WMA support

[Jahchand]

Hi

I would like to say how much I enjoy using Rockbox,

In short it's bloody brilliant 

Just one query lately though (and sorry if it's been asked before), but has WMA support been removed and if so why?

The reason I ask is becuase after putting a more recent version of rockbox on I can't seem to play WMA files

[Febs]

Rockbox has never played WMA files.

You can get information about the effort to implement WMA support here:  http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=3005.0

[baobab68]

Actually that topic no longer seems to exist.

Was it Mr Brownstone's original "WMA Again" topic? I used to go back and read it wistfully every now and then.

There are an awful lot of people out there who do use WMA. Maybe we are all dummies, as we have been called before, but like it or not, it's the default rip method in the operating system that 'owns' 90-something-percent of the market.

Mr Brownstone, if you're reading this I am sure there's more than one ROCKbox user who wouldn't mind being able to play some WMA files, why not release your work so far to the patch tracker?

[Bagder]

I can read that topic, and Marsdaddy is the guy who claimed to work on WMA.

[pabouk]

You can get information about the effort to implement WMA support here:  http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=3005.0

I cannot read the topic. Maybe it is in some temporary board and/or its access rights are set wrongly.

[zakos]

The topic or board you are looking for appears to be either missing or off limits to you.

I get this message when trying to view that thread.

[Bagder]

There's nothing to read there anyway.

Marsdaddy said ages ago that he had a basically working WMA codec, only some minor bugs left. Lots of people requested that he should post what he had so that we could join in and help, but... no.

So, the rest of the thread is people asking about progress or proof of life. There has been nothing of that for many months.

[baobab68]

Whoops, don't ask me why I thought it was Mr Brownstone, my mistake. But I definitely can't read that thread. I get the error message noted above.

Apologies to both Mr Brownstone and Marsdaddy.

I remember there being a post from someone stating that they had heard from Marsdaddy and that he had it close to workable.

Cmon sir, release the code...

[Llorean]

The thread should again be readable by everyone. It was still behind the "Old Forums" curtain, but has been dragged to this side.

[baobab68]

Thanks Llorean.

I also note that there are no threads by marsdaddy at all, so I guess he hasn't posted in a while, suppose that doesn't bode well for us getting a hold of his code.

[DanManners]

This is odviously...well, odvious, but I have a feeling that he never actually wrote any code lol

[Speedforneed]

This is odviously...well, odvious, but I have a feeling that he never actually wrote any code lol

Well, if that was true, then what is this?   http://www.rockbox.org/tracker/task/4984

Edit:  I suppose that one is out of date though.

[L]

I simply think it's better and easily to convert it to other formats. Why rip in WMA anyway? It's a crappy format =/

[Speedforneed]

I simply think it's better and easily to convert it to other formats. Why rip in WMA anyway? It's a crappy format =/

Well, I can give you a couple (good?) reasons.  (I'm not a WMA person, I use WavPack.)  That being said...

1.  WMA comes standard on all most PCs these days with Windows installed.  MP3's do too, but it's not the default rip setting.
    a.  Supporting WMAs just would just make it easier for the not-so computer savy users.
2.  They are advertised to be just as good as MP3s.  (I see the WMA 64KBPS == MP3 128KBPS comparison a lot.)
    a.  Assuming that was actually true (or just taken seriously), a user would just twice as much audio on that device.
3.  Some files are originally WMA, so why lose quality converting again to another lossy format?
    a.  I'm not sure I'd want a WMA file converted to a WavPack file... Kind of defeats the purpose of WavPack (in a sense anyway).


I think that is the end of my list.  I see these being valid reasons for using WMA.

That being said, I would love to see a WMA decoder sometime.  I know it would make a lot of people happy.

Oh, and just out of curiosity, in the sense of "Rockbox will be officially supported on, and released for, this player when all it's original firmwares features work in Rockbox", does that go for just the hardware devices, or also the codecs that it was originally designed to play?

[Atheistic Freedom]

Psh, better than ATRAC