Nero6 with AAC+ has arrived. Please discuss your experiences & the container you used [Archive]

BoNz1

26th July 2003, 03:02

Buy the retail version it is already out, http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=1055343972568&skuId=5670375&type=product I have already had it since like the 18th or 19th IIRC, ;)
EDIT: And BTW the web version is there too:
http://www.ahead.de/en/index.html
ftp://ftp.us.nero.com/Nero6009.exe
ftp://ftp.us.nero.com/NeroMediaPlayer1404.exe
ftp://ftp.us.nero.com/NVE20022.exe

ChristianHJW

26th July 2003, 04:14

Its now on ftp://ftp.ahead.de also :) .....

SeeMoreDigital

26th July 2003, 11:11

Hey Hey Hey........ It's here!

One day late but never the less it's arrived. The entire web site has been redesigned. So in order to get directly to the download section you now have to go here: -

http://www.nero.com/en/631934351031098.html

Thanks

DKDIB

26th July 2003, 11:50

SeeMoreDigital wrote:
> One day late but never the less it's arrived.

Not exactly: it uploaded at 23.00 or 24.00 CEST (German' s time zone in summer). ;)

SeeMoreDigital

26th July 2003, 14:17

Well the Nero6 GUI is certainly different.

My question to the mods is. Would this be the correct place in the forum to start a thread about Nero's AAC and AAC+

Cheers

Doom9

26th July 2003, 15:45

My question to the mods is. Would this be the correct place in the forum to start a thread about Nero's AAC and AAC+
If it's about putting AAC(+) into a container, then yes, if it's encoding audio format x to aac, then the audio format would be more suitable.

Animaniac

26th July 2003, 16:24

In case anyone is intersted, I was wondering how to use Mausau's plugings with Nero 6. He has kindly updated his site to show how to install with Nero 6.

For Nero version 6, unzip the plugin DLL into "\Program Files\Common Files\Ahead\AudioPlugins" directory.

SeeMoreDigital

26th July 2003, 18:15

Thanks for that Doom9...

Last week I started a thread about the Mp4 container, as did Sirber. And was hoping that something more positive could have come out of the thread prior to the release of Nero6.

I realize that just about anything can be put into the Matroska container these days but I personally (and please tell me I'm not alone!) would like to know more about Mp4 container applications.

Foreinstance, are there any simple applications out there that will allow me to create DivX type video with AAC audio?

vinouz

26th July 2003, 19:38

Nero 6 doens't read my OGGs anymore with rareware's plugin.

Animaniac

26th July 2003, 20:36

Originally posted by vinouz
Nero 6 doens't read my OGGs anymore with rareware's plugin.
Mausau's plugings (http://neroplugins.cd-rw.org/)

chepe36

27th July 2003, 00:30

Is it my imagination or LC-AAC sounds better than HE-AAC??

in HE-AAC there seems to be a strange noise in high frequencies more like some kind of distortion, well at least to my ears, but yes the file size is always a lot smaller.

Doom9

27th July 2003, 00:51

are there any simple applications out there that will allow me to create DivX type video with AAC audio?
if you mean gknot style, then I wouldn't know of any. So far, mp4 creation is limited to mp4ui and the underlying mpeg4if cli tools. The DivX MP4 creator has been removed but I suppose it will show up again one day or another. 3ivX and ahead (as part of Nerodigital) will certainly have their own solutions at some point. But I think one major problem that has yet to be tackled is editing.. there's no mp4 editing application I'm aware of, and should I ever feel the need to switch containers, editing is definitely a must.

zeiRAM

27th July 2003, 01:18

how can i join a nero aac with a avi to a mkv file ,( i allways get error dont support mp4/quicktime file. i check export iso xxxx track but didnt help ,(

unmei

27th July 2003, 02:20

You will need the 3vix DSF for "splitting" the mp4 file. Then i graphedit drop the video, add matroska muxer and file writer DSFs and "render" the aac (ctrl+r) then link a chain similar to this (http://home.t-online.de/home/profdrmorph/rv9-ac3-mkv-graph.png) (from this thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?postid=349756#post349756))but with aac and avi input. decoder and render DSFs are not necessary for creating a file. delete those the graph builder added. Once done press the play button and wait until play has finished writing the file.

Sirber

27th July 2003, 02:30

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
Last week I started a thread about the Mp4 container, as did Sirber. Huh? I did something? :confused:

zeiRAM

27th July 2003, 02:42

Thx Unmei it work, but how can i add a delay, the audio hast 920ms ,(

jernst

27th July 2003, 03:08

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital

Foreinstance, are there any simple applications out there that will allow me to create DivX type video with AAC audio?

