Google play music - has it changed from mp3 to AAC (Mobile devices) - Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

So there are a few mentions of Google play music changing from mp3 to AAC. Not as many as I would expect given that this is a big deal imo.
I tested today using the web player on my mac and it was indeed AAC but I have no way of verifying if this also the case on mobile devices too. On android the files are hidden away and cannot be viewed without root. I can see no reason why they would vary it by device but you never know
Anybody have any idea how to verify on an android device?

Would be great if someone could throw light on this. Really want to know whether GPM is playing AAC on Android like their web player. If that's the case, it's indeed a big deal.

Related

Can't play DRM videos?

Is it something I'm missing or can we not play drm video files on the atrix?
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
are you asking about playing files that still have DRM protection intact? Did you really expect it to? You would need an app that has the right DRM privileges to play them. What exactly are you trying to play?
Can't play movies/videos downloaded from iTunes even though you paid for them.
They will sync over, but not play.
Sorry - was a bit brief
Was posting from my phone so didn't explain enough there...
I have a DVD with DRM digital content. I activated it with Windows Media Player on my PC so it plays just fine there. I then went to try and sync the file to get it over to my phone but WMP just comes back and says the phone doesn't support DRM.
Followed some directions here:
http://tsukata.org/2010/08/31/how-to-use-playsforsure-droidx/
Says it works on some phones and not others. Looks like you need "PlaysforSure" and I was just wondering if anyone had any experience with that yet on thier Atrix.
If it's not possible, then I'm looking for suggestions on the best way/settings/program to port a DVD over to my phone.
Android supports some DRM schemes, but not the MS WMA/V formats. "PlaysForSure" is also a MS format which you'll never see on Android devices.
There are plenty of ways for ripping DVDs (and BDs now for that matter) to the PC (ignoring any bonus 'Digital Copy' discs). From there you can reencode and transfer it all you want. Not all methods are easy to use, and in any case that's not a topic for this forum .. Google is your friend (DVD ripping and transcoding would be good search terms to start with).
Now, a more relevant question (which I haven't gotten to researching myself yet) would be:
- What file formats does Android in general, and the ATRIX in particular, support out of the box?
- What other formats can be played by installing third-party players or codecs?
DVDFab is a great program I use to rip my blu-rays since the included digital copies have incompatible DRM Schemes. The nice thing about that app is that it works with Nvidia Cuda which uses the graphics card to help transcode the video. I just select the iPhone setting and the videos look great on my Atrix coming off of blu-rays. (have not tried it with any dvds as I did not pruchase the dvd portion of it).

