Sound file types, is m4a ok?

RootsMagic
1

I had a native Polish speaker pronounce a long list of family names, which I recorded on my cell phone. The file format used by my phone was ‘m4a’. I then edited the long recording and sliced it into individual pieces, one for each name. My plan is to add them as media files to each individual in RM10 so that we can refer back later for the correct pronunciations.

When I did my first test of adding one, I selected “Sound” as the media type. But when the file selection box opened the audio files by default was limited to only wav, mid & mp3. So I couldn’t see my m4a file to select. I was able to get around this, by changing the dialog box from audio files to all files. I then picked my file and imported it. As far as I can tell this worked ok. I can play the m4a clip from within RM10 by double clicking it.

My question to the group, before I go to the effort to import them all, are there any unintended consequences to doing it this way? Is there a good reason I should take the extra step now of converting all of the m4a files into one of the three audio files that it expects? I don’t want to import them all only to discover a downside later.

Thanks!

RM10 audio file import process
RM10 audio file import process1407×886 69 KB

2

RootsMagic has internal viewing code for some basic media types, but for most it will launch whatever app your computer operating system has associated with that type.

For example, you can attach an mp4 movie file as a video media type. But when you click to view it, RM will pass a call to your video player app to display it. (Verified through testing on my RM install and an mp4 video.)

In your case, RM is probably making a call to a player app that knows how to open / play m4a files.

The issue would come if the entire database & media were moved to a computer that didn’t know how to open / play m4a files. For example if you got a new computer and the filetype association had not been made yet.

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It’s hard to be 100% sure, but I think you are safe linking your m4a files into RM as type File. My understanding is that for any file types of type File, RM simply tries to open them with your computer’s default app for that file type.

Also, RM has two ways to open media files - in RM or using your computer’s default app. RM’s icons for media files are the looking glass icon for RM to open the file for you and the pencil/crayon icon for your computer’s default app for the file type to open the file for you. But in my experience, if you try to use the looking glass icon for a file type that RM itself doesn’t support, RM opens it in the default app anyway and you don’t absolutely have to use the pencil/crayon icon. So either way, you should be safe. The only problem would be if your computer didn’t have a default app to open the file type. Ultimately, that’s on you to be sure that’s set up correctly.

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RM does not recognize some file formats. If it doesn’t, simple use the drag and drop option. It will allows you to attach any file format of any kind. When you click on it to play, RM will use your computer default app for the file format.

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@ jprossjr
This is accurate – and drag n drop is preferable method to “link” in most cases in my experience. The “viewing” of file (or playback) would be based on the file extension and default setting on the computer.

Kevin

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Thanks to all for the advice. Here is an update. I converted one of my M4A files to a WAV file as an experiment. When added to RM, both file types behaved exactly the same way. When double-clicked, they both opened the default media player program as configured on my laptop. I wondered if there would be a WAV player embedded within RM, but that did not happen.

Incidentally, I am attaching these files to the Primary Name fact.

Then I did a TreeShare to Ancestry. Neither audio file appeared in Ancestry after the sync, despite being visible in the TreeShare dialog.

Lastly, within Ancestry I used the Add Media feature. While M4A was among the acceptable file types in the Ancestry dialog box, and WAV was not, they both uploaded successfully, and they both played successfully after the upload.

So I am concluding there is no value in me going to the extra effort to convert a lot of M4A files to a different format.

Thanks to all.

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I’m pretty sure that neither the Primary Name fact nor anything attached to it ever makes its way to Ancestry via TreeShare. I’m not 100% sure it would work, but I strongly suspect sure your m4a file would have made it to Ancestry just fine if instead of to the Primary Name fact you had linked the file to the Person record or to a Fact such as Birth or Death. it’s obviously pretty illogical to attach evidence of a name to a Birth or Death fact. I just use them as examples. But it does make sense to attach an m4a file to the Person record if the m4a file is evidence of a name.

The reason I say that is that the Primary Name fact does not make it to Ancestry via TreeShare is that RM does virtually nothing with the Primary Name fact. For example, the name that makes its way to narrative reports in RM is not the name from the Primary Name fact. Rather, it’s the name from the Person record. And no media or citations or notes from the Primary Name fact ever make their way into any of RM’s narrative reports.

The only purpose for the Primary Name fact in RM seems to be to serve as a way to swap out an Alternate Name fact with the Primary Name fact. Because the Alternate Name fact supports media and citations and notes, the Primary Name fact also needs to support the same items in order for the swapping to occur. But the name and notes and media and citations that RM really uses for the primary name are associated with the Person record and not with the Primary Name fact.

I will grant that changing the name in the Primary Name fact also changes the name in the Person record and vice versa, so it’s very confusing. But the note and the media and the citation in the Person record are totally separate from the note and the media and the citation in the Primary Name fact. There is nothing you can do in the RM user interface to swap out those items with each other. The only thing you can swap out are the name, note, media, and citations between the Primary Name fact and an Alternate Name fact.

When I first started doing genealogy, the software I used really only supported things like citations and notes and media to be associated with the Person record. I fairly quickly switched to a piece of software called Family Origins which was a predecessor to RootsMagic and which had the same author. I was excited to discover that Family Origins supported citations and notes and media for facts, and this kind of support has continued into all versions of RootsMagic. So I quickly started attaching things like citations and notes and media for birth to the Birth fact, and similarly for all other facts.

That left me with the puzzle of whether the same citations and notes and media also needed to continue to be attached to the Person record. Through the years, I have come to the conclusion that the answer is mostly no. The one exception is that I still attach citations for a person’s name to the Person record, because there is no other place to attach such citations. The Primary Name fact would seem to be the perfect place, but as I have already described, the Primary Name fact does not work for that purpose.

The full story is that if I have any citations or media or notes about a person’s name that are even remotely complicated, then I use a custom fact I call Names. This custom fact provides the needed attachment point that is not provided by the Primary Name fact. And it reads better than the same information when attached to the Person Record because I can place my Names fact at the beginning of my fact list whereas notes associated with the Person record print at the end of all the person’s other facts in narrative reports.

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Thanks @thejerrybryan

I welcomed the addition of the Primary Name when it first appeared, but have always found it’s behavior a little confusing. I appreciate your explanation.

Per your suggestion, I tried adding an M4A sound file to both the Person record, and the Birth fact. In neither case did TreeShare send it over to Ancestry. But since I know how it’s behaving I can just manually add it when desired.

Jim

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Obviously, my guess was wrong about the m4a files making it to Ancestry via TreeShare. Thanks for the info. It makes me wonder what the exact rules are about files linked into RM making into Ancestry via TreeShare or not.

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You can download a printable guide on what will upload or download using TreeShare. Jerry is correct on nothing attached to a name. There is a limit of 20MB on media. How large is your m4a file?

“FAQ: WebHints & TreeShare for Ancestry”

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Thanks Renee. My m4a files are super tiny, like 15KB. They are just 1-2 second clips of somebody pronouncing a name correctly in Polish.

The Magic Guide was a fun trip down memory lane looking at all of those RM7 screenshots. LOL

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I tried one more experiment regarding Ancestry TreeShare. I attached the sound clip to a citation which I attached to a Birth fact. The birth synced, the citation synced, but the attached media sound clip did not.