Creating MP4 files from EAC using Nero AAC Encoder

(from the High Quality Audio department)

Hi everyone,

I use EAC - Exact Audio Copy - for much of my CD Archiving.  It works great - except that it doesn't create MP4 files directly.

However - I just figured out a way to do that using a custom EAC compression string and Nero's free AAC Encoder, which you can download here:  http://www.nero.com/enu/company/about-nero/nero-aac-codec.php

Now what follows is not a step by step guide - but my quick cheat notes for a Windows 7 system.  Follow at your own discretion:

1. Navigate to your Exact Audio Copy installation directory and create a Nero folder (e.g. C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\Nero)
2. Open the NeroAACCodec-1.5.1.zip file, and navigate to the win32 folder.
3. Extract the three files - neroAacDec.exe, neroAacEnc.exe & neroAacTag.exe - from the win32 folder and place them in your newly created Nero folder.
4. Start Exact Audio Copy - making sure that you're in advanced mode
5. In the resultant program window, from the EAC menu, select Compression Options...
6. You'll want to set the following:
   
   • Check "Use external program for compression"
   • Set Parameter passing scheme to "User Defined Encoder"
   • Set Use file extension to .mp4
   • Set the Program, including path, used for compression to the location of your cmd.exe (e.g. C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe)
   • Set the Additional command-line options to the following:
     /c ""c:\program files\exact audio copy\nero\neroaacenc.exe" -br %bitrate%000 -if %source% -of %dest% && "C:\program files\exact audio copy\nero\neroaactag.exe" %dest% -meta:artist="%albumartist%" -meta:album="%albumtitle%" -meta:track="%tracknr%" -meta:title="%title%" -meta:genre="%genre%" -meta:totaltracks="%numtracks%" -meta:disc="%cdnumber%" -meta:composer="%composer%" -meta:totaldiscs="%totalcds%" -meta:year="%year%" -add-cover:front:%coverfile%"
   • Set Bit rate to whatever you prefer - (e.g. 128 kBit/s)
   • Check Delete WAV after compression
   • Uncheck Use CRC check
   • Uncheck Add ID3 tag
   • Check Check for external programs return code
   • Select the High quality radio button
7. Click OK to close the Compression options dialog box.

So the way this works is that it ties two of the Nero programs together - the Encoder and the Tagger - by launching them from the Windows Command shell.  The number of " in the additional command-line options are important - don't omit them or it won't work.  

The good news is that this does fill in the album art and a fair amount of metadata.  I don't like lyrics in my audio files, so I didn't implement them, although the Nero Tagger supports it.  You can adjust the bit rate via the pulldown in the Compression Options... menu - the script interprets the variables correctly - but the MP4s will be Variable Bit Rate (VBR) not Constant Bit Rate (CBR), so they won't match exactly.

Have fun!

Cheers,
Paul