WMP 12 - burns inaccurately?

2011-06-12 18:09:40

Has anyone found that Windows Media Player doesn't burn audio as it should? (I have version 12 - haven't used earlier versions for this.)

I ripped an album with EAC to uncompressed WAV, and burned it to a CDR again with EAC, using the correct offsets. When reripping the CDR with EAC, the original rip wavs and CDR rerip wavs matched perfectly.

However, when burning the wavs to another CDR with WMP12 and reripping with EAC, the wavs were completely different. I checked with "EAC Wav Compare" and also by eye with a hex editor, taking into account the 6 sample (24 bytes) offset due to using WMP - the 00s and FFs lined up in the editor, but other numbers were slightly different all over the place. (But at least the WMP rerip and original wavs sounded the same - to my ears at least.)

I shall obviously use EAC for burning from now on, but don't understand why WMP would change the data when burning wavs.

Bluto

WMP 12 - burns inaccurately?

Reply #1 – 2011-06-12 18:15:03

My first guess was that WMP applied normalisation. Sure enough, a quick Google search suggests that this is indeed an option, which perhaps was enabled unawares of yourself (perhaps by default). Its location in the preferences is specified here: link.

WMP 12 - burns inaccurately?

Reply #2 – 2011-06-12 19:39:59

You're absolutely right! I've taken another look at the options, and sure enough "normalisation" is enabled by default. I hadn't thought of that possibility, and my own searches on Google had been fruitless. Many thanks for the quick response.

Bluto

WMP 12 - burns inaccurately?

Reply #3 – 2011-06-12 21:16:37

No problem; I must admit that while it was one of the first results, it wasn’t the most obvious.

WMP 12 - burns inaccurately?

Reply #4 – 2011-06-12 22:36:48

I don't refer to it as Windows Media *Slayer* for nothin'...