Amarock - wma format questions

[stan]

Daniel B. Thurman wrote:
> I have several wma file that plays fine on amarock, but then again there
> are some wma files that won't play at all.  In the ones that fail, I get a
> message saying: "There is no available decoder", it does not say
> anything else.
>
> >From what I read about wma format on wiki - there were several kinds
> of releases, specifically they talk about 4 distinct formats - none which
> are compatable wrt to each other, so would that mean one would need
> the 4 different codecs when playing "wma" tagged files?  Geez.
>   
That is determined by microsoft.  They must have mutated wma through 4 
incarnations.
> The thing here, is that these wma files plays on windoes media player
> just fine, but not amarock - sigh.
>   
They were created by windows (I think wma stands for windows multimedia 
audio) so
it is not surprising they are supported there.  No doubt the codecs are 
proprietary.
> Oh yeah - another question - why is it of the *many* windows/linux
> wma to mp3 converters fail to convert?  Everything from "specificed
> source format could not be read", or "You need to update to directx 8.1
> or above", or "Missing/corrupted keys (DRM)".
>   
Again, missing codecs.  I think if you get the codecs from mplayer you 
will be OK
but I'm not sure.  I very rarely encounter wma.  It can play wmv though, 
so likely
has the codes for wma.  Other possibilities are sox (command line),
xine, xmms.
> Does anyone recommend a good wma to mp3 converter?  I would like
> to convert all of my wma file into mp3 for universal compatability.
>   
You're more likely to find this for windows.  So you would run the 
conversion on windows where
the codecs for wma were written by microsoft.  A search should find lots 
of candidates.
> Thanks-
> Dan
>
>
>