WMA 9

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WMA 9

2003-01-13 07:08:41

I recently heard that Microsoft has made Windows Media 9 available. Was wondering what people thought about the new version of WMA. Is it better than the previous versions?

WMA 9

Reply #1 – 2003-01-13 07:16:37

Much better than prev. version..... with VBR and 2-Pass encooding

WMA 9

Reply #2 – 2003-01-13 07:19:19

What exactly does the 2Pass option do? Is it just some kind of optimization as seen in ReHuff or does it real 2Pass encoding?

WMA 9

Reply #3 – 2003-01-13 07:23:22

Why we need WMA? If we have to compress audio for low bitrates, Ogg Vorbis is a good open source solution.

WMA 9

Reply #4 – 2003-01-13 07:33:33

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Why we need WMA? If we have to compress audio for low bitrates, Ogg Vorbis is a good open source solution.

I was just curious. I remember when WMA first came into the arena and I downloaded some, they sounded horrible.

WMA 9

Reply #5 – 2003-01-13 08:00:28

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Why we need WMA? If we have to compress audio for low bitrates, Ogg Vorbis is a good open source solution.

Hey, hey, hey... I know that M$ isn't very popular (and definitely not by me ) but I think it's great, if we have enough GOOD and COMPATIBLE FORMATS...

WMA 9

Reply #6 – 2003-01-13 08:39:47

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Why we need WMA? If we have to compress audio for low bitrates, Ogg Vorbis is a good open source solution.

Support of WMA becomes standard feature for portable players. I'm looking at pricelists for ones and I see: MP3/WMA/ASF - 20%, MP3/WMA - 60%, MP3 only - 20% (I didn't calculate this, just on a quick look).
I'm not sure it is about WMA9 too, but there where firmware updates...

About Ogg... Why no Hardware Support for Vorbis?

WMA 9

Reply #7 – 2003-01-13 08:42:09

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Why we need WMA? If we have to compress audio for low bitrates, Ogg Vorbis is a good open source solution.

Support of WMA becomes standard feature for portable players. I'm looking at pricelists for ones and I see: MP3/WMA/ASF - 20%, MP3/WMA - 60%, MP3 only - 20% (I didn't calculate this, just on a quick look).
I'm not sure it is about WMA9 too, but there where firmware updates...

It is hardly a standard and it is hardly better. Both WMV9 and WMA9 perform well under the par that Microsoft hypes. They do though outperform their ancestor codecs by a slim margin. So WM9 was not a complete backstep as previous WM versions were. As for the numbers MP3 is supported 100% of the time for now. And WM is not gonna be the one to replace it. Sure some can play WM files. Sure you can encode your own WM files. But few people want to rip their own CDs to listen to.(And those that do as a general rule would not touch WMA) Most people with portables are looking to download their music. And while there are plenty of morons out there using some pretty stupid MP3 settings to encode. Oddly enough almost all of those morons have steered clear of WMA. Try and find a WMA file on P2P networks. It is often easier said than done. Even vorbis files seem more common to find. Microsoft can only convince these companies to support them for so long. Eventually the companies will move on to a format that their consumers really want and will really use. It's anyones guess who. But my money is definatly not on WMA. Counting on Microsoft and WMA is a bit like counting on your mechanic to be a gourmet chef. As a general rule it ain't gonna be pretty.

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About Ogg... Why no Hardware Support for Vorbis?

Why this statement is wrong and pointless.
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....&f=1&t=5658&hl=

Vorbis has progressed further and faster than any codec before it. And there are no signs of it slowing. It is quick, mobile, and extremely light on it's licensing fees. "Float like a butterfly. Sting like a bee." It's code is not as optimised at this point. But it is only a matter of time and it is progressing quickly as well. There are already several "ogg" on a chip projects as well IIRC.

But back to the main topic. WM9 like its predicessors is good mainly for low bitrates. At mid to high bitrates outdated codecs perform much better than Microsoft's latest offering. In fact the biggest change between WMA8 and WMA9 was Microsoft re-introducing VBR IIRC. Other than that the codec changed little. So the codec may eek out a bit more quality at the same bitrate. But from what I am hearing it is not enough to beat out the competition.

