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Topic: Clipped WMA Playback (Read 4776 times) previous topic - next topic
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Clipped WMA Playback

I've come across a strange problem, and I'm unsure if it's unique to me or whether any of you can offer some help. 

I've noticed recently that when experimenting with playing WMAs from the like of music services like Napster (not exactly stonking quality, I know), that whenever I play a WMA file the output is clipped and slightly distorted.  This happens even if I turn down all the levels such as on the Wave channel and so on, and with various sound devices.

Wondering if this was to do with bad normalizing of the original file, I tried burning some purchased WMAs to CD to investiagate the WAV files that were produced, and, when I checked them, those files were perfectly OK with no clipping.

All I can read into this is that there's something going wrong with WMA playback on my computer that results in the audio being clipped before it even gets into the soundcard and so on (the waveform is still all flattened out even if I turn down volumes etc in both the soundcard and the player).  It occurs with WMP and Winamp.

Is this an issue I can fix?

Clipped WMA Playback

Reply #1 –
Are you certain it's clipping, and not instead a crackling/static sound?

Clipped WMA Playback

Reply #2 –
if it is low (ie. <64kbs) bitrate, then it is most likely clipping because of encoding artifacts those add up to the original waveform. I had this happen at 64k; when encoded at 128 it was fine.

Clipped WMA Playback

Reply #3 –
Yeah, I'm as certain as I can be that it's clipping.  When listening carefully, it sounded like it, so I tried recording some of the louder sections into a program I could use to check the waveform and the waveform was flattened out.  As I say, though, it also flattens out at the same points when the volume is way below 0dB so it seemed to be something to do with the actual playback. 

I compared those loud sections I recorded with the extracted wave file and they were noticeably different; the recorded wma section was visibly squared off when viewing large sections, compared with the wave which looked a lot healthier.

The bitrate is about 192kbps as far as I know, and as I say the waves that I burned showed no clipping so I'm leaning towards there being nothing wrong with the original files.

Are there any suggestions of ways I can accurately monitor the waveform the computer's playing, rather than actually recording samples, to check this?  If there is then it'd be easy for me to play the wma and check the waveform, then play the wave and check it too.

Clipped WMA Playback

Reply #4 –
Do you have the equalizer or SRS "enhancement" stuff turned on in WMP?
"Not sure what the question is, but the answer is probably no."

Clipped WMA Playback

Reply #5 –
No, it's all off.  I'm trying to get as dry a signal as I can (I use a Creative X-Fi which is jammed to the hilt with remixing things and so on, so it is a bit difficult), so I've turned off everything in sight and tried to get every level at around the 50% mark just to find out what's causing the clipping, but so far nothing's come forward.

Another tactic I tried was recording the clean wave file to see if that introduces clipping, which would show that the culprit is my recording/soundcard setup, but the recorded output of that was also perfect with no clipping.  It's purely with WMAs.

So yes, all the media player stuff is off, and I've tried it in cut-down versions of Winamp too.

Clipped WMA Playback

Reply #6 –
open the properties to the directshow wma decoder while playing a file, move down the EQ settings... might do what you need  (file->properties in mplayer2)
Vorbis-q0-lowpass99
lame3.93.1-q5-V9-k-nspsytune

Clipped WMA Playback

Reply #7 –
Doesn't WMA give a 3dB boost when encoding, as a cheap trick to make it "sound better"?

Clipped WMA Playback

Reply #8 –
Quote from: gameplaya15143 on
open the properties to the directshow wma decoder while playing a file, move down the EQ settings... might do what you need  (file->properties in mplayer2)


Cheers for that; I tried actually turning on the WMP graphic equalizer thing and taking it down by a few dB and that seems to clear it up a bit and makes the waveform look more natural.

Do you have any idea, though, of a way to get at that decoder's equaliser in WMP?  I'd like to use mplayer2 but can't as it won't handle the DRM on some of them (unless you know a way to fix that?), so is there a way to get into the same sort of area but in Media Player 10 (or 9, as I could roll back).  I can live with the graphic one but I'd rather another, as it doesn't have a master volume control so I ended up having to take down each channel, and it's not all that precise.
 

Clipped WMA Playback

Reply #9 –
it might be the same EQ.. i dont know, i removed wmplayer from my system

just open an un-drm infected wma in mplayer2, then click file, properties, and under the third tab, the wma decoder should be listed. you will have to move down all the EQ bands, then just click ok and it should save the settings

when I first adjusted this, i set ac3filter to handle PCM, then I watched it's bars go red when it clipped, and adjusted the wma decoder accordingly. its sometimes easier to see clipping than to hear it
Vorbis-q0-lowpass99
lame3.93.1-q5-V9-k-nspsytune