Hello Lonnie,
The reason that most manufacturers favour MP3 is because it has been around
longer than WMA. However, if you can find a good player that supports WMA,
there would be nothing wrong with going that route either.
Hope this helps.
Francis
| Once again, you have been an immense help. I have had
| several responses to my question, and you have been, by
| far, the most informative.
| I haven't looked too extensively for players yet,
| but I have found that Wal Mart carries seven players(RIO
| & Nomad Jukebox) that support WMA format ranging from $90
| to $240. I was curious as to why MP3 was the most
| prominent format if WMA was in fact more compressed, and
| therefore more portable. Your last message cleared that
| up, though. I have noticed that in the converter program
| you suggested, the window that asks which format to
| convert to lists MP3 as lame. Any idea why?
| >-----Original Message-----
| >| >| Francis,
| >| Thanks a million for the advice. I've been
| >| racking my brain to figure out what to do about this.
| I
| >| have downloaded the codec and the converter, but
| haven't
| >| had a chance to use them yet. I did burn a cd, by
| >| opening a WAV file with Windows Media Player, then
| >| copying it to cd. I then copied the cd to my WMP
| >| library. That converted the WAV file to CDA, then to
| WMA
| >| as it went into the library. TOO MUCH WORK!!! I hope
| >| the programs I just downloaded work better for me.
| >| Again, thank you.
| >
| >You're very welcome. Glad to help!
| >
| >| Now that I have found someone willing to help, I
| >| was wondering if you could explain something else for
| >| me. While experimenting with my files, I created three
| >| folders that each contained one album: ALANIS
| MORISSETTE-
| >| -JAGGED LITTLE PILL. One folder was in WAV format.
| >| Another was in MP3 format. And the third was in WMA
| >| format. The sizes were 499MB, 7MB, and 46MB,
| >| respectively. That leads me to believe that MP3 format
| >| takes up the least space. If that is so, then why will
| >| portable players typically hold twice as many WMAs as
| >| MP3s?
| >
| >
| >WAV is the format used by typical CDs and it is NOT
| compressed. So, this is
| >a very impractical way of storing music on your computer.
| >
| >WMA and MP3 are compressed, but, just different
| amounts. Usually WMA will
| >be about 1/10 the original size of the WAV file and have
| CD quality at 128
| >kbps. MP3 is about 1/9 (a little bigger than WMA) and
| will have CD quality
| >at 192 kbps.
| >
| >Notice the difference in bit-rates...higher bit-rates
| are larger files.
| >
| >The reason for the difference in sizes is the bit rates
| that they were
| >converted to. A full album being only 7 MB is totally
| unrealistic and would
| >have poor sound quality.
| >
| >So, basically WMA is the smallest and MP3 is the next
| smallest form of
| >compressable music files.
| >
| >|Also, I opened one of the MP3 files with WMP, and
| >| the sound quality was awfull.
| >
| >
| >This is because of the low "bit-rate". When a whole
| album has been
| >compressed to 7 MB, there will be a huge loss in sound
| quality. The WMA
| >folder size seems right...so it should sound good.
| >
| >|If I purchase a portable MP3 player, will the sound be
| the same?
| >
| >Yes...absolutly. The MP3 will be directly burned on the
| disc and no sound
| >quality will be lost. As goes with WMA players (not too
| common yet, but
| >there are a few out there....I think Panasonic makes a
| few).
| >
| >
| >| My ultimate goal is to be able to carry my entire
| >| music library in my vehicle, without the hassle of all
| >| those cds. I also have at least half of my library on
| >| cassette. That is why I downloaded the RipEditBurn,
| so I
| >| could transfer my cassettes to cd. So far, I have 17.2
| >| GB of music on my computer, and 62 cassettes left to
| >| transfer. Probably half of the 17.2 GB is WAV files,
| so
| >| by converting them all to MP3, I should save alot of
| >| space on my hard drive. But, once I get all my music
| on
| >| file, I want to be able to download it to a portable,
| to
| >| take to my vehicle. From everything I've been reading,
| >| that would be in the WMA format, but that doesn't make
| >| sense to me if MP3 files take up less space. Can you
| >| explain this to me?
| >
| >Again, the reason for the small MP3 folder is the low
| bit-rate. WMAs are,
| >in fact, the smallest form of compressed music files.
| MP3s are also very
| >small, but not quite as small as WMA. However, MP3s are
| a more popular form
| >of compression and more potable music player
| manufacturers are going to go
| >with the MP3 standard. You may beable to find a WMA
| player, but they might
| >be more expensive, etc...
| >
| >In the end MP3 is the way to go...it's just the most
| common and most popular
| >form of compression.
| >
| >If you already have your entire music collection on WMA,
| and the WMAs sound
| >good, you can use dB Power AMP to convert to MP3. I
| have used this many
| >times and there is no noticable loss in sound quality.
| Just make sure you
| >have the bit-rate set to 192 kbps when makeing the MP3.
| >
| >| I apologize for taking up so much of your time,
| and
| >| I want to thank you again for helping me out with the
| >| previous advice.
| >
| >Glad to help. If you have any more questions, please
| feel free to ask!
| >
| >--Cheers
| >
| >
| >
| >Francis
| >
| >
| >.
| >
