Hi folks,

I just came about a strange experience while experimenting with WMA 9 Lossless encoding. I have a huge wav file (in fact, it is Andre Wiethoff's DAE Quality Testfile reference.wav) which I want to archive.

Just for the fun of it, I wanted to check out which of my 3 lossless formats (wma, flac, ape) give the best results (all test runs were performed on a Compaq Deskpro PIII 1000 with 256 MB PC133 and WinXP Pro):

Input File: reference.wav
Input Filesize: 764860 kBytes

Encoding with MS WMA9 Lossless:

Time to encode: 7 Min. 54 Sec (this really sucks)
Filesize after Encoding: 306316 kBytes (40,05 % of original filesize ... not bad)

Encoding with FLAC 1.1.0, Level 5, verify ON

Time to encode: 4 Min. 46 Sec.
Filesize after Encoding: 328327 kBytes (42,92 % of original filesize)

Encoding with Monkey's Audio 3.97, normal Compression

Time to encode: 3 Min. 17 Sec. (fastest)
Filesize after Encoding: 294022 (38,44 % of original filesize - best compression ratio)

Now I know that FLAC consumes less CPU time during playback which is an argument that speaks for using FLAC in low-end systems while Monkey's Audio ist standing out with the fastest and most efficient encoding on that specific file.

But what speaks for 2-Channel WMA 9 ? It is nearly twice as slow and only little more efficient on encoding (compared to FLAC), consumes more CPU power than ape on playback and cannot be decoded (at least not with the means at my disposal ... any suggestions will be appreciated).

I would be iinterested in your opinions ... and does anyone know an application that can handle WMA9 decompression ?

Regards

JL

IIRC there is a command-line tool available from microsoft which converts wma9 la to wav.

It is called wmal2pcm.

Windows Media Audio Lossless to Wave Converter

M$ beat FLAC? Ohhh, now that's a cold slap in the face

I'd never use it. DRM and pallidum and 'killing every other program so only our crap will work with it' is written all over this. I still use APE at extra high, sure it may delay before playing, but I gotta squeeze every litttle MB outta a 20 GB hard drive.

Edit; if you can find a decoder, use EAC wav compare to see if it's the same as the original WAV. I'd be surprised if it was

... wouldn't be surprised either ...

>and does anyone know an application that can handle WMA9 decompression ?

All of the dBpowerAMP range.

Can I do decompression of 24bit or 96kHz or multichannel WMA9 using dMC?
I don't know how to...

For WMA you select the professional, but you have to supply it with the correct data source (ie for 5.1 channel you need 6 channel data). The latest beta version of dMC (get at www.accuraterip.com) will accept waveformatextensible wave files.

Edit sorry I see you mention decompression - you will need a compatible format to save it in (wave is not handled yet). Decompress it to what?

I use it for one reason only, not really related to quality:
Windows Media Player 9's online database of track names and CD info is in UTF8, and the player is fully UTF8 aware. Not only that, but it also recognisises hundred of obscure CD's, foreign CD's, etc, which FreeDB adn CDDB dont have. So, when I extract the audio from a CD, the track title, fields, folder name, file name, appear with the correct characters, and not the ???'s of EAC. Which, since i have tonnes of Japanese/Korean/Chinese importants, is important. Since 'traditional' WMA is not good, and the built in MP3 compression isn't much better, i use WMA9 Pro.
Ideally, i would use a UFT8 aware ripper which gives me the correct track names, and foobar to playback, but as it stands, this is the only way. I dont fancy learning 3 other languages just so i can fill in my filenames/tag fields. I understand this doesn't have much to do with the technical side of WMA Pro, but its still the single overriding reason to use it, for me.

One of the possible advantages of WMA lossless is that one may expect wide hardware support for it in the future, since MS is good at feeding it's technologies to others.

(sorry for off topic)


I wanted decompress to wave using dMC and I understand >wave is not handled yet. Thank you.

But what format is compatible with dMC? WMA9 APE FLAC?
If so, I think dMC doesn't support 24bit/multicannnel decoding of WMA9 pro/lossless. (truncated to 16bit/2ch)
Am I wrong?

I wonder if its possible to add a wrapper around the WMA9 DLL's so they can be used in foobar....

Depends on what you mean by "beat" All I see there is a <3% difference in compression size, but look what you have to give up to get it.

Josh

All you need is to use the WM SDK and create a plugin.

What does flac at level 8 achieve? Maybe with upping the ratio it could defeat M$

In size, but then it won't defeat in speed anymore probably.

Another advantage of using Lossless WMA just crossed my mind: You can automatically playback it on any computer with WMP9. No need to download plugins and whatnot.

Another advantage of using FLAC/Monkey's Audio just crossed my mind: you can download the 555 kb Winamp package and install the 40-50 kb plugins. No need to download the 10-13 mb WMP9 install (depending on platform) et cetera.

Yes, but in about in about six months (Windows XP SP2) you won't need to download anything to play them... and so will new PCs

And another disadvantage. You can play it ONLY on any computer with WMP9. Or is there WMP9 for Linux?

until dbpoweramp someday get's ported to linux.

Not really. DBpoweramp relies on the WM SDK to decode WMA files. It can't decode Windows Media files per se.

Only hope is ffmpeg guys releasing sources for Lossless WMA, besides normal WMA, that has been already released.

Can someone write a plugin for it? That is one of the reasons I can't use foobar yet.

It was reported the other day that dBpowerAMP runs fine in Wine, don't know about WMA though.

For those of you who wish to use WMA9 Pro or (god forbid) WMA9 lossy:
Ii was able to get a WMA9 output plugin working, but its such a dirty, ugly piece of code, i wont post it here for fear of causing shock to the foobar author. It cant handle filenames correctly all the time, and will only output to Windows Wave Out via its own internal routines, totally defeating everything foobar is about. Everything else you can think of, it wont do. However, it does seem to play back everything i can throw at it in WMA9 format, doesn't leak memory, and is well configured as a project (project properly set up as foo_wma9, should build straight from a default install of the WM9 SDK etc...)

Considering i downloaded the SDK this morning, and knocked this up between 12 and 3 am, and have been learning C for 3 weeks, i am quite impressed. Everyone has to start somewhere, and i think i may as well leap into some difficult projects for some fun sometimes, rather than follow all the examples my book to the letter

So, if i can do this, im sure an experienced C++ programmer will be able to whip up a WMA9 plugin, should the mood take them, in very short amount of time. For me, going any further will take a big leap in my understanding of how the whole thing works.