Windows Media Player 11 - which format?

pwl

I am using WMP 11 to synch with my Zen Vision M.

Under the Format tab on WMP 11, what should I be selecting - WMA, WMA Variable Bit Rate, MP3, WAV...??

Also, how do I select tag information?

Many thanks.

Peter

duncansby

The formats and bitrates are the settings you chose when you want to rip music from your CDs to play in your Zen.

You can use any of the formats for your creative zen. Certain formats are larger files, in theory giving better sound. For bit rate the higher the bit rate the better the quality, but then again the larger the file.

What you could do is rip the same song song in WMA 128 then 196 and see if you notice the difference when you listen on your zen. Try the same again comparing MP3 and WMA.

Personally if you cannot notice any difference in sound quality I would use the MP3 format, and that way if you change your Zen for an Ipod later on, you can still play all your ripped songs on it without too much hassle. Also 128 bit rate would let you store more songs

To select tag information right click on a song in your music library and select Advanced Tag editor.

superscaper

I think WMA is prefereable to MP3 as the compression is better, ie it takes up less space/can fit more songs on for the same bitrate/quality.

But I agree use your highest quality device you'd be using it on MP3 player/pc speakers and determine what you can actually get away without being able to tell the difference. Be careful of perceived increase in quality. Going overboard maybe get a friend to do a blind test for you so you're not fooled into thinking you can hear an improvement with higher bit rate.

pwl

Thank you both for your advice.

Cricri

I'd use MP3 because it's more compatible (although probably not much). For the same reason, I wouldn't recommend variable bit rate as some players don't particularly like it (for instance, the time indication might be wrong).

Don't use WAV: it's uncompressed and will take a lot of space.