Want to keep your WMP codecs updated? Then get the new version here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/default.mspx (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/default.mspx)
Thanks. With todays Xbox360 update, WMP 11 and Xbox 360 users can now stream WMV's to the 360 without purchasing WinXP MCE.
Both came at excactly the same time, Coincidence?
Does this finally make explorer correctly read the bitrate of vbr mp3's?
Does this finally make explorer correctly read the bitrate of vbr mp3's?
Nope. Although, i really like WMP 11 It's really fast now. iTunes 7 is crapware (on the pc atleast) compared. The WMP11 library system just rocks and seems extremely fast and efficient.
now if only WMP11 wasn't so slow at shuffling, i'd actually be thinking of using it.
So are the rumors that WMP11 Final would support AAC true?
I'd check for myself, but I'm not running Windows anymore
Some fixed in codec, does it make listening test go on?
I just tried with an AAC (M4A) file: it only works with an external filter. AAC/mp4 file format isn't suggested as supported format during installation.
Same here - it uses the Nero decoder for M4A and AAC files.
I just tried with an AAC (M4A) file: it only works with an external filter.
Same here - it uses the Nero decoder for M4A and AAC files.
What do you mean with 'an external filter'?
If it uses Nero's decoder I'd expect it to support HE-AAC, does it?
Can Windows Explorer read m4a metadata once WMP11 is installed?
WMP can use ANY DirectShow filter and the AAC playback is not handled by WMP, but by the Nero filter. This, however, also worked with WMP 10 and IIRC, even 9.
For me, it use AC3Filter and support aacPlus.
WMP can use ANY DirectShow filter and the AAC playback is not handled by WMP, but by the Nero filter. This, however, also worked with WMP 10 and IIRC, even 9.
Ah, I see. But this filter (for AAC) does not come with either Windows or WMP11 right? You'd need to have a third party filter installed by some other program for WMP11 to play AAC?
Correct - it comes with Nero.
Ah, I see. But this filter (for AAC) does not come with either Windows or WMP11 right? You'd need to have a third party filter installed by some other program for WMP11 to play AAC?
Yes, one like Nero or ffdshow. If you install one of these two programs they add the required AAC decoding capabilities to all Direct Show-based players.
Hhmm... so no out-of-the-box AAC support.
That is a bit strange, I'd expected WMP11 to support AAC right away since the Zune is going to support it.
Hhmm... so no out-of-the-box AAC support.
That is a bit strange, I'd expected WMP11 to support AAC right away since the Zune is going to support it.
It'll probably be released as a update when Zune goes live.
I noticed they added Windows Media Audio PRO to the choices of encoding options. The list of bitrates for PRO ranges from 32 to 192, not the massive 2 channel/5 channel 48mhz sampling rate choices seen in the past. I take it this means Zune will be the first device to playback PRO files?
WMAPro (including LOSSLESS) isn't explicitely announced as WMAPro compatible (presspaper mention 'WMA'):
Zune software can import audio files in unprotected WMA, MP3, AAC; photos in JPEG; and videos in WMV, MPEG-4, H.264.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presski...docs/ZuneFS.doc (http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/zune/docs/ZuneFS.doc)
But WMA is maybe a generic name for the whole WMA family. Wait and see.
more info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zune (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zune)
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presski...ne/default.mspx (http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/zune/default.mspx)
And still no ID3v2.4 support I presume?
And still no ID3v2.4 support I presume?
I don't know about that. I don't use the program much at all, as I'm more an OS X user, and would more likely use iTunes on Windows on the occasions I use Windows, as I'm used to the program. However, I did download and install WMP 11 and I moved a few files over from my Mac and tried them. They'd been ripped in Stephen Booth's Max, which I believe tags with v2.4, and the tags are certainly identified at v2.4 in iTunes. They displayed in WMP. Well, for the most part they did. Windows Media Player made a dog's dinner of "The Legendary Segovia": it listed the composer's names as "contributing artists", and then used that field as the main basis for the listing. But it's difficult to know what's going on in a case like that. It might be WMP. But it might be iTunes: I suppose it's possible the information was originally as obtained from the database, and I hadn't noticed before ripping, but corrected it later in iTunes, but iTunes didn't re-write the tags properly. Whatever the reason, it's anomalies like this that make switching between different programs unattractive. But, AFAICT, the program does read the tags in my MP3s, and they are v2.4 tags.
EDIT to add:
I was curious, so I re-ripped the Segovia CD just to get a better idea of what was going on. I think my postulated scenario must have been just what happened.
