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Topic: Windows Media Encoder Help (Read 7330 times) previous topic - next topic
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Windows Media Encoder Help

<ducks from the flames as he tries to hid this post>

I know WMA is not too popular here, and quite honestly - I prefer LAME MP3 to all other formats (OGG is great but no hardware support)

However, I like to try all formats. I am having the hardest time using the Windows Media Encoder. All I want to do is encode my wave files to CBR 128 or an average quality VBR. I cannot figure out how to do this. The encoder keeps giving me CBR 192 kbps quality. I printed the Windows Media Encoder guide but it is no help.

Why not just rip the CD direct using Media Player? I rip everything with EAC for a perfect rip and often edit the wave file before encoding. EAC does not have WMA ver 9 support that I know of.

No wonder you guys all hate microsoft.  Can anyone help me and give me instructions on how to use Windows Media Encoder to make a CBR 128 file. also, is there a way to batch encode???

Windows Media Encoder Help

Reply #1 –
Before Spoon beats me to it I will say that dbpoweramp is probably the easiest way to go.
www.dbpoweramp.com/

though the site seems to be down right now.
You can probably get it here:
http://download.com.com/3000-2140-10042534.html
but I'm not sure it has native wma support (you have to download that form the dbpoweramp website).

Windows Media Encoder Help

Reply #2 –
You can still rip your wav's with EAC's secure mode and then use CDex http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/ to do the wma encoding. CDex comes with a wma encoder although I don't know which version it comes with, just make sure you don't enable digital rights management (DRM).

If CDex barks about not being able to encode the wav's download WavTrim http://www.logiccell.com/~mp3trim/ and make sure you select the option to 'Compact' the files.

I sincerely hope you are only wanting to encode to wma just for a trivial comparison to see why everyone else prefers to use other superior formats, if you are wanting to archive your audio with wma it's not a great ideal.

Windows Media Encoder Help

Reply #3 –
The new eac-prebeta has a wma9 encoder.

Windows Media Encoder Help

Reply #4 –
Where do you find the new EAC pre-beta? In your opinion, is it stable enough to use?

And, NO, I would never archive with WMA!! I actually use APE to archive everything. That way I can re-encode to WAV and encode to the ultimate compression format that emerges down the road. I think it will be AAC in the guise of MP4 but we shall see.

I am merely experimenting with the best portable compression right now since that is where I listen to all my music. I'd like to try WMA @128 to compare to MP3 and MP3Pro. Again, I KNOW Orbis rocks at 128 but it has no hardware support.

Windows Media Encoder Help

Reply #5 –
Quote
Where do you find the new EAC pre-beta? In your opinion, is it stable enough to use?

Check out this thread.
Yes as far as most of could observe it's as stable as the previous build.

Quote
I am merely experimenting with the best portable compression right now since that is where I listen to all my music. I'd like to try WMA @128 to compare to MP3 and MP3Pro. Again, I KNOW Orbis rocks at 128 but it has no hardware support.


Did you try/hear about MPC ? Check this thread for a relevant discussion.
The object of mankind lies in its highest individuals.
One must have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

Windows Media Encoder Help

Reply #6 –
Oh I'm sorry. You said portable. Then MP4 seems to be good, I suppose I'll transcode my MPC-insane archive to MP4 eventually and keep both copies on my drive. But I don't feel like wasting 180GB by lossless. I can't hear the difference. It might even sound better after encoding.  Considering all the physical medium attenuation/loss/distortion I think the difference between lossy/lossless loses its importance. Music is inherently lossy to me.  Unless in the future I'd be wearing some extreme acute hearing implants I don't think I'd ever consider lossless  In the meantime MP4 tagging system has to mature, and by most HA members it's usually considered to be inferior at higher bitrates for archiving.
The object of mankind lies in its highest individuals.
One must have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

Windows Media Encoder Help

Reply #7 –
You'll find the new pre-beta EAC here, go to the downloads page. I am still using the last version as I have had no problems with it (touch wood) so why change, it's been well tested.

http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/

Quote
Before Spoon beats me to it I will say that dbpoweramp is probably the easiest way to go.
www.dbpoweramp.com/


This is probably the way to go if you download the WMA plug-in as it also supports WMA 9 Pro and Lossless, which is handy if you have Windows 98, but beware there are a lot of settings compared to WMP9.

