Trying to convert AAC, but the only thing that recognizes it is MediaInfo

[Asterra]

Topic. Got an AAC track extracted from a rather poorly-encoded MKV. MKVExtract recognizes it as AAC. So does MediaInfo. But the latest Ffmpeg doesn't know what to do with it, and neither does the AAC filter for Premiere Pro. Just trying to convert it to WAV for editing.

I'm not used to running into scenarios with audio where there's literally nothing left for me to do but post asking for help. But hopefully somebody will have an idea what I might try.

[poisondeathray]

Maybe it's corrupted ? Does it play in a media player ?

Did you try converting the audio while still in the mkv container, instead of extracting first ?

You can try audacity or foobar2000

[Asterra]

Audacity doesn't know what to do with it, though I do grasp that this is because Audacity doesn't by default know what to do with AAC files and relies upon Ffmpeg to make it work (which in turn means it would never work in this case).

Foobar2000 surprisingly does play the file correctly.

So the question is... Will the fact that Foobar2000 can play the file eventually lead me to a way to convert it?

[poisondeathray]

yes, foorbar2000 can convert/encode audio for sure. But I haven't used it in a few years so I'm probably not the best person to walk you through it

for ffmpeg did you try specifying -f aac as input option ?

ffmpeg -f aac -i input.ext .....

[Asterra]

Interesting. Using that syntax got Ffmpeg to play nice. Thanks.

Past versions of Ffmpeg were able to recognize the stream without my specifying anything, or at least to guess based on the .AAC extension. I wonder why it was decided that this should be changed.

[poisondeathray]

you probably have raw / headerless aac , so it can't identify it

(but then how does foobar2k identify it... ? I don't know)

or at least to guess based on the .AAC extension

good point