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dittigas
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 24, 2002 10:31 pm    Post subject: WMA-to-ogg/mp3 conversion tool? Reply with quote

Any idea what can convert WMA to ogg/mp3? Sox does not seem to.

Thanks,
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Robert
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 24, 2002 10:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have not had any luck finding a utility to convert wma to anything in linux ;( Excepting playback in MPlayer.
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jonner
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 25, 2002 6:36 am    Post subject: mencoder Reply with quote

MPlayer includes a command called mencoder that transcodes from one format to another. That is, it decodes audio and video as mplayer would normally, then encodes it in a (possibly) different format. I have used it to shrink a 450MB MPEG file to a 140MB DivX/MP3 avi file (with some loss of quality).

Anyway, mencoder should be able to transcode from a DirectShow audio format to MP3 and possibly to Ogg Vorbis. It may produce an avi file with only audio, though. Some other avi tools should be able to extract the track into a usable format.

I just tried mencoder. MPlayer plays a wma file fine, but I couldn't get mencoder to do anything useful with it. Transcode (http://www.theorie.physik.uni-goettingen.de/~ostreich/transcode) is another possibility. There is an ebuild for it. It has an avifile input plugin, so that may be able to import it. Transcode has more options and is more flexible than mencoder.
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True
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 25, 2002 1:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
Any idea what can convert WMA to ogg/mp3? Sox does not seem to.


At the risk of repeating what many people have said a hundred times.. ;-)

Don't do it!!

You will end up with files that sound worse than the origional. I can't think of one reason why you would convert wma -> ogg. Maybe the other way around for mp3 player use (although you're still degrading the quality of course). If you can re-encode from source then use ogg otherwise just keep the wma's as wma's.

Transcoding=BAD (like faxing a fax as someone said recently).
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Mallrats
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 29, 2002 5:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes transcoding makes the quality worse, but what if the source is a 256kbps MP3 file, and this is for your own enjoyment, are you still pissing in the music pool if you share these? Also, is there a good way to ensure an ogg file hasn't been transcoded? Maybe flac is the only format we can trust. Or is it?
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Robert
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 29, 2002 10:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Personally I use Shorten for lossless encoding. Lossy encoding like mp3 and ogg are great for some things. Trading is not one of them... well, where quality is important anyway. There is no way to detect if the file has been encoded multiple times (that I am aware of) outdside of crappy sound.

How about when someone encodes a cd to mp3, then someone takes the mp3 and burns it back to an audio cd, only to then re-rip it to mp3 at a later time. I'll bet this happens more than we want to even think about.

While lossy compression formats (ogg rocks!) will be very helpful for a lot of applications, they probably will become less and less significant as storage media and bandwidth becomes cheaper and more practical.

Will mp3 make sense when everyone has 500 GB hard drives, 60GB Ipods and 10 Mbit connections? I my opinion just sharing a file encoded to mp3 is "polluting" the pool, although I will admit that my taste for quality can be a bit extreme sometimes. ;)
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pjp
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 29, 2002 10:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I make oggs from my CDs (ya know, the ones I paid for). Quality from that is fine. If I don't pay for something, but download it... I don't care if the quality isn't perfect. Why? If I like it, I'll buy it. I'd prefer to get money directly to the artist. Until things change, I'll have to send it to them via record label. If they get paid crap from their record label, that's there own fault. Not much I can do about that.

IMO 2nd and later generations of files shouldn't be 100% the same quality as the original. Why? Because DRM, DCMA et al are horrible.

CD -> [any format] = good for any listening use.
[any format] -> [another format] = good enough, considering it probably isn't paid for.

After all... if you like it, why wouldn't you pay for it?

I'll leave it at that, otherwise we'll need a new thread.
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Robert
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 29, 2002 10:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I agree that music piracy is wrong, but keep in mind that "trading" music is not piracy for many music fans. Many bands allow taping of concerts and allow (if not encourage) trading of recordings as long as they are not commercial releases.

Quote: IMO 2nd and later generations of files shouldn't be 100% the same quality as the original. Why? Because DRM, DCMA et al are horrible.

Not sure what you mean by this. Lossless encoding is lossless no matter how many generations the file sees;)

www.etree.org is one example of a large online community of people who trade legally tradable music, although I am sure there are other groups as well.
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Mallrats
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 29, 2002 10:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Do FLAC Files today remind anyone of MP3 files back in the day? They take as long to transfer as dial-up took to transfer MP3s. Too bad they probably won't pick up popularity like MP3s did.

Anyway, can anyone tell me more about shorten?
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pjp
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 29, 2002 10:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Robert wrote:
Quote: IMO 2nd and later generations of files shouldn't be 100% the same quality as the original. Why? Because DRM, DCMA et al are horrible.

Not sure what you mean by this. Lossless encoding is lossless no matter how many generations the file sees;)
Explaining further would stray too far from the topic at hand. I probably shouldn't have mentioned it.

Quote:
www.etree.org is one example of a large online community of people who trade legally tradable music, although I am sure there are other groups as well.
Still off topic, but brief enough to answer. This doesn't apply. I'd be happy to expound in another (appropriate) thread though.
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 29, 2002 11:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
While lossy compression formats (ogg rocks!) will be very helpful for a lot of applications, they probably will become less and less significant as storage media and bandwidth becomes cheaper and more practical.

Will mp3 make sense when everyone has 500 GB hard drives, 60GB Ipods and 10 Mbit connections? I my opinion just sharing a file encoded to mp3 is "polluting" the pool, although I will admit that my taste for quality can be a bit extreme sometimes. ;)


A fair point but as it stands I find it next to impossible to tell an ogg file (-q 5.99) apart from the source CD. That's going through a decent soundcard/stereo. Why bother with lossless when lossy encoding is nigh on transparant - unless high end stereo systems are going to drop in price like HD space.

* I know you're going to say - 'why use lossy when space is not an issue?', well ok, but where's the fun in that?? Oh ok, ok you win! :-)

BTW, sorry to continue OT but it was far more interesting than talkin' bout transcoding..
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