Our 'friends' at M$ finally released the Media 9 series encoder and player. See here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsme...ia/default.aspx for more information.

If they released it today, then why does my WMP tell me that I already have the latest
version when I use the "check for player updates" option?
In the "About" section, it clearly says WMP v8, though...

Perhaps you should be asking Microsoft that. It usually takes a while for new products to "spread" to all areas of Microsoft's operation, so I'd give it a while and try again.

I know that WMA9 Encoder final version was relased. I check often www.Betanews.com (good but commetial page).

Go THERE and say what You are thinking about WMA9. One guy from Hydrogenaudio already posted there, i think.

I tried out the beta version of WMP 9 and it was more stable and faster than WMP 8, but the features deteriorated IMO. 9, for example, stops letting you view album art when you aren't online. That is, everyone else including 8 would download the album art and you could view it off-line. The interface of 9 was slightly more clunky than 8. 9 is even worse at trying to sell me things ("Click here to buy this album!!" Well, I just put the album in my computer--why would I want to buy a second copy?!) And, if you're using 9 to rip any CDs, make sure you've turned copy protection off--the default is on.

From a very, very happy Media Jukebox user.

WiMP 9 rules compared to 8. What a great update Ever since the betas came out I have been using it. And in fact it replaced WiMP 6.4 as my default movie viewer And the Windows Movie Maker 2 is now a real competition of iMovie. Also the new Media Encoder is a great improvment on Media Encoder 7.

Overall, a great buncho updates.

I hate this. For years i've hated Microsoft's ugly buggy bloated worthless media player, i hate it i hate it...
Anyway ... I've downloaded it over a day ago, not to check if it's improved or anything, but just to put the updated MS stuff so that i won't have problems with WMV and WMA 9 or anything. I must admit, the video compresses pretty well, quite nice. But of course, i'll never use it because it's Microsoft's (enough said..). XviD rulez (and all that). Heh, and am i wrong or are you limited only to WMA in WMV streams? ...one of the better reasons why not to use it to compress your stuff (many others i bet you know as well as i do, but let's not go there ).
So, in conclusion, WMP, WM Encoder, and all WM related things suck in my opinion..
I'm a very happy Zoom Player user, it's far superior to WMP.

Zoom Player is the shit. Although not my default movie/video player, I do open it and use it a hell of a lot cause it can do a lot of things WiMP can't. I love ZoomPlayer, but it still has some little things about it that make it more of pain to use the the extreamly simple and easy to use WiMP 9. WiMP 9 for basic video watching is quite good. ZoomPlayer, is great on so many more levals but fails to be hassle free as I have found WiMP 9 to be over the last few months of regular use.

Hrm the encoder has switched to .msi format for installation. I'll see if it can be edited to disable DRM like the beta version. The player would be simple enough - see drm.inf in the setup .exe.

-h

What's that drm thing harmful for? And how to get rid of it: uninstall through rudll32 or modify this drm.inf?
One more q: where it usualy located in wme?
If your looking for msi modifying tool try this.

I installed WM Encoder, but it always crashes when I pick a file for
encoding... Has anyone experienced the same problem?

The error message tells me that the memory could not be "read".
Winamp also crashes on me for the same reason sometimes when
I try to play a file with it... Other times it plays the same file without
any problem... Could this be a RAM issue?

It's more likely a memory timing issue than bad RAM itself.

Reset your BIOS settings through a jumper if possible, and then load Setup defaults, and when resetting your BIOS, make sure you enable non-agressive ("By SPD") memory timings.

Run a comprehensive memory tester using at least 50 passes; yes, 50 passes.

I'd recommend using something like GoldMemory 6 in Thorough mode (http://www.goldmemory.cz/) or MemTest-86 3.0 (http://www.memtest86.com/). I've heard good things about Qualitas RAMexam, (http://www.qualitas.com/), but the demo only tests the first unused 640K of memory, and I can't imagine it's a better product than MemTest86 or GM6.

If you get any failures or lockups/crashes while running these tests, try to make your memory timings less agressive and try again. Some people think the only real way to test RAM is to use a stand-alone memory tester, but it's actually more important that RAM is reliable in your system environment running on your mainboard than testing the RAM on a memory tester that only tests to the specifications read from the SPD. How do you know your system is running the module at the exact same settings?

Also, make sure your RAM actually has SPD, or else replace it if you can't find a datasheet that specifies default timings. I've seen PC125 SDRAM (K4S640832D-TC/L80) manufactured by Samsung on "generic" DIMM's recognized as PC133 due to either "overclocking through SPD" or failure of the mainboard to run the module at PC100.

yeah,we can choose have DRM or not in WMA.... but who knows what the heck M$ will do with our comp

You're not forced to use DRM. I don't know what the default setting is in the player, but since I encode using WME when I need to make those files (lol, yet the only thing I did were testfiles), it is disabled by default in WME. So I don't see what's the problem with it.

Not that bad a player as itself.. The default skins are damn cool... but it uses a heckload of memory ( and when using visualisations, damn high CPU as well ) ... Otherwise, an allround pretty decent jukebox.

yourtallness - I'm having the exact same problem as you. I’m using Windows 2000 SP3, and I know for a FACT that its not my ram timings or system stability. My computer is not overclocked, can run 20 passes in Memtest86 without a single error, and run for days straight in Prime 95 (IE - It never crashes ), so I think it's pretty safe to rule out a ram as the culprit. I couldn't get Media Encoder 9 to encode anything without just quitting out of the program (no error - it just quit ) Oh well, if Microsoft's S*%! won’t work, to bad for them. I’m happy with EAC and LAME v3.90.2 .

