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Topic: Is WMA a "gapless" solution? (Read 13391 times) previous topic - next topic
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Is WMA a "gapless" solution?

Having played around now with the WM9STD and WM9PRO encoders, I have found that both create perfectly gapless track transitions if the software being used to play back the files supports gapless.

This seems to be very similar to OGG gapless, but potentially supported on many more players since WMA is almost everywhere that's not Apple.

I know that Rio Karma has been confirmed to be among the only portable players that flawlessly play back gapless OGG, but I'd like to know if anyone has confirmed that Karma and/or Rio Nitrus can successfully handle gapless WMA.

Please reply and share your results if you've tried this.  Thanks.

Is WMA a "gapless" solution?

Reply #1 –
Quote
Having played around now with the WM9STD and WM9PRO encoders, I have found that both create perfectly gapless track transitions if the software being used to play back the files supports gapless.

This seems to be very similar to OGG gapless, but potentially supported on many more players since WMA is almost everywhere that's not Apple.

I know that Rio Karma has been confirmed to be among the only portable players that flawlessly play back gapless OGG, but I'd like to know if anyone has confirmed that Karma and/or Rio Nitrus can successfully handle gapless WMA.

Please reply and share your results if you've tried this.  Thanks.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=185033"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


The Rio Nitrus handles gapless WMA's perfectly.

Is WMA a "gapless" solution?

Reply #2 –
I went through the trouble and installed WMEncoder 9 to encode two tracks from Kruder & Dormeister - The K&D Sessions (all tracks have seamless transitions and need to be played back gaplessly) to put them on my Rio Karma. Now guess what, the damn WMEncoder would not accept my wave files (it froze 9 out of ten times when I opened them). One wave file could be successfully converted but one alone was useless... I tried the older WMEncoder 7.1 but it just froze too, when I chose 'user defined coding session'.

So I used audition to convert the files to windows media audio 9.1, vbr quality 75. There was a very small klick between the tracks' transition, so the Karma appearently cannot play wma files gaplessly (Ogg Vorbis btw works).

I also tried wma 9.1 pro (again encoded with audition), but the Karma would not play these files.
Always defragment your MP3s to avoid subtle lack in harmonics.

Is WMA a "gapless" solution?

Reply #3 –
try dbpoweramp?

Is WMA a "gapless" solution?

Reply #4 –
An interesting note. I had two tracks in flac that play back gapless perfectly on my karma. I used dbpoweramp to convert to wma. These two files have a small blip when I played them back on my karma. I then re-ripped the same two files from the CD using wmp10 and those two files play back gapless perfectly on my karma every time. I couldn't get either to play gapless on my computer using wmp10 however.  A bug with dbpoweramp's wma plugin?
"Monkey see, monkey do, yeah."  David J. Matthews

Is WMA a "gapless" solution?

Reply #5 –
I ripped an entire album using wmp10 into wma 9.1 vbr as well as wma 9.1 cbr but my Karma would not play them, it just remained silent.
Always defragment your MP3s to avoid subtle lack in harmonics.

Is WMA a "gapless" solution?

Reply #6 –
Quote
I couldn't get either to play gapless on my computer using wmp10 however.[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=243218"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

philly4-

Are you saying that gapless tracks encoded WMA with WMP10 and played back with WMP10 do not playback gapless?  I found the same thing and am trying to confirm.

Did you try playing these same WMA tracks with another software player, e.g. Winamp or foobar, to see if they would play gapless?

Thanks.

Is WMA a "gapless" solution?

Reply #7 –
Quote
Are you saying that gapless tracks encoded WMA with WMP10 and played back with WMP10 do not playback gapless?


Yes, that is what happened.  Yes, I tried playing with winamp, but they don't even close play back gaplessly.  When a wma file starts to play, the name of the song on the playlist editor switches to "[opening...]" (or something to that effect) for a moment and then the song starts playing.  There is an obvious pause between songs when this is happening.  I'm using the wma plugin that comes with winamp.  Maybe another one would work better?  As far as foobar.  I don't have an input plugin for it and I'm not sure where to get one.  I looked on the foobar page but didn't see one.  I didn't put much effort into playing them gapless on my computer as the four wma's that I am testing here are the only four on my computer.

I also did another test with my karma.  I played song A with the flac source followed by song B with the dbpoweramp wma source.  The two played back gaplessly perfactly.  I'm guessing that the dbpoweramp wma plugin does not "finish" an encoding properly.

Edit:  Note: I used wma VBR encoding.  Maybe CBR will play back gapless with wmp10?
"Monkey see, monkey do, yeah."  David J. Matthews

Is WMA a "gapless" solution?

Reply #8 –
Quote
Yes, that is what happened...[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Thanks for your reply.

I have found that files created with the 9.1 version of the WMA encoder that installs with WMP10 can no longer be counted upon to play gaplessly.

Seeing that the Karma has been designed to make gapless work in as many cases as possible (Vorbis, MP3, FLAC), the fact that your WMA files "click" on the Karma is even more disappointing.

You can easily get the foobar WMA plug-in by going to this link, scrolling down the page and downloading and installing the "special" version.  It includes most all the popular add-ins.

[a href="http://www.foobar2000.org/download.html]http://www.foobar2000.org/download.html[/url]
 

Is WMA a "gapless" solution?

Reply #9 –
Quote
Seeing that the Karma has been designed to make gapless work in as many cases as possible (Vorbis, MP3, FLAC), the fact that your WMA files "click" on the Karma is even more disappointing.
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Yes, but only the files encoded with dbpoweramp.  The files encoded with wmp10 played gaplessly perfectly on the karma which means that in some way, there is a difference in the encoding.

I got the wma plugin for foobar and both sets had a small click between them until I turned on the gap killer DSP, then they both played back gapless.
"Monkey see, monkey do, yeah."  David J. Matthews