You can use DVX with MP4 plugin to get DivX (or XviD) with AAC into MP4 container. I never tried this plugin myself but I think it works quite well. http://planetdvb.net/dvx

...

Let's give this new nero a try right now !

BoNz1

27th July 2003, 03:16

Sirber

27th July 2003, 15:30

I just made my first trat with HE-AAC at 64kbps, and IMHO mp3PRO sounds better. AAC+ have too much distortions :(

[edit]

Vorbis sounds better than mp3PRO...

[edit2]

All at 64kbps :D

SeeMoreDigital

27th July 2003, 15:48

Thanks Doom9

if you mean gknot style, then I wouldn't know of any. So far, mp4 creation is limited to mp4ui and the underlying mpeg4if cli tools. The DivX MP4 creator has been removed but I suppose it will show up again one day or another. 3ivX and ahead (as part of Nerodigital) will certainly have their own solutions at some point. But I think one major problem that has yet to be tackled is editing.. there's no mp4 editing application I'm aware of, and should I ever feel the need to switch containers, editing is definitely a must.

You know, I had forgotten that previous versions of DivX could generate .Mp4 video streams. I never used this facility myself so are you able to confirm if it was possible to generate 2pass encodes with this option. And which DivX version was the last to incorporate it?

I suppose there are quite a few people on the forum who have experimented with QuickTime Pro to create the odd Mp4 audio and video encode. This application works quite well (although you can't import Mpeg2 data streams). However you can only generate 1pass CBR encodes. So the quality is not as good as it could be!

haibane

27th July 2003, 17:31

I muxed an AAC made with nero and an avi stream in to an matroska file........
but during playback of the file, the video and audio will get async if I try to seek within the file.......

my graph goes like this:

xxx.avi ---> avi splitter ------------> matroska muxer ---> xxx.mkv
xxx.mp4 ---> 3iv D4 Media Splitter --->

Does anyone have the same problem or know what causes this problem?

ChristianHJW

27th July 2003, 17:58

Strange .... can you download mkvtoolnix (http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/sources/mkvtoolnix-0.5.0.tar.bz2) 0.5.0 from Msou's site (http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/) and run mkvinfo ( its in the mkvtoolnix package ) on the whole movie with the -v switch and send it to me via email ( please RAR it before ;) ) chris at matroska.org ?

I assume the 3ivX MP4 splitter is the problem here, because we have tested muxing HE AAC tracks into MKV file with mkvmerge before and it worked ok ( of course, we couldnt check sync, our HE AAC file was a random auido file sent to us from Ahead people, and not the right movie soundtrack ;) ... ).

If you goto 'properties' in Nero 6 and tick 'export to XYZ ISO AAC track', Nero6 will make a valid MPEG2 AAC track from the MP4 after it is finished with encoding, and you can mux this fine in MKV with mkvmerge from Command Line ..... can you make this test also ? Does it desync also ?

vinouz

27th July 2003, 18:16

thanks for the page name. It was here I had the plugins, but :

For Nero version 5, unzip the plugin DLL into "...\Ahead\Shared\AudioPlugins" directory.
For Nero version 6, unzip the plugin DLL into "\Program Files\Common Files\Ahead\AudioPlugins" directory.

And I compared 64 CBR LC (Quicktime) Vs. 64CBR HE, and found the same thing : I definitely prefer quicktime's LC encodes (didn't try nero's LC ones, as quicktime is said to be better) for this bitrate.

And for bitrates lower, I compared them with ogg vorbis @ -1, and while being often around 32-40kbit/s and sometimes smaller than HE-AAC CBR 32 (smallest 44.1khz/stereo AAC possible), it (Vorbis) always surpassed it (HE-AAC). Sometimes by a little, sometimes blowing it.

I tried it on jazz & classical, and of course, here AAC's SBR always sounds distorted compared to parametric coding (well, I suppose vorbis must be a kind of parametric description of the components in the spectrum, but that's pure guess. I say it 'cause I find it unexpectedly clear @low bitrates, and quite distortion-prone).

so, where I found HE-AAC shining, is in very special cases : 44.1khz/mono @16-24kbit/s. Here it really shines, as vorbis can't follow here, even downmixing. And this bitrate is really useful. In webcast, in flashy things, and to send the song I feel at the moment to my love in a nice mail. [But as there's not DS AAC+ filter for the moment, it's not in use].