System Specs :

AMD Athlon T-Bird @ 1400mhz
Shuttle AK-31 v3.1 (VIA KT-266a)
256mb Micron PC2100 DDR Ram
Asus v7700 Deluxe (Geforce 2 GTS)
SB-Live Value
2 Western Digital HD's (40gb & 160gb - Both 7200rpm)

Edit - I don't have any problems with Winamp. What version are you using? It might be a ram issue if Winamp is crashing (It's usually pretty stable.) What version of Windows are you using?

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsme...ncoder/faq.aspx

What the fuck is with that? I, like MOST other people, use Windows 98SE. What's the point of releasing a format which you can't encode to?

I know Microsoft was quick to alienate users of other OS's when they did the original WMA's, but to fuck their own users? That's just batty.

Also note the high processor requirements. You don't need anywhere near that for OGG, DivX, etc.

I need to know when/where hardware support will be offered for their lossless modes.. if at all... i'd love to get my jukebox3 playing lossless wma's ... I'd prefer other formats but thats better than none

Yeah, Win98SE is no longer supported by Microsoft. So things like that will happen more often.

M$ to make you upgrade!

I HAD to post here when I read this thread. I get very frustrated with folks who tend to bash MS simply because they're the business machine that they are. I also get frustrated with people who hang on to ANCIENT operating systems, for one reason or another. But just consider this: how long is a company supposed to support old products? Note that most hardware vendors stop supporting hardware with new drivers at about 5 years, with the larger companies holding onto archive drivers and the like for older hardware. But they move on, as the computer industry is wont to do.

Now, think of all the 'nix users out there. How often do they update their OS to the most recent version available? And most 'nix users will answer: constantly. They're do-it-yourselfers, and they take pride in having an updated, smoothly-running computer. Take the same pride that they do, and you'll find yourself complaining less and less about things such as software that isn't backwards-compatible.

Upgrade your computer. Software and hardware grows *together.* If you have an OS that was released in 2001, you can bet that it wasn't designed to run on hardware from 1995. Try and keep your operating system at least 3-5 years old, and no older (yes, I'm aware that 98SE is only about 4-5 years old, but that's *still* at the end of that time span, and to expect a company to feel obligated to a customer that hasn't shelled out cash in 5 years is ludicris). Yes, I understand that it would be very *nice* of Microsoft to give it's customers free upgrades for life, but I just don't see it happening. Plant a new proc in your system, give yourself some more RAM, and upgrade your OS. Defrag....clean your registry. Make your computer a happy place to play Also, you stated that the proc requirements for WM9 are very high. Now granted that they are, but also note that those are the *reccomended* stats for *broadcast*. That means a system which can comfortably encode both video and audio streams simultaneously, realtime (1X). If you want to broadcast DivX with sound, it'll require a good bit of processing power, too. WM9 encodes just fine on lower-end systems, you just can't *broadcast* on those systems. And many of these broadcast streams are pretty intense. The video streams are difficult enough to encode real-time, but the audio streams can support up to 6 channels of stereo sound...that's a good deal of data to get crunched, when you throw it at your PC all at once.

And last, but not least: I've been purposely overlooking one detail here: you might not *have* the funds to upgrade your computer, in which case I'm afraid you're SOL and need to get a(nother) job. :-P j/k, actually I'm sure you can find a "free" copy of XP somewhere, and used computer hardware is rediculously cheap. But whatever I'm not sure why anyone other than professional internet broadcasters and home video nuts would be interested in the format anyway. Good luck!

What's more expensive, a free download of a Linux Distro, or a new version of windows(not upgrade from scratch, full version)? Exactly.

Actually another question: Who of you actually paid for your Windows copy?

Me (it was bundled with the computer)

Betanews posted a download link for WMP 9 codecs on Jan 21.
I am deeply suspicious of WMP since I read once of M$ developing code that could scurry across the hard drive to find unauthorized files to delete. But, I recall it being said it could only work under WinXP.
Two questions:
1) The new codecs alone won't "upgrade" the WMP 8x player I want to maintain, will they?
2) Is there any way one can be certain that WMP9 does NOT contain an "undocumented feature" that could suddenly turn on and do something the user doesn't wish?
FWIW, I'm a small-is-beautiful kinduva guy and my two fav mm apps are CoolPlayer and ZoomPlayer. Most especially, I wouldn't want anything to screw up my XviD movie enjoyment, esp. now that ffdshow works so well.

Re; Question #1. You can download the WM9 system codecs (without the player) at http://www.dbpoweramp.net/codecs/db-wmfdist-wma9.exe. That way, you can keep WMP8. I downloaded WMP9 and can say that I really don't see a point in upgrading, but that's just my humble opinion.


((And yes, unfortunately, I did have to pay for my copy of Windows XP Prof. When you go to school in a tiny town with no computer store and have friends still running Win 95 and (God forbid) 3.1, you really don't have a choice. ))

Freeze!
I'd rather use Nic's one.
http://nic.dnsalias.com/WM9Enc.html "Windows Media 9 Codec"
If i'm not mistaken he's also stripped DRM features from it.

Nice rant, but MS ain't getting another cent of my money. Basically, they've gotten enough of it already. Not to mention the DRM and other such schemes coming down the pipe ("Secure Audio Path" and Palladium in particular gets steam coming out of my ears -- they want people to *pay* for this sh*t?).

It gets worse: http://cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.a...?RelatedID=3367

(look for the other 4 stories on M$ new copyright protection schemes)

Thank God for vinyl.