Unable to play .m4a files in Amarok [SOLVED]

[dj_bridges]

I can play .m4a files in vlc or smplayer but Amarok doesn't play them. Have been messing around with any settings I can find (not many), but so far haven't managed to fix it.

All I can find on the forum is this post, but it doesn't really address the issue I have:

http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,62951.0.html

Any ideas gratefully appreciated!

[Chomp]

http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=116&t=74719

I have task-multimedia and libtag-extras installed, ffmpeg shows --enable-libfaad and --enable-libx264, and Amarok uses Xine backend by default on PCLOS and I can't play .m4a either, but they play fine on VLC as well.

[exwintech]

Dj_bridges - If you are still on KDE3, SoundKonverter will convert *m4a to *.mp3 or many other formats. Set for Lossy, and High, or Very High.

> If you are on KDE4, it seems not to have SoundKonverter, but does have TranscoderAudioEdition. I just put that into my 2009.2 / KDE4 - running in Virtual Box. It only has *.mp3, *.ogg, and AAC as conversion options, but did convert an *.m4a file to *.mp3.

Regards, Dave.

[dj_bridges]

exwintech - have tested TranscoderAudioEdition and it perfectly transcodes the files.

Chomp - looks like we may need an updated libtag-extras package. Tried searching for the latest version on the web to see if the repo one needs updating, but couldn't find much.

Thanks for the suggestions....

[exwintech]

Dj_bridges - That's good, because I'm running 2009.2 degraded to KDE4 in Virtual Box, trying to work out how to replace the KDE3 functions I need in it. So thanks for confirming that works well on an HDD installed KDE4 version. The Transcoder I have from the Indiana Uni Repos only has 3 audio formats in it - that is, it's very "KDE4 minimal functions". However, it might get some more as the months roll by. (Soundkonverter has more than a dozen.)

> I have the full 2010 release and will get that into V-Box this weekend. That - "made for" KDE4 - might work a bit better, I hope. I'm eager to see if Kdenlive works properly in full-2010 - it doesn't in 2009.2/KDE4....

Regards, Dave.

[Texstar]

Wasn't there a package one could install from the repository that would make Amarok play those files? I can't find the post now. I don't have any .m4a files so....

[demonspectre]

Wait wait - no need to transcode your whole music collection!

Open up Synaptic, search for "xine-faad".  It provides an AAC decoder for anything xine-based (including Amarok).

[dj_bridges]

thanks demonspectre - am away from my linux box at the moment, but will test it asap.

[Chomp]

Worked like a charm demonspectre, thank you.

[demonspectre]

Glad to help!    I had to solve the same problem myself after switching to PCLinuxOS earlier this week.

(And can I just say - WOW.  Best.  Distro.  Ever.)

[Texstar]

Glad to help!    I had to solve the same problem myself after switching to PCLinuxOS earlier this week.

(And can I just say - WOW.  Best.  Distro.  Ever.)

Yes! That was the file. Thanks bro!

[jawz]

+1

[boundzy]

+1