Windows Media Player – How to Play Apple Lossless (.m4a, ALAC) Files

Using Handbrake svn3722 with Windows Media Center:

• "High Profile" doesn't play.
• "High Profile" with filtering turned off (http://forum.handbrake.fr/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=19049&p=87836&hilit=windows+media+center#p87836) doesn't play
• "High Profile" using ffmpeg doesn't play.

I thought I'd play with the audio codecs next:

• "High Profile" with no faac (AC3 passthrough only) doesn't play.
• "High Profile" with AC3 passthrough disabled plays, but with really bad artifacts

Then I tried the "Normal" settings:

• "Normal" appears to play OK.
• "Normal" using ffmpeg appears to play OK.

Looks like the SVN build improved the "Normal" preset to the point where the artifacts are gone. I'm going to finish ripping Willo the Wisp, and then I'll try something else.

The easier way is probably to bite the bullet and convert them to a supported format. First, download ffmpeg -- on Windows, get the ZIP package and unpack it.

Next, open a command prompt window:

 cd /d %USERPROFILE%\Music

(or change to whatever directory your music is at)

mkdir %USERPROFILE%\Desktop\blah

This will create a blah folder on your desktop.

for /r %f in (*.m4a) do \path\to\ffmpeg.exe -i "%f" -acodec libmp3lame
-ab 320k "%USERPROFILE%\Desktop\blah\%~nf.mp3"

This will convert the files to 320kbps MP3s. We use MP3 and not a lossless format (e.g. FLAC) since Google Music transcodes FLAC to 320kbps MP3s anyway. Anyway, this shouldn't take too much time on a modern machine.

Finally, add the blah folder on your desktop to Music Manager and let it upload. Afterwards, you can remove the folder from Music Manager and delete it -- the music is already in the cloud.