Hello all,
I am new to this forum, so thanks in advance - i've already learned a bunch from ghosting the site for a bit.
After ripping my hundreds of CDs at 320 kbs mp3s for the last few years, I've decided it's time to start ripping my CDs in a lossless codec, now that hard drive space is cheap enough.
After doing a bit of research, I think I've settled on WMA lossless as it's the only lossless codec that I can (easily) tag, stream to my roku Soundbridge, and load onto my dell DJ portable player. I realize it takes more CPU time to play WMA lossless as opposed to FLAC, but WMA lossless is better supported by both my soundbridge, and by my DJ. In addition, while i realize WMP is not the best ripping progarm, it seems relatively fast and seems to have good database support.
However, a major reason I want to use a losless codec so that I can decode my lossless files to the original WAV files if need be, to make CDs, or transcode to new formats, without breaking out the original CDs again. However, WMP doesn't offer a WMAL decoder.
I see that ITunes will transode WMAL to WAV - is this an accurate (lossless) conversion? In other words, if I transode WMAL to WAV via ITunes, will it actually be as good as the orginal wave file from the CD? If not, what prgram do you suggest to decompress WMAL to WAV.
I am a newbie to this, so forgive any obvious ignorance.
thanks much,
Wix
Don't know but you can always use dbpoweramp.
Don't know but you can always use dbpoweramp.
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I've seen a lot of people using Poweramp - since it's not freeware, i haven't downloaded it yet, but I will if it's the best program for the job. Would a WMAL--> Wav conversion in poweramp be (essentially) as good as playing off the original WAV/ (I realize WMAL is "lossless" but i am skeptical regarding the compression/decompression process).
Thanks...
Wix
it is almost freeware, only the MP3 encoder doesn't works afer some time. and version 10 never expired, if you can find it.
I see that ITunes will transode WMAL to WAV - is this an accurate (lossless) conversion? In other words, if I transode WMAL to WAV via ITunes, will it actually be as good as the orginal wave file from the CD? If not, what prgram do you suggest to decompress WMAL to WAV.
Load both the wma lossles file and the decoded WAV into Foobar2000 and do a bitcompare.
If for whatever Itunes-is-gay reason they wouldn't match, you can always use the diskwriter in foobar2000 to convert the wma lossless file later on.
After doing a bit of research, I think I've settled on WMA lossless as it's the only lossless codec that I can (easily) tag, stream to my roku Soundbridge, and load onto my dell DJ portable player.
You can easily tag "everything" with MP3tag ... are you sure your Dell plays WMA lossless? WMA not equals WMA lossless ...
No, you're right - the DJ doesn't support WMA lossless - however, WM player (or Dudebox explorer) is set up so that if you transfer a WMA lossless file, it is automatically transcoded to mp3 or WMA. I can live with a lower quality file on my portable, as long as I have a lossless file file for streaming to my home theater and for archival purposes. Unofrtunately, the DJ doesn't support any lossless codec at all (as far as I can find) so transcoding is a necessary evil. I figure eventually, I'll pick up a new player when 100Gb players hit the market - by then, they should play the lossless files natively, I'd hope.
BTW - thanks to everyone above. PowerAmp seems to do the trick, and appears to be free since I don't need the mp3 encoder.