Play m4a files on Windows 7

Peter Bogdanoff bogdanoff at me.com
Sat Aug 13 16:52:14 EDT 2016


I agree with Scott about the “difference in quality” issue. Probably the only way people would notice a difference in audio quality would be to play the files side-by-side. Even then it would be difficult because of the relatively low quality of playback speakers/headphones. I’ve tried it with groups of people. And people really only notice bad audio when it is actually bad, not when it is just not as good as pristine.

And there definitely are batch converters (free and $).

But getting some audio people to believe this may be difficult. They can be a stubborn lot, especially if they come from the days of tape recording when moving analog audio around really could audibly degrade it.

Peter

On Aug 13, 2016, at 1:33 PM, Scott Rossi <scott at tactilemedia.com> wrote:

> Which codec pack did you try?  I was just looking at K-Lite:
> https://www.codecguide.com/download_kl.htm
> 
> And how many audio files are you talking about?  What type of content?  I
> have to believe conversion to another format is possible.  Get a batch
> convertor and process in bulk. I spoke to my brother who has been an audio
> engineer for 2 decades and he says as long as you guys keep the sampling
> rates/bit depths same, you'll only be changing format, and there shouldn't
> be any loss in quality.
> 
> IMHO, even if you went to 192kps MP3, that's a pretty high bit rate, and
> most "normal" people (non audio engineers) aren't going to notice any
> difference in quality.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Scott Rossi
> Creative Director
> Tactile Media, UX/UI Design
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 8/13/16, 12:57 PM, "use-livecode on behalf of J. Landman Gay"
> <use-livecode-bounces at lists.runrev.com on behalf of
> jacque at hyperactivesw.com> wrote:
> 
>> Yes, you're right. We're pretty much screwed then. All the universities
>> have demanded that QT be removed from all site computers and our app
>> depends on .m4a audio. There are too many audio files to convert to
>> another format, and the audio guy refuses to do it anyway due to the
>> quality degredation.
>> 
>> We tried installing a codec pack but that didn't work either. We're in
>> trouble.
>> 
>> On 8/13/2016 2:09 PM, Peter Bogdanoff wrote:
>>> I see that Ian Macphail says:
>>> "We decided to overhaul the Windows player object, replacing the
>>> existing Quicktime based implementation with one based on DirectShow,
>>> which is fully supported on all current Windows versions.²
>>> 
>>> https://livecode.com/removing-quicktime-dependency-from-livecodes-player-
>>> object/
>>> 
>>> And the Microsoft page describing DirectShow¹s supported formats (a
>>> rather limited list)-- .m4a is not one of them:
>>> https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms787745(VS.85).aspx
>>> 
>>> I¹m very interested in this subject, especially when LC gets callbacks
>>> working.
>>> 
>>> Peter Bogdanoff
>>> UCLA
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Aug 13, 2016, at 11:51 AM, J. Landman Gay <jacque at hyperactivesw.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> On 8/9/2016 4:58 PM, J. Landman Gay wrote:
>>>>> On 8/9/2016 4:26 PM, J. Landman Gay wrote:
>>>>>> We need to play .m4a files on Windows 7 and up. Double-clicking one
>>>>>> of
>>>>>> those files plays back successfully on a Win 7 machine. Loading a
>>>>>> player
>>>>>> control with the URL to the file in LC on the same machine does not
>>>>>> (LC
>>>>>> 7.1.4).
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Is this fixable? Is there something users can install to make it
>>>>>> work?
>>>>>> Or do we need a more recent version of LC?
>>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Poking around, it looks like I have to build in LC 8.1. If that's
>>>>> correct, then it's risky, it isn't stable yet. Is there any other way?
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> I've done some tests on  both Windows 10 and Vista using LC 8.1 but
>>>> m4a files still do not play when setting the filename of a player. They
>>>> do play using WMP. This is becoming an urgent issue for my client and I
>>>> need to get it working quickly. Does anyone know what we need to
>>>> install, or how to get this working?
>>>> 
>>>> Is anyone else able to play .m4a files on Windows using the new player
>>>> object?
>>>> 
>>>> --
>>>> Jacqueline Landman Gay         |     jacque at hyperactivesw.com
>>>> HyperActive Software           |     http://www.hyperactivesw.com
>>>> 
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>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> Jacqueline Landman Gay         |     jacque at hyperactivesw.com
>> HyperActive Software           |     http://www.hyperactivesw.com
>> 
>> 
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