Help not all wma's are equal

[Brynk]

I transfered several albums from my pc tothe sd card
All songs are wma file types
Droid won't play any songs from a few of the albums
Error says:
Sorry, the player does not support this type of audio file

when I click a problem song, located on the Droid, from my pc, it plays fine, so it's not corrupted.

any ideas?

Thanks, Barry

 

[Venom51]

Those were encoded with the DRM turned on in Media Player I suspect. Unless they came from other sources.

 

[Brynk]

thanks, but not sure what that means
they were ripped to my pc from cd's like all the other ones
is there anything I can do?

Thanks, Barry

 

[vincentp]

Have you tried any third party music player apps to see if they can play them?

 

[Brynk]

Yes, I have used the default app and Meridian w/ the same result

 

[vincentp]

Hmm.. were they all ripped with the same program, same bitrate and all? I don't know too much about WMA files, unfortunately.

 

[Brynk]

yes, all ripped w/ Vista's basic media player

 

[vincentp]

I suppose it is possible that the CD was DRM protected somehow, but that wouldn't explain why you were still able to rip the files, or why they play on your PC without issue. I'm assuming it's all files from the same albums that don't work.

 

[kennyidaho]

Well just because there where all ripped with the same player does not mean they have the same DRM on them.

DRM == Digital Rights Management == We not you the consumer decide on what devices and software your file works on.

WMA == Windows Media Audio == Windows as in Microsoft Windows

If a particular setting in Windows Media player is clicked when you rip your CD's it will "protect" your files. This protection is questionable as you clearly can see. Also if you ripped it with a higher bit rate (better quality and larger file) or in lossless you will run into problems.

As far as I know Android has NO native support for .wma files - this should be no surprise because in fact many of Microsofts own products have difficulties with the mess that is .wma files.

A few things that you can do:
DoubleTwist might be able to help you out google it.
Convert these files to something else ASAP! Forever abandon the format and save yourself future problems.

 

[Brynk]

yes, it's an album problem
either all songs in the album works or all don't

 

[Venom51]

I have 32 gigs of music ripped with Media Player without letting it protect my content and all 32 gigs of Lossless WMA ripped at 128 Kbps work just fine on the Droid.

I suspect if you tried to play them on any player that's not your specific PC they will fail.

 

[vincentp]

True. You could just rip them to MP3's instead and avoid the problem all together.

 

[kennyidaho]

yes, it's an album problem
either all songs in the album works or all don't

Then I bet it's entirely some sort of DRM.

That's good info to know Venom51.

 

[Brynk]

I have 32 gigs of music ripped with Media Player without letting it protect my content and all 32 gigs of Lossless WMA ripped at 128 Kbps work just fine on the Droid.

I suspect if you tried to play them on any player that's not your specific PC they will fail.

No, I have freely transferred them to at least 3 different pc's

 

[Venom51]

No, I have freely transferred them to at least 3 different pc's

Perhaps there is a limitation to the bitrate of the player we are unaware of at this time concerning WMA encoded content. Can you play one at the PC in media player and view the statistics to find out the encoded bit rate. It won't tell us anything about DRM but may point out something else.

 

[kennyidaho]

No, I have freely transferred them to at least 3 different pc's

Windows PC's using Media Player???

Have you tried these files with any other media player or device that would NOT use the installed windows codecs?

 

[Homestar1217]

I recently ran into a sort of similar problem with my Vibrant and ran into this thread while trying to google a solution. I know I don't have a Droid, but I do know a bit about wma, I was a bit of a fanboy...

I have 32 gigs of music ripped with Media Player without letting it protect my content and all 32 gigs of Lossless WMA ripped at 128 Kbps work just fine on the Droid.

I suspect if you tried to play them on any player that's not your specific PC they will fail.

I'm not sure how you encoded lossless files at a 128k bitrate, that seems utterly pointless, and not possible that I'm aware of in Media Player 11 at least. Lossless files are meant to be encoded at the highest bitrate possible in order to keep the quality as close to CD audio as possible. Every file I have that's wma lossless, for example, is encoded at around 1mpbs and is about 30Mb in size. These are the ones that don't work with the Vibrant player. If you do have 128k files that play fine on the Droid I might have to try having media player down convert as it transfers to the phone and see if that works. If the OP has the same types of files as me, then the bitrate being too high may indeed be the problem. Just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents!