 128kb/s

OK, so if you use ALC, you save about 30%
If you wanted an ALC plus 128kb/s AAC it's reduced by 21%

So there is really only a difference of 9% which isn't all that much considering...

I wouldn't do it, but it's not crazy.

I'm just waiting for SACDs to start being ripped using AAC...

Michel_80 · May 15, 2004, 06:31 PM

How would one create a smart playlist to list "ale"? Set bitrate higher than 400?

C.J. Moof · May 15, 2004, 09:25 PM

Originally posted by Michel_80:
How would one create a smart playlist to list "ale"? Set bitrate higher than 400?

"kind" "contains" "whatever shows up in the kind column, since I don't have any ALE encoded material on my powerbook"

wataru · May 15, 2004, 10:43 PM

Originally posted by C.J. Moof:
"kind" "contains" "whatever shows up in the kind column, since I don't have any ALE encoded material on my powerbook"

That's the problem--ALE items have the same filetype as AACs.

gheff · May 16, 2004, 08:54 AM

Originally posted by wataru:
That's the problem--ALE items have the same filetype as AACs.

"Kind" "Contains" "Apple Lossless"

This is what my ALE playlist uses. (I've reripped a few of my favorite CD's, just to fiddle with ALE.)

typoon · May 16, 2004, 09:35 AM

How do you rip as ALE? I thought iTunes already did that when it ripped into AAC it uses the ALE encoding to rip them in better quality. Am I missing something?

chabig · May 16, 2004, 10:18 AM

Yes. AAC and ALE are two different methods of encoding digital music. AAC is a compressed format, which is lossy. That means the reproduced music will not be an exact replica of the original. The amount of difference depends upon the bitrate of the encoded music. ALE, on the other hand is supposed to be lossless. That means the reproduced signal will exactly match the original. When you rip a CD, you rip to one format or the other, not both at the same time.

Chris

Horsepoo!!! · May 16, 2004, 10:50 AM

Maybe with a new metadata FS this will be possible, but I don't think Apple is going to code this in because a few people crazy enough to rip their whole library into AAC *AND* AL want the files combined into one.

bmedina · May 17, 2004, 01:25 PM

The original poster hit the nail on the head. Apple Lossless encoder (ALE, not ALC) is not a viable option for iPod users. It will rip through the iPod's battery, and you'll be able to store far fewer songs. So this makes ALE a non-starter for iPod users unless they're willing to go through the headache of maintaining two versions of all their songs. I know, because that's what I am doing now, and it's a headache.

And no, smart playlists are not a perfect solution. In addition to many other problems, it means that you can no longer have iTunes set to automatically sync your entire music library. That, in fact is the entire point: to have lossy files to fit your entire library on the iPod while retaining high-quality versions for the computer.

For those of you who think this is a crazy idea, consider that Windows Media Player does exactly this on Windows. This is functionality that Windows has and the Mac lacks.

Where did the ideas of tripling the disc space and requiring a new file system come from? It's simple: the files on the computer's hard drive are ALE. When you syncronize with an iPod, they are re-encoded on the fly to AAC. This requires zero extra disc space and works fine with HFS+.

mitchell_pgh · May 17, 2004, 03:11 PM

Originally posted by Horsepoo!!!:
Maybe with a new metadata FS this will be possible, but I don't think Apple is going to code this in because a few people crazy enough to rip their whole library into AAC *AND* AL want the files combined into one.

Perhaps not combined in to one, but rather "linked' in iTunes some way...

Again, not a major deal, but it's a valid point.

I'm guessing this isn't so much for audiophiles, but places where they need HIGH quality original artwork, but could use that extra 30% - 40% of space on their HD.

mitchell_pgh · May 17, 2004, 03:15 PM

Also, YOU may not see where people would be using ALE on an iPod, but I could think of a few places you would want it. And it still would give you 800 CD quality ALE songs on an iPod...

If you demand AMAZING sound quality, it's a great choice.

bmedina · May 17, 2004, 08:13 PM

If you demand AMAZING sound quality, it's a great choice.

Getting "AMAZING" sound quality out of a portable is an oxymoron.

gomariners · Jan 20, 2005, 07:16 AM

I think it's an ok solution that Apple does this convert on the fly from apple lossless to aac, but (having not received my shuffle yet) this seems like a good opportunity to restate my desire to have a 128kbps encoded AAC included in ALE for the purposes of iPod syncing (optional). I hear it can take a serious amount of extra time to encode on the fly, and with my shuffle player, I just want to plug and go!