And here, I wonder if there's joint stereo coupling, seeing how HE-AAC mono gives almost the same quality than stereo, @ half the bitrate (16m vs 32s). And remembering how ogg was first said not to gain from channel coupling, that now makes me smile. (ogg mono @-1 takes more than half the bitrate of stereo).

Vincent.

Teegedeck

27th July 2003, 19:47

Well, I must be deaf, I don't hear the distortions. ;) But then again, my audio equipment is limited these days, just broke my Sennheiser headphones. I let HE AAC have a try at my classical music collection and I was suprised how well it reproduced Mahler's 'Lied von der Erde' but also Perotin and Hanan Elias (well, that's not classical, anymore). The VBR-algo seemed to work just fine for me, producing bitrates between 50-70 kbps as it should. I've got a deep dislike for CBR, didn't test that. Edit: Vorbis at streaming preset clearly, very clearly (didn't need ABXing that) looses out. As far as MY ears and opera/lieder are concerned.

So, a good mark from my side.

el00343

27th July 2003, 19:56

About the distortions, I heard them too when I laid my hands upon the 6.0.0.0 version,which was leaked on-line by many piracy groups.Indeed, mp3pro sounded much better to my ears. However, it seems the newest one (6.0.0.9?) on ahead's website is much more improved, make sure you have this version. Obviously, menno and ivan improved the plugin in between.

BoNz1

27th July 2003, 22:12

Originally posted by el00343
However, it seems the newest one (6.0.0.9?) on ahead's website is much more improved, make sure you have this version. Obviously, menno and ivan improved the plugin in between.

Just got this version yesterday and it seems that it is a little better with this distortion. I can't be totally sure since I really haven't done any real testing to make sure that my ears are not tricking me. Nevertheless, this noise is still there but I find it less annoying. Also, today I noticed another thing about Nero6. There is a aac directshow decoder that comes with it and this seems to be the decoder that is used in NeroMix. So it can handle HE AAC and multichannel audio. As well it seems to have some nice downmixing and upmixing it can output 2ch in stereo or Dolby Surround or 4 speakers or 6 speakers or through SPDIF. Looks like it also has an option to enable dolby pro logic. Unfortunately, you can't connect the pins to the matroska parser or 3ivx parser but Nero6 does have a NeroDigital parser which seems to handle mp4 files nicely.
EDIT: I can't connect the pins on the NDparser either, oh well.

Ramirez

28th July 2003, 03:26

Well, I've spent lots of time lately testing both HE/LC-AAC and comparing it with vorbis; in all my tests both HE/LC AAC simply produced poor sound quality (when compared with vorbis), for example HE-AAC seem limiting stereo range, high frequencies noticeably cleaned out while mid-range gets a boost, apart of that I haven't notice any "distortion" besides maybe hardly noticeable reverberated metallic sound.

bman1

28th July 2003, 04:08

I know this is probably common sense, but as of the time I'm writing this the HE-AAC files can only be properly played back in NeroMIX. So anybody out there testing out HE-AAC make sure and play them back in NeroMIX, the other players currently only recognize 22kHz and can't see the + part of the file.

ChristianHJW

28th July 2003, 09:27

Originally posted by bman1 I know this is probably common sense, but as of the time I'm writing this the HE-AAC files can only be properly played back in NeroMIX. .... i honestly doubt that ;) .... there has been so much writing in the past about SBR technology, like when comparing MP3 and MP3 Pro, and still i bet a lot of people are muxing their HE AAC tracks into either MP4 or MKV and wonder why its sounding so bad when playing that with CoreAAC or 3ivX AAC decoder ;) ....

Hopefully soon FAAD2 will be updated, Toff said he could hopefully update CoreAAC pretty quickly ....

vinouz

28th July 2003, 09:37

Well, had 6.0.0.0.
I didn't test extensively VBR (just did one test, didn't find low VBR to be a lot better than 32 CBR, so tied to CBR [and low VBR is bigger than vorbis@-1]).

Gonna get 6.0.0.9, gotta test VBR...

Hope it sounds better then,

Vincent.

Animaniac

28th July 2003, 10:10

Originally posted by ChristianHJW
.... i honestly doubt that ;) .... there has been so much writing in the past about SBR technology, like when comparing MP3 and MP3 Pro, and still i bet a lot of people are muxing their HE AAC tracks into either MP4 or MKV and wonder why its sounding so bad when playing that with CoreAAC or 3ivX AAC decoder ;) ....

Hopefully soon FAAD2 will be updated, Toff said he could hopefully update CoreAAC pretty quickly ....

