Quote from zachd:
Chris has asked for a sample file here - did you ever get him one?
That seems like an interesting request/question.

I don't think the web site newsgroup front-end is awesomely functional
right now, but don't know a lick about it.
You'd want to contact actual support about that to figure out what
they know.

I suspect that because this file format has fallen by the wayside that
you would not expect to see new or cool AIFF support.  If you have
some awesome statistics that show how prevalent this file format is,
that might be useful...
End of quote

In a first email Chris P said:
I checked the source code for the Microsoft "WAV Parser" which is the
filter that is responsible for reading .wav and .aif files.
Unfortunately it apparently only supports .aif files having either 8
or 16-bits, any other bit depth with throw an error.  AIF files have
the audio samples written "backwards" from an Intel perspective as
they are big-endian and not the Intel friendly little-endian as that
was the format preferred by the Motorola processors used by Apple at
the time.  The WAV Parser has to "flip" these bits around, and it just
doesn't have the code to flip for the 24-bit case.

Perhaps a work around is to save your files as 24-bit WAV files
instead?  You can make legacy 24-bit WAV files work in WMP by
installing my "Legacy HD Audio Filter" from my website.  The only
thing actually legacy about the files saved by GoldWave and other
audio editors is the header.

Regards,
-Chris

Later he said:
It isn't actually a codec that is the problem here but a part of
Windows called DirectShow that Media Player relies on.  The filter
called "WAV Parser" which is responsible for reading these files is
rejecting the file because the bit depth is greater than 16.  My guess
is that when Microsoft wrote this filter there weren't any AIFF files
with a bit depth more than 16.

It really isn't hard, Microsoft could fix the code if they want to.  I
don't think they will though.  Other programs that don't use
DirectShow don't have this problem.  It is possible for someone to
write a new replacement filter for the WAV Parser or a separate AIF
Reader but I'm don't think anyone has yet.

-Chris

About AIFF
I could prove that the AIFF format is more stable than WAV after doing
data experiments on them. WAV cannot be played anymore in about 10% of
the experiments. But since almost nobody do these strange experiments,
it isn't important.

About the MSDN website
The MSDN website doesn't work, but the form did look normal only 1
time yesterday. I don't think I am going to use it anymore, it is the
most user unfriendly forum I have ever been.
You talk about getting contact with the support department of that
MSDN forum. Well, I couldn't find it before, I would like to tell them
the truth, where is that support department? Where do I click, when I
click somewhere at the bottom of the screen it takes me to the
national support which would cost me 72 euro's per request.

On 25/2/08 18:13, in article uqjNPo9dIHA.288@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl, "zachd
[MSFT]" <zachd@nomailplz.online.microsoft.com> wrote:

I would be pretty sure those sample files do not have meta data.

For that you would be best to generate a test file using the 'reference'
standard which is iTunes. You can either rip a track from CD to AIFF, or
convert an existing track (e.g. MP3) to AIFF. (A bit pointless in normal
operation, but good enough to generate a sample.).

Theoretically, you could use iTunes to add meta data to (some of) those
samples.

I did not suggest iTunes for 24bit samples since it does not let you specify
that.

PS. Having WMP add AIFF files to 'other' makes its support for AIFF
pointless. You cannot then browse it as normal music, or subsequently use it
as music in Media Center (which relies on WMP's library organisation). I
fail to see the point of WMP supporting a music file format, and failing to
support the matching meta tag format, WMP is therefore only doing half the
job.