Pandora + Replay Media Catcher
I've recently discovered, when Replay Media Catcher v3.01 downloads Pandora streams, they are saved as a m4a file format. This was rather new as previous versions saved the format as mp3. I've no issues with various formats, but there was a problem. I was hearing the quality of the media degrade severely when playing the media file from within iTunes or QuickTime Player. Indeed, iTunes reports the bit rate (quality) of the media as 64 kbps, which is garbage as it's worse than FM quality.
A deaf guy could tell that Pandora plays the track at a much higher quality. The exploratory person that I am, I wanted to see if the problem lied within iTunes. Since Windows Media Player could not open the m4a file, to continue with my test I first had to convert the file to a more familiar mp3 format. A quick Google search turned up a free, easy to use, m4a-to-mp3 converter. After installing the software and converting the media, miraculously, the quality of the song returned to normal. Now you can once again enjoy decent 128 kbps quality!
I did a little browsing around, and stumbled into a Bitcartel Blog entry explaining in some detail about this recent Pandora change. The blog also suggests a possible solution.
October 27th, 2008 - 23:10
Hello Matt…
My name is Andy. I wrote Replay Media Catcher and work for Applian.
A 64 kbps M4A (AAC) will actually sound better than a 128 kbps MP3 and at the same time reduce file size which is why Pandora switched formats.
There may be some settings in iTunes (or a codec) making the M4A sound bad. Converting to MP3 will not make it sound better. It would be like taking a PNG and converting/saving it as JPG. If anything, the quality should get worse.
Converting to a better known format such as MP3 may be a better option for you anyway. I just wanted to let you know about AAC files. If you want more information on the subject, google “m4a vs. mp3″
-andy.
March 28th, 2009 - 14:58
I think the problem was that I had troubles with playback. By changing the format of the media file I verified that the stream is in fact of a higher quality than when played back. Perhaps, some people don’t have M4A codecs…