NeroTunes (republish from LJ)

Ahead/Nero, of CD burning fame, released a free to all but closed source AAC encoder on May 4. I spent hours today with it and I would be immensely excited if I used an iPod, but I don't.  Still and all, there's no doubt that it produces files in iTunes-store format that are higher in quality, at the same size, than what Apple's codecs produce. That's to say that Nero's encoder produces nominal 160 kbps LC-AAC files that sound significantly better.  It's obvious that Nero's chief codec engineer Ivan Dimkovic really has figured out how to use Variable Bit Rate encoding to give iPod users the same type of benefits users of Ogg Vorbis (and MP3, to a lesser degree) have been enjoying for years. To date, Apple has produced only a wishy-washy Average Bit Rate encoder that doesn't drift more than 5kbps or so in a nominal 160 kbps audio file.  With Nero's new encoder set for q (quality) 0.5 (evidently well calibrated to 160 kbps nominal), I saw my test file, Tommy Flanagan's Oh, Lady Be Good! show rates as high as 196 kbps when played in the latest foobar2000. 
For the time being, until Stanley Huang (aka optimus in the Hydrogenaudio forums) releases his next version of MediaCoder, we have to make do with foobar2000 for encoding from untaggable WAV to MP4.  Getting the tags in the output files is a PITA, but I'd use MP3Tag.  If one goes about this right, one creates tagged FLAC files at the initial ripping stage for archiving.  One way or another one can get the WAV files and from thence the Nero-AAC-encoded MP4s; then it's just a bit of drudgery to transfer the tags from the FLACs to the MP4s, using MP3Tag.
FWIW, I transcoded with a new "NeroTunes" profile in the foobar2000 preferences of -q 0.5 -if %s -of %d . There's also an output filename parameter which I changed to %_filename% .
I don't think the benefits for low-bitrate encoding with Nero's HE-AAC were as obvious as the differences between Apple and Nero LC-AAC.  Despite Nero's insistence that  a q value is best (.225 seemed closest to producing nominal 48 kbps, which has become a sort of standard), I prefer having tighter control of file size. I'm inclined to go with an Average Bit Rate of 48 kbps using encoder parameters -br 46594 -2pass -hev2 -if %s -of %d . 
I've been preparing for the new Smartphones that play these files by encoding with whatever seemed the best at the time I ripped to FLAC.  That's been Coding Technologies versions -- called AAC+ by them and licensee Winamp -- except for about three months after Nero Burns 7.0 was released. Helping move me to the Coding Technologies version from Winamp was the slowness of Nero's earlier encoder.  Now Nero offers an SSE2-optimized executable which is lots faster. But I'm dubious about Nero's scrapping the Parametric Stereo setting for channel enhancement except down at rates in low 30s and under.
But, hell, let's give Ivan Dimkovic a nice round of applause.  After years of trying, he definitely has beaten Apple.


Technorati Tags: Nero, iTunes, AAC, AAC+, codecs, foobar2000, mp3tag, mediacoder