WMA Lossless Errors with Windows 10

[Rootdown4594]

It seems that I cannot convert to WMA lossless from any other codec without audible errors. If I convert from a full album that's error free there's a tendency for specific tracks to convert with audible pops, woops and cracks. If I try to reconvert again from the same error free file I get the same error in the new file in the exact same spot in the track. I have noticed that it only seems to happen with hi-res files or at least happens more often with hi-res files. Only happens with WMA. Flac and WAV convert perfectly.

This didn't seem to happen until I upgraded to Windows 10.

Is windows 10 not fully supported yet for the WMA codec?

[Spoon]

What is your player?

[Rootdown4594]

All players. I Have tried Multiple players(foobar, jriver, winamp, wmp...) including my phone and on other pc's. I always have the "After Encode Verify Audio" option turned on. It seems to be happening during conversion as I get a warning about errors after encoding.

[Spoon]

Just tried on my Windows 10, took a CD Quality file, converted to 'Windows Media Audio 9.2 Lossless', VBR Quality 100, 44KHz, 2 channel 16 bit VBR, no DSP effects, and checked 'After encoding Verify Audio', it passed that check.

[Rootdown4594]

Well it's not every file that gets errors. For example, If I convert an album, maybe 1 or 2 tracks out of ten might have errors. Some albums convert perfectly. But those two tracks will have errors every time I try to convert from the error free source file to wma lossless.

The last albums I tried to convert(Cage The Elephant - Tell Me I'm Pretty. Downloaded from PONO at 24bit 44khz flac) there's two tracks that will always convert with errors in the exact same spot in the song. Only those two specific tracks. I think it may only be happening with hi-res files(files more than 16 bit).

If I convert from FLAC to WAV, no error in those two tracks. If I convert from the 2 new error free wav tracks to wma lossless the errors are there again in the exact same spot.

[Spoon]

We had a reproducible case where a CD quality track would not encode lossless with WMA lossless, it was reported to Microsoft (as it affected their player and encoder also) 9 years ago, they never bothered to fix it, wma is dead...

[Rootdown4594]

Well that's a shame. Thanks for the quick replies, though. I guess i'll stick with flac. Was excited that flac was finally going to be natively supported with windows 10. The only reason I was using WMA was because flac wasn't natively supported in previous windows. But that hasn't gone so smoothly as windows 10 has a known problem reading flac tags that hasn't been fixed yet.

[mville]

Well that's a shame. Thanks for the quick replies, though. I guess i'll stick with flac. Was excited that flac was finally going to be natively supported with windows 10. The only reason I was using WMA was because flac wasn't natively supported in previous windows. But that hasn't gone so smoothly as windows 10 has a known problem reading flac tags that hasn't been fixed yet.

IMO, I would stay well away from wma files and Windows Media Player, as they are very troublesome. Flac files and foobar2000 are a far better solution, especially as you have high-res files.

[Rootdown4594]

I think it may be a system wide problem with DECODING wma's rather than converting. Now I've noticed that these old files pre windows 10 upgrage that were once free of audible glitches have the same loud pops and squeals(unless these old files got damaged somehow). My secondary laptop with windows 10 also has problems playing these files. I need to find an older version of windows to test out.

[Redd]

Odd thought, forgive my ignorance, but CAN the wma format support a 24-bit file from PONO?
I had thought the wma format was "capped" at traditional 16-bit format as a standard, or perhaps that's just as far as Windows supports it. The noise might be from "peaking" beyond what wma can do with a 24-bit source file?

[Rootdown4594]

WMA lossless can go all the way up to 24bit 192khz in stereo and 24bit 96khz in 5.1 surround sound.

[shadow667]

I cannot convert WMA lossless to any format on win 10 and they won't play with foobar2000 although WAV works normaly

[Spoon]

Can they play in windows media player?

[Redd]

Any chance that there are DRM (digital copyright management) restrictions in the way? Under NT6, I had the computer swearing it couldn't copy video files because of insufficient DRM rights. When I was the creator, author, full and sole owner of the video in question. Needless to say I have since disabled every DRM feature that could ever be disabled.

I'd also look for a workaround, i.e. open the files in Audacity and then export them to another format from there. Audacity is strictly an editor/converter, but a professional grade one that is free. Between it and dbPa, there's very little you can't do.