Cant play 24bit files. Why?

[supster]

Re: Cant play 24bit files. Why?

Control Panel > Syetem> Hardware > Device manager and look at Sound, video and game controllers and again focus on anything to do with yoour sound card and audio codecs.
.

ok, under Sound, video and game controllers there is the entry for Audio Codecs

question:

which of these codecs is Microsofts codec for decoding 24bit PCM files?

if i can repair/replace this codec, maybe this is the solution to my issue

codec experts? anybody?

.

[ChristinaS]

Re: Cant play 24bit files. Why?

First of all try to convert a good 16-bit wav to a 24-bit wav using dMC and see if that works. And after that see if it plays.

If that's ok, then there's somehting fishy about your 24-bit waves that come from your DAW, and something else needs to be looked at.

[supster]

Re: Cant play 24bit files. Why?

If that's ok, then there's somehting fishy about your 24-bit waves that come from your DAW, and something else needs to be looked at.

no, as i stated earlier ... its all 24bit/44k pcm wav files regarless of source, filename, or anything else.

are there any other recommended sources of codec information online that someone can point me too?

just trying to get the proper codec on my system, i really want to avoid reinstalling windows as this is probably a 5 hour project (with all my applications) that should be unnecessary

thanks
.

[Spoon]

Re: Cant play 24bit files. Why?

Programs do not rely on WMP for codecs, or the system - for uncompressed audio all programs decode themselves. If you can convert from 24 bit using dmc to 16 bit and the 16 bit is fine, then my Audio player will be doing the same, it is the sound card that is not opening.

In dMC Configuration >> Options - set the wave header to WaveFormatExtensible, WMP might prefer that.

[xoas]

Re: Cant play 24bit files. Why?

If Spoon's suggestiion does not work, I do have a suggestion.

(First, to review the situation as I understand it)
If I understand correctly, you have some 24 bit pcm wave files at 44.1 kHz, some produced by your DAW, some from other sources.
These files play in your DAW, they Test Convert successfully in dMC, you can convert them to 16 bit pcm wave at 44.1 kHz and the converted wave files play ok in WMP and in dAP.
However, the original 24 bit files will NOT play in either WMP or in dAP and you need to be able to audition these tracks. I assume you need to be able to audition in a generic player (such as WMP) and in 24 bit.

My suggestion is this:
Try converting some of these 24 bit pcm wave files recognized and playable in your DAW to 24 bit pcm wave files using dMC (saving your original files of course). Try playing these converted files in WMP or dAP.

If these files (the ones created by dMC) play, then your original files are suspect and either you can convert these files to 24 bit wave with dMC and get on with your audition process or play "codec in a haystack" to try to find the correct codec (you might try contacting Technical Support for your DAW for help on this point).

If the sample files converted to 24 bit wave with dMC do not play in WMP or in dAP, make copies of the original files and the "converted" files to cd-r/rw. Try playing these tracks on another computer with 24-bit sound card support. If they play on another computer, then it would seem that your sound card is suspect.

If these tracks do not play on another computer, this would again seem to suggest a codec problem. In that case, the quickest way out of the predicament would be to convert these files to 16 bit wave with dMC (saving the originals) and audition those. (You could re-convert the files to 24 bit using the 24 bit dsp, although this would be inferior to using the originals).

The other drawback, of which I am mindful is that all this conversion will take some time (even if you are converting to 24 bit wave). But if this works, you could start on these conversions while working on other strategies for dealing with this problem.

Best wishes,
Bill

[supster]

Re: Cant play 24bit files. Why?

Programs do not rely on WMP for codecs, or the system - for uncompressed audio all programs decode themselves. If you can convert from 24 bit using dmc to 16 bit and the 16 bit is fine, then my Audio player will be doing the same, it is the sound card that is not opening.

In dMC Configuration >> Options - set the wave header to WaveFormatExtensible, WMP might prefer that.

thanks for all the replies

you lost me there, the only interface i get for the converter is the explorer extension, how do i find the options?
.

[supster]

Re: Cant play 24bit files. Why?

My suggestion is this:
Try converting some of these 24 bit pcm wave files recognized and playable in your DAW to 24 bit pcm wave files using dMC (saving your original files of course). Try playing these converted files in WMP or dAP.

yes! that did it!

converting these files using 24bit (DVD) / 44k Channels as Source now
lets my files play

"why" is the part i dont understand, in the properties of the file it no
longer says 'PCM' ... wondering whats going on here as i guess i dont
understand the PCM format and what makes it different

great product though people. love it, now i can continue to work

[ChristinaS]

Re: Cant play 24bit files. Why?

thanks for all the replies

you lost me there, the only interface i get for the converter is the explorer extension, how do i find the options?
.

The program dMC Configuration (part of the package when you installed dBpowerAMP Music Converter).

It has a tab for Options. Assuming you have the latest version 11.5 - as I don't remember if that setting was available before. There used to be no tabs in dMC Configuration in earlier versions.

Very glad to see it all got sorted. Good work Xoas

[xoas]

Re: Cant play 24bit files. Why?

