How can I get WinAmp 5 to treat my lossless WMA files as audio and not video?

[ChristopherBlue]

WinAmp 5's media library catagorizes my lossless WMA files as video. I wish them to be catagorized as audio. How would I do this?

[Annon Kaies Zi]

I can't get Winamp 5.01 to play wma (audio) files at all.

[ChristopherBlue]

Annon Kaies Zi,

From the input plug-ins screen, delete the Microsoft WMA decoder and go into the properties of the Nullsoft Directshow decoder and add "WMA" to the list of extensions.

[Annon Kaies Zi]

Originally posted by ChristopherBlue
Annon Kaies Zi,

From the input plug-ins screen, delete the Microsoft WMA decoder and go into the properties of the Nullsoft Directshow decoder and add "WMA" to the list of extensions.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! *Continue until you get bored*

That was...easy. Thanks a lot for your help. Now my playlist is complete again! Fear Annon!

[DJ Egg]

Well, you see, that's the small price you pay...
All files associated with the DirectShow Decoder are classed as video formats by Winamp's library.
Which in most peoples' eyes is a good thing.
For instance, I've only got about 5 WMA's, so I'm glad that they don't infest my Audio section, and they're nice and easy to find in the video section.

You'll find that the vast majority of audiophiles wouldn't touch WMA (whether lossless or not) even if Microsoft paid them to do so.

That all said and done, full WMA9 support is planned for a later 5.x release, so you'll then be able to use in_wm.dll again. Don't think it'll be for the soon-coming 5.02 though...

[WHEREamI]

lol. it's a good thing Annon Kaies Zi asked, eh?

Under "Local Media" right click on Audio and select "Edit view..."
Replace "Query" with:
(type = 0) OR (filename ends wma)

Repeat for "Video"
Query: (type = 1) AND !(filename ends wma)


Yeah, it's nasty, but should work.

[DJ Egg]

Go Sawg Go!

[ChristopherBlue]

What is so nasty about lossless WMA? I mean when I encode my CD WAVs I make darn sure they don't have DRM on.

[ChristopherBlue]

Wow thanks Sawg! That really did the trick.

If you want to go Lossless we recommend FLAC or Monkey's Audio. Both are more open and better then the WMA format.

[Alltaken]

yes i use FLAC for my lossless audio needs, i don't know how they compare in size to a WMA lossless file, but i trust them a bit more (for compnay/license reasons)


you can transcode WMA lossless files to FLAC i presume pretty easily without any loss in quality. FLAC files play flawlessly in Winamp with the plugin.

but in all honesty i don't see the issue with WMA lossless as a format except the microsoft element.


Alltaken

[ChristopherBlue]

I am going to convert my lossless WMAs to FLACs. Will dBPowerAMP and the FLAC 4.1 codec do the trick?

[ChristopherBlue]

Say, WinAmp5 won't play my sample FLAC file! Where do I get the offical input plug-in?

[DJ Egg]

Originally posted by Sawg
If you want to go Lossless we recommend FLAC or Monkey's Audio. Both are more open and better then the WMA format.

http://flac.sourceforge.net/download.html

Windows -> FLAC 1.1.0 for Windows with installer

Close Winamp, run FLAC installer, make sure FLAC plugin is checkmarked...

[ChristopherBlue]

Thank you DJ Egg! Say, should I use Ogg tags or ID3 tags?

[WHEREamI]

Ogg. FLAC is an Ogg stream. ID3 would be kinda a hack into the format, causing issues similar to tagging AAC with ID3 instead of it's native tag format.