vbr wma?

[daniel]

is it possible to encode the audio to vbr wma? and if so: how?

[JohnMK]

Perhaps you have a specific necessity to use this format but please do so with full knowledge that mp3pro and ogg vorbis are superior codecs that produce better sound. As far as your question goes, I cannot help you, but just in case you didn't know what I just mentioned, now you do.

Hope you find your answer.

[daniel]

well i actually always use vbr (abr) mp3 through besweet

could you explain to me why these other formats are better?

and about the wma question: i just want to know this because i think, you can save a lot of space with this technique

[DSPguru]

vbr isn't about saving space, it's mostly about improving quality ;)

[daniel]

yes i know that, but if i use vbr, i can choose a lower abr bitrate with the same quality of a cbr mp3 and at that way i'm saving space, don't i?

[JohnMK]

Yep. Very slightly. Even CBR is a little bit VBR-ish, at least in mp3, because there's a bit reservior. So VBR isn't like a whole world of difference, just slight. I'd say about 128kbit/s CBR is equivalent to ABR 124kbit/s in quality and 118kbit/s VBR.

[Asmodian]

Yes, vbr is better, but why do you want to use vbr wma rather then vbr vorbis or vbr mp3? wma doesn't introduce ringing artifacts at lower bitrates compaired to mp3 but not when compaired to vorbis and it doesn't keep the original sound very well. I do suggest not dropping the audio bitrate too much, it is not worth the small space savings (i.e. video doesn't look any/much better) and poor audio quality is very bad. (I have just seen too many mpeg1 rips at ~250Mb an hour with 48 or 56Kbps mp3's that are basicly unwatchable because of horrible audio, the video isn't nice but why save 15Mb by making the audio sound like crap?) If you must make the size of the audio smaller, please resample to 24khz (or something lower then 48khz!) I have found resampleing a good way to get <96kbps mp3s to sound ok (but why not use vorbis? a 24khz q=0 vorbis should be very very small and still sound ok - maybe q=0.1 would be better though).

[JohnMK]

Only in BeSweet can we use that terminology. Everywhere else, .100 == 1.00. Why BeSweet presents itself to us in this fashion is not something I understand.

[rjamorim]

Dear, dear... noone wants to answer your question, instead thay want to advertize other formats... :( :D

Yes, you can encode VBR WMA. But for that, you'll need Windows Media Encoder 9 Beta:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/winmediaplayer/WMPbeta/9/W982KMe/EN-US/mpsetup.exe

Play a bit with the settings, and you find "Windows Media Audio 9 VBR" (or something like that) somewhere.

You'll probably need Windows Media Player 9 as well:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download/default.asp

If you want to just rip from a CD to WMA VBR, WMP9 is enough. If you want to encode WAV files, you need the Encoder.

Regards;

Roberto.

[daniel]

rjamorim: thanks!
i know mp3 is better than wma, like the others, but that indeed wasn't the question ;)

[JohnMK]

Strictly speaking, mp3 is not better than WMA.

[daniel]

JohnMK:
in your 2nd post you wrote: "...mp3pro and ogg vorbis are superior codecs that produce better sound..."
in your last post: "...mp3 is not better than WMA"

explain?

[rjamorim]

Originally posted by daniel
JohnMK:
in your 2nd post you wrote: "...mp3pro and ogg vorbis are superior codecs that produce better sound..."
in your last post: "...mp3 is not better than WMA"

explain?

mp3 != mp3pro ;)

mp3pro is better than wma (At 64kbps, at least)
But mp3 alone isn't.

[daniel]

ah ok... i actually meant mp3 pro myself too....

[JohnMK]

What I was meaning to say and I didn't do so very clearly is that WMA @ 64kbit is better sounding than old-style , non-mp3pro mp3 @ 64kbit/s.

[Arky]

Hi, many of you will know me from the DVD section. Since I am just about to buy an MP3 player, though, I am interested in this discussion, since the player I will be getting supports WMA as well as ASF and MP3. Therefore, it is interesting to me that none of the above discussion seems to take into account the fact that WMA may be the only logical choice for maximum compression when software decompression is not an option. It is precisely because of this that I am searching this audio forum for VBR WMA encoding methods. MP3 Pro is all very well, but much of it's compression is redundant during decompression/playback unless "Pro" is specifically supported (although Pro can be played back without Pro support, optimum playback sound quality is not maintained, since much high frequency info is not decoded properly - at least to the best of my understanding!). Excuse me if I am incorrect - my forte is DVD, not WMA/MP3.

Anyway, thanks for your contribution, rjamorim, you gave me the info I needed!


Arky ;o)

[Arky]

oops! wrong link was posted for the encoder - it should have been:

h**p://download.microsoft.com/download/8/1/f/81f9402f-efdd-439d-b2a4-089563199d47/WMEncoder.exe

Info on the encoder:

h**p://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9series/encoder/default.aspx


Arky ;o)