WMA9 as a codec for archive is not a good choice. Even the lossless codec is much slower and does not compress better than any freely avalible codec. WMA9 lossy in it's native bitrate is little good for anything other than casual background music.

The new generation of WM is 95% hype and 5% substance.

WMA 9

Reply #8 – 2003-01-13 09:05:32

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Why we need WMA? If we have to compress audio for low bitrates, Ogg Vorbis is a good open source solution.

Support of WMA becomes standard feature for portable players. I'm looking at pricelists for ones and I see: MP3/WMA/ASF - 20%, MP3/WMA - 60%, MP3 only - 20% (I didn't calculate this, just on a quick look).
I'm not sure it is about WMA9 too, but there where firmware updates...

About Ogg... Why no Hardware Support for Vorbis?

editing

Excuse me, but I don't understand this.
What it mean?

WMA 9

Reply #9 – 2003-01-13 09:12:45

Just what it says. This forums quoting method is a bit quirky comparred to other forum software. I like to respond directly to segments of a post instead of a post in it's entirety. It often reduces confusion and missinterperitation. And can also serve to trim out useless fluff from a quote to keep the threads from being real page scrollers. This forum software in particular I believe has no limit or restrictions on the number of quotes that can be nested.

WMA 9

Reply #10 – 2003-01-13 09:18:57

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Just what it says. This forums quoting method is a bit quirky comparred to other forum software. I like to respond directly to segments of a post instead of a post in it's entirety. It often reduces confusion and missinterperitation. And can also serve to trim out useless fluff from a quote to keep the threads from being real page scrollers. This forum software in particular I believe has no limit or restrictions on the number of quotes that can be nested.

Yes, yes, I have already understood!
I see that trick at first time, now I would know for the future

WMA 9

Reply #11 – 2003-01-13 10:07:53

To Neo Neko:

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... ... ...

Well, well! Enough!
I say only, that I never was under the banners of WMA.
And here I only said about fact of wide supporting WMA on portables! That I see with my own eyes

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About Ogg... Why no Hardware Support for Vorbis?

Why this statement is wrong and pointless.

Why? You point to some DVD Players with OGG Vorbis that in german. Yea I'm in German, but I think it isn't portable. Isn't it? And my point is to discussion about portable players. Why it is wrong and pointless?

WMA 9

Reply #12 – 2003-01-13 10:12:19

A lot of the people using WMA are the ones who don't have the foggiest idea how you might go about downloading an MP3 on p2p and don't really care. They would be completely clueless when it would come to trying to transfer a file from their computer to any kind of portable, but it doesn't matter because they've still got a cd walkman which works fine for the 3 times a year they actually use it. They have never downloaded or used any other program that didn't come already installed on their system when they bought it and don't really see why you would bother when everything works just fine the way it is. I know several people like this, they use WMA and it's good enough for them and I would bet there are millions more out there just like them. So, as long as Windows is on the majority of desktops and laptops and MS continues to bundle WMP with it, millions of people will keep using WMA without a second thought or care to the possibility that there might be something better.

Rob

WMA 9

Reply #13 – 2003-01-13 16:12:50

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I recently heard that Microsoft has made Windows Media 9 available. Was wondering what people thought about the new version of WMA. Is it better than the previous versions?

I compared WMA8 and WMA7 to the WMA9 file that came with the recent c't listening test and found it to be much better at 64 kbps (less metallic and/or aggressive, good stereo image). In fact WMA9 for me sounded close to FhG AAC in that comparison which I rated best. As far as I remember, Frank Klemm (Musepack developer) even liked WMA9 better than FhG AAC.

The next time I heard a WMA9 file was in a blind test that guruboolez sent me several days ago. There was only one (brilliant sounding) harpsichord excerpt that was also encoded with Nero AAC, LAME and Vorbis at 128 kbps. We both agreed that WMA9 was the clear winner with that sample, providing the best frequency/spectrum "picture" of the original WAV. I was irritated just a little bit with the inherent timing of the WMA9 file, because I couldn't follow the harpsichord player's interpretation of the chord arpeggios at the beginning of this Bach prelude as well as in the original.

