Digital Media Converter 4.01

Configure Settings for WMA For Desktop Listening

This profile converts your audio files to WMA format.  The files that you get are best suitable to store and playback on your PC.  The sound quality is very high and the file sizes are small.

WMA for Desktop Listening

To configure WMA format for desktop listening, click Formats >> Select Standard Format >> WMA For Desktop Listening >> Configure.  By default, the Audio Profile selected is CD quality audio (CBR).  The Encoded Bitrate is set at 192 Kbps and the overhead is 8 Kbps.  The Required Bitrate for the conversion will be 200 Kbps.

Select MBR Stream, Bitrates and Preserve ID3 Tags

Selecting an MBR Stream

If you plan to deliver your content as a stream from a server running Microsoft Windows Media Services, encoding multiple bitrate streams provides better quality during times of network congestion (or over a slow network connection).  When you set up an MBR stream your content is encoded at every bit rate you specify.  When a player receives an MBR stream, only the stream that is the most appropriate for current network conditions plays.  The Windows Media server and player handle the process of selecting the appropriate stream, which is invisible to the user.  You can only use CBR encoding when creating an MBR stream.

You can encode MBR streams for both audio and video content; however, it is not necessary to use MBR encoding for both audio and video in a single stream.  For example, you can stream audio at one bit rate and have multiple bit rates for the video portion of the stream.  Also keep in mind that encoding an MBR stream uses more processing power.  Select a range of bit rates that you think will meet the playback needs of the audiences you are targeting.

Selecting Bitrates

For files that will be streamed over a network, you must consider carefully what bit rates you should use.  Under most circumstances you can add the bit rates of all of the streams in a file together to get a general idea of the available bandwidth required to stream the file.  However, a certain amount of overhead is also required for each stream.  This overhead is summarized in the following table:

You must also consider that the theoretical maximum bandwidth available over a network connection is not a practical target bit rate.  The average available bandwidth for any given connection falls well short of the bandwidth capacity of the connection, because of network traffic and many other factors.

Preserve ID3 Tags (file description details)

By default, Digital Media Converter retains metadata (like song titles and names of the artists) from your source file.  To avoid it, uncheck this option.