Now WMP 11 reads the artist correctly, so it seems a finger is pointing at iTunes. However, WMP11 is still not reading all fields correctly. It reads the album, the title, and the artist, but it does not read the genre field or the composer field. Max has written those two fields; I can see them in iTunes on both Mac and Windows and Media Rage (tagger for OS X) recognizes what Max has written as v2.4 tags, too. But WMP11 cannot see those two fields. Missing "composer" tags makes it pretty much useless for classical music, unfortunately.
I tested a MP3 file tagged with ID3v2.4 UTF-8 as written by Mp3tag -- no other tags (no ID3v1.1!) -- and WMP 11 "final" on XP will not read the tag. This is no different than the older WMP 10. It's very possible some other implementations of the ID3v2.4 informal standard does get parsed... but I somewhat doubt it.
Sorry, we're still stuck with the de facto standard ID3v2.3 for MP3. Even if Microsoft added read ability for ID3v2.4, 99% chance they'll still write to ID3v2.3 to stay compatible with the masses... like most products.
Thankfully, the latest version of foobar2000 also handles ID3v2.3 now...
It still manages to turn my cover art tags into black squares in XP's Media Center.
Wow, this is pathetic.
Downloaded and installed yesterday. The main issues I've noticed so far on my PC:
Pros:
- Superfast searching
- Fast handling of large libraries
- Intuitive new interface that allows a lot more flexibility than WMP 10
- Quick startup
- Low memory usage compared to other playback software of similar capability (MediaMonkey, iTunes)
- Very smart automatic playlist management
- FINALLY: the ability to view library, current playlist AND album art simultaneously under the same tab
- Plugin compatibility is pretty impressive. None thereof needed to be updated
Cons:
- WMP no longer automatically displays the length, size and duration of the current playlist in the lower status bar
- Library view changes are not persistent between tab changes. For example, if while under the Library tab you sort the library by Title and then switch to the Now Playing tab, upon return to the Library tab the view reverts to the default sort-by-artist view
- Holding the mouse over a playlist item no longer pops up info about the item
Also, the metadata lookup database has been changed somewhat, with a lot more subgenres added. For example, you can now get "Metal" and "Alternative" genre tags instead of just generic "Rock".
Overall, the biggest positive for me as the tremendous increase in performance with large libraries (I have 7500+ songs) and the blisteringly fast search feature.
Happy with the upgrade but hoping they can address the items in the cons list, especially the first one .
Cons:
- WMP no longer automatically displays the length, size and duration of the current playlist in the lower status bar
Yes, that's MIA... But something similar is partially there. If you multi-select items/tracks from the main view, it will show "X items, X minutes" to the right of the volume control for a few seconds before it disappears. However, total "size" is gone.
Yes, that's MIA... But something similar is partially there. If you multi-select items/tracks from the main view, it will show "X items, X minutes" to the right of the volume control for a few seconds before it disappears. However, total "size" is gone.
I noticed that, but find it insufficient. I like the more detailed stats for bragging rights in my AIM profile and on social networking sites . I'm thinking of using MediaMonkey to generate the stats instead (while retaining WMP11 for library management and playback).
To be fair, from observation of MediaMonkey's tallying of such things, it seems MS may have cut the stats feature from WMP to save on resource overhead. It often takes MM (free edition) about 5 seconds extra to load my entire library while it counts the contents. If it came down to a choice between the stats and snappier response, I'd choose the former.
Also, apparently WMP now embeds album art directly into the audio files themselves. I hadn't noticed that before. Is it a new feature, or has it always done so? I'd always thought it inserted an image in the album folder and hid it in Windows Explorer... details here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsme...1/albumart.aspx (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/knowledgecenter/howto/mp11/albumart.aspx)
It only embeds Album Art by default if you use the new simple "Paste Album Art" feature to add the image. (It also scales/recompresses the image to idiot-proof it.) Art pulled from the online metadata will continue to sit in hidden files by default. As with WMP 10, embedded art will supercede the file based art if it exists.
(In WMP 10, Album Art could only be embedded using the Advanced Tag Editor UI.)
Dam Microsoft's player is still far behind from other players. They just made some new UI improvements like the album art stack (which is pretty neat) and sync music with players and cds is alot better thanks to the new interface and tfg it does not use about 100% cpu when browsing for music like iTunes 7 does. But it is still lacking certain features like AAC and ID3v2.4 support .
And also the VBR bugs that have been on WMP for years have not yet been fixed , such as displaying the bitrate on a VBR mp3 and getting the track length wrong when fast-forwarding a track (this is common with VBR Mp3, but can fixed with the VBR-I or Xing header on certain players such as foobar2000) and I want be surprised if WMP did not supported Fhg's VBR-I header. As for getting gapless playback on WMP the chances is very small since they have not made any big or not any changes on the mp3 decoder .