But that would not prevent me from choosing this format as the "one and only harpsichord codec" for medium bitrates. All samples in this little test were still distinguishable from the original file, by the way, because they all suffered more or less from a trembling sound that mellowed the sharp attacks of this instrument (which was the main reason for that comparison). But WMA9 definitely was the best in that "discipline", too.

So probably I would already use WMA9 for uploading my demo tapes (64 kbps or lower) to my homepage, but because I'm a Win95 user, I can't and have to wait for aacPlus to come out and rule the world.

WMA 9

Reply #14 – 2003-01-13 17:20:09

hans-jürgen

if you are interested, cdex with the WMA8Connect.dll, can encode to wma9. it is cbr and not the vbr. i downloaded wmp v9.0 for win 98se. in there are the codecs for wma9. i uncompressed all the files to a temporary folder and then did a 'find file' for each of them. i then renamed the original file to *.000 (or what ever you like) and then copied the wma9 files into the same folder that i found the matches for. i skipped the drm files. i then used cdex to encode to micro$oft wma encoder. they encoded to wma9 and wmplayer v6.4 also decoded them as wma9. they sounded reasonable to me but my liking is still with mpc and aac (mp4). but they were tollerable. i tested with 96kbs.

just a suggestion. any problems or questions - i will try to help.

WMA 9

Reply #15 – 2003-01-13 19:29:03

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if you are interested, cdex with the WMA8Connect.dll, can encode to wma9. it is cbr and not the vbr. i downloaded wmp v9.0 for win 98se. in there are the codecs for wma9.

I see, that might be an interesting solution for someone who also uses CDex on Win9x. But I don't even own a CD burner yet , so I wouldn't like to download and host a complete ripper/burning app on my HDD only for the purpose of using its encoder. That's also the reason I didn't try Nero AAC yet...

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they encoded to wma9 and wmplayer v6.4 also decoded them as wma9. they sounded reasonable to me but my liking is still with mpc and aac (mp4). but they were tollerable. i tested with 96kbs.

Yes, 96 kbps surely is another story than 64 kbps, especially for MPC and AAC, so it's possible that they will keep up with WMA9 or maybe sound better to you and your music. And a harpsichord is of course something special, as we all know by now.

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just a suggestion. any problems or questions - i will try to help.

That is very kind, but I think I will rather wait for Microsoft to offer a command line version like with WMA8 (which will probably never happen) or for "The Rise of aacPlus" which to my deepest belief will happen some day.

Right now I'm using mp3PRO which isn't so far away from WMA9 in my opinion, only a little bit "flat" or dull compared to WMA9 or FhG AAC. But on the other hand in the c't WMA9 file I wasn't too pleased with the string entry in the opera sample which still sounded metallic while mp3PRO didn't. That's why I rated them both almost equal, with WMA9 being more neutral on all other occasions, especially with the cymbal crashes in the opera excerpt which were the closest to the original sound of all codecs in this test.

WMA 9

Reply #16 – 2003-01-14 11:54:01

the vbr wma was a tad smaller than the cbr and sounded, actually quite respectable. i don't normally encode to wma. i was just 'playing' with the codec. i didn't do any blind tests.

unfortunatley we are both out of luck on the stand alone encoder as of now. it won't install on 98. i tried and it kept telling me it was for win xp only.

i agree mp3pro (demo) encoder sounds pretty good at 64. been playing with it trying to keep my mp3pro (nero) encodes for songs at a later date.

i'm with you - fingers crossed that aacplus is not too far off

have a good day

WMA 9

Reply #17 – 2003-01-14 13:27:10

Just my opinion, WMA9 still does not handle the transient much well (metallic sounded) in my Japanese song for 64kbps but it is definitely better than MP3Pro which has lousier stereo image and more metallic.

Edit: It's 70kbps VBR, 2 pass mode I'm using. More to test...

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