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horizon · Mar 8, 2004, 01:04 PM

Just a quickie,.......does such an app exist, and if so whats the best one. If I have an mp3 collection is there a way to convert these files straight to WMA as opposed to the CD to WMA way??

Any help with this would be appreciated, as a friend has recently been bought a Creative Rhomba (its s*!t by the way)

voodoo · Mar 8, 2004, 01:40 PM

are you telling us that you NEED WiMP audio??

I thought everything could play mp3.

to answer your question: no.

Get a Wintel or forget about this.

Powaqqatsi · Mar 8, 2004, 01:50 PM

*pukes*

G-Force · 02:58 PM

Why in the world would you want to convert MP3 to WMA??? Pretty much every player, both hardware and software will play MP3 files. And you'd only be loosing quality by converting to WMA from MP3.

Moonray · Mar 8, 2004, 05:03 PM

Don't do (or even think of) that. WMA = bad.

-

Uncle Skeleton · Mar 8, 2004, 05:57 PM

While I agree that wma is a nightmare and you don't really want to do what you think you want to do, it would be pretty rude to just say that and withhold the answer so...ffmpeg and Cleaner can both encode to Windows Media. Of course, I don't know how well, since I've never heard of anyone wanting to do that before

horizon · Mar 8, 2004, 06:14 PM

Cheers for the help, yep I follow your ideas, its just that the guy I know wants to cram as many files on his Rhomba as possible and WMA seems the way to go in that regard.....Oh and I only realised that I posted in the wrong forum after I'd posted so sorry if I pissed of any of the Admin/Mod guys, it was entirely unintentional I assure you.........

Axo1ot1 · Mar 8, 2004, 06:33 PM

Originally posted by horizon:
Cheers for the help, yep I follow your ideas, its just that the guy I know wants to cram as many files on his Rhomba as possible and WMA seems the way to go in that regard

Just lower the bitrate on the MP3s It's obvious you aren't super-concerned about sound detail and I bet you won't even be able to tell the difference on whatever player that is. WMA is never ever the way to go on anything. Ever.

.....Oh and I only realised that I posted in the wrong forum after I'd posted so sorry if I pissed of any of the Admin/Mod guys, it was entirely unintentional I assure you.........

OMG you are so banned.

voodoo · Mar 8, 2004, 07:51 PM

Originally posted by Uncle Skeleton:
While I agree that wma is a nightmare and you don't really want to do what you think you want to do, it would be pretty rude to just say that and withhold the answer so...ffmpeg and Cleaner can both encode to Windows Media. Of course, I don't know how well, since I've never heard of anyone wanting to do that before

Cleaner costs teh $$$s. I didn't know ffmpeg could encode WiMP since it is proprietary -- but ok.

F-Jam · Aug 28, 2004, 01:16 PM

Originally posted by Axo1ot1:
Just lower the bitrate on the MP3s It's obvious you aren't super-concerned about sound detail and I bet you won't even be able to tell the difference on whatever player that is. WMA is never ever the way to go on anything. Ever.

OMG you are so banned.

We use wma instead of mp3 for online musical collaborations (the audition phaze anyhow. Wav for final), because when you convert mp3 a small amount of dead air is inserted at the begenning of the file. When you convert wma to wav it doesn't do that. So we've actually avoided mp3 for this reason. My opinion is that wma actually sounds better than mp3 at the same bitrates. I really have nothing against mp3 except those two things which are major if you are doing collaborations.

The search engines brought up this forum thread cuz I'm searching for a convertor for a friend of mine who is a mac user and has done some musical collaboration with me. I still haven't found it yet, but I need such an application for the mac. I see from the thread title, that's what this thread is about, so I'll scan the thread and see if I can find the app. I'm a PC user, but as host of the collab site (http://fjam.zapto.org/) we get a lot of mac users, and I want to be able to accomodate them too. Music crosses the platform lines, so the platform pride means nothing to me. We just want to jam together.

albook · Aug 28, 2004, 01:52 PM

Originally posted by Powaqqatsi:
*pukes*

Me to!

bmedina · Aug 28, 2004, 07:30 PM

Originally posted by F-Jam:
We use wma instead of mp3 for online musical collaborations (the audition phaze anyhow. Wav for final), because when you convert mp3 a small amount of dead air is inserted at the begenning of the file. When you convert wma to wav it doesn't do that. So we've actually avoided mp3 for this reason.

If you mean that mp3 can't do gapless playback, that is incorrect. You just need encoders and decoders that support it.

My opinion is that wma actually sounds better than mp3 at the same bitrates.

That is false for WMA standard. WMA Pro is better, but can anything outside of Windows play it?

Music crosses the platform lines, so the platform pride means nothing to me. We just want to jam together.

So why use a format that is so unfriendly to non-Windows users?

F-Jam · Aug 28, 2004, 07:42 PM

Originally posted by bmedina:
If you mean that mp3 can't do gapless playback, that is incorrect. You just need encoders and decoders that support it.

That is false for WMA standard. WMA Pro is better, but can anything outside of Windows play it?

So why use a format that is so unfriendly to non-Windows users?

No I'm not talking about gapless playback. I'm talking about converting it to wav. For some reason converting an mp3 to wav puts a bit of time on the front end of it, and makes it hard to line up in the mix because of the added time.

