So the problem has become converting .WAV files to .WMA Lossless. Easy enough, right? Wrong. Windows Media Player will do this, but only if the files have been burnt to CD/DVD as audio. In this case, I have my own recordings and a DVD with .WAV files as data, so Windows Media Player is no help.
No Problem [2010 – FLAC]
Shamrock Soft developed and published first free Windows Phone player which plays exclusively flac files. Now Flac player is able to download files from Sky Drive Microsoft cloud and playback them offline. If application became popular we will extend functionality with ability to download files from internet using URL. Shamrock Soft are also planing to develop separate version for Windows Phone 8 with ability to playback flac files from SD card.
I started with MP3 and experimented with CBR/ABR/VBR, then switched to Vorbis at 500+ kbps for a short time. As storage space became more affordable I moved to FLAC. This all was while my main operating system used to be Windows. With my switch to Mac in 2010 and Apple Lossless becoming open source in 2011 I switched to ALAC.
So i started to replace them with FLAC. Mostly i buy them again or rip from CDs. I think i have replaced 80% of my files that predate 2010 up to now and it is worth the effort. It makes a big difference.
Its quite possible that the old Winamp plugin is the problem (I think it uses v2?). I was just hoping to confirm that here, or fix the problems if its something else. As great as KMPlayer sounds, they only have a single developer and are concentrating on the video end of it now, so nothing is likely to get changed much in this decade. If I knew how, I'd love to change that old plugin to a new Winamp library (v5).
Winamp Pro 5.571 has some issues with flac, year and tracks not always displayed, and they're easily fixed, but artist and title are correct for everything and those are the big ones for sorting/finding songs in the library. Too bad it sounds like crap compared to KMPlayer.
I see a large problem with the second example: You've managed to add both FLAC and ID3 tags to the FLAC file. Unfortunately, this is all too easy to do in EAC. Make sure that when you rip and encode in FLAC that you do not have "Add ID3 tag" checked.
So then I did another 4000 songs, highlighted them and hit save (all Artist names transferred to the Album Artist column), and loaded them into KMPlayer. Roughly 2/3 came out correct. The other 3rd still has random errors. Half of the ACDC albums say only AC as the Artist (they're listed in the file name as AC-DC, where the ones that worked are listed as ACDC, if that means anything). Most of the problematic files didn't list the track numbers at all and had nothing in the artist column. Etc., etc..
Its a lot closer than it was before, but still not right. I don't see a common denominator between the problematic files. Some have the ID3v2 tags, but most don't. I'm still leaning towards the old Winamp plugin being the problem.
And there is a newer standard of flac that I believe was introduced with DbPoweramp Converter which is uncompressed flac which in essence makes it like a wav, aiff, or what have you in that no processing power needed to unlock the file since it hasn't been compressed in the first place. Some people have had issues with flac as far a SQ (which is most likely due to the implementation on a given device) and I believe this was an effort to address that if I am not mistaken.
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The FLAC people have just brought out 'uncompressed'. So the previous one will probably go out of fashion. That's always the problem with such formats, they don't last. WAV has been around for a very long time and will remain in use for an equally long time. The so-called 'tagging problem' does not really exist. Some say that you can tag it, some say you can't. So it is opinion not fact. In any event, external metadata does not cause any real problems - that is why IBM/Microsoft did it that way in the first place.
I would add that if you are into multichannel music flac is one of the easier ways to save it. It does a great job with DTS and the like as well as just plain ole 5.1 pcm. There seems to be a recent push with blu rays lately that contain 5.1 releases so this could be relevant for some. Also most software that you are using for flac conversion usually will do the sample and bit rate automatically without you're having to manually choose it. I think the only time one need concern themselves with bit rate and the like is when one is up or downsampling their audio for oh say use in a personal music player. Most software just allows you to point toward the file you are trying to convert and will take it from there resulting in an identical file in terms of bit rate, sampling, and the like. I don't think anyone would dispute that wav does in fact have tagging capabilities, but it is dependent on the software you use. Some do a much better job than others. Flac doesn't seem to suffer from this as much but as one poster said, if you have any doubts about the SQ you are getting either go flac uncompressed or choose wav. Of course if you are already in the apple ecosystem and don't mind proprietary formats I believe aiff will similarly serve your lossless needs-as long as you stay on a mac. Note however that if you are a MC fan wav support is hit or miss, very software dependent. Flac does not seem to suffer as much from the hit or miss aspects IMHO.
Again the point is that some people claim to hear differences in different implementations of the flac codec due to the decompression that takes place and the cpu overhead involved. I don't claim this to be true I am just stating a belief that others have espoused. Basically the theory is that by eliminating the decompression involved in decoding flac you would have a file that is essentially like a wav...ie it is an exact copy of the file you are converting without any kind of compression or decompression going on. Thus one gets the benefit of more universal support for tagging as well as an 'improvement' in sound because none of the bits have been taken out, and thus do not need to be reconstructed. This is essentially how wav works. The file does not need to be reconstructed or decompressed because no bits were removed in the first place. Thus it is with uncompressed flac. This seems to be a compromise to satisfy those audiophiles who feel that the I/O and cpu load contribute negatively to the sonic experience. So again what you are getting with uncompressed flac is what you are getting with wav, what you are getting with aiff, or any other lossless codec you should decide to use. Some programs again do not do well with tagging on wav or aiff files. Similarly flac tagging support is nearly ubiquitous across many playback apps. So one would get the benefits of wav without the sonic compromise that flac decoding would supposedly entail as well as tag support that isn't as dependent on the software you are using to play it back. There are several people who could perhaps state this a bit more eloquently than I have (TedB!) but this is essentially the 'deal'.
