What is wma format?

[ajayritik]

I have got some songs with wma format? How is this different from MP3? Can I convert this to MP3 format? Will I lose the quality of the songs? Which software is best to convert wma to MP3?

[ilugd]

Windows Media Audio or something, a microsoft properietary format. not too bad. But most portable players cannot play the format.

One way to convert would be using dbpoweramp converter with the wma converter plugin. Not too sure about quality loss but i guess a bit of loss is unavoidable. Or try converting to wav and then back to mp3s

[utsav]

dude wma is better than than Mp3 .and nowdays almost all PMP's can play it

[gxsaurav]

WMA stands for Windows Media Audio. It is an audio format developed by Microsoft which gives better quality then mp3 on lower bitrates. For example, a 128 kbps WMA 10.1 Professional Encoded file with 44.1 KHz Sample rate gives quality equivalent to 256 kbps MP3.

The most important thing about WMA is that there is automatic volume leveling & low distortion in Audio files.

You can covert from WMA to mp3, but it is recommended to keep in WMA format. If still u want to convert then do this

WMA->Wave->MP3

But most portable players cannot play the format.

Wrong, only iPod cannot play WMA despite of iPod coming with WMA complaint DSP in it. Even the cheap Chinese mp3 players can play WMA

[alsiladka]

Originally Posted by WiKi

]Windows Media Audio (WMA) is an audio data compression technology developed by Microsoft. The name can be used to refer to its audio file format or its audio codecs. It is a proprietary technology which forms part of the Windows Media framework. WMA consists of four distinct codecs. The original WMA codec, known simply as WMA, was conceived as a competitor to the popular MP3 and RealAudio codecs.[1][2] Today it is one of the most popular codecs, together with MP3 and MPEG-4 AAC. In 2003 it came second after MP3 in terms of standalone players supporting it.[3] WMA Pro, a newer and more advanced codec, supports multichannel and high resolution audio.[4] A lossless codec, WMA Lossless, compresses audio data without loss of audio fidelity.[4] And WMA Voice, targeted at voice content, applies compression using a range of low bit rates.[4]

It is supported on quite a lot of portable players and DVD players. Why do you want to re-encode them to MP3?

[ilugd]

my pmp doesn't play it, a nokia smartphone my colleague has doesn't play it. Reason enough for me to hate wma.

[ravi_9793]

Generally WMA format is not supported in mobile phobes..but most of MP3 player support this format.

Rest is explained by GX

[gxsaurav]

@ Ravi...

keep an eye on double posts in future.

my pmp doesn't play it, a nokia smartphone my colleague has doesn't play it. Reason enough for me to hate wma.

Which PMP is it? As far as I know, all legit PMP's after 2002 support WMA. The WMA Codec used in PMP is still WMA 9.2 which is more then enough on a PMP (who needs 5.1 channel support in Zen ?)

All Nokia N series, Sony walkman series new models & MotoRokr support WMA.

[ravi_9793]

Originally Posted by gx_saurav

@ Ravi...

keep an eye on double posts in future.

Deleted my double post.Actually my post was not being posted..and was taking too much time..So, I click 2-3 times.
Will take care.

[ilugd]

eh? what pmp? a chinese make. Whatever. The nokia phone is a 6630

[dabster]

Originally Posted by ilugd

my pmp doesn't play it, a nokia smartphone my colleague has doesn't play it. Reason enough for me to hate wma.

Why are u bothered about wma if want to play on smartphones...
Go for mp4 it is much² better at lower bitrates, even at 24kbps(eAAC) the sound is equivalent to 128kbps mp3 - want to know more abt mp4, search 'parametric stereo' on wikipedia and u will be astonished to knw how capable is this codec.

No reasons to use WMA...? very few softwares to transcode and edit frm WMA.

cheers,