[ubuntu-uk] Audio Conversion: WAV to WMA

[Liam Proven]

On Wed, Apr 14, 2010 at 12:39 PM, Nigel Verity <nigelverity at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Guys
>
> I'm a bit of an audiophile, and have a large collection of music stored in
> WAV format to preserve the sound quality. Clearly it's not possible to copy
> many of these huge files to a portable player, so they need to be
> compressed. After much experimentation I've concluded that OGG and WMA are
> both better formats for sound quality than MP3 at a given bit rate. The
> trouble is that neither of my portable players will play OGG, so it has to
> be WMA.
>
> Using the command "ffmpeg -i input.wav -ab 128k output.wma" I get a WMA file
> which will sound great on Linux using players such as VLC, Exaile and
> Rhythmbox. Unfortunately on both my portable players I get "File Error".
> I've even tried playing files converted this way on XP using WMP, and got
> similar results.
>
> Does anyone have any suggestions on an ffmpeg parameter that will solve the
> problem, or know of an alternative Linux app that will convert the files
> correctly?

WMA is a Microsoft proprietary format. I wouldn't expect much help
with it here & personally I'd say don't use it.

The non-compressed audio format of choice for audiophiles is FLAC, I believe.

(Personally, I'm perfectly happy with high-bitrate MP3 but I'm no connoisseur.)

If your players won't play it, you're probably better off either
changing players or seeing if you can reFlash them with something like
Rockbox.

-- 
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