MP3 to WMA converter?

Vlad Tepes · Post by **Vlad Tepes** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 3:24 pm

Does anybody know of a free program that will convert MP3s to WMAs?

Vchat20 · Post by **Vchat20** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 3:36 pm

windows media encoder is free and its primary purpose is of course converting material to windows media (can do both audio and video)

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 6:07 pm

Cdex.

toastman · Post by **toastman** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 6:19 pm

I'm going to have to agree with Vchat on this one. If you want WMA, then definitely use Windows Media Encoder. Microsoft is the only one who can reliably follow their own formats since they change them up so often and never release the specifications of them.

MulletMan13 · Post by **MulletMan13** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 8:13 pm

Why would you want to do this?

... it's like recording your DVD to a MiniDisc (or another trashy format that isn't as versatile)...

ace · Post by **ace** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 10:07 pm

Smaller file size. My first mp3 player was a wma/mp3 player. I could fit nearly double the amount of wma files that I could mp3 files.

MKE · Post by **MKE** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 10:14 pm

i use itunes to do that when i need to...

Vchat20 · Post by **Vchat20** » Wed Mar 29, 2006 11:39 pm

agreed. although I prefer mp3 because it can go just about anywhere compared to wma (*cough* dvd player *cough*), wma beats mp3 in quality/bitrate ratio. Ive been able to have great sounding wma's at 96k/44khz/stereo

az_bont · Post by **az_bont** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 11:03 am

toastman wrote:I'm going to have to agree with Vchat on this one. If you want WMA, then definitely use Windows Media Encoder. Microsoft is the only one who can reliably follow their own formats since they change them up so often and never release the specifications of them.

Every programme I've seen than can create WMAs is simply a front-end that uses the official encoder.

I find dBPowerAmp to be fairly easy to use, and certainly less fiddly than using the actual Windows Media Encoder programme, particularly when dealing with lots of files.

Vchat20 wrote:wma beats mp3 in quality/bitrate ratio.

Actually, WMA is only superior at low bitrates. Once you get to around 128kbps, a properly-encoded MP3 will beat it by a not-insignificant amount.

http://www.rjamorim.com/test/multiforma ... sults.html

Since that test, LAME has seen a few performance increases, whilst WMA has stood still.

Luriden · Post by **Luriden** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 11:29 am

Thomas wrote:Cdex.

Vlad Tepes · Post by **Vlad Tepes** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 2:04 pm

The reason I want to convert MP3s to WMAs is because my cellphone (LG VX8100) has much better support for WMAs than for MP3s. It can play both, but since WMA is the officialy supported format, you can do things like create playlists and sort using the ID tags, where with MP3...all you can do is dump them in a folder and the only way to sort them is by file name. Also...with only 1GB of storage...the smaller file size is a plus. And...virtually every CD I own is currently in MP3 format on my harddrive...which is why I'm looking at converting as opposed to re-ripping from CDs.

MKE · Post by **MKE** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 2:21 pm

Vlad Tepes wrote:The reason I want to convert MP3s to WMAs is because my cellphone (LG VX8100) has much better support for WMAs than for MP3s. It can play both, but since WMA is the officialy supported format, you can do things like create playlists and sort using the ID tags, where with MP3...all you can do is dump them in a folder and the only way to sort them is by file name. Also...with only 1GB of storage...the smaller file size is a plus. And...virtually every CD I own is currently in MP3 format on my harddrive...which is why I'm looking at converting as opposed to re-ripping from CDs.

if you want to do that, then i would think itunes would be your best bet.