Author Topic: M4A support. Media Library Support. HTML5 Audio player.  (Read 6441 times)

ia

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M4A support. Media Library Support. HTML5 Audio player.
« on: September 27, 2010, 02:03:24 am »
Hi,

OK, I'm more than a little surprised. Why does your product really only support MP3? M4A is very very widely used for podcasting today as nearly all mobile devices, and absolutely all desktop software plays M4A files. I have an insanely popular podcasting site than has only M4A files, 80,000 users per month, and in 6 years I've had 3 complaints that we only use M4a, and not a single complaint in 3 years. So why oh why, does using M4A not supported for the auto-detect duration? A much older plugin I was playing with, podPress,  but not updated for years, did. If it could, yours can.

Why do M4A files create a quicktime VIDEO player, even when M4A is audio ONLY, and why quicktime when it should be flash or HTML5? I don't need to be forcing people to install quicktime, and heck, I don't want to be calling on quicktime anyway.

Can you PLEASE, PLEASE update your plugin with REAL, not just, well-yeah-it-does-it-sorta-kinda, support for M4A files. Pretty please??

Also, why do you not provide a Media Library browser? Why force me to go the Media Library, select a file, copy the URL, go back to my post and paste the link in, when you could just provide direct access to the Media Library?

ia.

angelo

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Re: M4A support. Media Library Support. HTML5 Audio player.
« Reply #1 on: September 27, 2010, 10:02:05 am »
Can I ask why are you distributing m4a files? If some of your target users do not have iTunes (which also requires Quicktime to be installed), then a more widely accepted format such as mp3 would be preferred. m4a is not as widely accepted as the mp3 format. If you are looking for a 100% guarantee that any software app or media player can play your audio, mp3 is the way to go. Don't take this the wrong way though, I have no problems with you distributing your audio in what ever format you want.

Another popular format that rivals m4a is ogg audio. ogg audio is supported by all HTML5 web browsers that support audio/video, whereas m4a is not supported in Firefox.

The version of the getid3 library we use in PowerPress is a special version we developed to work specifically with mp3 files. We spent a lot of time changing the code so it can detect the Mp3 meta information without downloading the entire file. We apologize for not spending the same amount of time on m4a detection. We've added it to the TODO list.

m4a is an Apple format that gained popularity following the launch of iTunes, that is why it uses a quicktime embed. Flash audio player cannot play m4a, so we cannot use the audio players packaged with PowerPress to play m4a files. There is a hack/technique which allows us to use Flash video to play m4a. Flash video can play audio in AAC (mpeg-4) coding, which is what m4a uses, but for what ever reason playback only works with the Flash video player. We are working on a solution for PowerPress 2.0 to play m4a in a flash video player. If you are interested in being a beta tester, please email powerpress [at] rawvoice.com.

Can you point out where we imply that we "well-yeah-it-does-it-sorta-kinda" support m4a? If we gave you expectations for our free plugin that you feel we are not delivering, please quote what we said so we can correct our message/print.

There are previous discussions about the Media Library browser. When we investigated such a feature, we could not find a hook or action provided by WordPress that would allow us to properly intercept the media browsing feature in WordPress. I've asked users who requested such a feature to email me code that does this (cio [at] rawvoice.com) or send me a link to a current plugin that integrates into the Media Browser so we can see how to add it to PowerPress. A number of folks have requested for the feature, but no one has been helpful steering us in the right direction how it can be done.

ia

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Re: M4A support. Media Library Support. HTML5 Audio player.
« Reply #2 on: September 27, 2010, 10:28:18 pm »
Wow... If you knew anything about M4A, you would not be asking why we're using it, and you'd know that it is NOT an Apple format. Flash CAN play M4A, my existing site has flash players on every page, and they all play nothing BUT M4A files. Are you an official spokesperson here? You really don't have a clue what you're talking about.

Todd

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Re: M4A support. Media Library Support. HTML5 Audio player.
« Reply #3 on: September 28, 2010, 12:26:40 am »
It is very very rare that podcasters use M4A largely because it is not compatible in all devices. MP3 has universal adoption and while m4a may play in 75% of the devices out there, their are easily close to 200 different devices consuming podcast. We provide powerpress support for free, it is a free plugin and you can choose to take our advice or not.

With 99% of the audio podcast community using mp3, and 99% of the video podcast community using mp4/m4v they do so for a reason compatibility across as many devices as possible.

Todd..

ia

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Re: M4A support. Media Library Support. HTML5 Audio player.
« Reply #4 on: September 28, 2010, 02:44:03 am »
Oh my... 99% is a load of steaming manure. I mean seriously. Every enhanced podcast is an AAC/M4A file. While no one would have stats, you'd be looking at about 35% being AAC/M4A. You know that little known music store, what's it called? Oh that's right, iTunes. Yeah, they sell more music than anyone else on the planet. Guess what format they sell in, yeah, AAC. Kind of a ubiquitous format. Plays on 75% of music players? More like about 95%. But 75% would be more than enough to choose AAC anyway. Better technology ALWAYS leaves others behind. I guess your plugin is happy to stay in 2005 though.

angelo

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Re: M4A support. Media Library Support. HTML5 Audio player.
« Reply #5 on: September 28, 2010, 10:34:22 am »
ai: I think you're here to pick a fight. m4a is a great format, we're not arguing that, but it doesn't have the same reach as mp3 (yet). We are in that cusp where it almost has world dominance, but it's not quite there yet.

