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Topic: Which MP3 encoder for Windows Media Player 9 (Read 12551 times) previous topic - next topic
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Which MP3 encoder for Windows Media Player 9

I have tried CDEX, EAC, etc for ripping CDs using LAME but am not really satisfied with them (eg, they don't use the composer tag).

I am more comfortable with Windows Media Player 9 -- it seems to have better tag lookup and organisation features -- but have not been able to find a way of getting it to use LAME.

There are 3 MP3 encoder plug-ins available for WMP9:


  MP3 PowerEncoder  - 170KB Created By: Cyberlink Corp

  MP3 XPack  - 170KB Created By: Intervideo, Inc.

  CinePlayer MP3 Creation Pack  - 170KB Created By: Sonic Solutions, Inc


I am tempted to go with the first of these (192k, VBR). I imagine that they are all based on the FhG model, but is anything known about their relative merits? Are they going to be much worse than LAME, which I like?

This will give me music that I can play on both an iPod (which also plays AAC, which seems as good as LAME) and an iRiver player (which also plays WMA: pretty good, but not quite as good at capturing the atmosphere of a recording as LAME, on the basis of a casual comparison).

Thanks.

Which MP3 encoder for Windows Media Player 9

Reply #1 –
I have a feeling it does not matter at all which one you choose. I do think you should look into either apev2 tags or look for a tagging program that does composer tags.
r3mix zealot.

Which MP3 encoder for Windows Media Player 9

Reply #2 –
I too have wondered about their quality, although I don't use WMP9.  And I don't personally know anybody who has a copy of any of them, so I can't actually test them myself.

From what little I have heard, though, is that none of them are all that great.  No actual data to back that up, though.

It's really a shame nobody has made a version of LAME for WMP.

As for the composer tag, I don't know whether they do that or not.


As for FhG vs. LAME, there aren't any recent comparison tests between them, so nobody really knows how good they are.  There have been poor versions of FhG in the past, but... [shrug]


You mentioned AAC for the ipod.  AAC is a little better than MP3, even LAME.  But not phenomenally so.  Not as much as what some companies claim.  Also, some AAC encoders are better than others, so it's possible to actually be worse.  AAC hasn't been in use long enough to be as highly & widely tuned as mp3 has.  But whether you prefer the sound of AAC over MP3 will be up to your own ears.

You also mentioned WMA.  The older kind doesn't seem to be very good.  Certainly not as good as what Microsoft claims.  Although WMA 9pro is supposed to finally be decent, support for it is pretty much non-existant.  And it's closed proprietary format, which some people (including myself) dislike.

Which MP3 encoder for Windows Media Player 9

Reply #3 –
jrp

I agree with LordofStars.  But, I was also interested in "seeing" if ripping and encoding in win media player could be done with mp3.  It can be but you have to do some registry changing to make it work with lame.

Lame has to be installed in windows so that wmp can find it.  The only way I know how to do it is to install the lame acm codec.  It can be found at rarewares and IIRC it is version 3.92 that works.  For some strange reason, the other versions don't load properly.  (I am not sure what the deal with the other versions is for sure).

The registry hacks that you need to do are as follows.  I did not create these, I found on a web site and did not site the reference.  Sorry.  I am sure that if you search the web you can find the same information.

Getting MP3 ripping to work in Windows Media Player 8 in XP

Enter the following in the registry :

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SOFTWARE Microsoft MediaPlayer Settings MP3Encoding]
"LowRate"=dword:0000dac0
"MediumRate"=dword:0000fa00
"MediumHighRate"=dword:0001f400
"HighRate"=dword:0002ee00< br>
This corresponds to 56, 64, 128 and 192 Kbps.

You can change this to your liking using the following dword hex values :

320 Kbps = dword:0004e200
256 Kbps = dword:0003e800
224 Kbps = dword:00036b00
192 Kbps = dword:0002ee00
160 Kbps = dword:00027100
128 Kbps = dword:0001f400
112 Kbps = dword:0001b580
64 Kbps = dword:0000fa00
56 Kbps = dword:0000dac0

These will only work in wmp8 and wmp9 as best I can remember.  I did this registry hack and had wmp9 working with lame and encoding mp3.  Unfortunately, my box had a stroke and I had to replace the harddrive.  I decided to stick with wmp 6.4 and use cdex to extract.

Hopefullt this will at least get you headed in the right direction.

Which MP3 encoder for Windows Media Player 9

Reply #4 –
Thanks for this.  I had not spotted the ACM plug-in.

What settings does that version use use?

Another post has suggested that it only allows usage of the default, non-optimised GPSYCHO settings at 192kbps CBR.