Running Vegan 5.1.1....need apps

So I finally learned how to use NVFlash to get my device back to stock. Then I learned how to install Clockworkmod. Then I installed Vegan, after coming from TNT Lite. And overall I'm pretty happy. Except for the fact that nothing really seems to work
So here is what I need right now for my GTab to be of use to me in order of importance:
1) Streaming Audio from Shoutcast and bluetooth pairing to bluetooth speakers. Yes, I want this tablet to be my "Patio Media Player" and I'd like to get sound out to my bluetooth speakers. Alternatively I'd settle for streaming MP3's from my own PC where the mp3's reside.
2) Streaming video from Netflix, which I understand is in its infancy.
3) Streaming video from my home LAN, so it works like Air Video player. I'd spend $5 bucks on the PLEX application if it actually worked......does anyone know if it does, or is there a free solution to stream video.
Using Vegan, I can't get any of this to work. Winamp wont stream shoutcast, another app I tried just kept telling me "Broken Pipes" and so forth, no music was the result.
I can convert videos in handbrake so they play but thats not my ultimate goal, I want this device to stream music and at some point video.......can anyone help?
#2 -- there's a hack to get this to work, but it's not perfect. There is color banding issues, and I've heard that the fix also breaks the YouTube app. So it's an optional install, if needed.
#3 -- you'd want CIFS support. I though VEGAn had that buillt-in, but it's been so long I honestly don't remember anymore. The last major VEGAn update was early January, so keep that in mind. And the three guys who worked on it no longer update it (myself included).
Sorry for the n00bishness, whats CIFS? (Yes, I will Google). *Googled*
Also, since you didn't comment on #1, and you are probably the GTab Guru of Guru's, does this mean I'm SOL for doing something as simple as streaming internet audio?
Nah, I'm not the guru of guru's -- I just know a few things so I wanted to pass on what I did know. I didn't respond on #1 because I don't have an answer for that ( I don't stream audio and I don't have a BT headset).
As for CIFS, it's SMB (Windows file sharing). If memory serves, VEGAn has that built in, you just need to get CIFSManager from the market and change the settings so that the support is loaded as a module. If you get this working, then you can mount a share onto the device as a mount point, and then run the content from there. There's probably quite a few threads on this, as CIFS was something that a lot of us wanted, early on.
Well in case you ever want to, I did find that the current version of DoubleTwist streams Shoutcast! streams just dandy and I now have a backyard streaming audio solution for my patio with some paired BT speakers
Now to find your hack on how to get netflix working on Vegan..
HeadRusch1 said:
Well in case you ever want to, I did find that the current version of DoubleTwist streams Shoutcast! streams just dandy and I now have a backyard streaming audio solution for my patio with some paired BT speakers
Now to find your hack on how to get netflix working on Vegan..
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Just in case you don't see my reply on the other thread:
Give TuneIn Radio a shot, I think you may prefer it. I have yet to have a problem with it. It gives me shoutcast along with Internet Radio and probably much more. I have it running almost 24X7. It has a great desktop widget too.
It has been downloaded twice as much as Doubletwist and can record for you too. The pro version is only .99 compared to DT's $3.74
DT has also had quite a few complaints lately since latest update.
Hey thanks, I did miss that thread, and I will give it a download.
Now, the 64 dollar question: Are you doing any video streaming to your Gtab? Air Video Player is probably the defacto standard on the Ipad side of things, just install its server on your pc and, assuming your box has the horsepower to transcode video on the fly, it will basically play any video from any source and stream directly to the ipad/pod device of your choosing.
I am desperately seeking that solution for my Gtab. The best I have been able to do is this:
1) I seem to be able to stream any xvid of DVD-ish resolution just fine.
2) I seem to be able to stream WMV files at 720p just fine
3) I don't seem to be able to stream anything else just fine...
I can re-encode using HANDBRAKE and transfer to the GTAB but that defeats the purpose of streaming media.
Any thoughts? I heard there was a new app out that does a similar style of streaming for both Ipad and Android, but no idea if it works with the Gtab or not. I'm currently running Vegan 5.1.1.
I have enjoyed using AudioGalaxy for streaming music from my home computer library to my tablet. Tons of music accessible with no tablet storage use.
I checked out TuneIn......its a very slick interface, with one problem: It doesn't appear to be giving me any Shoutcast stations. Its giving me some major stations, its giving me local radio....but I can't get, for example, some crazy German trance station.
When I search the list of stations that comes back appears to be quite limited, also there doesn't appear to be a way to limit the minimum bandwidth (I don't want to see 64kbps mp3 streams in my search results).....actually, now that I think about it, I'm not sure i can search?
Anyhow, what am I missing....?

Music square

Does anyone know if there is more extensive documentation on Music Square, or what application its based on? (If it is at all, since several features of the phone are heavily based on other widely available apps)
I've never been able to get it to work with anything but MP3s. Tried so far FLAC and M4A - both were recognised by the music player and play just fine, but Music square never detects them.
I just updated to LFB and it STILL doesn't work, which makes me wonder if its only supposed to support MP3, but its not very well documented by Samsung.
Anyone have either of these working?
FLAC is even weirder, because it will scan it and then when the file is already playing, and place it on the grid where it thinks it belongs, but it will never select that file to play in an automatic playlist.
As far as I can tell, Samsung had the algorithm lying around to sort music by mood from when they first released their iTunes-like media player, known as Emodio. They took this nearly forgotten technology, modified it into a square, then stuck it into their new music app. I have yet to find anyone who claims that Music Square works for anything other than mp3s.
Pointless816 said:
As far as I can tell, Samsung had the algorithm lying around to sort music by mood from when they first released their iTunes-like media player, known as Emodio. They took this nearly forgotten technology, modified it into a square, then stuck it into their new music app. I have yet to find anyone who claims that Music Square works for anything other than mp3s.
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It would be helpful if they at least said it somewhere.
I got a reply to an email I sent them today, saying just as much, and suggesting that I just use MP3. That's not ideal, and how would I even know to use MP3 in the first place since it doesn't say anywhere it only works with it?
Like I said though, FLAC half-works. It knows what category it falls into but it just doesn't ever put them in a list. Vorbis could be the same for all I know (or maybe it actually works).

Audio book player

Hi, I have tried load of music playes and a few "dedicated" audio book players and none of them seem to be able to catalog the music correctly. The best at it so far is the Sony music player which is hacked form a ROM, however I cant get the EQ to do anything on this and I find the controls a bit fiddly even on my tablet.
My main issue with other playes is the catalogging, I can find no player at all that will properly deal with chapters or have a system where you can properly choose who to sort the music / track definition by name / number etc. So, I end up with mp3 playing out of order so I end up having to create huge playlists just to be able to read a book, some have 30+audio chapters.
Does anyone else use audio books who can recommend something that just works?

