Rob Raux - Observations

Rhythmbox and AAC issues

What does it take to get rhythmbox to work with m4a (aac) files? Specifically files that were ripped from iTunes or downloaded from iTunes (and then “scrubbed” a little)

• gst-launch-0.8 plays them fine without turning any “!”’s on. It identifies them as AAC files.
• rhythmbox -d gives as nice output when loading the .m4a file such as:

  [code][0x82162f0] [rb_metadata_load] rb-metadata-gst.c:561 (22:13:17): ignoring file file:///dragon_data/…/%20World.m4a with detected type video/quicktime [/code]

  Why does rhythmbox insist on this type. I’ve searched everywhere and can’t seem to find the method to this madness. It seems like I should just open the file rb-metadata-gst.c up and edit it by hand — well it appears that the support checking code could be edited and recompiled to find that type however I see that 0.9 has made some significant changes to that file. I’m going to grab that version and try things out. The current version I was using was “Gnome rhythmbox 0.8.8″.

• Results of 0.9 rhythmbox install — besides being a pain to install on gentoo due to the dependencies and new packages required (totem upgrade, iso_codes) I did get it up and working. The verdict is in and rhythmbox 0.9 recognizes the file type correctly! So the resolution is a painful one for the time being, but it looks like things will be resolved in the short term: gentoo bugtracker record.

So for Gentoo Users, the steps required were:

[code]
# ACCEPT_KEYWORDS=’~x86′ emerge app-text/iso-codes
# ebuild /usr/portage/media-video/totem/totem-1.1.5.ebuild install
# ebuild /usr/portage/media-video/totem/totem-1.1.5.ebuild qmerge
[/code]

Now retrieve the ebuild information for rhymbox and place it in the portage directory, I used:
https://svn.breakmygentoo.net/bmg-main/media-sound/rhythmbox/

NB: You don’t need the digest.
[code]
# ebuild rhythmbox-0.9.0.ebuild digest
# ebuild rhythmbox-0.9.0.ebuild install
# ebuild rhythmbox-0.9.0.ebuild qmerge
[/code]

If you find yourself with missing dependencies, you probably missed something from above, or I had something pre-installed you did not. That should be easy to install.

Other Points of Interest: I don’t use totem, so I don’t know if this has any side effects yet. I do know that the ebuild yell out:

* Note that the default totem backend has switched to gstreamer.
* DVD menus will only work with the xine backend.”

So be careful, I only use the machine I have this on for storage and a music player to my speakers so I don’t feel bad about mucking around with it at all. Be warned!

No more silly xmms for 5000k+ songs, this will be nice. Adding songs is much nicer in this version, the whole system isn’t freezing. So far, so good!