WMA on the Optimus S?

[tcleg]

On LG's website, it says the Optimus S has WMA audio support. But, when I go to play a WMA file on my device, it will stall the music player or skip to the next song if it can. Although, I find it strange that some WMA files will play while others will not although they have all been ripped by the same software (Rhapsody) into the same format.

Does anyone else have a similar problem on this phone? I'm still trying to figure out if this device has WMA support to an extent or not.

 

[twtippets]

I would suggest using Winamp or Itunes and converting them all into MP3 or MP4 as WMA is an older encoding format and not used as frequently. I know that it is kind of a PITA, but that will ensure the greatest playback on the greatest number of devices. Or the other option is to get a Windows Phone. Haha, j/k don't get a windows phone.

 

[tirith]

Poweramp plays just about anything... I never got wma to work on my optimus

Sent using my MoPho-King photon

 

[tcleg]

Thanks for the responses. I thought it was a little strange that I couldn't get WMA to work on my Optimus.

As for the reason why I have a lot of my music in the WMA format, Rhapsody lost their privilege to rip CD's in an MP3 format (looks like some people own the rights to MP3 after all). And, I realized after getting this phone, my first android phone, that Rhapsody had encoded all of my previous music into the WMA format (tough beans for me when you think about it).

So, I've decided to just go ahead and convert my music into MP3 for future compatibility reasons. Btw, I did try out the free trial of PowerAmp and found that it would constantly lock up on me on the Optimus. Maybe they'll get those bugs worked out in due time.

 

[tirith]

I never had a problem with pa on my opti... But that was also early last year ..

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[RazzMaTazz]

I also had trouble playing SOME (NOT ALL) WMA files on my Optimus S. But I'm pretty sure that it's not an Optimus S issue, it's an Android OS library issue. It depends on the encoder used to create them. PowerAmp played them all, and so did BoomBoxoid. (Apparently they have additional libraries rather than just relying on Android's libraries.) But no matter how I tweaked the settings on PowerAmp, the volume was too low (maybe 20-30% lower). And BoomBoxoid's UI wasn't good enough. (It may be acceptable by now. I'm not sure.) So eventually, I just bit the bullet, and suffered the transcoding sound-quality degradation, and the crappier-old-technology-MP3 sound-quality degradating by transcoding my WMAs to MP3s. I did this for my portable music collection only. My home music collection of CD-rips is still in WMA-lossless and my earlier downloads are still in 192kbps WMA-lossy, though now I just download music as 320kbps MP3s.

It really sucks that Google/Android didn't provide reasonable support for a popular format, like WMA. I know the guy who manages the media-portion of Android's development group and I asked him why they didn't solve that WMA problem. He said that WMA just isn't high enough priority. I'm sure that it's related tot he fact that they don't want to help their arch-enemy Microsoft in anyway.

By the way, you can use the free, open-souce app, Fre:AC to do batch transcoding. You can also use dbPowerAmp, but it's not free (though the trial version may be good enough for a one-time trancode).

 

[tirith]

Honestly, poweramp was louder in my optimus than any other... And same on my photon

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[tcleg]

I heard that Android 2.1 and below had support for WMA but was cut out for some reason. While I was looking for a solution for this WMA not playing problem, I found an article that said that Microsoft asked Google to take WMA support out of Android. And, that's the way it has been ever since.

I also found it strange that I could not get the audio in my 3gp video files to work in the Windows Media Player. Then, I looked up why and found that Windows had chosen not to support it (although it is a standard). Luckily, I was able to remedy this by downloading a free 3gp video codec to Windows 7 and that solved the problem.

I think I can see why Android has gotten the "geeky" label after all and why people go with the Apple "walled garden" experience.

 

[tirith]

I heard that Android 2.1 and below had support for WMA but was cut out for some reason. While I was looking for a solution for this WMA not playing problem, I found an article that said that Microsoft asked Google to take WMA support out of Android. And, that's the way it has been ever since.

I also found it strange that I could not get the audio in my 3gp video files to work in the Windows Media Player. Then, I looked up why and found that Windows had chosen not to support it (although it is a standard). Luckily, I was able to remedy this by downloading a free 3gp video codec to Windows 7 and that solved the problem.

I think I can see why Android has gotten the "geeky" label after all and why people go with the Apple "walled garden" experience.

Vlc player on win7 will play 3gp, along with anything else you can possibly throw at it

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