Why the low popularity/usage of WMA Lossless? (according to the poll), Split from: 2012 ripping/encoding poll Options

[Squeller]

We have reported bugs to Microsoft (to the project manager for Windows Media Audio at the time) for WMAL, they are still outstanding 7 years later.

I always used Microsoft DOS/Windows as my main OS, but honestly never found out how to report a bug or ask for help (there were some special cases where I found reprodicible bugs). Except maybe their msdn fora? And I always thought it's useless to report things to them. Their support (MSDN fora?) turned out to be useless. I think there are only some losely bound (most) valuable professionals, they turned out to have less knowledge than I, unfortunately, until now it was all useless

This post has been edited by Squeller: Jan 14 2012, 15:31

[spoon]

Back in the day when MS first released WMA dBpoweramp was one of the first programs to support it, at the time the whole department was accessible, now it seems WMA is abandoned.

[hellokeith]

now it seems WMA is abandoned.

I think the combination of the Ipod explosion which impacted use of WMA along with the HD DVD loss to BD which impacted use of VC-1/WMV spelled the end of the Windows Media group.

Microsoft has core patents in various media codecs and softwares, so licensing might have a higher profit margin than rolling your own.

I am curious to see if/what incarnation Windows Media Center has in Windows 8.

This post has been edited by hellokeith: Jan 15 2012, 00:10

[kornchild2002]

I imagine MS has its hands in several patents for various media usage. Hell, they are even managing to make money off of every Android smartphone and tablet being sold due to patent arrangements (i.e. buying up companies that had Android patents or buying the patent rights).

The last I heard, Windows Media Center wasn't getting much of an update with Windows 8. In fact, I thought there was a time when MS wasn't going to have WMC in Windows 8 but that changed (I could be wrong on this). Their main focus with Win 8 seems to revolve around making it touch friendly while the standard desktop portion looks to remain unchanged. Back before Win 8, I was hoping that MS would come out with two different OS ecosystems much like Apple. One for portable environments and one for desktops/notebooks since there is that clear distinction between those device classifications. Alas, they seem intent with trying to make a touch experience with a full desktop OS and we all know how well that turns out. There was development on that one Windows mobile OS that looked promising but it stopped in favor of needlessly running Win 8 on a slate tablet.

Either way, WMA is pretty much dead now and I think Win 7's native support of mpeg-4 standards (including AAC audio) shows that MS is even moving on from WMA and even WMV. I don't think they lost much when HD-DVD failed as Blu-ray movies are still being released using VC-1. The Lord of the Rings trilogy (at least the theatrical cuts) used VC-1 as does the recent re-re-relase of Serenity, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and many others (though AVC still seems to be a more supported format and Blu-ray 3D releases all use mpeg-4 MVC). HD-DVD could also use mpeg-2 and mpeg-4 AVC encoding so it wasn't completely tied to VC-1 either.

[cowls192]

What's so bad about WMAL?

Before i go on, i will say that everybody hates Microsoft. At least i hate them. I don't have to go details on that. My ice-breaker would be

"If we already have Gold, Silver, and Bronze medals that are well-recognized, why bother adding Copper or Tin medals?"

I'm not saying that WMA is bad in quality at all. I mean, in the end, it's lossless, right? You're not supposed to lose a bit out of it. (No pun inteded...)

This may turn into one of those monopoly-scheme issues. Since MS folks developed WMA, whoever dares to benefit from it MUST be approved by MS, and this will lead to licensing, patent, and all kinds of nuisance. I can't imagine MS will generously relinquish WMA as open-source, but even if they do, it just takes time away on quality-assurance, compatibility, etc.

