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T O P I C     R E V I E W HoD Here's how I figured out how to use Audiograbber to encode in WMA 9 format: 1. Go to this Microsoft page: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/encoder/default.mspx and download and install the WMA 9 encoder ("Windows Media Encoder 9 Series"). 2. Open Notepad and paste this line: cscript.exe wmcmd.vbs -input %1 -output %2 -a_codec %3 -a_mode %4 -a_setting %5 and Save As "audiograbber.bat" (choose "All Files" in the "Save as type:" drop-down menu) in the same directory where WMA 9 encoder installed - it should be the "\Program Files\Windows Media Components\Encoder\" folder. 3. In Audiograbber, choose Settings/MP3 Settings.... and click on "External Encoder" 4. Click "Browse" next to the window labeled "External MP3 Program Name" and choose "Files of Type: Batch Files (*.bat)" from the drop-down menu then surf to "\Program Files\Windows Media Components\Encoder\" and select "audiograbber.bat". 5. Under "Predefined arguments" choose "User Defined", then in the "Arguments:" box put: %s %d WMA9STD 2 Q98_44_2 That will give you Quality-based VBR, Q98, 44KHz sampling rate, 2 chs. 6. In the File Extension box, type "wma". For the third argument (the WMA9STD), the other options are: WMA9STD: Windows Media Audio 9 (default). WMA9PRO: Windows Media Audio 9 Professional WMSP9: Windows Media Audio 9 Voice WMA9LSL: Windows Media Audio 9 Lossless; -a_mode 2 required PCM: No compression For the fourth argument (the 2 in the example above), the options are: 0: 1-pass CBR (default). 1: 2-pass CBR. 2: Quality-based VBR. 3: Bit rate-based VBR (two-pass). 4: Bit rate-based peak VBR (two-pass). For the fifth argument, using the standard codec, if you want i.e. Q90 instead, it would be: Q90_44_2 For WMA 9 Lossless, the Arguments line is: %s %d WMA9LSL 2 Q100_44_2_24 Note the extra paremeter (24 = bit depth). For complete details of the options available, open a command prompt in the "\Program Files\Windows Media Components\Encoder\" folder and type: cscript.exe wmcmd.vbs /? Now, when I want to encode in mp3, I just choose "Internal Encoder", and when I want to encode to WMA I choose "External Encoder". I hope this helps someone. <FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1" FACE="Verdana, Arial">[This message has been edited by HoD on 07 November 2005 @ 02:14]</font> <FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1" FACE="Verdana, Arial">[This message has been edited by HoD on 07 November 2005 @ 02:17]</font> <FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1" FACE="Verdana, Arial">[This message has been edited by HoD on 11 September 2006 @ 15:46]</font> <FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1" FACE="Verdana, Arial">[This message has been edited by HoD on 11 September 2006 @ 15:48]</font> [This message has been edited by HoD on 11 September 2006 @ 15:53] mppohl Thank you I'll try...although I'm not a code writer..I'll figure it out Cheers M jmvideo Hi Can you tell me what parameters to use to rip to WMA 9 voice, medium setting? Many thanks in advance. John HoD quote: Originally posted by jmvideo: Hi Can you tell me what parameters to use to rip to WMA 9 voice, medium setting? Many thanks in advance. John (Note that I have updated my instructions above.) Hello John - In Step 5 above, substitute this line: %s %d WMSP9 0 10_11_1 That will give you Windows Media Audio 9 Voice CODEC, 1-pass CBR, 10kbps bitrate, 11KHz sampling rate, mono. That is the "medium" quality setting for the Voice Codec - suitable for encoding dictation. The other settings for the Voice CODEC are: Argument Bitrate Sampling rate Channel ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 20_22_1 20 22 1 16_16_1 16 16 1 12_16_1 12 16 1 10_11_1 10 11 1 8_8_1 8 8 1 5_8_1 5 8 1 4_8_1 4 8 1 To get the entire list of supported audio formats for each codec, type: cscript.exe wmcmd.vbs -a_formats >formats.txt at the command prompt in the "\Program Files\Windows Media Components\Encoder\" folder, and that will create a text file called "formats.txt" in that folder with a list of all the formats for each codec. HTH. [This message has been edited by HoD on 11 September 