Copyright © 2008 Nick Anthony Fiorenza, All Rights Reserved
Downloading Issues
About m4a Files
Burning m4a Audio files onto a CD
Sound Adjustment: Headphones; Equalizers
m4a Software Players
Portable m4a Players
Because people often encounter various problems when downloading files of any type, and information about these problems is prolific but scattered on the internet, I've added the most obvious issues and there solutions here.
PC Internet Explorer
PC Internet Explorer users need to "right click" the download buttons to get an option on where to save the m4a files. Otherwise IE may save them in a "temporary folder" and try to play them on your default media player; or it may try to open the files simply as text (gibberish) rather then saving them to your hard drive if the Windows Download manager does not have m4a files defined. Right clicking prevents this and gives you the dialog box with the Save Target As option.
No "Where to Save Dialog Box" with a right click: More Info on Windows settings.
MAC Safari
MAC Safari users can "control click" the download buttons to get an option to "download linked file." or they may just start playing (streaming) with your default media player. (Note: Use the "download linked file" option and not the "download linked file as" option. The later will save the web page, not the linked file).
See the Quicktime note below for an alternative to the need to "control click.'
The Quicktime Plugin
If your files automatically start to play in Safari with Quicktime rather than downloading, your can define which MIME types the Quicktime Plug-in handles. This setting is found in the Quicktime Preferences: Open your Quicktime Player. Go to Quicktime Preferences: Advanced: MIME settings. Here you can select or de-select any file type. Scroll to "MPEG - MPEG system, video, and audio files." Click on the arrow to open the MPEG dropdown menu. Deselect "AAC audio" (ACC is the codec that handles the "audio/x-m4a" MIME type - files with the .m4a extension).
Note: This can also apply to other browsers using the Quicktime plug-in.
After you change the Quicktime prefs, close and re-open Safari. You will no longer need to "control click." Simply click the download button and the m4a file should download to your disk--to wherever you set your downloads to go in your Safari Preferences (See "Where are my Downloads" below.)
MAC Firefox
Mac Firefox has its own "Download Manager." You can easily define what Firefox should do when it encounters various file types (save files to disk, open with various applications, etc.). If Firefox is automatically playing the m4a file, or if does not know what to do with it; go to Firefox: Tools: Mimetypes (also accessable from Preferences): Scroll to the m4a file type and "Change Action" to "save to disk." If the m4a file type is not listed you can add it. When you add a file type to any browser's Download Manager or to an external Download Manager, you will also need the MIME type for the file type you are downloading. (MIME types are descriptions of the contents of a file.) The MIME type for m4a is: audio/x-m4a (more on the MP4 family MIME types).
If you "control click" with Firefox, it will provide a "save link as" option, however Firefox has some quirky behavior with this in certain cases, and may save the web page and the linked file, but with the same name. I would suspect this may also be the case with the PC version of Firefox, although I have not tried the PC version.
External Download Mangers
Some Browsers have their own Download Managers. However, they may not be as sophisticated as desired in certain cases. There are also External Download Managers designed to work with various browsers that have many more features. See: External Download Managers.
Dial-up Downloading
If you are trying to download large files with Dial-up, you may also want to consider an "external download manager" used with "Flashgot." This will continue a download where it left off should the download be interrupted or if the line conncetion is dropped, which is common with dial-up. The Flashgot extension will work with many browsers and external download managers. See: External Download Managers.
Where are my Downloads?
Where to find download settings on your computer
* Windows -Tools: Options: Downloads - Ask me where to save every file / select option
* MAC OS X - Safari: Preferences: General - Save Download Files To / select option
* Mac OS X - Firefox: Preferences: Downloads - Ask me where to save every file / select option
* On Linux - File: Preferences: Downloads - Ask me where to save every file / select option
Downloading all files at once
If you ordered the complete Audio Package, consiting of nine audio files, you can download the entire package using the Bio_Har_audio_pk.sit file; or you can download one file at a time. The .sit file is quite large (150 Mb), thus recommended for high-speed broadband only. This is a compressed folder with all nine m4a files. You must also be able to decompress a .sit file. (Because this is a .sit file extension, the m4a media download issues mention above are not of issue.
m4a is the audio format succeeding the MP3 audio format. The m4a format use the Advanced Audio Coding (AAC). The m4a file extension is that used for the audio portion of MPEG-4 (MP4) DVDs, which contain both audio and video. One main advantage of the m4a (AAC) format over the older MP3 format is its better sound quality, approaching that of a CD, while maintaining a smaller file size.
There are a few different file extensions used for naming the audio portions of MPEG-4 files: The common ones are m4a, m4b and m4p.
