ThinkBlog

Having installed the xmms-aac RPM-based XMMS plugin for my distro (FC4/x86_64) only to find that XMMS still filled up its buffer and re- and re- and re-filled (”ad nauseum”), I Googled and realized that (1) I was clearly not the only one with this issue. I’d never thought anything of it till I found that the 48kbps Groove Salad stream from SomaFM seriously rivaled its 128kpbs MP3 stream—at less than half the bandwidth! (The irony that this technology comes when I now have the fat phat pipes to handle it is to be set aside for the moment.)

I realized after a while that it wasn’t necessarily AAC that I wanted to play, or MP4, or what-have-you; but aacPlus. I didn’t and, frankly, still don’t, know the difference between the two, but apparently they’re different enough for XMMS to shrug at the latter.

The “Software Audio Players for Linux & BSD” is helpful, but having downloaded numerous of them, I can say that most of them require lengthy compiles and obnoxiously need more fiddling than I have/had time for.

Try Xine, though; it works for me, for a while. It has crashed consistently if I leave it on overnight, or even for more than about eight consecutive hours, but that aside, it’s a good player (especially if you need one NOW).

Google pointed me to BornAgainRadio, where I found an article about how much better aacPlus is than MP3, and I was sold; Xine helps make it happen for me right now, but if you have any other suggestions, I’d love to hear them.

Having installed the xmms-aac RPM-based XMMS plugin for my distro (FC4/x86_64) only to find that XMMS still filled up its buffer and re- and re- and re-filled (”ad nauseum”), I Googled and realized that (1) I was clearly not the only one with this issue. I’d never thought anything of it till I found that the 48kbps Groove Salad stream from SomaFM seriously rivaled its 128kpbs MP3 stream—at less than half the bandwidth! (The irony that this technology comes when I now have the fat phat pipes to handle it is to be set aside for the moment.)

I realized after a while that it wasn’t necessarily AAC that I wanted to play, or MP4, or what-have-you; but aacPlus. I didn’t and, frankly, still don’t, know the difference between the two, but apparently they’re different enough for XMMS to shrug at the latter.

The “Software Audio Players for Linux & BSD” is helpful, but having downloaded numerous of them, I can say that most of them require lengthy compiles and obnoxiously need more fiddling than I have/had time for.

Try Xine, though; it works for me, for a while. It has crashed consistently if I leave it on overnight, or even for more than about eight consecutive hours, but that aside, it’s a good player (especially if you need one NOW).

Google pointed me to BornAgainRadio, where I found an article about how much better aacPlus is than MP3, and I was sold; Xine helps make it happen for me right now, but if you have any other suggestions, I’d love to hear them.