MP3toWMA conversion utility

MP3toWMA conversion utility

This free program is designed for batch-converting MP3 files to the new Windows Media Audio 8 format. Benefits: file size can be cut by half or more, sound quality is preserved, allowing you to store twice as much music on your hard disk, CD or PDA. Example: I converted 250 mp3 files: original (mp3) total size=1070 Mb, new (wma) size=540 Mb.

These WMA clips can be read by Windows Media Player (version 6.4 or better) and other major players, like RealOne or Winamp, for which WMA plugins are available.

The original ID3v1 tags are copied: artist, album, title, track number.

Usage:

MP3 folder: click the 'Browse' button and select the folder containing the MP3 files to be converted. All *.mp3 files in this folder will be converted. This program was designed for batch conversion, so there is no way to convert a specific file in this folder.

WMA folder: click the 'Browse' button and select the folder where the new WMA files will be created.

Temp folder: click the 'Browse' button and select the folder where the temporary files will be created during the conversion process, or keep the default system temp folder. Warning: enough free disk space must be available in this folder, typically 10 times as much as the largest MP3 file to be converted. Example: if the largest MP3 file size is 15Mb, then there must be at least 150Mb free in the Temp folder.

Process subfolders : Check it to convert the MP3 files located in all subfolders of the selected MP3 folder. The corresponding subfolder hierarchy will be automatically created in the WMA folder during the conversion process.

Bit rate: the lower bitrate, the smaller converted file. With my computer connected to my home audio system, 96Kbps WMA sounds absolutely like 192Kbps or higher MP3 for most music. Notice that WMAs recorded at 96Kbps are twice smaller than MP3s at 192Kbps.

Sampling rate : for most bitrates, there is only one possible sampling rate, so you have no way to change this parameter.

Channels: 2=stereo, 1=mono

Start button: click it to start the conversion process. The red indicator will start flashing. During conversion, the 'Exit' button will be disabled. You'll have to click 'Stop' to cancel the conversion before exiting the program.

Stop button: click it to cancel the conversion process. The red indicator will turn yellow. It takes a while for the program to stop the background processes, so be patient and wait for the yellow indicator to stop flashing before doing anything else.

Installation:

Current version is 1.0.22, released May 11, 2002.

This program has been tested with Windows 98 SE and Windows 2000, but it should be compatible with newer versions of Windows.

Download the installation program mp3towma_setup.zip (514 Kb) into some temporary folder of your computer, unzip it and run mp3towma_setup.exe.

download mp3towma_setup.zip from mirror site (fast link)
or
download mp3towma_setup.zip from main site (slower link)

Due to licensing constraints, a software component required by this program is not included in the above setup package, and you must download it separately. Do the following:

download the "Windows Media 8 Encoding Utility" (635 Kb) from Microsoft's website and install it.

copy the file WM8EUTIL.EXE from the Windows Media 8 Encoding Utility installation folder (C:\Program Files\Windows Media Components\Tools) into the MP3toWMA installation folder (C:\Program Files\MP3toWMA).

This program requires Microsoft's latest VB6 runtime library. It is probably already installed in your computer. However, if you get a system error message when starting this program, you will have to install this library:

Download vbrun60sp5.exe

You are now ready to use MP3toWMA !

Limitations:

I wrote this program primarily to suit my own needs, so I do not claim to have released a universal conversion utility. This program has some known limitations which I don't plan to fix, as long as they dont bother me, and as long as I give it away for free ;-)

Mp3 clips recorded with variable sampling rate are not supported. If you try to convert such files, you'll get an error report, or the program will crash.

If there is not enough free disk space in the Temp folder, the program will enter an infinite loop and you'll have to kill it using Windows' task list (Ctrl-Alt-Del)

WMA files converted with MP3toWMA do not appear in the Album view of WMP's library manager: they are listed in "All audio" only. This is due to a lack of the documentation for Microsoft's WM8EUTIL.exe program, which is used by MP3toWMA during the conversion process. Indeed, MP3toWMA actually reads the album information in the original MP3 file, along with the author, title, etc, but I don't know how to store the album name in the proper field of the resulting WMA file. Currently, the album name is stored in the "description" field. If Microsoft publishes this information, I'll fix this problem.

Updated Nov 6, 2002