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iTunes Plus is a Negative on the N95?

Started by Shane Lord · 11 months ago

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11 comments

  • Wes

    2 years ago

    :evil: I am getting sick of this. I experience the same. I even paid for my iTunes music, but i can't play it anywhere but in my Apple... Apple should change this. How difficult is it to ad some digital rights management-stuuf to a song so i can use it on my N95. I paid fort the music!! Apple change this please!
    reply
  • Wes

    2 years ago

    Please!
    iTunes for the multimedia phone of the moment...
    reply
  • Nick Burch

    2 years ago

    I've spoken to the Nokia UK support team, and they seem to think that the N95 ought to be able to play iTunes Plus files. They've escallated the support request, and they think the problem will get bounced over to Finland early next week. Hopefully we'll have a fix in a week or so :/
    reply
  • Shane Lord

    2 years ago

    Nick,

    Really appreciate that - thanks! I've got a support request into Apple as well (seeing it doesn't work on other non-Nokia devices too) so hopefully we'll get an answer soon.

    Regards,
    Shane.
    reply
  • Shane Lord

    2 years ago

    Update: I've just tried renaming the file(s) from .M4A to various extensions (AAC, MPG etc), and when it is labelled .MPG it allows it to play fine in RealPlayer on the N95.

    So my guess is Apple have done something funky with these files that's breaking the AAC standard, but if you really want to play them now rename them to *.mpg until Apple (or Nokia etc) fix it.

    Regards,
    Shane.
    reply
  • Shane Lord

    2 years ago

    There is now a tool from Joshua King that fixes the file(s) without re-encoding. See "Update 4" above.

    Regards,
    Shane.

    <strike>

    I also found over at macosxhints.com this post which gives you the steps to use Quicktime Pro to do a passthrough re-encode. This in essence doesn’t change the actual audio content - just the container it sits in so the audio quality is identical. I’ve tested this and it works perfectly, so Apple have definately stuffed up with their new iTunes Plus, whether it is because of adding your name and email address inside the file or something else I don’t know.


    Steps to do it:

    1. Open the file in Quicktime Pro, and choose "export" from the "File" menu.


    2. In the dialogue that appears, choose "Movie to MPEG-4" in the "Export" drop-down menu.


    3. Click the "options…" button.


    4. Choose "MP4 (ISMA)" from the "file format" drop-down menu at the top of the window.


    5. Click on the "Audio" tab.


    6. Choose "Pass through" from the "Audio format" drop-down menu.


    7. Click on the "streaming" tab.


    8. Click on the "enable streaming" check box.


    9. Click "OK"


    10. Change the extension of the file name to be saved from .mp4 to .m4a


    11. Choose a destination folder for the file to be saved to. (don't choose the same folder as the original, unless you've changed the name of the file or backed-up the original).


    12. Click save.


    13. There is also an AppleScript that can be run to copy the original metadata in the files back, download from here: http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/dl.php?sc...>

    Regards,

    Shane.

    </strike>

    reply
  • Nick Burch

    2 years ago

    Bah.

    Just heard back from Nokia support. Apparently, iTunes Plus files use some wierd AAC codec which isn't supported on the phone, and nokia have no plans to support :(

    Their only suggestion was to use the nokia pc-suite to re-encode the tracks to a different AAC codec, which the phone will then play.

    Nick
    reply
  • Shane Lord

    2 years ago

    Nick,


    Firstly let me say thanks for the followup. Secondly - Wow. That's not the response I like to hear from any vendor, especially seeing as the phone's inbuilt RealPlayer can play them when renamed to .MPG


    Whilst I believe it's an Apple issue (seeing as most phones can't play them, and devices like the Xbox 360 can't either), what I would have liked to hear from Nokia is "we understand that this is important to our customers and will try and work with Apple to resolve".


    Oh well - am I expecting too much of the vendors whose products I buy?


    Regards,

    Shane.

    reply
  • Joshua King

    2 years ago

    I hope I've solved your problem with iTunes Plus. I've found that there is a change in the structure in the .m4a files between QuickTime/Nokia/everybody else and the ones from the iTunes Store.


    It has a simple fix (better than re-wrapping via QuickTime) that I have put on my blog but it still means you have to run a tool over the file. However mine doesn't destroy any metadata (works on all my 27 iTunes Plus .au tracks). And they work now on my E61.

    reply
  • Nick Burch

    2 years ago

    I've just spoken to Nokia UK support again. Apparently, Nokia now agree that the problem is with the pinf atom in the stream. Their 2nd line tech team are now advising people to use one of the various tools to shift the pinf atom inside the esds one, and they do seem to have been reading up on various forums on the issue.

    Alas they weren't able to say if Nokia were planning to fix the issue or not (apparently that information isn't available to support guys), but at least Nokia are now aware of the issue.
    reply
  • Mame

    5 months ago

    http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20...

    This worked perfectly for me. It would still be nice if my Nokia could directly connect with iTunes though. When we get rid of this DRM stuff maybe someone could come up with a universal method of device + media player interaction.
    reply

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