Justa little gripe about lossless WMA

[DJHakim]

The chance of playing a Lossless WMA via USB is not good. Yes, the manual states "32―320 kbps" is supported, but I hope an infotainment update will allow it to play higher bit-rate files. Guess I need to start batch converting!

 

[popeyecahn]

Any reason to use such a high rate for car audio?

 

[DJHakim]

Any reason to use such a high rate for car audio?

Not for car audio, but almost all my digital collection is lossless or high VBR. I can't just upload to usb and have it work. I'm not sure why there is a bit rate play limitation.

 

[popeyecahn]

Hmmmm yeah that would be a problem.

Just out of curiosity, have you tried any other lossless formats besides WMA to see what works with the CX-5 system? I don't think it's the bitrate per se, but probably the system doesn't handle lossless at that rate. Lossy at any rate, is probably easy as pie most of the work is done beforehand but with lossless the HU has to decode the audio, so yeah maybe a update might take care of that. Yeah batching for the car might be the only way for now (sux).

I'll make some tests myself just for the heck of it, and though most of my portable stuff is in easily digestible formats and I wouldn't run into this typically, but now I'm curious about this issue since there are some cuts in higher rates plus lossless.

 

[DJHakim]

No, only WMA lossless and most files are >500 kbps. CX-5 just skips those high bit rate files. Batch converting has been a big pain and is *really* slow.

 

[popeyecahn]

Hmmm the thought occured to me that maybe the software you're using to encode is creating the problem. Do you have another way to encode a raw track?

 

[DJHakim]

It's native WMP 12 WMA Lossless ripped direct from CD.

BTW, "Windows Media Audio Pro" format does not work, either, even <320 kbps. Gotta transcode again!

 

[popeyecahn]

So I encoded a track direct from a CD using WMP 12 and I made an WMA lossless @ 337kbps, a WMA VBR @ 337, a WAV file @ 1411kbps and finally an Mp3 at 320kbps, and put all of this onto a Lexar 4g thumbdrive. The only one not to function was the WAV file. I wasn't able to create a WMA Pro file @ 320kbps because the highest rate I had available was 192 (shrug)

I'm not sure what's going on, but judging from another topic you started, maybe the USB drive is at fault?

 

[stromdriver]

i wouldn't blame the usb drive, the software they're using for playback is very limited and finicky, they really only gave any thought to giving it real support for ipod, and the rest of us was just an afterthought
none of my mp3's will track back, many of them will start playing a few seconds into the song, and it doesn't scroll the id3 information on the display
the trackback issue is because i've run mp3gain on the files to normalize them all to an equivalent value, not sure whats causing the id3 info to not scroll, it shows the 'play' button on screen next to the info but its greyed out. (i've even tried using specialized id3tag cleaners to strip out extraneous info and data tags from things like mp3gain and they still don't track back)
they also didn't provide us with any type of playlist support or id3 info management (play by artist, genre, etc) but the white cord mafia gets it all....

 

[DJHakim]

So I encoded a track direct from a CD using WMP 12 and I made an WMA lossless @ 337kbps, a WMA VBR @ 337, a WAV file @ 1411kbps and finally an Mp3 at 320kbps, and put all of this onto a Lexar 4g thumbdrive. The only one not to function was the WAV file. I wasn't able to create a WMA Pro file @ 320kbps because the highest rate I had available was 192 (shrug)
I'm not sure what's going on, but judging from another topic you started, maybe the USB drive is at fault?

No, it's not the USB drive and I don't have a problem with the drive. Thanks for testing bit rates. (cheers2) I think you need to get a lossless WMA >500 kbps to see what I am seeing. Most of my lossless WMAs are near 900 kbps (you can't control the Lossless bitrate; WMP uses whatever bitrate it needs to have lossless compression).

CX-5 skips playing those files when they are up on the song list. I have since (painstakingly) converted all my files to WMA (non-pro) at 256 kbps. Now none are skipped (yet). I guess the manual is accurate (except that you could play >320 kbps).

Now I just need to find the right way to store them in folders!

 

[popeyecahn]

i wouldn't blame the usb drive, the software they're using for playback is very limited and finicky, they really only gave any thought to giving it real support for ipod, and the rest of us was just an afterthought

Well I wouldn't go that far, my 3rd gen Shuffle will not function at all via the USB, yet the 2 different USB thumbdrives with completely different file types created on two different OSes do. Heck the thing even skips past the 2 hidden files on the one drive I made one my Mac, but plays the 2 audio files without issue. Oh and I just threw them onto the drive in the root folder without regard to any sort of folder hierarchy.

That said I believe we have different HUs. I have the basic model, and I'm guessing since you have the tech pkg you have the upgrade. This could be the difference, but I have zero idea as my experience is limited to my model only so bear with my floundering around for ideas.

none of my mp3's will track back, many of them will start playing a few seconds into the song, and it doesn't scroll the id3 information on the display
the trackback issue is because i've run mp3gain on the files to normalize them all to an equivalent value, not sure whats causing the id3 info to not scroll, it shows the 'play' button on screen next to the info but its greyed out. (i've even tried using specialized id3tag cleaners to strip out extraneous info and data tags from things like mp3gain and they still don't track back)
they also didn't provide us with any type of playlist support or id3 info management (play by artist, genre, etc) but the white cord mafia gets it all....

Even with the above noted, I don't get much info either. If I scroll to a folder I'll get that info, then the artist will display (all the info is truncated btw no text scrolling), then the song where it stays. The tracks all played fine (a song that I encoded in several different file types/bitrate).

Finicky is right, and the interface is kinda clunky as well. I'm used to a 5 year old Alpine iDA-X100 which works pretty well with the iPhone/iPod ecosystem.

No, it's not the USB drive and I don't have a problem with the drive. Thanks for testing bit rates. (cheers2) I think you need to get a lossless WMA >500 kbps to see what I am seeing. Most of my lossless WMAs are near 900 kbps (you can't control the Lossless bitrate; WMP uses whatever bitrate it needs to have lossless compression).

CX-5 skips playing those files when they are up on the song list. I have since (painstakingly) converted all my files to WMA (non-pro) at 256 kbps. Now none are skipped (yet). I guess the manual is accurate (except that you could play >320 kbps).

I mention the drive only because of a previous thread concerning USB drive issues and I mistakenly thought you had started that. My bad.

I'm trying to figure out how you got file rates that high, maybe the type of music??? Yeah the Lossless encoder doesn't allow rate control, but how does it determine it? I encoded acoustic music, guitar, upright bass and cello, and I got the 337kbps rate but maybe the signal wasn't dense enough? The only file it wouldn't play was the raw rip (WAV @ 1411...). Hmmmm (shrug)

Now I just need to find the right way to store them in folders!

When I encoded this stuff yesterday with WMP 12, I just let Windows choose the time and place (My Music etc) and I then dragged and dropped the main folder "Unknown Artist" onto the USB media and left it at that. Everything worked as I would have expected to, so I'm not understanding exactly what the problem with folder hierarchy is with regards to this system or what your particular wants/needs may be. Maybe I should read through some prior posts regarding this to get a better understanding...

Realistically we could just replace the HU with an aftermarket one and be done with this falderall with the stock units. Except that we paid for this and we would like it to work within some reasonable boundaries of it being advertised. Right?