"why" is the part i dont understand, in the properties of the file it no
longer says 'PCM' ... wondering whats going on here as i guess i dont
understand the PCM format and what makes it different

I don't know for sure myself. I was struck by the paradox of dMC being able to convert a file that dAP didn't/couldn't play and I was struck by the fact that the same tracks converted to 16 bit wave with dMC would play. This suggested to me that there was some information somewhere in the file that was causing dAP and WMP to misread the files but which dMC seemed to be able to "correct". This, in turn, suggested the strategy of laundering these files through dMC at 24 bit.

If Spoon's suggestion works, it might be preferable although I am not sure if that change would have any effect upon WMP being able to play these files. I think you do need pretty much the latest version of dMC because my 11.5 beta version does not have the Options feature. Time to upgrade I guess.

I would think that in the long run Supster might want to discuss this problem with Ableton, since their hardware/software seems to be at least partly involved ("at least partly" because these issues were occurring with 24-bit wave files from other sources as well). Perhaps they can provide some guidance as to the source of the problem and some guidance on how to avoid it in the first place.

Glad things are working out.

Best wishes,
Bill

[xoas]

Re: Cant play 24bit files. Why?

Of course, the question still remains "Why can dMC read and convert these files but dAP doesn't seem to be able to play them????????????????????????????????????????"

[Spoon]

Re: Cant play 24bit files. Why?

Hold the mouse over each audio file (one that does not work and one converted) what format does it say?

[supster]

Re: Cant play 24bit files. Why?

Hold the mouse over each audio file (one that does not work and one converted) what format does it say?

all of the files that wont play are PCM files. otherwise, no difference

files with properties that dont say 'PCM' play fine.

anyway: spoke a bit too soon on this issue ....

converted at least 90% of my drum samples last nite using DMC - mass converting directories using "wav / 24bit (DVD) / 44khz / Channels As Source" settings

went pretty fast because i was selecting whole directories and mass converting,
but it still took about 1/2 hr / 45 minutes to do this (now you can see the amount of material i want to be able to sort, and what a problem this has been)

came back tonite:

there are still some files that werent converted, so i tried to convert them as i went along

now the method is not working:

when i convert using DMC and last nites settings .. no change ... the file still says PCM and the file wont play

??

ie. last nite it was stripping away the PCM component. tonite it isnt

why?
.

[xoas]

Re: Cant play 24bit files. Why?

I was afraid of that.
Do these files test convert successfully?
The two explanations I would have would be either:
The files that won't convert have additional irregularities that prevent their conversion (and/or their playback), or
the files that won't convert are exceptionally short (1-2 seconds or less).

In either case, I strongly suspect there is some kind of regularity as to what files will convert and what ones will not, and that files that will not convert will consistently not convert.

The only other measure I can think of, if these files will still test convert, is that you try converting them again to 24 bit wave, 44.1 kHz, Channels As Source, with the 24 Bit DSP effect enabled through dMC's DSP Effects and (for good measure) making sure you have Professional Frequency Conversion enabled (this is set through dMC Configuration, Start> All Programs> Configuration> dBpowerAMP Music Converter Configuration).

If these measures do not work, you might want to consider making such a file available for examination and tinkering.

Best wishes,
Bill

[xoas]

Re: Cant play 24bit files. Why?

Supster-
Another thing you could do is to record your tracks from your soundcard as you play them in Ableton Live to 24 bit wave using dMC Auxilary Input. However, this might be good if we can further reduce the number of unconverted tracks and assuming the files are of a decent size.
It might help if you could post the complete file properties dialogue for one of the tracks you could convert via dMC (both before and after conversion) and for one of your remaining tracks that will not (you can scrub any identifiers that might compromise the confidentiality of you or your sources or clients). If you have trouble posting this, please let us know and we will work that out.

Are these files very short? We ran into a problem with converting very short (under 1-2 seconds) wave files at unusual frequencies. One of the things we were able to do was to find lossless intermediate conversions. The trouble was that different files would convert only with different codecs. I am not sure this would be a decent solution for your problem or not. Another approach to these very short files was adding silence to the beginning and/or end of the track (although the added silence would later need to be removed). Again, this might not make any difference if your problem is not related to filesize.

Keep us posted.

Best wishes,
Bill

I assumed in my last post that you have not had further problems with playing the 90% of files you were able to "convert" to 24 bit wave at 44.1 kHz with dMC. If this assumption is not correct, please let us know (with as much detail as you can muster).

I am assuming that the 10% of files that did not convert (or maybe they seemed to convert but wouldn't play) will consistently fail to do so (short of the recommendations I made about using the 24 bit DSP effect and making sure Professional Frequency Conversion is enabled). Does anything strike you as being different about these files as opposed to the ones that did convert to a playable state?

[guthrytrojan]

Re: Cant play 24bit files. Why?

I've been following this thread with some interest because I have encountered the same problem, namely, that I cannot play any 24bit 44.1Khz files with WMA player 10.
I can verify though that the problem {in my case at least] does not lie exclusively with the sound card because it is also impossible to play them with WMA player through my external audio interface -which is well able to handle the format.
This leads me to think that the problem does indeed lie with some missing codec, although why anything else should be required to play a standard PCM WAV file - I have no idea. Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
GT