[PiP]

I've been told that Quicktime 7 (and possibly iTunes 5) will have a brand new AAC encoder. Anyone know any deatails about it? I'm mainly interested in whether it will fully support VBR (with performance similar to Nero's encoder).

[Paul]

yeah, where ARE vbr aac files?

[dfiler]

AAC is always VBR right?

[PiP]

Apple's AAC encoder included in the current versions of Quicktime and iTunes is CBR only.

[Paul]

I know VBR AAC files exist, but I do not know how to create them using any tools that Apple provides. This is a bummer...

[JayReding]

Does the iPod have the CPU horsepower to decode VBR files? I'd imagine that unless the iPod firmware supports it, we won't see VBR AAC files any time soon.

[dfiler]

Ok... after reading more on AAC and VBR things are even less clear.

Check out this thread:
Where is VBR AAC for OS X?

I'm going with... "It's a matter of semantics"

[Paul]

wow... that thread is over a year old... and still no progress has been made.

[PiP]

Originally Posted by JayReding Does the iPod have the CPU horsepower to decode VBR files? I'd imagine that unless the iPod firmware supports it, we won't see VBR AAC files any time soon.

The algorithm for decoding AAC assumes all files are VBR whether or not they actually are. There's no update required for the iPod or iTunes to play VBR encoded files. All my music is encoded with Nero with VBR enabled and the iPod handles it just fine.

Encoding the files is where the extra work is required. From my experience, on average, it takes about three times longer to encode a file with VBR turned on. But the smaller file size and better sound make it worth it.