3ivxMediaSplitter/CoreAAC [currently] refuse to playback HE AAC files... So rule that one out. ;)

yakima

28th July 2003, 11:04

so i'll try again (see my post a few days back) ...
did anyone yet mux nero6 lc aac with video into mp4 and try playing it with quicktime? coz i get a/v out of sync whenever i skip ahead (never had that with nero5 aac).

[Toff]

28th July 2003, 13:01

Decoding HE AAC already works, you just don't have the SBR part.
And yes CoreAAC should be ready for the update (nearly just a recompilation).
I will reupload the last source in CVS when FAAD2-SBR is out :)

haibane

28th July 2003, 15:45

@ChristianHJW

I muxed it again with an iso aac stream and mkvmerge......
now the file playbacks fine without any async issue....
Thanks alot...
now waiting for a SBC capable direcshow filter.......
but......
just out of curiosity......
the AAC file I encoded is about 64kbs...
however....
the CoreAAC filter somehow thinks it's 120kbs....... :confused:

SeeMoreDigital

28th July 2003, 15:54

I think we can all agree that the info posted here has proved very useful so far.

So with this in mind. I wonder is there's anybody willing and able to make available for download, some short AAC and AAC+ test files at 64kbps?

Many thanks.........

el00343

29th July 2003, 01:26

well, he-aac muxing doesn't work for me, neither with mkv nor with .ogm.
Muxing LC-AAC audio plays fine,though.
With multichannel 5.1 HE-AAC audio, windows media player can't find the proper decoder filter and spits the usual "locationg codec server..." blah blah.
My graphedit graph is the usual .mp4->3divx splitter->ogm/matroska muxer etc.
Of course, coreAAC is registered correctly into the system.
Anyone has same problem?

Tommy Carrot

29th July 2003, 01:35

Did anyone try AAC+ against speex at very low bitrates (~20 kbit)?

Neo Neko

29th July 2003, 04:40

Originally posted by chepe36
Is it my imagination or LC-AAC sounds better than HE-AAC??

in HE-AAC there seems to be a strange noise in high frequencies more like some kind of distortion, well at least to my ears, but yes the file size is always a lot smaller.

To be absolutely correct LC-AAC at target bitrates should be better able to faithfully reproduce input sound than AAC+ used at it's target bitrate. Theoretically it should be possible to tune it to where it can do as good as LC-AAC where best quality is concerned. But that is an important point. QT AAC is at this point a more mature and better tuned product. Though I have very little doubt that Ivan and Meno given time will easily catch up and overtake quicktime.(Contary to what Dibrom etc might think I believe)

I am with Doom9 on this though. I think it is fairly certain that MP4 along with AAC will become standards at least in limited application. But I am really not to keen to mess with either for anything more than testing at this point. While the proposed specifications are mature and finalised there is still much tuning on the part of AAC/AAC+ and alot of fleshing out to be done on MP4 implementations.(It is still really irksome that most applications touting MP4 parsing can't parse MP4 from other applications.) Not to mention the lack of decent editing facilities.

Atamido

29th July 2003, 06:46

Here is an interesting comment that I found in the audiocoding.com wiki. (http://www.audiocoding.com/wiki/index.php?page=AAC) Some profiles are restricted in complexity, so they are easier to implement e.g. for portables, but have a slightly lower performance. Nevertheless LC is the most used profile nowadays even in PC-based applications, because the complex ones do not offer a much higher sound quality regarding the "costs". This will become even more obvious with the future standardization of AAC+, as all these former enhancements and extensions are aiming at a higher efficiency for low bitrate encodings, but only for special purposes like speech coding.. While this wouldn't explain the high frequency distortions that some are hearing, it would seem to indicate that there isn't going to be as much tuning for the codec at these higher bitrates. Though it does look like it will become the ultimate ultra-low bitrate codec for the near future. Maybe very useful for low-bitrate streaming? and high compression encodes like combining it with those Sirber RV9-anime encodes?

hans-jürgen

29th July 2003, 08:48

Originally posted by Pamel
While this wouldn't explain the high frequency distortions that some are hearing, it would seem to indicate that there isn't going to be as much tuning for the codec at these higher bitrates. I assume these mysterious "high frequency distortions" that everyone is hearing at the moment are due to the fact that they don't listen to their AAC+ encodings with Nero's own media player, but rather with their usual AAC decoder, whatever this might be. And these ones cannot decode the SBR part of AAC+ until Menno checks in the source code for SBR in the CVS of FAAD2 which hasn't happened yet.

