dacs.doc electric

 

Windows Media 9 & Microsoft Plus –
Digital Media Edition

By Frank Powers

 

Microsoft is out to win over the hearts of music, picture, and video fans and with the advent of Windows XP, Windows Media 9, and the new version of Microsoft Plus – Digital Media Edition they may well be on their way. If you followed my earlier articles on Digital Music Distribution, you may remember that I have not been a big fan of Microsoft Media Player. My preferred format for digital music is still MP3 but I can’t deny the inroads that Microsoft has made into the digital media market over the last few years. The new Windows Media 9 player and codecs do sound very good, and over the next year or so I think it is possible that the Microsoft juggernaut may very well put the MP3 format to pasture. Why? Because they have both integrated their format into the majority of digital video and music hardware as well as the fact that they have produced a very robust set of tools that allow the average music and video aficionados to produce excellent digital media productions with ease.

What you will need

At a minimum you must be running one of the multiple variations of Windows XP. You will also need to download the new Microsoft Media Player 9. From a hardware perspective, any computer that can run Windows XP can utilize the Windows Media tool set. Today’s computers all have adequate sound capabilities, so an add on soundcard like the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz or Creative Labs Audigy is not a necessity, however to take advantage of Windows Media 9’s ability to play back multi-channel surround sound or to fully enjoy DVD playback with Windows Media 9 does require a sound system capable of playing back 5.1 surround sound. A good set of speakers or a connection to your home stereo is also a plus for enhanced stereo music playback.

Overview of Windows Media 9

You can’t really talk about the new Plus add-on without mentioning some of the new features available in Windows Media 9. Here’s a link to download the new Windows Media 9 player:
http://windowsmedia.com/9series/home.asp
See box for what Microsoft has to say about the new feature set:

Microsoft Plus – Digital Media Edition

You can download this new add-on for $19.95 directly from the Microsoft site or save yourself $10.00 or more by purchasing it at any of the typical software stores or online venues. The Microsoft link is: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/plus/dme/dmehome.asp

What’s included:

  • Alarm Clock
  • Analog Recorder
  • Audio Converter
  • CD Label Maker
  • Dancer
  • Party Mode
  • Photo Story
  • Sync & Go

Toys for the Kids & College Dorms

Alarm Clock

If you fall asleep at your computer and / or if your computer is set up in your bedroom, the Alarm Clock program may be for you. For the rest of us, it is a cute little app that will never be used.

Dancer

I have to admit I was intrigued by how realistic these dancers were. If you want to learn some new dance steps, or if you just like eye candy, the range of dancers will provide some fun and ideas. Microsoft has dancers for everything from Hip-Hop to Ballroom. For most of us, a few minutes will suffice, but young teens may find these dancers great for parties. Watch out for drive space however. It will take over 670 mb’s of storage space to download all of the available styles.

Party Mode

This tool will allow you to configure a full screen graphic and combine it with an auto playlist or playlist you have created. The useful stuff here is the ability to cross-fade tracks. This feature is what the pro DJ’s use, lowering the volume of the tune that’s finishing while increasing the volume of the next tune up. Parents may find a useful place for this tool if they have a networked audio system that plays there music library through their home stereo.

Toys for the rest of us

Audio Converter

If you don’t mind using the WMA file format or if you have a portable device that will only accept WMA formatted files, this tool is a easy to use way to get all your files into the WMA format. Windows Media 9 has introduced a new format – WMA Lossless. This format reduces a CD audio file to approximately ½ the original size without any loss of fidelity. Similar to other lossless formats on the market, such as SHN, this is a great format for preserving audio files. Unfortunately, I have found no way to utilize it with the Analog Recorder mentioned below. I see no reason to use this format on anything other than analog recordings, so you would first have to use another program such as Cool Edit or AudioSurgeon (see my earlier Digital Media series for info on these) to make a wave file, and then use the Audio Converter to cut down the size of the wave file to approximately 50% of the original.

Analog Recorder

This is a simple to use program to record LP’s and tapes to the WMA format. It will automatically set recording levels, and even split LP’s into individual tracks. If you don’t like messing with settings and just want a simple way to record analog formats to digital ones it doesn’t get any easier. The down side however is that you can only record to the WMA format. Unfortunately, wave and / or WMA Lossless formats are not available in the program. My advice, don’t use it. You’ll end up with compressed files that will never sound as good as the original format.

CD Label Maker

This program is as good as any I’ve worked with. It only comes with one background image, but it has a huge collection of label templates to work with. It also allows you to utilize your own jpg, bmp, or gif image as a background file.

Photo Story

This program makes Plus worth looking over. If you have a large collection of digital picture files and are looking for a way to make slide shows with narrations and background music that can be played on a PC, look no further. It is simple to use, and has a great subset of features, the most exciting of which is a filter that automatically creates motion in a still image. What happens is each shot is zoomed in and out creating an illusion of motion that is quite pleasing. Big thumbs up for this module!