2006 @ 16:26] HoD BTW, this is *very important* ----- On the "Settings" menu, under "CD-ROM Access Method", if you have "ASPI" selected, then DO NOT check "Rip as much as possible to RAM" !!!! Because if it is checked, the WMA9 encoder will not work with Audiograbber - it gives some strange error about "output format incorrect". With that box unchecked, everything works great. ???????????? jmvideo Many thanks for taking the time to explain. Kind regards John Tomb Some good stuff here HoD. I will add to my Audiograbber pages, crediting yourself of course. ------------------ Tom Please Read this before asking any questions. It makes life easier. My Audiograbber Guides HoD Thanks, Tom. I'm happy to help. One additional thing: If for any reason you need to diagnose a problem, then in step #2 above, add a "Pause" command to your "audiograbber.bat" batch file. In other words, your batch file will now look like this: cscript.exe wmcmd.vbs -input %1 -output %2 -a_codec %3 -a_mode %4 -a_setting %5 pause With the "pause" command, you will get the "Press Any Key to Continue" prompt before the DOS box closes, so you will have time to read any error messages. That's how I discovered the problem with having the "Rip as much as possible to RAM" option checked, after much trial-and-error (2hrs worth!). HTH. jmpaul I used the "pause" method and I am getting the following error on one of my computers (the external wme 9 works ok on two others but this one has a better sound card): C:\Program Files\Windows Media Components\Encoder\wmcmd.vbs<378, 1> WScript.CreateObject: Could not create object named "Scripting.FileSystemObject". I've seen in the other machines it can be sensitive to where the files are saved, but this does not seem to be the issue here. Please advise if possible. Thanks HoD Hello jmpaul - The "wmcmd.vbs" file is a Visual Basic Scripting file (that's what the .VBS stands for), so if your computer is giving you an error, then maybe you need to install the Microsoft Visual Basic support files found here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/192461 Download and install the VBRun60.exe package. It's likely that some other program you nstalled on the other two computers alreadyinstalled the necessary Visual Basic support files for you. Let me know if this fixes the problem or not. HoD jmpaul - Another possibility. The error: C:\Program Files\Windows Media Components\Encoder\wmcmd.vbs<378, 1> WScript.CreateObject: Could not create object named "Scripting.FileSystemObject". might be caused if you are logged on as a user that does not have permissions to write to whatever folder where the script is trying to create "Scripting.FileSystemObject". Try logging on as a user with Administrator privileges and see if the problem goes away. If so, you will need to modify the ACL (Access Control List) for the relevent folder to give your regular user account write priveleges. Just right-click on the folder, choose "Sharing and Security" or "Properties", then click on the "Security" tab to see the ACL for the folder. [This message has been edited by HoD on 25 February 2007 @ 18:14] jmpaul Thanks for the info. But it has not worked. I do have admin access, it's a personal laptop, as is another that the process works ok. I loaded the vbs and the machine has "vbscript.dll" in the system32 folder among other places. This machine has programs from the Creative Sound Card, including a Media conversion program (wav to wma etc.) I removed this program and the wme program, and reinstalled wme, but still no good. Maybe it's still related to the sound card. I can use the Creative conversion program, but it's a big hassle compared to the simple process here. HoD jmpaul - I opened WMCmd.vbs in Notepad, and I found the line that is causing you an error: set g_objFileSystem = WScript.CreateObject( "Scripting.FileSystemObject" ) Unfortunately, my knowledge of Visual Basic scripting files is very limited, so I have no idea what that command works on two of your computers but not the third, beyond what I already suggested. I suggest you search for a VISUAL Basic support forum - I think Microsoft has one - and ask there what could cause the WScript.CreateObject