It could be the encoders I have been using, but I've always experienced the planging sound with mp3 where I did not with the wma. I'm talking specifically 160 kbps, and this is just my opinion.

The Mac users are now able to play, convert and encode wma. I'm not defending any one format. For the most part I like mp3. It has just been problematic fro me personally. I would love to see more common ground. I should say for the record, that if I had the money to spend I would be a Mac user. They are for the most part higher end. The softwares are used by pros more often, or that has been the case in the past. Not sure if it is now.

The thing about the music is it is a human thing and the defense of any platform, or format is not my intent. We are all human, and music lovers. All platofrms are welcome, and all people are welcome on my collaboration site. http://fjam.zapto.org/

Thanks.

Busemann · Aug 28, 2004, 07:51 PM

Originally posted by F-Jam:
No I'm not talking about gapless playback. I'm talking about converting it to wav. For some reason converting an mp3 to wav puts a bit of time on the front end of it, and makes it hard to line up in the mix because of the added time.

I think thats a problem at your end there. Perhaps try some other software?

F-Jam · Aug 28, 2004, 08:16 PM

Originally posted by Busemann:
I think thats a problem at your end there. Perhaps try some other software?

If it were that important for me to use mp3 I would. I can save as mp3 and do regularly. When auditioning tracks, we've agreed to use wma. It is a very common problem. I would bet that if you converted an mp3 to wav it'd insert some dead air. We have basically solved the problem by using wma. Since Mac users can indeed use wma at will, it's really not a problem.

The statements that you don't want to use wma are really not based in fact. We've been making many, many high quality tracks using wma. If mp3 worked for this we'd be using it.

Chuckit · 08:51 PM

Originally posted by F-Jam:
The statements that you don't want to use wma are really not based in fact.

How about the fact that you're helping a company convincted of abusing its monopoly gain a stranglehold on another market? That seems pretty factual to me.

h00ligan · Aug 28, 2004, 08:48 PM

why can't anyone seem to answer a question without lame criticism? .. the guy has a valid point.. on a small spaced player, wma is going to sound better then mp3 at lower bitrates, easily. I'd put wma 64 bit against mp3 128 and you'd see very little (if any) difference except filesize.

That said, the only thing I have ever used to encode on a mac to wma is cleaner pro. Not a cheap solution.

F-Jam · Aug 28, 2004, 08:57 PM

Originally posted by Chuckit:
How about the fact that you're helping a company convincted of abusing its monopoly gain a stranglehold on another market? That seems pretty factual to me.

Not really. I see wma use as a very small minority. MP3 is much, much more widely used, and so using mp3 goes further toward a monopoly. I have a specific reason for using the wma, for a specific reason. I actually tried to use mp3 first.

typoon · Aug 28, 2004, 09:23 PM

Too bad this Rhomba thing can't use AAC. He could just encode it to a smaller AAC file. By the way what is this device. I know it's an MP3 Player but I've never seen this thing before.

Wevah · Aug 29, 2004, 10:12 PM

Originally posted by F-Jam:
Not really. I see wma use as a very small minority. MP3 is much, much more widely used, and so using mp3 goes further toward a monopoly. I have a specific reason for using the wma, for a specific reason. I actually tried to use mp3 first.

That is like saying "air is a monopoly" because everyone breathes it.

;P

(Yes, I am being mostly silly.)

F-Jam · Aug 29, 2004, 10:19 PM

Originally posted by Wevah:
That is like saying "air is a monopoly" because everyone breathes it.

;P

(Yes, I am being mostly silly.)

Ok well maybe you can explain to me how wma being a minority helps a big company with a monopoly? Wouldn't the format that is most widely used, be more likely to foster a monopoly? There are a lot more people breathing mp3s than wma. Why are we so defensive about such a minority?

Wevah · Aug 29, 2004, 11:30 PM

I'm not being defensive, I'm bored and posting silly analogies. Don't take that post too seriously (even though I still don't like WMA).

If you want to use WMA for encoding the files you send between your fellow collaborators, go for it; I honestly don't have a problem with that.

midwinter · Aug 30, 2004, 01:33 AM

Hyperion apparently converts windows media.

Krusty · Aug 30, 2004, 02:55 AM

Why don't you think in reverse, and give him this instead ... so he can get all of his wma files over to a decent format.

F-Jam · Aug 30, 2004, 08:35 AM

Originally posted by midwinter:
Hyperion apparently converts windows media.

Thank you so much! If anyone is curious about jamming a little look us up at http://fjam.zapto.org/ ALL are welcome!

bmedina · Aug 31, 2004, 12:45 AM

Originally posted by h00ligan:
I'd put wma 64 bit against mp3 128 and you'd see very little (if any) difference except filesize.

No, as I linked earlier, MP3 is superior to WMA standard.

WMA Pro is a completely different codec with almost no support outside of Windows.

F-Jam · Aug 31, 2004, 08:03 AM

Originally posted by bmedina:
No, as I linked earlier, MP3 is superior to WMA standard.

WMA Pro is a completely different codec with almost no support outside of Windows.

This has not been my experience.

bmedina · Aug 31, 2004, 01:49 PM

Ok, then have you conducted double blind tests, as in the link I provided? If so, I'm interested in seeing the results. If not, then your assertion carries far less weight than the evidence from the listening test.