WMA 9 VS WMA 9 Professional?


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I've always ripped my CD's to high bit rate, VBR WMA 9 files using WMP 9. What is the difference between using the "Professional" WMA 9 codec to encode my music and using the one that comes with WMP by default? I saw a tutorial posted somewhere a few days ago that dealt with WMA 9 Professional, but I still dont get the diff between the regular and the Professional codec. :huh:

EDIT: :laugh: "Prodessional...." Could a mod change the thread title pleaz? I'm still half-asleep

Edited by AgEnTsMiTh
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I looked into this and the "Professional" codec does not exsist. MS doesn't have a Professional codec, they tech person I spoke with said that some people may refer to the high bitrate setting to be a professional codec, but it's not a real codec.

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WMA9 Professional (lossless) has for example to be licenced specially for use on MP3 players and other devices. It's also not selected the same way as default WMA9 in Windows Media Encoder so they aren't just refering to anything, Microsoft set those borders them selves.

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Urrghhh... I don't suggest using WMA... I mean, what does it do for you?

It adds copyright encryption, and DCMA stuffs, AND It's a proprietary closed-source format.

Ogg is much nicer in these (And many other) regards...

Even Mp3 with a high bitrate is better than wma; at least you can be nearly assured that mp3s will play on handhelds and such.

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Urrghhh... I don't suggest using WMA... I mean, what does it do for you?

It adds copyright encryption, and DCMA stuffs, AND It's a proprietary closed-source format.

Ogg is much nicer in these (And many other) regards...

Even Mp3 with a high bitrate is better than wma; at least you can be nearly assured that mp3s will play on handhelds and such.

The WMAs you seem to be talking about are most likely WM7 series.

WMA does not add copyright encryption unless you ask it to do so!

It's a much higher quality than MP3 + it's much more advanced, allows multiple channels.

It's much cheaper to licence than MP3.

It has much greater hardware support than any other audio codec right after MP3.

Windows Mobile devices out-sold Palms last year so you can play it many PDAs and some phone models. blalbalblabla.

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There are basically 4 variations of the WMA9 codec:

Standard (WMA9STD)

Professional (WMA9PRO)

Voice (WMSP9)

Lossless (WMA9LSL)

A song encoded with WMA9PRO sounds significantly better than the same song encoded with WMA9STD, and generally the file sizes are the same. However, so far as I know there aren't any portable MP3 players that support WMA9PRO decoding yet, so you'd have to use WMA9STD for that purpose.

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  • 1 month later...
I saw a tutorial posted somewhere a few days ago that dealt with WMA 9 Professional, but I still dont get the diff between the regular and the Professional codec. :huh:

According public listening tests done by rjamorim, WMA9 PRO (introduced in Windows Media 9) has better quality, but is not backwards compatible with WMA standard, that is the codec that is actually supported by portable players, DVD players, etc. It's expected that devices supporting WMA Pro start being manufactured soon.

WMA 9 Professional tied with AAC in this test: http://www.rjamorim.com/test/128extension/results.html

You will find a relevant guide here: CD Audio to Windows Media Audio 9 Professional

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  • 1 year later...
I looked into this and the "Professional" codec does not exsist. MS doesn't have a Professional codec, they tech person I spoke with said that some people may refer to the high bitrate setting to be a professional codec, but it's not a real codec.

1976217[/snapback]

False, there is a "Professional" codec. It is a real codec. You can download windows media encoder 9 and convert your wma to wma professionaljavascript:emoticon(':)')

smilie

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I've always ripped my CD's to high bit rate, VBR WMA 9 files using WMP 9. What is the difference between using the "Professional" WMA 9 codec to encode my music and using the one that comes with WMP by default? I saw a tutorial posted somewhere a few days ago that dealt with WMA 9 Professional, but I still dont get the diff between the regular and the Professional codec. :huh:

EDIT:  :laugh: "Prodessional...." Could a mod change the thread title pleaz? I'm still half-asleep

1967002[/snapback]

The difference between WMA 9 and WMA 9 PRO is in WMA 9 Pro, you can have a multi-channel codec that WMA 9 doesn't have.

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According public listening tests done by rjamorim, WMA9 PRO (introduced in Windows Media 9) has better quality, but is not backwards compatible with WMA standard, that is the codec that is actually supported by portable players, DVD players, etc. It's expected that devices supporting WMA Pro start being manufactured soon.

WMA 9 Professional tied with AAC in this test: http://www.rjamorim.com/test/128extension/results.html

You will find a relevant guide here: CD Audio to Windows Media Audio 9 Professional

2231438[/snapback]

Now my question is - Are there any devices out there now that support WMA9 Professional?

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Now my question is - Are there any devices out there now that support WMA9 Professional?

586712479[/snapback]

There were some expensive Pioneer HI-FIs that supported it, guess there are plenty by now.

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