command to fail. Maybe try googling "WScript.CreateObject" first. Let us know if you find the answer and good luck. HTH. <FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1" FACE="Verdana, Arial">[This message has been edited by HoD on 28 February 2007 @ 13:36]</font> [This message has been edited by HoD on 28 February 2007 @ 13:36] HoD quote: Originally posted by Tomb: Some good stuff here HoD. I will add to my Audiograbber pages, crediting yourself of course. Tom - I just checked your page (very useful page), but I can't find my guide for ripping to WMA under "External Encoders and their Arguments", or anywhere else on your page. Is it there? Tomb I must admit I haven't added it yet. In fact the whole guide is due for an overhaul and I was going to add it then. Have you got a draft or something or shall I just cut and paste the info from this thread? ------------------ Tom Please Read this before asking any questions. It makes life easier. My Audiograbber Guides HoD Sure, just c&p from this thread. Thanks. johnbrown001 HoD, you are a GoD! I was looking for a way to use audiograbber to combine tracks and rip them to WMA 9. The first part was easy, but the second part was much trickier. I couldn't find the encoder in Windows Media Player and almost gave up until I read your post. Your recommendations worked perfectly, and the parameters given in the wmcmd.vbs file are fairly comprehensive, except for one thing. Using the WMA9STD quality-based VBR, only a few Q settings are allowed (10, 25, 50, 75, 90 & 100) in the user defined argument %s %d WMA9STD 2 Qxx_44_2 where xx is the Q setting. Anything other than the allowed numbers automatically defaults to 100. In Windows Media Player, these numbers correspond to the WMA (vbr) sliding scale in the "Rip Music" tab of the "Options" menu as follows. If the furthest left of the scale (smallest size) is 1 and the next setting 2, then the furthest right of the scale (best quality) is a 5. Qxx = scale y Q25 = scale 1 Q50 = scale 2 Q75 = scale 3 Q90 = scale 4 Q100 = scale 5 I have not found this information elsewhere and am fairly confident of the correspondence. [This message has been edited by johnbrown001 on 17 April 2007 @ 23:17] johnbrown001 I have not had any problems with HoD's suggestions, but my ripped wma files are missing track numbers. I've tried both the ID3v1 and ID3v2 options and adding "%3" to the user defined arguments field in the "External Encoder" tab of the "MP3 Settings" menu, but nothing works. I also wasn't able to find any information on these forums, the help section, or in the wmcmd.vbs file of the WMA 9 encoder. Does anyone know of a way to add back in track numbers? If not, then can anyone recommend a freeware ID3 tagger compatible with WMA 9? Thanks <FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1" FACE="Verdana, Arial">[This message has been edited by johnbrown001 on 18 April 2007 @ 15:54]</font> [This message has been edited by johnbrown001 on 19 April 2007 @ 13:31] Tomb quote: Originally posted by johnbrown001: If not, then can anyone recommend a freeware ID3 tagger compatible with WMA 9? MP3 Tag ------------------ Tom Please Read this before asking any questions. It makes life easier. My Audiograbber Guides johnbrown001 Thank you very much, Tom, for that excellent recommendation and link. I tried some other freeware ID3 taggers and editors but some of them could only edit and not add data to files, and others did not recognize wma files at all. Mp3tag v2.37a does all of the above and much more. Thanks again. HWL I woudld like some script help writing a scheduler for WME9 to start and stop an recurring (daily) encode in addition to Taskmanager. I am willing to pay.... any sample scripts out there too? Thanks info at cabida - com sticker9 I have recorded original CD's and produced them with red hat compliant software, made the cd in WMA, WAV and MP3, all versions with the publishing info on the cd. When read thru windows explorer, for example, the data is there, but when a cd is placed in the computer player, windows media, nor iTunes see's the info...NOR does audiograbber. What am I doing wrong...?? AND how can I update freedb as well as cddb with my info. Thanks