* MPEG-4 files with audio and video generally use the standard .MP4 extension.
* Audio-only MPEG-4 files generally have the m4a extension (or m4b or m4p).
The m4b format indicates the file may have "chapter bookmarks" (typical of audiobooks and podcasts)
The m4p format indicates a DRM protected audio file - typical of music downloads covered by "FairPlay."
Most audio/video players capable of playing MPEG-4 files will recognize audio files with either .m4a or .m4b file extensions. The m4p file extension (a DRM protect version) can be played only on media players that support the DRM protected versions, such as iTunes.
More technical info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding
If you burn the m4a files directly to a CD, you would have to have a multi-media player that plays MP4 files. The common approach is to convert the m4a files to the older MP3 format (slightly lower quality) before burning to a CD because most new cd players will play MP3 files. You will then have to burn a MP3-CD (Note: Very old CD players may not play MP3 audios.) You can also convert to the AIFF format, which is a high-quality CDA format and should play on almost any CD player. There are many audio format converters available for MAC and PC. iTunes can also convert m4a files to AIFF and MP3 files, and burn CDs as well. "Switch" by NCH Swift Sound is an excelent and simple audio file conversion utility for MAC, Windows, and LInux.
Professionally produced Music CDs generally uses the CDA format (the AIFF format is in this category). There are also Super Audio CDs (SACD) recently developed by Sony/Philips. These formats are very high-quality and are not suitable for internet streaming or downloading due to their large file size.
A CD has the space for these larger, higher quality formats, where as the MP3, the new m4a, and some other audio file formats are designed for downloading or streaming (being played) over the internet.
Even though the MP3 format is a lower quality and was originally developed for internet audio, CD recorders and players were developed that could record and play the MP3 format simply so people could record downloaded files from the internet onto CDs. Putting an MP3 on a CD does not improve the quality of the MP3. Once a higher quality (raw) audio file is encoded as a lower-quality file suitable for the internet, there is no way to get the higher quality data back. Burning a lower quality file format downloaded over the intent onto a CD is simply done for convenience. It is something that can be done on a home computer. However, you will never end up with the quality of a professionally produced Music CD.
The m4a format, as mentioned above, is a significant improvement over the MP3 format, approaching that of CD quality; but it was also designed for internet audio as well. Burning m4a files to a CD does not improve its quality either. But only m4a media players will play a m4a files. The purpose of the m4a file format is to improve the quality over the MP3 format and still be able to offer it over the internet. Audiophiles wanting the best quality should purchase CDs that were originally engineered with the CDA or SACD formats.
Bottom line: converting the m4a audio files and burning them onto a CD is not going to destroy the effect of the Planetary Bio-harmonic Audios.
The only other consideration here is that most CD players will play all of the songs on a CD in succession (one right after the previous one). Thus you may need to stop the player after one audio meditation so the next one does not automatically start when you do not want it to. (There are several seconds of silence at the end of each meditation, which helps.) Some players may allow you to play only one song and stop. The other option is to burn each meditation on a separate CD.
For media players that have an "audio equalizer" such as iTunes, it is best to adjust the Equalizer to "Flat." This will keep the many low frequencies common to these audio file meditations from distorting. If you have the equalizer adjusted properly and hear any low-frequency distortion, simply lower the volume for comfortable listening.
Stereo Headphones are required because additional harmonics are produced within the brain from the audio frequencies entering the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Unless you have a stereo setup where the left and right audio is isolated on each side of the head, this would not occur. There are also very low frequencies that may not be as audible without headphones. I have not done any research using the audios without headphones for this reason. So please keep this in mind if you choose to not using headphones.
There are many software players that play m4a audio. The most common are:
* iTunes (for Mac and PC) http://www.apple.com/
* Media Player Classic
* MPlayer
* QuickTime 7 (for Mac and PC) http://www.apple.com/quicktime/
* RealPlayer
* Winamp Media Player 5.52 http://www.winamp.com
* Windows Media Player 11 http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/11/default.aspx
Windows Media Player (including WMP11) requires an AAC codec - available here:
http://www.orban.com/plugin/
Note: Some players advertised as "MP4 players" are actually MP3 players with an AMV video capacity added. Those players may not play the MPEG-4 format, or m4a audio files.
* iPod
* iPhone
* BlackBerry 8100 | 8300 | 8800
* Nokia N Series, Nokia 5300 and Nokia 5700
* PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable
* Sony Walkman and Sony Ericsson Walkman Phones
* AT&T Tilt
* Verizon XV6800
* Samsung SGH ULTRA series
Copyright © 2008 Nick Anthony Fiorenza, All Rights Reserved