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< Esato Forum Index > Sony Ericsson / Sony > Symbian phones > P990i Media Player - .m4a (AAC) files, no Album/Artist info? Bookmark topic

I have 18Gb (approx 5000 songs) on my PC, all ripped from my personal CD collection using iTunes... and, having not chosen to rip to .mp3 they are all AAC (.m4a) files (non-DRM''d). Full tag (album names, artists, songs, etc) is populated from Gracenote and album art is populated in iTunes.

Now, I can easily drag/drop these onto my 4Gb memory stick, and the P990i plays them with no issues (through my HBH-DS970 A2DP bluetooth headset, which is cool bit if kit by the way!)... HOWEVER, the media player is not recognising Album/Artist information from the embedded .m4a tags... all I see is the straight file names listed under "Tracks" in media player.

I have tried re-ripping a CD into .mp3 using MS Media Player, and success the (ID3 ?) tag data was then recognised by P990i media player (although Album Art wasn''t for some reason?).

So, short of re-ripping 4Gb-worth of music into .mp3(!)... is there a way the P990i media player will recognise .m4a music tags? Now, or in future sw release? Of course, I could just live without the tag info - but as an iPod user (for which my P990i is now my daily music replacement), I do like to search using Album/Artist/etc.
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Posted: 2006-11-08 21:46:41
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you have to drop images besides the mp3 in a folder..

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Posted: 2006-11-08 22:21:54
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btw do you use disc2phone??
disc2phone creates folders for each song.. and in that folder you can put pictures..
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Posted: 2006-11-08 22:25:45
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I'm trying to find a solution too.

I use SyncMy Portable with iTunes which can take iTunes playlists and sen them to your P990i including the smart playlists but only way I can get tags is the let the software covert the m4a files to mp3 during the transfer.

I've been playing around with mp3tag software as advised on a number of site to "attache" id3 tags to m4a files or something but no joy yet. I've posted questions in another forum so awaiting feedback.

SyncMy Portable is not free but I recommend you have a look at it as its ideal to get iTunes music over to the P990i.
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Posted: 2006-11-08 22:42:58
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Thanks for comments...

- robinho10 - I'm sure the test .mp3's I ripped had album art images in same folder as MP3 when I dropped them onto memory stick. I used Microsoft Media Player; "find album info", which populated the art and all tag info for the mp3, in same folder on PC... I just copied entire Album folder over to memory stick, but no album art on P990i?
And, no, not using Disc2Phone... do not see why I need to? What else does it offer over/above dragging and dropping music files onto memory stick? Plus, I already have all my music on computer (albeit AAC (.m4a) format).

- psikey - thanks for advice on SyncMy Portable, I'll look into that. Ideally though I don't want to convert 128kbs AAC to MP3, since will be further loss of quality? If you get an answer to the .m4a tag, then please post reply here. Thanks. Also, other 3rd-party programs on PC can read the .m4a tags/album art - so, surely Sony Ericsson will sort this out in future release? Sure I've read elsewhere that the W850i reads the .m4a tags with no issue?

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Posted: 2006-11-09 09:58:54
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i used disc2phone and then i dropped the images in the mp3 folders that where created.. and it shows pictures...
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Posted: 2006-11-09 15:08:10
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Not had too big an issue getting the album art but just for clarify:

Does anyone know how to get iTunes m4a tracks to show Artist/Album tags like mp3's do in the P990i media player without having to recode to another format?
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Posted: 2006-11-09 17:08:58
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Hi psikey,

I've been working on an update to SyncMyPortable that will allow better support for the new iTunes v7 (including the new downloadable album artwork feature). Thus, the new version should help resolve the problems you folks are having here with the album artwork.

There's a new advanced setting in SyncMyPortable named "Add album artwork to the album folder" that will automatically extract the artwork out of your audio files (both MP3 and M4A) and save a copy of it in the album folder on your portable audio device (i.e. your P990i) in JPG format.

There's also a new advanced "Standardize album artwork in audio files" setting that will force the downloaded album artwork in iTunes to be embedded within your audio files (both MP3 and M4A). Without this setting, all of your iTunes downloaded album artwork never gets inserted into the audio files and so it doesn't move over to your portable audio device during a sync/copy process.

I'll have the new version released publicly in the next day or two (hopefully), but if you'd like to give it a try before then, just drop me a PM with your e-mail address and I'll e-mail you back with a download link for the pre-release version.

Lastly, I have a W800i Walkman phone and in the earlier versions of the firmware it used to extract artist, album, etc. ID tags out of M4A files and display them in the Walkman player. However, this feature was removed (or broken) in the later versions of the firmware (same goes for my K750i). Thus, maybe this is the case for the P990i's media player as well... i.e. either it's just broken, or SE has purposely not included support for ID tags in M4A files on that phone (probably since it isn't a "Walkman" branded phone). I have a new W950i Walkman phone, and all of the ID tags display just fine for M4A files in it (as does the album artwork).

I hope this helps some.

-- MIKE (The Office Maven)
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Posted: 2006-11-12 02:02:29
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Managing to get music/tags/art onto P990i ok now (but avoiding AAC/.m4a format in favour of MP3's for time being!).

However, I thought I'd let you know SE Support's "official" response to my query (sent exactly as per top of this thread)... Basically, their answer is short and sweet, with complete avoidance of the actual .m4a question...

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Dear Sir or Madam,

Thank you for contacting the Sony Ericsson Call Centre.

With regards to your enquiry, in this case, we would suggest tryingDisc2Phone to transfer tracks to the handset. This will also pull the track names down from Gracenotes. Try this to see if the Media Player will recognise the tracks this way.

Should you require any further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us again for further help and support.

For more information on our products and services, please feel free to visit our website at www.sonyericsson.com

Kind Regards,
Paul Slinn

Sony Ericsson Call Centre


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Posted: 2006-11-16 10:33:44
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