What characterizes the WMA format and what it is?

Many people still remember the days when the main program for viewing video on the computer was a standard "media player». Functionality it did not Shine, and the friendliness for inexperienced users did not differ. Only in 2000, Microsoft introduced to the public Windows Media Player 7.

It differed from its predecessor not only convenience, but also because it appeared to the WMA format, created by the company. What is it and where is it used? As we have said, it was designed in “jails” Microsoft had already realized that the fight with the triumphant March of the MP3 they have not.

In addition, their standard players at the time supported him not too adequately, and therefore is rapidly losing popularity. As a “folk” alternatives were created the WMA format, which has since started all crook “push” in Windows OS. The success of this practice mattered little, and not the last role in this played itself Redmondskaya management policy of the company.

Start with the fact that they made the WMA format fully proprietary - closed to distribute, modify and use in third-party products. And if their “Office” that gave positive effect (after all, the monopoly has not been canceled), to market multimedia formats, already filled with players, it was frankly silly.

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However, the characteristics of the WMA (Windows Media Audio) is not so bad. So, the manufacturer claims that it compressed the music file with a bitrate of 160 kbit/sec in terms of quality in no way inferior to an MP3 file with the same indicator in 256 kbit/sec. Debatable statement, and the first version did not support a higher bitrate, which made the WMA format is not too popular among audiophiles. In addition, when the frequency of sound above 15 kHz all the “excess” ruthlessly cut, so what about any "CD quality" could not be considered.

You Need to give credit to Microsoft: using their almost unlimited resources, they have achieved the introduction of support for their offspring in almost all “iron” and software players, so that today the desire to change the WMA format MP3 for playback in your player has lost its relevance. Moreover, with the distant 1995, when the first version, codec “grown” to its ninth reincarnation, which was corrected many errors of previous editions.

In particular, the sound quality is greatly increased, the opportunity of the two-pass VBR encoding, which automatically translated "forever forgotten” WMA to the category of strong enough players in the market of digital audio. In addition, a very famous and popular player Winamp can “Rob” in his music CDs, which requires only plug-in out_wma.dll.

So, not much point in redoing WMA MP3 no, because thanks to the persistence of Microsoft this codec is on par with competing formats supported by all devices and programs for playback of digital music. In addition, as a result of such conversion the sound quality may deteriorate significantly, it is unlikely you will please.