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Topic: Converting WMA lossless to FLAC (Read 15903 times) previous topic - next topic
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Converting WMA lossless to FLAC

Over the past couple years I have ripped all of my CDs onto my computer. I used WMA lossless as it was very simple and I couldn't think of any reason to use a different format. Now, I'm getting a media streamer (Squeezebox) and it doesn't have native support for WMA lossless. I want to convert my catalog to FLAC, but I don't know what software supports this. Most of the companies that I checked out convert FLAC to WMA but not the other way around. I don't mind spending a few bucks as long as it is a solid product. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

Converting WMA lossless to FLAC

Reply #1
foobar2000 is fine. Other softwares: VUPlayer, DBPowerAmp, Winamp...

Converting WMA lossless to FLAC

Reply #2
Over the past couple years I have ripped all of my CDs onto my computer. I used WMA lossless as it was very simple and I couldn't think of any reason to use a different format. Now, I'm getting a media streamer (Squeezebox) and it doesn't have native support for WMA lossless. I want to convert my catalog to FLAC, but I don't know what software supports this. Most of the companies that I checked out convert FLAC to WMA but not the other way around. I don't mind spending a few bucks as long as it is a solid product. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

www.foobar2000.org

Converting WMA lossless to FLAC

Reply #3
foobar2000 is fine. Other softwares: VUPlayer, DBPowerAmp, Winamp...


Okay, I've tried foobar and dbPowerAmp to convert WMA Lossless, and I'm having metadata issues.  The two things are:

1.  Embedded cover art is apparently not being copied over.  Should it be, or is this something FLAC doesn't support, and I just need to put JPEGs in folders?

2.  I'm not sure what's happening with the Album Artist tag.  According to Tag&Rename, it's not being populated.  According to Foobar, it is.  And if I go into Tag&Rename and populate it explicitly, the metadata in Foobar looks no different.  What's going on here, and how can I figure out which of these well-regarded apps is insane?

Converting WMA lossless to FLAC

Reply #4

foobar2000 is fine. Other softwares: VUPlayer, DBPowerAmp, Winamp...

1.  Embedded cover art is apparently not being copied over.  Should it be, or is this something FLAC doesn't support, and I just need to put JPEGs in folders?

2.  I'm not sure what's happening with the Album Artist tag.  According to Tag&Rename, it's not being populated.  According to Foobar, it is.  And if I go into Tag&Rename and populate it explicitly, the metadata in Foobar looks no different.  What's going on here, and how can I figure out which of these well-regarded apps is insane?

IIRC, WMA doesn't have any any support for embeded images. all it does is store AlbumArt.jpg files in the folder that the files are in.

with foobar2000, make sure you select the files, select Tagging > Reload Info from File(s) to make sure that the info is correct. the thing about foobar2000 is that it doesn't update the tags when another program does so.

Converting WMA lossless to FLAC

Reply #5
IIRC, WMA doesn't have any any support for embeded images. all it does is store AlbumArt.jpg files in the folder that the files are in.


No, it does have embedded image support.  It also puts the files in the folder, with multiple names (depending on how exactly the cover art is populated).

Anyway, I figured that since no FLAC applications actually use the embedded cover art, just copying over the folder.jpg files would be good enough for me, and that seems to work (thankfully I converted into a directory structure that matched up with the old one, so I could xcopy all the folder.jpg files).

Converting WMA lossless to FLAC

Reply #6
WMA uses a sort of apic (id3v2) compatible frame. Currently FLAC cannot have embedded images, unless you tag to id3v2 (was it rockbox that used album art with falc and id3v2?) or wait a few months (josh is working on a new release of flac with an embedded images).

Converting WMA lossless to FLAC

Reply #7
yep, cover art support in FLAC is done, a beta should be raedy in a couple of weeks.

 

Converting WMA lossless to FLAC

Reply #8
www.poikosoft.com, worth the money.

Converting WMA lossless to FLAC

Reply #9
Hi,

I thought Squeezebox supports WMA lossless (at leadt according to thier website).

On a side note, how do you like the Squeezebox? Thanks

Over the past couple years I have ripped all of my CDs onto my computer. I used WMA lossless as it was very simple and I couldn't think of any reason to use a different format. Now, I'm getting a media streamer (Squeezebox) and it doesn't have native support for WMA lossless. I want to convert my catalog to FLAC, but I don't know what software supports this. Most of the companies that I checked out convert FLAC to WMA but not the other way around. I don't mind spending a few bucks as long as it is a solid product. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

Converting WMA lossless to FLAC

Reply #10
Squeezebox only supports WMAL by transcoding to FLAC or equiv. at the server level.  Their marketing is intentionally vague.    FLAC is decoded natively without transcoding.  Either way, the end point audio output is the same.