[Q] Best music player to work with Google Music?

Hey guys,
I've been using GMusic for a while now, but I always found it very limited and not exactly to my taste.
Does anybody know a better music player that can load songs from GMusic?
danielfiller said:
Hey guys,
I've been using GMusic for a while now, but I always found it very limited and not exactly to my taste.
Does anybody know a better music player that can load songs from GMusic?
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Click to collapse
not sure if google put the music you buy onto your device or its streaming the music but you might want to take a look at cyangenmods apollo.
Trozzul said:
not sure if google put the music you buy onto your device or its streaming the music but you might want to take a look at cyangenmods apollo.
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Click to collapse
It streams all your library, and that's what special about it.
Apollo doesn't support Google Music streaming.
Any other suggestions?
danielfiller said:
It streams all your library, and that's what special about it.
Apollo doesn't support Google Music streaming.
Any other suggestions?
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i think there is a way to get it onto your device thought, i got one of their free albums and it was on my device even though data and wifi was turned off. dig around in the files maybe?
The music that's cached is on your device, but digging through the files won't do anything unfortunately, each one deeply encrypted, believe I've tried
If you're responding to me, make sure to quote me so I get an immediate email
Trozzul said:
i think there is a way to get it onto your device thought, i got one of their free albums and it was on my device even though data and wifi was turned off. dig around in the files maybe?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is a way to do that, but then I lose the whole point of streaming - not having the files taking up space on my device.
The files you found in Apollo were probably some temp cache files leftovers.
So no suggestions?
Maybe someone else knows about an app like the one I'm looking for?
Maybe even some plugin that enables players to stream from Google?
been trying to find something for a while with no luck... I think its a great service, and the app isn't even that bad, but sometimes I just need that music to stream through another music program for a certain feature or option... or just because I say so! lol
(Most of my music I uploaded to the cloud was flac, so it is played back as 320kbps... In some areas I get only 1 bar of 3g, and at worst music playback may pause for 5-10 seconds... but even this is a rare occurrence... Others have complained about the quality, but I think it's great considering I have the options set for high quality playback only and still don't have issues)
what I don't quite understand, is the talk of 'lack of an api' for Google Music streaming.....
However, Android app's for DLNA or other wireless streaming, such as Bubble UPnP, and this app which streams to 'Sonos'? wireless speakers: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dk.youtec.android.macronos&hl=en
They DO support streaming from google music - the actual CLOUD (sorry it bothers me that someone names an app Cloud Music Sniper and flaunts allowing access to google music, then turns out its for the OFFLINE available apps that you pin for offline access? Oh and shockingly there is an app called Offline Music Importer that works the same - except it doesn't piss me off by implying it can access anything associated with my music on the cloud!) /end rant
So why are these streaming apps like Bubble UPnP able to access my Google Play Music collection on the cloud so I can play it back through my home receiver - yet I can't get it to work with a 3rd party music player at all? Hell, all I honestly want is a stupid visualizer, preferably that I can set as a live wallpaper... but they only seem to work with 1 out of every 5 songs that plays.... regardless of offline or streaming... and that REALLY confuses me =/
purplekush said:
been trying to find something for a while with no luck... I think its a great service, and the app isn't even that bad, but sometimes I just need that music to stream through another music program for a certain feature or option... or just because I say so! lol
(Most of my music I uploaded to the cloud was flac, so it is played back as 320kbps... In some areas I get only 1 bar of 3g, and at worst music playback may pause for 5-10 seconds... but even this is a rare occurrence... Others have complained about the quality, but I think it's great considering I have the options set for high quality playback only and still don't have issues)
what I don't quite understand, is the talk of 'lack of an api' for Google Music streaming.....
However, Android app's for DLNA or other wireless streaming, such as Bubble UPnP, and this app which streams to 'Sonos'? wireless speakers: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dk.youtec.android.macronos&hl=en
They DO support streaming from google music - the actual CLOUD (sorry it bothers me that someone names an app Cloud Music Sniper and flaunts allowing access to google music, then turns out its for the OFFLINE available apps that you pin for offline access? Oh and shockingly there is an app called Offline Music Importer that works the same - except it doesn't piss me off by implying it can access anything associated with my music on the cloud!) /end rant
So why are these streaming apps like Bubble UPnP able to access my Google Play Music collection on the cloud so I can play it back through my home receiver - yet I can't get it to work with a 3rd party music player at all? Hell, all I honestly want is a stupid visualizer, preferably that I can set as a live wallpaper... but they only seem to work with 1 out of every 5 songs that plays.... regardless of offline or streaming... and that REALLY confuses me =/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
