WMA and WAV File Formats

WMA consists of four distinct codecs. The original WMA codec, known simply as WMA, was conceived as a competitor to the popular MP3 and RealAudio codecs. Apart from Windows Media Player, the WMA format can be played using MPlayer, RealPlayer, Winamp (with certain limitations—DSP plugin support and DirectSound output is disabled using the default WMA plugin), and many other software media players. The Microsoft Zune media management software supports most WMA codecs, but uses a variation of Windows Media DRM which is used by PlaysForSure.

A WMA file is in most circumstances encapsulated, or contained, in the Advanced Systems Format (ASF) container format, featuring a single audio track in one of following codecs: WMA, WMA Pro, WMA Lossless, or WMA Voice.

The FFmpeg project has reverse-engineered and re-implemented the WMA codecs (except WMA Pro) to allow their use on POSIX-compliant operating systems such as Linux. RealNetworks has announced plans to support playback of DRM-unprotected WMA files in RealPlayer for Linux.

The usage of the WAV format has more to do with its familiarity, its simplicity and simple structure, which is heavily based on the IFF file format. Because of this, it continues to enjoy widespread use with a variety of software applications, often functioning as a 'lowest common denominator' when it comes to exchanging sound files between different programs.

Some PlayStation Portable game software uses the AT3 file format which is a WAV file compressed in an ATRAC codec that can be decoded by the unit's libatrac3plus decoder. In spite of their large size, uncompressed WAV (though that format can be different from the Microsoft WAV) files are sometimes used by some radio broadcasters, especially those that have adopted the tapeless system.

NoteBurner WMA to WAV Converter

The Interface of NoteBurner WMA to WAV Converter. NoteBurner WMA to WAV has a clean and simple interface that is easy to learn. When first run, you will be greeted with a startup screen that gives you basic tips on how to get started. At the top of the screen there are four icons to click on that quickly get you to all the features of NoteBurner WMA to WAV ; incidentally, hovering your mouse pointer over each one displays a tooltip that describes what each icon is for. On the main screen there is a convenient feature where you can click on an icon to launch your default media player. Overall the interface is user-friendly, and efficient to use.

The configuration of NoteBurner WMA to WAV. The settings menu has a reasonable set of configuration options so that you can tweak how NoteBurner WMA to WAV deals with your audio files. You can set the default folder that music is saved to, change audio formats, choose various CBR and VBR encoding bitrates, select ID3 tag versions 1 and 2, and enable NoteBurner to automatically run every time you start Microsoft Windows.

NoteBurner WMA to WAV converts any DRM protected music files (such as M4P, M4A, WMA, M4B) and unprotected music (WMA, MP3, rax, MP4, WAV, RA, snd, OGG, aif) to plain MP3, WAV, WMA formats with Virtual CD-RW drive. It is a protected audio and music converter tool designed for virtually burning.

NoteBurne WMA to WAV uses virtual CD burning technology to simulate the burning and ripping process and can convert M4P files to MP3. So NoteBurner is a M4P converter software. This amazing CD burner emulator easily automates the whole workflow for converting protected music or audio files to normal music files: ripping, burning, encoding are within only ONE click. This unique All-in-One feature helps NoteBurner convert any DRM protected WMA, M4P music and M4B, MP3, rax, MP4, WAV, RA, snd, OGG, aif music to unprotected MP3, WAV, WMA formats at fast speed and high quality.