Sync & Go

If you own a Pocket PC this module alone is worth the cost of Plus. It allows you to download news and music from the internet while your Pocket PC is connected to its cradle. You obviously also need to have your PC connected to the Internet when doing this. I have used this to download news from MSNBC, NPR, and USA today on a daily basis. You can then watch the video at your leisure when not connected. When your business meeting doesn’t start on time, you can while away the extra minutes catching up on the latest news of the day, well this mornings news anyway. And if your music library is in WMA format, you can use Synch & Go to download new playlists and tunes to your storage media. You will need a media card for storage (Smart Media, Compact Flash, etc) to save both the news files and music files. A unintended extra is that you can also archive the news files to your hard drive. Being a news junkie, it has been great to save the NBC evening news files of such events as the tumbling of Saddam’s statue in compressed WMV format.

Final Thoughts

The big issue I have with the tool set is they are all Windows Media centric. Alarm Clock, Dancer, Party Mode, and Photo Story will utilize MP3 files, but the Audio Converter and Analog Recorder will only render to the Windows Media format. If you use Windows Media already then the tool set is excellent. The Photo Story and Sync & Go modules are enough to justify the $19.95 full price if you have digital photos and or a Pocket PC. The rest of the tools are mainly for the novice audiophile and or the teen / college set. For that reason, the program may be a great choice for a graduation gift for someone getting ready to hit the college dorms, and /or a young teen that enjoys learning new dance steps. If you are after a robust set of audio tools however, stick with the recommendations I made in my earlier series. MusicMatch, AudioStation, and or Pyro are much better choices for true audio junkies!

What Microsoft is saying
about MS Plus

  1. Fast Streaming —get instant-on, no-interruption streaming for broadband users, effectively eliminating buffering time when connected to a server running Windows Media Services 9 Series. For dial-up users, the new player dramatically improves streaming responsiveness and reliability. (All supported OS versions)
  2. Mini-Player & Full Screen Audio Modes—frees up space on the desktop, making it easy to control playback of music and video from the taskbar or via full screen controls. (Windows XP version)
  3. New audio effects including Crossfading & Volume Leveling—Crossfading enables you to create radio-style transitions in your playlists by overlapping song endings and beginnings. Volume leveling minimizes the volume difference in playlist items by equalizing the volume. (Windows XP version)
  4. Queue-It-Up—instantly add new music to your current playlist queue with one click. (All supported OS versions)
  5. Variable Speed Playback & Media Link—Control the speed of audio or video without changing the pitch and tone perfect for quickly getting through a long video, or for aiding comprehension. Use Media Link to Email links to your own highlights from streamed news, presentations, home movies and more. (Variable Speed Playback on Windows XP, and Media Link on all supported OS versions)
  6. Info Center View for WMA and MP3 Files—view artist details, ratings, lyrics, related news and radio stations, and even discover downloads and videos in the Now Playing window. (Windows XP version)
  7. Advanced Tag Editor for WMA and MP3 files—supports over 35 media information tag types, including pictures, lyrics, mood, comments, and even synchronized lyrics. (Windows XP version)
  8. Smart Jukebox Organization—Features including file and folder monitoring keep your library in sync across multiple folders, drives, even networked PCs. (Windows XP version)
  9. Auto Info—Automatically add or fix album details such as composer, year, genre, and album art for your existing WMA and MP3 collection. (Windows XP version)
  10. Auto Playlists—enables the creation and editing of smart mixes that automatically update to reflect new additions or changes to your Media Library. You can also edit and personalize over a dozen presets or add your own. (All supported OS versions, creation and editing of Auto Playlists on Windows XP)
  11. High performance CD burning—ets you easily and quickly burn audio CDs with Volume Leveling. Burn music and video content as data on a CD-R for backup or playback in Windows Media-compatible DVD players, car stereos and portable CD players. (Audio CD burning on all OS versions, audio CD burning with volume leveling and data burning on Windows XP)
  12. Support for Windows Media™ Audio and Video 9—Windows Media Audio and Video 9 offer breakthrough audio and video quality at any bitrate, with a 20% boost in quality compared with Windows Media Audio and Video 8. New audiophile-grade features such as WMA VBR, WMA Professional (24-bit, 96khz, 5.1+ channel), and WMA Lossless deliver unparalleled quality and flexibility. (All supported OS versions)
  13. 5 Types of Plug-ins—For maximum personalization, a new plug-in model makes it easy to add audio and video effects, new UI features, rendering formats,skins, and visualizations to your player. (All supported OS versions)

Frank Powers has extensive digital music experience working for companies like Voyetra Turtle Beach, Inc and Sam Ash Music as well as composing his own material and running an Internet radio station. Frank is available for digital music consulting and can be reached by email at: frank@franksamericana.com. You can find out more by visiting his website at
http://www.franksamericana.com.

He also can be heard on the Internet at Frank’s Americana™ Live365 Internet Radio station at www.live365.com/stations/fpowers.


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