Support for AIFF

AIFF (file extensions: .aiff and .aif) was high on the list of requested file formats. Now you can convert AIFF to MP3 online, as well as converting AIFF to other formats. Supporting .rm files (Real Media) might be next.

Downtimes

The last two weeks have been pretty bumpy – media.io was down several times. In response, I have increased my monitoring a lot which will help keep the site online.

Bug Fixes

A bug that affected people using Download Accelerators (caused by my buggy implementation of HTTP Range requests) has been fixed. Some people have reported incomplete downloads in the past and this should fix it.

Reliability

One thing I’m working on is collecting data why some files can’t be converted at media.io. I know of a few bugs in the tools I use but sometimes, these tools also cannot convert the files you’d like to convert, such as floating-point WAV files. Over time, I want to increase the conversion success rate until everybody’s happy.

Support for WebKit-based Browsers

I have finally fixed the longest-standing bug/missing feature in media.io: People using browsers that are based on WebKit (Chromium, Chrome, Safari, Midori and others) can now finally use the site.

The upload isn’t as smooth as for the other browsers but the experience should be almost the same.

Support for .VOC files

In addition to the support for WebKit-based browsers, you can now convert .VOC files online. .VOC is the extension of Creative Labs audio files and supporting this format was requested a few times. It isn’t the most requested format by any means but it was easy to implement so I just added it.

In this post, I’d like to answer some of the questions and comments I’ve received through user surveys. I read all of your answers and I’m thankful to everyone who fills out the survey.

So, without further ado, here you go.

Thanks for the site!!! I was desperate to convert this song i couldnt play it on my ipod!

Glad it worked for you. A propos iPod: Some people want to convert .m4p files which I believe are DRM-protected MPEG-4/AAC files. Unfortunately, I’m not going to break the DRM – not because I couldn’t but because you shouldn’t have bought DRM-protected files in the first place.

A Scale showing how much of the process is completed. A percentage, bar that fills or something.

Actually, I used to have that on the site before. The problem was that it wasn’t working reliably and would jump from 20 % to 100 % so it didn’t tell you a lot.

Who do you operate without ads and fee?

Good question. First of all, I receive a generous amount of free traffic from my hoster. Secondly, I am already investigating “pro” accounts that let you

• convert multiple files at once
• upload entire archives
• upload and convert as much as you want.

This is something I will roll out this year.

More filetypes such as video and images

I’m all for it. Just recently, I added support for FLAC and support for FLV video is just around the corner. I’ll also get WAV really right soon.

I just wish the upload speed was better but it was very user friendly

Thanks, unfortunately, I can’t do much about upload speeds as lines are still mostly asymmetric these days (the “A” in “ADSL”).

Maybe the ability of editing ID3 tag

I’ll think about this but I think audio tagging is a very technical topic.

Media.io is great! Other online converters have server problems, among other difficulties, but this one is fast, and, most importantly, it works!

Thanks, glad you liked media.io.

FLAC at media.io

media.io now supports the FLAC losless audio compression format. At this time, FLAC support is decoding only but over time, I will add a few more formats you can convert music to and FLAC will be one of them.

Just so you know, FLAC was the seventh most “requested” format at media.io.

So, what are you waiting for, go convert FLAC to MP3 online at media.io.

Upcoming Features

media.io will soon support one or two more audio – and video – formats. I am thinking of FLV and maybe AIFF. I am also working on making WAV decoding more robust.

As always, if you have any questions, email me or post a feature request.

That is all, enjoy :-)

• “Download Links” are no more. From my conversion rates, I noticed that people didn’t seem to understand what the download links were meant to do so this feature is gone.
• Fixed download encoding issues. @Warin notified me of a problem when downloading files with certain characters in the file name. This might have been a big problem that’s now resolved.
• Impromptu instead of Thickbox. The venerable ThickBox has been replaced by the newer Impromptu that’s at least as good, if not better.

Coming Soon

I’ve also changed one or two things here and there, as evidenced by the screenshots below. And there are more changes in the works (yes, including support for WebKit and mobile browsers). As always, if you have questions or need a feature when converting audio online, please let me know.

   

Click here to download:

media.io_updates_and_bugfixes.zip (74 KB)

I have published an updated version of media.io.

What’s new?

• Support for download links. Sometimes, people have tried to use download accelerators – which media.io doesn’t support. Now, if the “Download” button doesn’t work for you, download the file by using “Save link target as…”
• Improved “File-not-found” page. I still need to put in a lot of work on making media.io more robust though.
• Increased upload limit to 250 MB. That’s right, you can now upload and convert audio online with files up to 250 MB large.
• Some layout work. I did run ClickTale on media.io for a while and the things I’ve learned have now been changed. As always, there are “before” and “after” screenshots below.
• Warning screen for WebKit users. WebKit-based browsers (Chrome, Safari, Midori…) aren’t supported yet due to a bug in WebKit. If you use a WebKit-based browser, there is a warning now.

As always, let me know if you have questions or would like to request an audio format.

   

Click here to download:

New_Features_at_media.io.zip (76 KB)

What’s new?

• More privacy. Resolving this problem, in addition to adding Cache-Control: private headers to most pages, ensures that the details of your uploads are hidden from me and proxies.
• Support for files without extension. When you convert audio online at media.io now, your file doesn’t need an extension.
• Support for WAV encapsulated MPEG audio. This was a common cause of problems.
• Support for WMA. media.io now supports decoding from and to Windows Audio.
• There’s now a table that explains what formats are supported.
• Easier file uploading. I’ve posted a screenshot of the new upload progress bar before. I hope you like it.
• A different look. I did rearrange certain links on the page. Also, I incorporated some ideas I got from the user tests I ran on media.io.

Coming soon

Some of the things I will enable soon is support for FLAC.

Screenshots

I’m attaching two screenshots to this post, the first one is “before,” the second one “after.” Enjoy.

   

Click here to download:

media.io_now_much_more_awesome.zip (74 KB)

Bugs, bugs, bugs

Software bugs are annoying so I fixed some more.

• Repeatedly uploading files would not work in Internet Explorer. This was a caching issue.
• Don’t log file names during download. Nobody seemed to care about this bug but it was easy to fix for the next version of media.io.

Time for tests!

It’s no secret I love testing. I’m a bad designer and a bad copywriter, but I don’t have to be good because I can let my users tell me what they like. In the next days, I’ll start another multivariate test that should answer some of my questions regarding button and help text placement.

Survey

I would like to find out how you use media.io and I have created a short survey. If you have 30 seconds, please take the survey. Thank you!

New upload layout

I mentioned that people are occasionally uploading files but never converting them. In response to that, I’ve completely redesigned the file upload. You can see it in the screenshot below. Soon, when you convert audio at media.io, it’ll be painfully obvious how much data you’ve already uploaded.