Boxee and AIFF Files

[Hex]

I have used ITunes to rip all of my CDs into AIFF files. The files are arranged by ITunes and in the regular ITunes managed structure (Music>Artist Name>Album Name) and there are a few MP3 and M4a files mixed in with the AIFF files. I added the Music folder to my media sources and Boxee and Boxee has indexed the folder.

For some reason Boxee is only showing the MP3 and M4a files on the Boxee Music page. All of the AIFF files are under an artist heading of "Unknown Artist." How do I get Boxee to recognize each of the artist and album folders with the AIFF files in it? When I click into the Unknown Artist listing I see Unknown Artist Unknown Album and when I click into that I get a "Select location" box that shows the Music>Artist Name>Album Name listing and if I click into that I get the song names and file types.

Ideas?

[Prospero424]

Boxee relies upon metadata (mp4 and ID3) tagging, which has major compatibility problems with AIFF on non-Mac platforms. For this reason, I suspect, I don't think Boxee supports metadata with AIFF and therefore cannot sort it.

Sorry, I don't know enough about the progress of open-source metadata support for this format (which Boxee would need) to be able to tell you if this feature can be expected any time soon.

Most people use FLAC for lossless, which works fine with Boxee, but I know this may not do you much good.

[Prospero424]

BTW, I use MP3Tag to tag files of all formats on my media center, but it doesn't seem to support AIFF, either

[Hex]

Wow, that is really a bummer but thanks for the info.

The main thing that I wanted to use Boxee for was to manage my AIFF files. I guess they need to clarify that the application only kind of supports AIFF!

I am super bummed about this!

[Prospero424]

Boxee fully supports AIFF. The problem is that the AIFF format does not support tagging. There are a couple of hacked implementations out there, but there is no widespread compatibility for these hacks because they store the metadata in an actual data chunk rather than in the file header, which is where it's supposed to be stored.

The AIFF format just wasn't designed to support this feature. The spec was formalized way too long ago for this to even have been on the radar.

You can still browse your AIFFs by filename through the "Files" browser in Boxee, but Boxee cannot index and apply cover art in the "Music" section for files that aren't tagged, regardless of what format they're in.

[Hex]

Ah, that makes sense.

It does leave me with one question (and this is a real question, I am not trying to be flippent with it). ITunes supports AIFF and can retrieve cover art and seems to support the ID tags. If ITunes can do it why can't Boxee? I do know that AIFF is an Apple format but...

[Prospero424]

From what I understand, iTunes either uses that "hack" I mentioned above that has widespread compatibility problems or it just stores the metadata in its own database without actually embedding any metadata in the media file itself at all.

I'm not 100% sure what it does in the current version of iTunes. Either scenario has seemingly insurmountable compatibility issues.

Boxee would basically have to use the iTunes format for its entire music database, which isn't really feasible for technical and (I imagine) legal reasons.