Why do people use WMA? How does it compare to other codecs? etc., [split from “Windows Media Player 12 VBR Codec?”, thread 99192] Options

[eahm]

Pardon my ignorance and please, this is a real question: why people use WMA? I've hear many people using it and I didn't used once.

[mixminus1]

And what percentage of those "6 billion cell phones" actually support WMA, as well as online music stores (iTunes + Amazon account for over 80%, not much WMA there), etc. etc. etc.

Anyway...

Point being: WMA is a closed, proprietary format owned by one company - a company who, evidently, hasn't updated their audio codec in quite some time. Is *9.2* still being used by WMP *12*? And why *is* it so difficult to confirm that, even with Microsoft's own Windows Media Player?

As for how to change that - well, it's Microsoft's own codec and software, so if it doesn't happen by default, I don't think you're going to have much luck improving the situation (for instance, remuxing the .wma file with...?). This is just one reason of many that WMA does not get much use or discussion around here.

AAC and MP3, OTOH, are well-documented standards that are supported by a large number of devices and programs (at least all of those "6 billion cell phones", and many more). iTunes, for instance, will read the TOOL and VERSION strings from the tags of MP3 and AAC files, and report the software and version used to encode those files, even if they were created with something other than iTunes.

This post has been edited by mixminus1: Jan 31 2013, 20:05