Is the source somewhere so that I can compile it with the generally-recommended alt-preset standard settings?

Which MP3 encoder for Windows Media Player 9

Reply #5 –
Quote
I too have wondered about their quality, although I don't use WMP9.  And I don't personally know anybody who has a copy of any of them, so I can't actually test them myself.

From what little I have heard, though, is that none of them are all that great.  No actual data to back that up, though.

It's really a shame nobody has made a version of LAME for WMP.

As for the composer tag, I don't know whether they do that or not.


As for FhG vs. LAME, there aren't any recent comparison tests between them, so nobody really knows how good they are.  There have been poor versions of FhG in the past, but... [shrug]


You mentioned AAC for the ipod.  AAC is a little better than MP3, even LAME.  But not phenomenally so.  Not as much as what some companies claim.  Also, some AAC encoders are better than others, so it's possible to actually be worse.  AAC hasn't been in use long enough to be as highly & widely tuned as mp3 has.  But whether you prefer the sound of AAC over MP3 will be up to your own ears.

You also mentioned WMA.  The older kind doesn't seem to be very good.  Certainly not as good as what Microsoft claims.  Although WMA 9pro is supposed to finally be decent, support for it is pretty much non-existant.  And it's closed proprietary format, which some people (including myself) dislike.

Trouble is the iRiver won't use aac so it's ruled out for me.  (Otherwise I'd stick with iTunes, which also has tagging facilites that work for me.)

The sound quality is an issue. These MP3 players seem better with my Shure earphones than my not in-expensive hi-fi from CD!

Which MP3 encoder for Windows Media Player 9

Reply #6 –
The only place I could change settings was in the control panel under multimedia, audio codecs.  It used an abr setting.  But, IIRC when wmp encoded the wav file, it used a cbr at the chosen encoder rate.  Yes wmp gives you the luxury of having a whopping 4 rates to pick from.  Mighty generous of them.  You can change the value to match you needs but the limit of 4 has to followed.  I tried to add an extra one and it didn't like it one bit.

Hopefully someone else has tried to confirm the cbr encoding with wmp.  It has been a while and I am trying to recall from memory, which isn't exactly great these days.

Sorry i don't know if there is source code around but I am sure that if there is, someone can point you to it.

Sorry I don't know about the usage of the default, non-optimised GPSYCHO settings at 192kbps CBR.

I was just playing with wmp and decided that I wanted to experiment and see if mp3 encoding in wmp (for free) could be done, and it can.  I never paid attention to all the particulars and the my harddrive died.  I decided that eac and cdex were more to my liking and never did install anything over wmp 6.4.

Sorry I was not more help.  Hopefully someone can answer your particular questions.

Which MP3 encoder for Windows Media Player 9

Reply #7 –
Quote
Sorry I was not more help.  Hopefully someone can answer your particular questions.

Thanks for your help.  I pulled up the 3.93.1 source code (which more or less compiles under Visual Studio 2003) and it says of the ACM code that the following remains to be done:

- known bug : when recording, converting, and recording a lame_close() call fail
- add the preset modes (and alt-preset too) in the config
- allow decompression the same way as in the command-line
- allow VBR mode
- allow channel resampling (mono to stereo / stereo to mono)
- allow internal resampling (difference in the format suggestion)
- use global pointers for string
- use the bitrate/freq tables from LAME

/ add the decoding engine

I presume that the additions are non-trivial, or they would have been done.

I'm disinclined to put much effort into it as what I need is, apparently, the tuning in 3.90.x, but the 3.90 sources don't seem to be set up for MSVS.

Which MP3 encoder for Windows Media Player 9

Reply #8 –
jrp did you ever have any luck in getting wmp9 to encode using Lame?

I'm in a similar position as you and would like to do the same.

Which MP3 encoder for Windows Media Player 9

Reply #9 –
When did encoding mp3's become such a hassle

So I tried the registry hack and lame 3.92 ACM on a win XP box with WMP 9 all it gives me is an unknown error.

Now on a XP box with WMP 8 I'm a little closer! WMP 8 will attempt encode a mp3 but the resulting file is unplayable. With a little tweaking of the lame XML file since the settings dialog box doesn't work (WMP dosen't like the crc option)! I've been able to have lame generate a "playable" mp3 in WMP. The mp3 is however still fubar! Also WMP 8 crashes after encoding one song!

Here's a zip of importable registry entry and the lame ACM with a modified XML which has settings WMP 8 seems to like more.

http://www.execpc.org/~julians/files/wmp_8_mp3.zip

While these don't _work_ properly I'm hoping they will help to get us on the right path to encoding mp3's in WMP with lame.