XP Media player WMA ripper ROCKS!!!

[Fritzo]

Originally posted by: bob970
media player actually reaches out and picks up my cds.. puts them in the cd drive.. rips them.. AND makes me breakfast

I WONDERED where these eggs and pancakes came from! They just appeared in front of me when I was done. Wow!

 

[Fritzo]

Originally posted by: PSYWVic
Just for kicks and giggles (and because I want to settle this argument for myself once and for all), I ripped a track to test the differences between mp3 and WMA. I wanted a track with clear moments, good highs, some bass, clear drums, and the occasional heavy guitar riff, that always represents present mainstream music, so I chose Creed's "Wash Away Those Years." Just for the record, I actually own the CD, Human Clay :Q First, I ripped the track with WMP8 on my GF's XP machine at 192kbps, and then transferred those files to my machine. Then I ripped the same track on my 2k machine using Easy CD-DA Extractor with LAME 3.92 at 192Kbps CBR. Audio-wise, the test setup has a TB Santa Cruz sound card with Sony MDR-V700DJ headphones. I compared against the original CD.
The result? mp3 is better and sounds more like the original CD, by far, 'nuff said.

Just wondering...what was the difference in the file sizes between the two? The reason I record in WMA is for my Nomad and WMA tends to be a lot smaller, so I can fit more music on it.

 

[Thegonagle]

Originally posted by: Fritzo

Originally posted by: PSYWVic
. . . First, I ripped the track with WMP8 on my GF's XP machine at 192kbps, and then transferred those files to my machine. Then I ripped the same track on my 2k machine using Easy CD-DA Extractor with LAME 3.92 at 192Kbps CBR. . .

Just wondering...what was the difference in the file sizes between the two? The reason I record in WMA is for my Nomad and WMA tends to be a lot smaller, so I can fit more music on it.

OOh! I wanna guess! Were they the same size?

 

[Fritzo]

Originally posted by: Adrian Tung
Here's something that I found regarding the registry editing:


Enabling MP3 Encoding for Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player supports MP3 encoding. To enable the Windows Media Player to encode MP3 files, you will need to license an MP3 encoder, install the encoder, and then change registry settings.

To set Windows Media Player for MP3 Encoding

1. On the destination computer, open the registry with Registry Editor or another registry editing tool.
2. Open the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Settings\MP3Encoding
3. Set the following values:

DWORD LowRate
Value <datarate>
DWORD LowRateSample
Value <Sample>
DWORD MediumRate
Value <datarate>
DWORD MediumRateSample
Value <Sample>
DWORD MediumHighRate
Value <datarate>
DWORD MediumHighRateSample
Value <Sample>
DWORD HighRate
Value <datarate>
DWORD HighRateSample
Value <Sample>
String PreferredCodec
Value <codec name>
For example, to set the LowRate to 56 kbps, you would set the following keys:
HKLM,"%KEY_WMP%\Settings\MP3Encoding","LowRate",0x00010001,56000

HKLM,"%KEY_WMP%\Settings\MP3Encoding","LowRateSample",0x00010001,24000

HKLM,"%KEY_WMP%\Settings\MP3Encoding","PreferredCodecName",,"MPEG Layer-3"

HKLM,"%KEY_WMP%\Settings\MP3Encoding","PreferredCodecPath",,"D:\WINDOWS\system32\l3codeca.acm"




Special Notes:

· The value for PreferredCodec is limited to 255 characters.
· Additional policy based settings for the Media Player are available in WMPLAYER.ADM



I haven't tried this particular source yet, because earlier I found another source at www.winguides.com that only mentioned the LowRate, MediumRate, MediumHighRate and HighRate keys (minus the ???RateSample and PreferredCodec??? keys) and they sort of worked except that Media Player was displaying the MP3 bitrates wrong. I'll try with these new settings and see how valid they are....


atwl


UPDATE: Okay, doesn't work, Media Player reports that it couldn't find the proper codec despite the fact that I do have the codec installed. Perhaps my current codec is only a decoder, not encoder. I remember LAME does come with an ACM file too, I'll try read up on that and post my updates.

UPDATE 2: Aaargh, almost got it to work. Got the codec installed, got WMP to rip the CD, but when it's almost done with the first track it crashes and the resultant MP3 file was invalid. Gotta research more on this..... :frown:

Not really ethical, but the MP3 encoder pack is available on Kazaa :Q

 

[NuclearFusi0n]

Originally posted by: Pabster
WMA sucks. And so does Spyware Player.

LAME is great, though I still prefer the reference FhG codec for archival quality.

MP3 isn't really an archival quality codec though. That's where Monkey's Audio takes over.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Fritzo
Just wondering...what was the difference in the file sizes between the two? The reason I record in WMA is for my Nomad and WMA tends to be a lot smaller, so I can fit more music on it.

Creed, Human Clay (I didn't rip the 12th track because WMP8 couldn't ID it):

mp3 192kbps, 81,437,972 bytes Pic

WMA 192kbps, 81,869,070 bytes Pic

As I said earlier, I did this test for myself and only for myself. You can interpret my opinions however you wish. As for my being an MS-hater, that sure makes a lot of sense when I'm obviously running Windows.

 

[joohang]

Originally posted by: PSYWVic

Originally posted by: Fritzo
Just wondering...what was the difference in the file sizes between the two? The reason I record in WMA is for my Nomad and WMA tends to be a lot smaller, so I can fit more music on it.

Creed, Human Clay (I didn't rip the 12th track because WMP8 couldn't ID it):

mp3 192kbps, 81,437,972 bytes Pic

WMA 192kbps, 81,869,070 bytes Pic

As I said earlier, I did this test for myself and only for myself. You can interpret my opinions however you wish. As for my being an MS-hater, that sure makes a lot of sense when I'm obviously running Windows.

Under the same bitrate, their size differences are minimal. Sometimes MP3 is smaller whereas sometimes WMA is.

At a low bitrate (< 96 Kbps), however, WMA definitely sounds better than MP3. Many people agree with me on this.

 

[dude]

I agree that low bitrate mp3's sound like utter crap, but who the hell listens to low bitrate mp3's?

Anyways, MP3's all the way for me. I guess I'm a Microsoft hater. Damn, I didn't even know it.

 

[joohang]

Originally posted by: dude
I agree that low bitrate mp3's sound like utter crap, but <STRONG>who</STRONG> the hell listens to low bitrate mp3's?

Anyways, MP3's all the way for me. I guess I'm a Microsoft hater. Damn, I didn't even know it.

It matters on portable devices. I like to rip my CDs into 96 Kbps WMA files for playback on my iPAQ.