found this baby:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2169761
check it out
THANKS! Know a way to pick output device for the Web based version?
danielfiller said:
found this baby:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2169761
check it out
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WOW! thank you so much for letting me know about this! :good:
I'm definitely gonna check it out and see how the streaming quality compares...
[sometimes it makes the difference between playing and buffering when using the Google Play Music app's settings for mobile streaming - the High, Normal, and Low quality setting]
Regardless, this is a good step in a good direction... I know Bubble UPnP app and even some file explorer apps could access cloud storage, including the google music account - so I'm glad someone finally incorporated that in a way that let other music players on the device see the cloud storage as if they were local!
As exciting as it is, I'm also cautiously optimistic... While this means that Google's All Access music service will become much more attractive and viable for multiple device use compared to it's competitors --- there will, of course, be issues regarding protecting digital rights. Already I mentioned the 'misleading' programs that allowed ON DEVICE/'pinned' music from Google Music to be played in 3rd party players, and some convert the file to a properly labeled mp3. Considering Google Play Music already allows for All Access subscription users to do the same to songs within their entire catalog (that is, 'pin' it to the device for offline play - which was really a surprise to me), this means those same programs can now convert the All Access music that is pinned to allow offline play into proper mp3 files.... Thus with some coding to make the process faster, one can essentially download any song they want from All Access and keep it as an mp3 - altho it is only meant to be a subscription service and the option to pin music from all access is just supposed to allow access to the subscription service without signal or without eating up data from a data plan.
I guess that means if Google Music wants their music streaming service to succeed, rather than taking away support for 3rd party players - they must provide an official API and a better means of protecting the songs stored for offline playback using a database and/or file level encryption for the 'pinned' songs. I'd hate to see the ability to use the service on other players be stripped and locked down even more to a single player due to these kind of concerns that Google surely already sees as an issue and is likely brainstorming solutions.
Question:
On the topic of Google Play Music, does anyone happen to know of a similar solution regarding Google Music Streaming on a DESKTOP ??
I have found gmusic (not the iOS app), but a standalone program that sits in the system tray...
http://gmusic.codeplex.com/
Some of the chrome plugins actually offer better features (last.fm integration, lyrics, etc....), but the one I found that said it allowed use of media keys didn't work for me...
This is the only one I found that allows me to A) not get my music player lost in a massive field of tabs, and B) change songs while playing a game!
The Main Player window, although, is nothing more than a customized browser window (like the ability to view webpages within winamp and other programs). It is nice that it is a separate icon not mixed in among other browsers, supports media keys, can be minimized etc ----
The one major thing I'm still unable to find a solution for, is the ability to select (non-default) audio output device!!
I have always had my pc connected to my receiver/surround sound system since I got 'my own' computer, so being able to select the audio output is crucial for me when playing music, as I direct the music through digital output to the sound system, but still want to hear other audio through the output jack.
Many times I'll have -Music through digital optical output, -Game SFX through pc speaker output, and -Google Hangouts (for voice chat with teammates) through USB headset.
However it isn't as common for a game to have audio device options as it is for a music/media player.... and always remembering to alt-tab after the games started to change the the default device is a major pain!
(Not to mention even if I'm just listening to music, I don't want to hear audio from a random ad... esp when I can't track down the source of the ad among my tabs, and it is blaring loud out the sound system along with my music)
Many people have complained/requested this to be a feature of Google Chrome - of course the Google team reading these complaints are thinking from the perspective of a simple web browser, something that usually has no need for such a feature...
However, plenty have brought up the issue of Google's Music Service being web-based, and thus such a feature is needed.
I'm not quite sure it is an issue that needs to be addressed by the Chrome browser, but it should definitely be an option within the Google Music web app itself - similar to how one can choose their input and output device in Google Hangouts, which is also a web-app run within a browser.
Of course, the best solution for me would be to find someone that has created something similar to GMusicFS that allows the music to appear as if it is local (similar to google drive's client) or if one of the better music players (Winamp, Foobar, MusicBee, etc.) had an extension somewhere that allows adding cloud music services like Google Music.
Anyways,
@danielfiller Thanks so much for pointing me to that app!
(sorry to any mods about how this post isn't -exactly- a proper topic for its location. Its just that Google Music is cross platform, not limited to mobile devices. While my question does not relate to any mobile platform, it is regarding the exact same functions the android app provides for the exact same streaming service.)

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