Filed under: Multimedia, iTunes
Workaround for iTunes Plus files on TiVo
I have a TiVo that's on my wireless network. Occasionally, I use it to listen to the music that lives on my iMac as I cook or what have you. It's known that music purchased from the iTunes store won't play via TiVo, and I was hoping that the DRM-free iTunes Plus upgrade would change that.Wrong.
TiVo still sees them as "format Purchased AAC audio file not mp3 or convertible to mp3." Luckily, The Apple Blog has a workaround. Simply convert your iTunes Plus tracks to either AAC or Mp3, and the file type in iTunes will be changed to "AAC audio file" or "MPEG audio file" respectively. TiVo likes that.
Yes, this will result in quality loss, but my television speakers hardly do the music justice in the first place, so who cares?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
tehpyro said 9:31PM on 6-06-2007
Sad that you would pay good money for a good tv and a good imac and a good television... then screw audio over.. :( Makes me sad. Go buy good loudspeakers!
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tehpyro said 9:32PM on 6-06-2007
I meant to say and a good TiVo
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Colin said 9:55PM on 6-06-2007
I don't have a Tivo to try this on (or, for that matter, an iTunes+ track), but is it possible that it's only going by the file extension? .m4p is Protected AAC, .m4a is unprotected.
I just renamed a .m4p file in the Finder, and that removed the "lock" from the upper left of the icon. What's the file extension for iTMS+ files?
Just a shot in the dark...
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Colin said 9:56PM on 6-06-2007
I don't have a Tivo to try this on (or, for that matter, an iTunes+ track), but is it possible that it's only going by the file extension? .m4p is Protected AAC, .m4a is unprotected.
I just renamed a .m4p file in the Finder, and that removed the "lock" from the upper left of the icon. What's the file extension for iTMS+ files?
Just a shot in the dark...
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Colin said 9:56PM on 6-06-2007
Whoops. Sorry about the double post. For that matter, sorry about this post apologizing about the other two. ;-)
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Brian said 11:51PM on 6-06-2007
Anyone watch (or listen to) the newest episode of Diggnation (Episode 100) this is actually exactly what Alex was getting at when he was talking about the new DRM free music. He was wondering if it would now play well with other non-iTunes/iPod stuff and it looks like this is an instance where iTS+ isn't making any difference.
Although, I suppose an simple firmware update from Tivo could solve the whole thing.
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Peter said 2:12AM on 6-07-2007
Same problem on the Nokia N95 - the ITs+ files won't play without being converted.
What's up with that, I though the whole point was that these files should be DRM free, and the N95 plays regular AAC files just fine.
Comon' Apple - FIX IT !!
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Kevin said 3:40AM on 6-07-2007
I have checked the differences betwen the protected and a normal AAC file. It seems that the iTunes+ file has only some tags in additional, like account name, that most players don't understand and refuse to play. I think somebody could write a tool to only fix the headers of the files.
By the way: VLC plays the iTunes+ files like a charm. Even streaming is possible.
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Mike said 5:41AM on 6-07-2007
> Same problem on the Nokia N95 - the ITs+ files won't play without being > converted.
> What's up with that [?]
It's probably the bitrate. The capability of phones for audio-file playback usually falls within a narrow--and lowish--bitrate. Why would anyone encode at over, say, 128kbps to playback on a device with such limited storage space as most phones have? And how were the phone manufacturers to know that bitrates on downloads were to go up, because Apple had a deal with EMI in the pipeline?
> I though the whole point was that these files should be DRM free
They are. There were copy-protection on them, you couldn't have copied them, could you?
> and the N95 plays regular AAC files just fine.
These are "regular" AAC files. Again: what bitrate?
> Comon' Apple - FIX IT !!
Or "Come on, Nokia, fix it", perhaps?
The Tivo problem, seems to be different, judging by the error message. Perhaps the Tivo is looking at the metadata--it's certainly not going by the file extension, which is the same as for any other non-protected iTunes AAC file, namely .m4a. A question for Erica perhaps?
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Michael said 5:45AM on 6-07-2007
> It seems that the iTunes+ file has only some tags in additional, like account name, that most players don't understand and refuse to play.
There are some "atoms" in the metadata that haven't been used before.
It would be interesting to remove the metadata--give the files a "metaEnema" with Atomic Parsley--and see if the Tivo would play them then.
http://atomicparsley.sourceforge.net/
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alexc said 12:43PM on 6-07-2007
has anyone tried just renaming the m4a to aac?
on my nokia 6270, when i initially copied over the an itunes plus m4a file, the media player on the phone recognized it was a media file and added it to a play list, but wouldn't play it.
simply renaming it to an aac extension is all it took for my series40 nokia 6270 to play an itunes plus file. i'm betting it's just that simple for a S60 phone.
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Eric said 4:51PM on 6-07-2007
Two+ years ago, it was reported that TiVo Desktop would auto-transcode unprotected AAC files if you installed lame.
http://www.macgeekery.com/node/91
Didn't try this then, haven't tried it with any iTunes+ files. Might be worth checking out.
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oj said 10:05PM on 6-07-2007
i wonder is this tivo not seeing the files right or is it apple tagging them as DRM. i mean these are supposed to be free of DRM hassles that was the point. either apple or tivo needs to fix that whoevers at fault.
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Eric Blair said 10:47PM on 6-07-2007
Well, the two year old auto-conversion trick doesn't work. I assume most of you know that already.
The SoundConvert utility that TiVo uses to do the transcoding will process the new files. I was able to run it on the commandline with an iTunes+ file and the resulting MP3 sounds fine, at least in my highly limited testing.
I don't know why they don't auto convert the files. Perhaps a TiVo Desktop update would fix this. The last update was last May and was primarily for Intel support. It wouldn't surprise me if the next release doesn't come until Leopard ships.
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Eric Blair said 11:27PM on 6-07-2007
Definitely a TiVo issue. TiVo's only transcoding certain file types, probably to prevent somebody from getting garbage spewed out of their speakers due to a bad conversion or something. They need to add "Purchased AAC audio file" to the list.
BTW, this string is pulled from you ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music Library.xml file. When I changed "Purchased AAC audio file" to "AAC audio file," the file I changed played (after I restarted TiVo Desktop). There was some stuttering, but that could be cause my computer's pretty old.
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Eric said 4:13PM on 6-08-2007
One more from me. You can fix this without needing to convert your music if you've got Apple's Developer Tools installed and your not averse to editing a line of Java code. Directions are at my blog.
http://raoli.com/2007/06/07/adding-itunes-support-to-tivo/
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coley said 5:25AM on 6-21-2007
maybe the same fix for the N95 will work here too http://techtransit.blogspot.com/2007/06/putpinfinitsplace-itunes-plus-fixer-for.html
The audio isn't touched so no quality issues.
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Bill said 10:31PM on 7-03-2007
See this fix also:
http://novashare.net/656072
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