B.T.W. I have been mucking around with portable bit-rates and have settled for --alt-preset 150 for my flash player (this allows me to get around 4 average albums onto my 256mb's with pretty decent quality) and --alt-preset standard -Z for MP3 CD's.

Cheers

Windows Media Encoder Help

Reply #8 –
I'm using LAME CBR 160 for my settings right now. I'd switch to an alt pre-set medium in a minute if someone optimizes one. Even 160 is a bit high for portable use. I'm trying to find something 'acceptable' in the 100-130 range. Have not found it yet. That's why I'm checking out WMA. And Vorbis supporters, i know its great at 128 but its not portable!

I don't keep my APE files on my hard drive, but on CDs. For $6 you can buy 100 CDs these days. I re-encode them to WAV and compress them when needed. Right now, I'm just keeping MP3s on my hard drive. Have about 40GB worth.

Does the new EAC use WMA 9 compression? Someone said they though so but were not certain.

Thanks for the help!

Windows Media Encoder Help

Reply #9 –
Quote
Does the new EAC use WMA 9 compression? Someone said they though so but were not certain


There is an option for it on the drop down box in the external compression tab, but I dont know how you would implement it. It looks to be command line based, don't know where you would get the codec.

I sympathise with your portable troubles, I have been struggling to choose a bit-rate for mine, on one hand I want to keep them low so I can get a few albums on my flash player but I also wanted quality. I did read on another thread that if using WMA use 9 as it is supposed to be better than earlier implementations. I don't think there is an easy answer until Ogg Vorbis gets more support on portables. I was using WMA 9 at 96kps (ripped from the CD on WMP) but it just wasn't enough for me, so I thought that if I was going to 128kbps I would be as well using LAME at a slightly higher bitrate. --alt-preset standard is just too large for my liking on small portables.

Windows Media Encoder Help

Reply #10 –
Quote
There is an option for it on the drop down box in the external compression tab, but I dont know how you would implement it. It looks to be command line based, don't know where you would get the codec.

I believe there is a command line encoder avaliable from Microsoft on their Windows Media pages. They also offered one for WM8 as well which could do video and audio. Then just point EAC to the enooder.

I played with it a while ago for making a few test movies, never again though, the closed source mant that i couldn't perform many of the tasks i'd have like. Much better to stick wit somthing other than Microsoft.


Just my opinion though!!

Cheers,

KRistian

Windows Media Encoder Help

Reply #11 –
The 'new' EAC comes with the WMA9 Encoder. Very easy to use. Very cool.

EAC continues to rock!

Windows Media Encoder Help

Reply #12 –
The actual EAC-prebeta already supports WMA9 !
http://studserver.uni-dortmund.de/~su0165/...5/eac095pb2.zip

After installing that, you have to download and install the WMA9-Encoder, you can get it here :
http://download.microsoft.com/download/8/1...7/WMEncoder.exe


At last, under "Compression options" you have to choose "Compression by External Programm" (WMA9, of course  ).
In the field "Bitrate" just choose "vbr 128" and you've got it !

This is a 2-pass-encoding-process, IMHO its sounds good (in comparison with filesize).

Windows Media Encoder Help

Reply #13 –
erm ezra, just to sidetrack a bit, I think it is generally not recommended to archive music in mp3, not even with LAME (unless you're using --api, which is a bit space-wasting)
If I'm not wrong people were pointing to Musepack as an archival and transcoding format.
Just a suggestion 

Not trolling, I'm being very open with a fellow HA member who's very open about various audio formats