I'm sort of thinking of those "fat" binaries we used to get in the early days of powerpc, that would run on old and new architecture. "Fat" ALE files would contain in them a compressed version for syncing with iPods. How to get Apple to do this?

iamnotmad · Jan 20, 2005, 07:37 AM

I do this with my new 60gb iPod - all ALE. ~1900 songs. My ideal solution, even with the time hit, would be encode on the fly from ale to aac when syncing -it does this for pics, converts them to smaller for the ipod. Should be easy to implement for music.
Thanks.

Spheric Harlot · Jan 20, 2005, 08:26 AM

Originally posted by iamnotmad:
I do this with my new 60gb iPod - all ALE. ~1900 songs. My ideal solution, even with the time hit, would be encode on the fly from ale to aac when syncing -it does this for pics, converts them to smaller for the ipod. Should be easy to implement for music.
Thanks.

Transcoding 2000 songs from ALE to AAC should take about 10 hours on a 1GHz G4.

Transcoding 10000 songs should take long enough to be complete silliness "on-the-fly" at the moment.

-s*

iamnotmad · Jan 20, 2005, 11:35 AM

Transcoding 2000 songs from ALE to AAC should take about 10 hours on a 1GHz G4.

Transcoding 10000 songs should take long enough to be complete silliness "on-the-fly" at the moment.

I don't see that as a problem, it only has to happen once, then it only has to do 1 or 2 cd's worth at a time.

besides, this transcoding is already supported, just not directly to iPod.

gomariners · Jan 20, 2005, 12:29 PM

Originally posted by iamnotmad:
I don't see that as a problem, it only has to happen once, then it only has to do 1 or 2 cd's worth at a time.

besides, this transcoding is already supported, just not directly to iPod.

Not true on the shuffle, because you're always changing the music on it. Then the (already slower) sync becomes ridiculously slow.

TETENAL · Jan 20, 2005, 12:38 PM

Originally posted by gomariners:
Allow me to rip CDs to BOTH ALE and AAC but think of them as ONE track in two formats. This way, I can jukebox off my HD, but use my (now aging) 10GB ipod to play the AAC without keeping separate playlists for different formats. (i.e., iTunes would know to transfer the AAC to the iPod but play ALE on the computer) and I could keep track of playcounts together, etc., etc. Is this totally stupid or would anyone else appreciate this?

This would unnecessarily waste disk space. Your computer can faster transcode ALE to AAC than the transfer rate of USB so it would be simplest to encode them on the fly when filling your Shuffle. iTunes just needs a setting that you don't want more than 80 kBit AAC or so on the Shuffle.

gomariners · Jan 20, 2005, 01:26 PM

Originally posted by TETENAL:
This would unnecessarily waste disk space. Your computer can faster transcode ALE to AAC than the transfer rate of USB so it would be simplest to encode them on the fly when filling your Shuffle. iTunes just needs a setting that you don't want more than 80 kBit AAC or so on the Shuffle.

I have a lot more disk space than time, especially if I'm already keeping all my CDs in ALE. My understanding is that the transcode from ALE is slower than both USB 2 and the speed of the flash memory (which is supposedly the limiting factor for already encoded music). Of course this must depend on the processor. Maybe for USB 1.1 this is true. And why would I want 80kbps AAC? I'd like to think I can start telling the difference more easily (for some music) there.

MaxPower2k3 · Jan 20, 2005, 01:36 PM

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
I'm just waiting for SACDs to start being ripped using AAC...

...why? You'll lose the 5.1, and you'll lose the quality, so why is that any better than ripping from the CD?

Person Man · Jan 21, 2005, 08:57 AM

Originally posted by MaxPower2k3:
...why? You'll lose the 5.1, and you'll lose the quality, so why is that any better than ripping from the CD?

Actually, IIRC, AAC has the ability to do multiple channels of sound data, so you wouldn't necessarily lose the 5.1 (you'll need an encoder and a player to do it, though).

At any rate, you'll never see a (legal) SACD ripper, because the RIAA will see to that.

lupin · Jan 25, 2005, 02:39 AM

It would be great if ALE and AAC would be in the same container. I think that wavpack does this. It wouldn't have to be a whole AAC it could be hints that would make for faster transcoding.

I thought I saw a description of the mpeg-4 standard that mentioned this functionality.

It should be transparent for the user and using different smart playlists isn't. In your library the same song shows up twice.