As far as m4a not being an Apple format, go to Wikipedia and read about mpeg-4 and what the difference is between mp4, m4a, m4b and m4v. Basically, Apple didn't want audio and video files floating around with the same file extension so Apple started using and popularizing the .m4a file extension. AAC is the actual codec of the audio in the m4a file. When AAC was first created it used the mp4 file extension and on occasion .aac extension. If you have an mp4 audio file, you can add Apple's DRM as well as images, hyperlinks and other metadata throughout the playing of the audio, but it must be renamed to m4a. Same goes for mp4 video, if you add Apple specific features to the file it should be renamed from mp4 to m4v.

Now AAC codec, used in all mpeg-4 audio and video, is another matter. Apple has filed patents for AAC. Source: http://www.macnn.com/blogs/2008/01/31/apple-files-aac-audio-file-patents.html Now if you really want to know Apple's reach, find out who's filed patents on the mpeg-4 video codec H.264 (Apple).

You can see why there's been a reluctance by companies like Microsoft to support mp4, m4a and m4v.

As far as Flash playing m4a,  all I know is looking at the source code of audio flash players that use the Audio object to play audio, it can only play mp3 files. I've tested the mp3 player Maxi as well as the 1 Pixel Out player we package in PowerPress and neither will play m4a. If you use the Video object in Flash (no audio flash player does that we're using in PowerPress), you can play m4a files. I suspect it has something to do with mp4 primarily being a video format so Adobe only added support for AAC in the video player. If you don't believe me, take a URL to one of your m4a files and visit the Generator page for the MP3 player maxi and try to get it to work: http://flash-mp3-player.net/players/maxi/generator/ FLV Player Maxi will play m4a though.

There is one other problem with flash playback of m4a. For what ever reason, it seems that the entire m4a file must be downloaded before Flash can play it.

timpritlove

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Re: M4A support. Media Library Support. HTML5 Audio player.
« Reply #6 on: December 10, 2010, 07:30:35 am »
This all complete nonsense. MPEG-4 is the only real media standard on the net and it is available on almost every mobile player while OGG is not and will never be. M4A has much higher quality than MP3, better licensing terms and Apple's chapter extensions are widely used and totally useful. M4A is also just an extension that simply points to the fact that a certain MPEG-4 media file PRIMARILY contains audio tracks to be used in audio-only playback. There is no Apple-specific stuff in M4A (even chapter marks are built upon MPEG-4 standard tracks).

A HTML5 Player makes sense and explicit M4A support also totally makes sense and is lacking from the Bluberry Plugin. I can only hope you will fix the M4A bug and provide a HTML5 player option as soon as possible so the audio players on podcasting web sites can finally target modern web devices that do not and never will support flash.

angelo

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Re: M4A support. Media Library Support. HTML5 Audio player.
« Reply #7 on: December 10, 2010, 11:27:35 am »
Read the links I reference in my last reply, it clearly explains Apple's involvement. Apple even submitted the RFC's for the Internet standards you reference. They are the only company that uses the m4b for audio books and m4r for ring tones and they started the m4a file extension for audio AAC (before Apple used the m4a extension, the file extension for AAC audio was .aac). I'm not promoting or saying Apple is good or bad here, just that if you read the links you will learn this is all Apple.

As we said before, we plan on adding HTML5 audio and video players in PowerPress 2.0+. No argument here, we're simply stating facts that if you want the widest distribution you want to use mp3, not m4a or ogg. If you want higher quality, then use m4a (most folks don't even have the studio equipment to make the quality difference between m4a and mp3). If you want HtML5 playback (outside of Firefox and IE), sure use m4a. If you're ok with your media not playing on some devices (for example older Blackberries, mp3 players not made by Apple, and in dash mp3 players), then go ahead and use m4a. As long as you know the media is not going to play in some browsers and devices using the m4a format and you're completely ok with that then more power to you.

As for when HTML5 players will be added to PowerPress, PLEASE BE PATIENT! I work on PowerPress in my free time on nights and weekends. If you really want a feature, be nice and request it. If you want to be rude, please find someone else to be rude with.

erin

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Re: M4A support. Media Library Support. HTML5 Audio player.
« Reply #8 on: December 10, 2010, 12:29:30 pm »
I also use M4a files extensively and would love to have this support in blubrry.

I use M4a because they are a great way to create a podcast of webinars. You can have slides change through out the presentation and the file size is almost the same as an Mp3. You also get chapters within the file so a view can just right to the section of the presentation they want to see.

Also, in our testing almost every modern desktop and mobile player can play m4a files, they just may not be able to display the slides.


wexler

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Re: M4A support. Media Library Support. HTML5 Audio player.
« Reply #9 on: December 15, 2010, 12:47:11 am »
Thank you for taking the time to work on HTML5 support for video.  Looking forward to stronger support for mobile devices (iPhone, iPad, etc).