AAC Conversion Disruption

[jbembe]

I decided to re-encode my library into AAC from MP3 to save some space and I thought it might reduce some of the distortion I was hearing. I'm having a weird problem however.

When I import the files, I choose "replace existing" because I want to keep all of my playlists and playcounts intact. I can see the file import and the old MP3 has been properly trashed.

The computer is able to play the files normally, however my 40gig3Gen iPod has been throwing fits. After 20CDs of conversion, the iPod crashes and tells me to restore to factory settings.

When I do this, it transfers all of the files over, however any files that I used the "replace existing" option, which play nice on the computer, don't play properly on the iPod. All of them seem to cut out 5-15 seconds before the song is supposed to finish and start playing the next song! I have no idea what is happening, any advice would be very beneficial!

[SilentPanda]

I have a 1st gen 10 gig iPod so I can only make a guess until somebody smart can come along but...

Is there a setting on the iPod to make it cross fade tracks? Maybe when you restored the factory settings you also turned some other settings on/off that you had previously had the other way?

[jbembe]

I just checked and the problem is replicated on the 10gig 1gen iPod my wife uses. Any songs that have been updated to AAC by the "replace existing" protocol finish playing at 5-15 seconds before completion.

I also changed the 3G iPod to manual, deleted some of the offending songs, and loaded them manually only to find precisely the same problem intact.

ARRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH.

The old MP3s don't do this. Of course, since I've redone several gigs of music I haven't checked each and every file, but all the ones I've checked have this uniform problem.

:mad:

[Jetson]

I've replaced many MP3 songs with AACs and never encountered a problem. I can only guess what the cause may be.

However I wonder if the "Stop Time" button (iTunes individual song Options) has somehow become enabled with a bogus value - shorter than the actual time.

[SilentPanda]

You might try copying an offending file into iTunes again with a different name and see if that fixes it. Also you might try reripping it with a different name (just to see if that changes it).

[jbembe]

2 things:

Any new CD which I rip that does not have "replace existing" options available does not do this on the iPod. I assume that if I rerip the song without performing the "replace existing" option they will not do this, I will check though...

Under options, the song end time shows the full length of the song on the computer, but I don't know what it is on the iPod.

[SilentPanda]

Looks like you just might have to lose yer play counts and such. Which probably stinks (I guess... I never use playcounts or ratings or any of that stuff anyhow but it seems a lot of people do).

Is the playcount/ratings stored in the AAC file or in an XML file? If it's external to the actual AAC files you might be able to copy the XML file somewhere, import your songs (not replacing), then replace the XML file. It's a screwy way to do it I admit but... just throwing out options.

[jbembe]

It looks like this is becoming a more generally recognized problem:

http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?128@137.q4Q3aKNnvfs.3@.689a02e8


Hopefully apple will resolve this issue without forcing everyone to discard playcount/playlist/rating information.