WMA again

[Corius]

Hey, if people have a lot of WMA, thers tonnes of programs out there that batch process your wma and conver them to .mp3, all you do is set the bitrate etc, and you can set it so it deletes the original wma's if you want it to. When you click start it should convert all the files you selected without any more input from you, so i guess that could help some people

There was one thing i noticed about .WMA support, on my really old philips 2GB jukebox (an evil entity that deserves to be punished eternally) on the box it made references to how much .wma's it could hold and how many.mp3's it could hold. For my jukebox it reckons it could hold 200 more .wmas than .mp3's not really sure why, because it based its 500 song capacity on songs at around 3-4 minutes long at 64kbps.... who listens to 64kbps!? 128 min for me 192 average then VBR for most

[mnhnhyouh]

Hey, if people have a lot of WMA, thers tonnes of programs out there that batch process your wma and conver them to .mp3, all you do is set the bitrate etc,

Converting from one lossy format to another will result in low quality files, no matter what program you use to do it

h

[Corius]

I've done it with some albums and i've never seen a dip in quality however most of my .wmas i have were put to nearly the highest quality that they could go, so i dont know, my suggestion was just so people sitting on the fence about wma support would know there is an alternative... if they are so bothered they should just use the evil that is itunes and let that convert there music lol.....

[goffa]

Unless you were encoding an original from wma lossless (which would be the same as encoding from wav) There was a  HUGE  loss in quality. You may not notice it, but if you know what to listen for, its obvious.

Anyway, encoding them to a lossy format there is a loss in quality too, but it may not be as audible.

And, it this point if they were sitting on the fence BECAUSE OF wma support. I wouldn't reccomend anyone switching if it meant they had to transcode their files from lossless format to another lossless format. It would end up giving rockbox a bad name in their mind if they didn't understand what transcoding did. (it would appear that rockbox made their files sound bad)

On the other hand, if they are like me, and wma isn't that important. You can leave those files off your player until rockbox supports it, or encode the really important ones to a lossless format like flac or wavepack.  That is in efficient, but the files would sound the same as the original.

I'd avoid itunes like the plague. lala.com is a good solution, you can trade for original copies of the source at $1.50/cd (shipping included). Otherwise, there are other stores that allow you to download lossless music as well.

[mnhnhyouh]

I've done it with some albums and i've never seen a dip in quality however most of my .wmas i have were put to nearly the highest quality that they could go, so i dont know, my suggestion was just so people sitting on the fence about wma support would know there is an alternative... if they are so bothered they should just use the evil that is itunes and let that convert there music lol.....

It would be good if you could tell us what headphones you are using not to hear a difference. If you are using the supplied buds, then I can understand you not hearing much at all.

If I had some WMA that were important to me and could not re-rip, I would install iTunes, put those files on my iPod, then uninstall iTunes. That way I could play those files by booting to the iPod firmware.

h

[Llorean]

iTunes would convert them as well though, so how is that a better solution?

[mnhnhyouh]

iTunes would convert them as well though, so how is that a better solution?

iTunes has an old mp3 codec, so there are better solutions out there

h

[Llorean]

But you said that:
"I would install iTunes, put those files on my iPod, then uninstall iTunes. That way I could play those files by booting to the iPod firmware."

I was asking why you would use iTunes to convert.

[mnhnhyouh]

I wouldnt convert them, just use iTunes to put them on there so I could use the iPod firmware to play them....

But as I wrote this I realised how silly that is, as the iPod firmware doesnt play wma either....

Still, to some extent, stuck in H320 thinking....

h

[Llorean]

Yeah, if you tried to put the WMAs in iTunes, if it does *anything* it'll convert them to AAC. iTunes will convert files without your notice sometimes, if it's set to, I believe.

[mnhnhyouh]

I only had it on my computer for 48 hours, then deleted it. I would not have bought an iPod except for Rockbox

I did have two albums I ripped at a friends place that were wma. One album I didnt like, so I deleted it, the other I did like, so I bought it and re-ripped it

h

[Corius]

Yeh i did use the original earphones lol so that really does explain why i dont hear the loss, but when i connect it to surround sound i notice dip in quality.
Really cant afford to get fancy earphones (im upgrading my archaic PC)
The only reason i use itunes is for videos coz well i got a whole tv series on there plus some japanese learning video podcasts lol.
at some point i might re rip my cd's to a better format, but unless i buy a better pair of earphones will i even notice a different?, i did have a couple of albums in FLAC but i couldnt hear a difference..

[techSage]

It wouldn't allow you to play DRM-protected WMAs anyway.

That's okay - I only have several thousand DRM-free WMAs from hand-ripped CDs.

And there are better formats for you to convert your CDs to, so WMA shouldn't really be a show-stopper from buying an MP3 player supported by Rockbox.

That's highly debateable and a personal preference at best.  I meant that lack of WMA was a show-stopper for the iPod for myself and probably many others who don't take the time or don't have forum in which to mention it.

Also, where did you get that the PortalPlayer chip natively supports WMA? Are you using "supports" in the sense that it's a multipurpose processor and can decode anything someone writes a codec for?

I'm using "supports" in the sense that the chip (PP5021C-TDF, functionally similar to PP5020) is capable of (see PP5020 brief from PortalPlayer) "Real-time decoding of MP3, WMA, AAC, and ACELP.NET formats."

[Llorean]

Most microprocessors are capable of decoding WMA realtime if they're above a certain speed. That's likely all that statement from PortalPlayer means. That a properly written WMA decoder should be able to maintain realtime playback of any valid WMA file on their chip. Not that the chip itself somehow supports the format.

As for "a personal preference at best", there is rather objective evidence that standard WMA is often outperformed by other codecs at many bitrates. Though this can depend on what format of music you have, and which encoders you choose, in _many_ cases it is more than merely "personal preference" that can make other codecs a good choice.

[psycho_maniac]

I would not have bought an iPod except for Rockbox

i feel the same way. i hate ipods because of the database view and i dont like the screens much. the only reason i got an ipod is because of rockbox.