[Mach-X]

There's nothing wrong with wmal, or wma in general for that matter. Unlike other users, I don't discriminate against apple or microsoft or open source. (although I really hate apple, but don't rip people who choose to use their products). WMAL has one prime raison d'etre. The zune 120. If you are one of the lucky people to have one of these you can take your entire cd collection losslessly on the go with the superior zune interface. That interface is the main reason I still keep a zunehd in my car. I've tried using my rockboxed clip in my car. Do you know how hard it is to drive and navigate that tiny screen? And the zune interface does things no other interface does. One touch shuffle of your entire music collection. One touch artist playback, it plays all their albums from newest to oldest. One touch album playback. Why is it nobody else has this?! Even on my droid phone you can't one touch play an album. You have to long press than press play, rather dangerous to be distracted that length of time. With the zune it's tap the album cover and it plays with a very nice now playing screen. If you are in shuffle mode and you decide you want to hear the album of that track you just tap the cover and it plays the album unshuffled. Nothing compares to zune for on the go interface. It's a shame they discontinued the 120 I would love to buy one and skip lossy encoding altogether.

This post has been edited by Mach-X: Dec 23 2012, 07:27

[nu774]

Maybe because of this? http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=45377

"Random access test" of decoder validator (foo_input_validator) still fails on today (Windows 7). So, sample accurate seeking is impossible on WMAL. I don't know if this is due to by design of ASF container or flawed run-time library or other reason. Anyway, MS has abandoned WM codecs, no hope of "fixing" it, and I have no reason to use it.

[probedb]

There's nothing wrong with wmal, or wma in general for that matter. Unlike other users, I don't discriminate against apple or microsoft or open source. (although I really hate apple, but don't rip people who choose to use their products). WMAL has one prime raison d'etre. The zune 120. If you are one of the lucky people to have one of these you can take your entire cd collection losslessly on the go with the superior zune interface. That interface is the main reason I still keep a zunehd in my car. I've tried using my rockboxed clip in my car. Do you know how hard it is to drive and navigate that tiny screen? And the zune interface does things no other interface does. One touch shuffle of your entire music collection. One touch artist playback, it plays all their albums from newest to oldest. One touch album playback. Why is it nobody else has this?! Even on my droid phone you can't one touch play an album. You have to long press than press play, rather dangerous to be distracted that length of time. With the zune it's tap the album cover and it plays with a very nice now playing screen. If you are in shuffle mode and you decide you want to hear the album of that track you just tap the cover and it plays the album unshuffled. Nothing compares to zune for on the go interface. It's a shame they discontinued the 120 I would love to buy one and skip lossy encoding altogether.

Do you work for Microsoft?

[DonP]

There's nothing wrong with wmal, or wma in general for that matter. Unlike other users, I don't discriminate against apple or microsoft or open source. (although I really hate apple, but don't rip people who choose to use their products). WMAL has one prime raison d'etre. The zune 120.
...
It's a shame they discontinued the 120 I would love to buy one and skip lossy encoding altogether.

So the best thing about it is it only works (wrt portables) on a player you can't get?

SPeaking of Zune, we're getting close to that special time when they freak out on the 366th day of the year.
Did Msoft ever give a firmware update on that, or did they figure no one would keep a player until the next leap year?

[pdq]

WMA (and I don't mean WMA Pro) scored consistently at the bottom in listening tests except for the lowest bitrates. This made it a good choice for dial-up, but not much else.

[frozenspeed]

What's so bad about WMAL?

Does Microsoft still support it or have they dropped it just like they did MSN Music Marketplace, Zune, Kin, PlayForSure, Sinofsky, etc... ?

[saratoga]

Maybe because of this? http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=45377

"Random access test" of decoder validator (foo_input_validator) still fails on today (Windows 7). So, sample accurate seeking is impossible on WMAL. I don't know if this is due to by design of ASF container or flawed run-time library or other reason. Anyway, MS has abandoned WM codecs, no hope of "fixing" it, and I have no reason to use it.

That's nothing compared to the screw up with wma voice:
http://blogs.gnome.org/rbultje/2010/01/25/...dec-dissection/

Ten years later their official decoder still can't decode the format correctly as far as I know. That's what happens when you try to take shortcuts and designs decoder implementation as the specification; you end up baking in your own bugs into the format without realizing it. Not too surprising I guess that ms gave up on audio.