Furthermore you seem to mix up profiles and target bitrates in your posting, because the quoted passage from the AAC page in the Wiki deals with the difference and usefulness of the other two profiles available for AAC (Main and LTP) vs. the Low Complexity profile. The tools used in these other profiles are based on prediction methods that are known to be especially useful for speech encodings. But they also afford a lot more of CPU resources on the decoding and/or encoding part, so it's questionable if they will be used in the future compared to HE AAC which is a part of the Low Complexity profile and does not use that much resources (still more than normal AAC LC of course).

This doesn't have anything to do with high bitrates (above ~80 kbps/stereo) and if they will be tuned in the future or not, because at these bitrates SBR won't be used anyhow (see the Wiki pages about SBR, Version 3 and HE AAC).

Herske

29th July 2003, 11:56

News flash: over at HA (down ATM), Menno announced the availability of SBR decoder sources in the CVS at audiocoding.com

bond

29th July 2003, 12:32

Originally posted by Herske
News flash: over at HA (down ATM), Menno announced the availability of SBR decoder sources in the CVS at audiocoding.com hm, at least the webinterface on sourceforge is not updated...

Nic

29th July 2003, 12:44

JohnV reckons so too:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=58473
Im getting the CVS now, ill edit this post, once I know for sure :)

vinouz

30th July 2003, 02:15

Originally posted by hans-jürgen
I assume these mysterious "high frequency distortions" that everyone is hearing at the moment are due to the fact that they don't listen to their AAC+ encodings with Nero's own media player, but rather with their usual AAC decoder, whatever this might be. And these ones cannot decode the SBR part of AAC+ until Menno checks in the source code for SBR in the CVS of FAAD2 which hasn't happened yet.

Nope. Decoded with Nero encoding app, and also tried with nero's audio CD compilation track preview.

Don't try to dismiss people just because their mind doesn't correspond to yours... :devil:

Ramirez

30th July 2003, 03:58

Originally posted by vinouz
Don't try to dismiss people just because their mind doesn't correspond to yours... :devil:
LOL! Well said Vincent!,Personally I found this patronizing tone as annoying. (At least speaking) :rolleyes:

Some of us actually totally aware about the need of an appropriate decoder so you can safely disregard this reason as a possible explanation for a crappy results generated by Nero AAC plugin.

gino25

3rd August 2003, 14:36

How can i made a 5.1 aac+ from a 5.1 ac3?

mfluder

3rd August 2003, 17:27

Originally posted by gino25
How can i made a 5.1 aac+ from a 5.1 ac3?

Take a look at this (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?threadid=55173) thread. There you can find all information you need.

SeeMoreDigital

3rd August 2003, 18:35

Yes, if you follow mfluder's post you will get to one of Bond's threads.

There's no doubt, Bond has done some great work with AAC and AAC+. And long may he continue to do so!

Yur' the man. And this thread really should be his!

Cheers

bond

3rd August 2003, 20:47

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
There's no doubt, Bond has done some great work with AAC and AAC+. And long may he continue to do so!
Yur' the man. And this thread really should be his!joke :confused:

i did no work, knowing nothing about programming, nagging around all the time, just having some stupid ideas and getting on the nerves of some guys who really know the stuff :D

thanks should go out to them!!!

peace

calinb

6th August 2003, 21:48

Is anyone able to encode 5.1 AAC with Nero6? My 2-ch encodes work fine, but all I ever get is "unable to open output device" when I add a 5.1 file to a playlist to encode. I tried both AC3 and aiff plugins/input. I tried the wav replacement plugin from rarewares.

Even with an input error, Nero6 can still create an output file, but it doesn't play properly in any case (AAC-LC or AAC-HE).

Thx,

Update:

Okay, I'm making progress now. I had to reinstall CoreAAC. Apparently Nero can't play 6 ch. material on a 2ch sound system. It complains about the output device. However, CoreAAC seems to play it okay when I mux with video to ogm using Nic's Oggmux.

JohnV

6th August 2003, 23:56

Originally posted by hans-jürgen
HE AAC which is a part of the Low Complexity profile and does not use that much resources (still more than normal AAC LC of course).
One thing which would be interesting to test is the low-power SBR decoding mode which also FAAD2 can use when compiled with a proper compiler switch. CT's press release about low power sbr decoder claims as much as 40% processing power reduction:
http://www.codingtechnologies.com/news/assets/20021212_necmei_eng.htm

I'd like to do some comparisons how's the quality and processing power reduction with FAAD2 low power mode compared to normal mode. This could be something that even computer users could consider when using multichannel HE AAC, which requires quite a lot of processing power.