So what useful purpose does uncompressed FLAC serve? More and more 'appliance' servers, such as my Naim (not to date used very much) supports embedded or external WAV metadata correctly, though its ripper embeds it, but its player copes with external as well. JRivers seems to have no problem, nor does WMP. WMP does it externally, but it is in the same folder, so transports to other systems OK. I have not checked how JRiver works. But all these three ways seem to work with each other, as does EAC.
0x3) when playing AVI files with two or more audio tracks WMP plays only one of them and gives no opportunity to change autio track. in wmp of vista it plays all the audio tracks at the same time (!).If there is no solution for these problems, please tell me where i can send a feedback about my complaints?
.264 5CB78A55-01B8-431E-96DE-6227D2E0C312 Nero ES Video Reader.3g2 E206E4DE-A7EE-4A62-B3E9-4FBC8FE84C73 Nero Digital Parser.3gp E206E4DE-A7EE-4A62-B3E9-4FBC8FE84C73 Nero Digital Parser.aac ABE7B1D9-4B3E-4ACD-A0D1-92611D3A4492 DC-Bass Source.ac3 F7380D4C-DE45-4F03-9209-15EBA8552463 AC3File.alac ABE7B1D9-4B3E-4ACD-A0D1-92611D3A4492 DC-Bass Source.ape 66EA14E6-E2B3-433D-923E-EE401CADBBD9 File Source (Monkey Audio).apl 66EA14E6-E2B3-433D-923E-EE401CADBBD9 File Source (Monkey Audio).bmp 7DF62B50-6843-11D2-9EEB-006008039E37 Generate Still Video.bsf 5CB78A55-01B8-431E-96DE-6227D2E0C312 Nero ES Video Reader.dib 7DF62B50-6843-11D2-9EEB-006008039E37 Generate Still Video.dts F7380D4C-DE45-4F03-9209-15EBA8552463 AC3File.dv 5F999665-C66E-46B7-9446-7864278C06C8 DV Source Filter.dvr-ms C9F5FE02-F851-4eb5-99EE-AD602AF1E619 StreamBufferSource.dvr-ne 8BD32EBA-D7D7-4AB7-914E-C4E551113869  Nero Stream Buffer Source.flac C52908F0-1C06-4C0D-A4CD-3D10EA51C757 madFlac Source.flv C9ECE7B3-1D8E-41F5-9F24-B255DF16C087 MPC - FLV Source (Gabest).gif 7DF62B50-6843-11D2-9EEB-006008039E37 Generate Still Video.h264 5CB78A55-01B8-431E-96DE-6227D2E0C312 Nero ES Video Reader.jfif 7DF62B50-6843-11D2-9EEB-006008039E37 Generate Still Video.jpe 7DF62B50-6843-11D2-9EEB-006008039E37 Generate Still Video.jpeg 7DF62B50-6843-11D2-9EEB-006008039E37 Generate Still Video.jpg 7DF62B50-6843-11D2-9EEB-006008039E37 Generate Still Video.m3u e436ebb5-524f-11ce-9f53-0020af0ba770 File Source (Async.).m4a E206E4DE-A7EE-4A62-B3E9-4FBC8FE84C73 Nero Digital Parser.mka 55DA30FC-F16B-49FC-BAA5-AE59FC65F82D Haali Media Splitter.mks 55DA30FC-F16B-49FC-BAA5-AE59FC65F82D Haali Media Splitter.mkv 55DA30FC-F16B-49FC-BAA5-AE59FC65F82D Haali Media Splitter.mp3 E436EBB5-524F-11CE-9F53-0020AF0BA770 File Source (Async.).mp4 55DA30FC-F16B-49FC-BAA5-AE59FC65F82D Haali Media Splitter.mpls 1365BE7A-C86A-473C-9A41-C0A6E82C9FA3 MPC - Mpeg Source (Gabest).nd E206E4DE-A7EE-4A62-B3E9-4FBC8FE84C73 Nero Digital Parser.nvavi 51393094-F0E2-4E34-87A5-25EBC68629EB Multi File Reader.oga 55DA30FC-F16B-49FC-BAA5-AE59FC65F82D Haali Media Splitter.ogg 55DA30FC-F16B-49FC-BAA5-AE59FC65F82D Haali Media Splitter.ogm 55DA30FC-F16B-49FC-BAA5-AE59FC65F82D Haali Media Splitter.ogv 55DA30FC-F16B-49FC-BAA5-AE59FC65F82D Haali Media Splitter.spdif F7380D4C-DE45-4F03-9209-15EBA8552463 AC3File.tga 7DF62B50-6843-11D2-9EEB-006008039E37 Generate Still Video.tta ABE7B1D9-4B3E-4ACD-A0D1-92611D3A4492 DC-Bass Source.wtv C9F5FE02-F851-4eb5-99EE-AD602AF1E619 StreamBufferSource.wv E436EBB5-524F-11CE-9F53-0020AF0BA770 File Source (Async.).wvc E436EBB5-524F-11CE-9F53-0020AF0BA770 File Source (Async.) 2ff7e9595c
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