Media Connect and AAC (iTunes) format?

[ehgoodrich]

I'm trying to find out if ANYONE has EVER been able to use Windows
Media Connect to stream iTunes AAC (M4A) files to an XBox 360??

After quite a bit of googling, I found several posts from Dec05 thru
mid 2006 that suggested this was NOT possible. One post from a MS
Engineer implied there were legal restrictions on using a AAC codec to
stream the data over the network to the XBox. However, since there IS
an AAC codec available for the XBox from Live, the only thing Media
Connect would have to do was recognize the m4a file type as a music
format and offer it to the XBox.

The new Zune player software does that; I've tested another machine
with that software and the m4a files show up on the XBox regardless of
whether the XBox AAC codec has been downloaded or not. Of course, if
the codec is not on the XBox, the file will not play, but at least you
can see them. With Media Connect, they don't show up at all on the
XBox.

I did finally find one post:
http://groups.google.com/group/micr..._frm/thread/77850a76db474932/b98298e5731a8a73
where Asherian notes that he used Windows Media Connect to stream m4a
files to XBox 360 prior to upgrading to WMP11. Can anyone confirm if
this is true?? If so, can you tell me what settings I need to change
in order to see these files on the XBox??

Thanx for any reply,
e

P.S. I obvously do NOT want to use WMP11 or Zune for now to serve my
XBox.

 

[snapfisher]

Not with WMC, but I have with WMP11 on XP + Tversity...

The issue is not the codec, but the iTunes DRM. You will be able to
stream the audio if you use iTunes to convert/rip to AAC yourself.
You will not be able to play AAC files if you purchase them from
iTunes.

In this case, its actually Apple's fault.

It actually works very nicely if you have non DRM files.

 

[ehgoodrich]

But I do have non DRM AAC files (.m4a) and I still don't see any of
them on the XBox! I realize that I won't be able to play any
purchased iTunes music files (.m4p), but the non-protected ones should
be available.

WMP11 & the Zune player UPNP servers seem to be able to do this, but I
don't want to use them. I thought at first that WMC just couldn't do
it, but as you can see from the link I posted, at least one person
claims to have been serving up AACs using WMC.

Anybody else out there can tell me if (and how) they do it??

 

[John Lockwood]

I cannot speak directly about Windows Media Connect, but for an Xbox360
acting as a Media Center Extender the answer is yes this can be done. I
would suspect that the technology of this is much the same as Windows Media
Connect, after all MCE 2005 is using WMP 10 (or 11) as its engine.

So first read this (older copy of this) page
http://web.archive.org/web/20060417063658/http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp
/mediacenter/extender/mcefaq.mspx

NOTE: Microsoft have modified the above page and no longer mention the
critical part (for this issue), which is the last line of the quoted text
below :-

Using Windows Media Center and Xbox 360
What types of media stored on my Media Center PC can I access through my Xbox
360?
Live and recorded TV, digital photos, digital music, home video, and exclusive
online multimedia content such as news clips, downloadable music, local
weather, RSS feeds, and more (through Online Spotlight).
Video formats
€ MPEG-1 with MPEG audio
€ MPEG-2 with MPEG audio or AC-3 audio
€ WMV 7, 8, & 9 with WMA Standard or WMA Pro audio
€ WMV Image 1 & 2 (Photo Story 1, 2, & 3)
Audio formats
€ Windows Media Audio (WMA) Standard
€ WMA Pro
€ WMA Lossless
€ MP3
€ Other formats for which a DirectShow decoder is installed and registered on
the PC

As you can see (from the last line), if your Media Center can play AAC
thanks to WMP having a suitable directshow filter for AAC then your Xbox360
acting as a Media Center Extender should also be able to play it.

My understanding of how this works is that the PC is transcoding the (in
this case AAC) music to PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) format which is a
'generic' sound format that is then sent to the Extender (the Xbox360 in
this case) and played. Many UPnP servers do the samething (transcode the
audio before sending).

I investigated this with a view to being able to support Apple Lossless.
Apple Lossless (aka. ALAC) uses the same MPEG4 mp4 file format (and tags) as
AAC but is completely lossless unlike AAC. I came up with a solution to let
WMP (and hence MCE2005, and Extenders) play Apple Lossless thanks to code
from THREE different developers being combined in to a suitable directshow
filter. I have since had a report from someone with an Xbox360 extender that
it did successfully play Apple Lossless, if this works for Apple Lossless,
then there is no reason it should not work for AAC.