An example of a VBR bug on WMP11:
[a href="http://img476.imageshack.us/my.php?image=wmp11vbrbitratebughf3.png" target="_blank"], that was dam useful and they also removed the track length time on the playlists .
Also they removed the Advance Tag Editor , that was dam useful and they also removed the track length time on the playlists .
You want some cheese with that whine?
They did not remove the Advanced Tag Editor. It's right there when you right-click any of your music files: Advanced Tag Editor.
WMP 11 is gapless with WMA ripped from CD (or purchased from a music store) in almost all cases. But you are correct... there are no improvements with the fairly generic FhG MP3 decoder they use. So there is no support for LAME gapless MP3 nor any "tricks" to guess, like iTunes 7 now does. The incorrect initial average bitrate reading on MP3 VBR (LAME) is still there. Maybe next version they'll lose FhG. WMP 10/11 does store a more accurate MP3 bitrate average in the WMP library once the track is played to the end, though.
Yes, the Advanced Tag Editor is still there. It's mostly hidden for a reason: It's not that great for the masses and it hasn't been updated to support all of the metadata fields now available.
The Total Items and Total Time do appear in the top of the List Pane under the Album Icon/Info when in the Now Playing tab... while stopped... and maybe some other scenarios.
Also they removed the Advance Tag Editor , that was dam useful and they also removed the track length time on the playlists .
You want some cheese with that whine?
They did not remove the Advanced Tag Editor. It's right there when you right-click any of your music files: Advanced Tag Editor.
All right it is still there but it is in the Media Library instead of the playlist like on 10, silly me. Microsoft does have some habbits of hidding any useful features.
WMP 11 is gapless with WMA ripped from CD (or purchased from a music store) in almost all cases. But you are correct... there are no improvements with the fairly generic FhG MP3 decoder they use. So there is no support for LAME gapless MP3 nor any "tricks" to guess, like iTunes 7 now does. The incorrect initial average bitrate reading on MP3 VBR (LAME) is still there. Maybe next version they'll lose FhG. WMP 10/11 does store a more accurate MP3 bitrate average in the WMP library once the track is played to the end, though.
Yes, the Advanced Tag Editor is still there. It's mostly hidden for a reason: It's not that great for the masses and it hasn't been updated to support all of the metadata fields now available.
The Total Items and Total Time do appear in the top of the List Pane under the Album Icon/Info when in the Now Playing tab... while stopped... and maybe some other scenarios.
I ripped a CD to WMA on WMP11 beta 2 to see if WMA playback is gapless and it was not gapless at all. And the chances of M$ of improving mp3 support is low becuse the want you to use their crappy audio codec.
Yeah the tag editor on WMP is quite dated but WMP does write tags without any problems unlike with Winamp + iTunes does.
But it is still lacking certain features like AAC and ID3v2.4 support .
AAC is supported through the Orban plugin or ffdshow.
I encode to wma and play with wmp11 and it's gapless.
I encode to wma and play with wmp11 and it's gapless.
Well it must have been a bug on Beta 2 or VBR WMA is not gapless. WMA gapless is kinda pointless if it only works on WMP, i doubt that any DAP will play WMA gapless since Cowon, iRiver and Samsung can not be bothered to get gapless playback to work on Vorbis and Vorbis should have gapless playback out of the box.
@ /mnt: Just played VBR WMA 9.1 Q98 rips on WMP 11 from a search-generated playlist - gaplessly on my PC. Not too sure what you're talking about. Also just played a couple consecutive (as on the original CD) songs in sequence from Chevelle's "This Type of Thinking Could Do Us In" release in VBR MP3 and didn't hear any gaps myself... but maybe that's just me.
Regarding WMP 11 not supporting AAC... Why do you expect MS to support AAC out-of-the-box?
Does iTunes support WMA out-of-the-box? (No, just a crappy lossy->lossy conversion which results in poor quality files, which they do not mention anything of at all). Atleast in WMP11 you can easily add AAC support through 3rd party addons. And with the release of Zune i expect a update that adds native AAC support aswell, since the Zune supports AAC natively.
Atleast in WMP11 you can easily add AAC support through 3rd party addons. And with the release of Zune i expect a update that adds native AAC support aswell, since the Zune supports AAC natively.
To be fair, I think Flip4Mac offers a 3rd party add-on that give iTunes WMA playback capability. But you're right on the first point - other good media players ship without AAC support: MediaMonkey, for example.
As for Zune, MS isn't tying it to WMP (WMP isn't necessary for interfacing with the device), so native AAC support in WMP is still doubtful for the future...
What is situation about Windows Media Audio 10 Pro, has this codec finaly released in public?
Yes, it ships with WMP 11... so it's obviously public now.