 

[ehgoodrich]

John, thanx for replying

During my googling, I saw your posts regarding the ALAC directshow
filter you got from Mr. Mitrovic. (I actually downloaded this as I am
interested in moving from AAC to ALAC, but that's for another topic.)
However, I don't think that's related to the problem I'm seeing:

I'm running WMP10 (which CAN play the AAC files (it uses a codec
called AC3Filter)), but when I start up Windows Media Connect, it
searchs through My Music and ONLY finds .wma and .mp3 files and offers
them up to the XBox 360. If I install the Zune player software, it's
media sharing component will locate the .m4a files and serve them up
as well to the XBox.

Regarding your comments about the PC transcoding the files to PCM: at
this point I don't know how (or where) the conversion occurs, but if
its already converted to a common format BEFORE going across network,
why do you have to download a special codec from XBox Live to the 360
in order for it to play AAC files? See:
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/systemuse/xbox360/digitalmedia/ipod.htm

I've been testing all this on an XBox 360 WITHOUT the afformentioned
codec loaded. When I use the Zune player software, the AAC files show
up in the music lists on the 360, but when I click on them, they won't
play (as expected). However, when I uninstall the Zune software and
reinstall Media Connect, they don't show up AT ALL on the 360!!

Any more ideas??
e

 

[John Lockwood]

It looks like from an Xbox360 point of view that Windows Media Connect and
Media Center act very differently. I am guessing that Media Center does
(according to Microsoft and user reports) transcode music, but that Windows
Media Connect does not.

If you have MCE 2005, or Vista Premium or Ultimate you could try setting up
the Xbox360 as an Extender and see what results you get.

By the way, the ALAC codec we are referring to also does AAC, Milenko found
it easier to let it do both since then he did not have to worry about
passing some mp4 (AAC) to a different codec.

I use WMPTSE to let WMP recognise mp4 files (both AAC and ALAC).

It seems it is possible to use a 'standard' UPnP server with the Xbox360
(instead of Windows Media Connect), there are such which will transcode
formats. For example eyeConnect (on a Mac), or Twonky (Mac, Windows and
Linux). In your case Twonky is more likely to be the best choice see
http://www.twonkyvision.de/Products/TwonkyMedia/index.html

According to this
http://www.madprops.org/cs/blogs/crucible/archive/2006/03/28/4548.aspx some
people have now managed to get Twonky to serve to XBox360. These notes (from
a Mac user of Twonky and an Xbox360 may also help)
http://www.twonkyvision.de/forum/viewtopic.php?t=726

 

[ehgoodrich]

John,

Thanx again for your detailed reply; first of all, I believe you are
correct: using the XBox as a Media Center Extender is quite different
from simply using a UPnP server to offer up media files to the Xbox,
and I can easily believe that the formats transferred over the net
could be different between the two. I have tested the XBox as a
MCExtender with an MCE 2005 computer, but unfortunately the machine I
am working on now is just a plain jane XP Home box. Also, I did
install the codec from Milenko along with WMPTSE so the files will
play in MP10, but they still don't show up on the XBox via Media
Connect.

I would be willing to look at 3rd party UPnP Servers, but Media
Connect seems to work fine (simple to configure, low overhead, comes
from a (somewhat) trusted source...), EXCEPT for not displaying the
iTunes files. When I saw someone claiming to have it working, I
thought I'd try to get them to tell me how they did it rather than run
down a completely new path.

Have you read the post (actually a reply from "azelinsk" to a post
from "Asherian" (I could not find his original post, oddly enough))
that I referred to in my original post?? If I had not seen that, I
would have given up on this quest several days ago and gone looking
for alternatives. However, he was so adamant that the AAC (.m4a)
files were supported by Media Connect that I thought I'd try to get
some info from him or someone else who's got it working this way.

Anybody else out there?? Mr. azelinsk?? Mr. Asherian?? (or perhaps
a Ms. ??)
Anybody seen this work ????

Thanx again,
e