+1 for DVD.
WMV is a PITA.

These custom settings meet the requirement for wmv, 24 bit, 48 K lossless audio at 3 mbps.

Thanks guys.

It's a sure sign of an aging brain that I didn't think of that.

So you're suggesting rendering to MPEG2 with uncompressed audio?

I've been experimenting and WMV 10 seems to look ok, sound ok (but I need further testing) and output a pretty small file.

Are there hidden problems with that codec?

Yup. The DVD spec supports 24/48 PCM, and your rendered titles won't take up much space at all.
You can render your DVD to folder for computer playback. Or you can wrap it in MKV which is good for both playback or archive.

The client wants to play the files on a lappie running XP.

I just found that QuickTime has a mode where you can render low-medium quality video (to save space) with "uncompressed" audio of various specs including 24-bit.

I rendered such a file and it looks and sounds ok in win media player 12 on my Win7 system. Still have to test QT on an XP machine to see if it works as hoped.

Anyone know of any problems with QT?

"Anyone know of any problems with QT?"

Don't throw yet another variable into the mix with Quicktime. Go back to my Custom Settings post above and render wmv out of Vegas 10.0e. You can set the video bit rate to suit yourself. The Windows Media Audio Lossless is as lossless as anything from quicktime except PCM. I would stick with what the customer asked for.

From Wikipedia:
"Designed for archival purposes,[35] it compresses audio signals without loss of quality from the original using VBR. "

I just rendered some and played it on my corporate XP machine with Windows Media Player 11. No Problem.

Thanks, John.

I guess I was a little misleading in my original post. Client didn't actually spec WMV. I was thinking of it just because it's been my multimedia player of choice for a while.

I appreciate your logic, especially the part about not multiplying variables. The latest--far's I know--win player that runs on XP is V11, and it does not play 24/48 wav files. Which is why I started looking elsewhere.

I just rendered a couple in QT and they worked nicely.

I'll try WMA 9 as well and see how it goes.

Part of the challenge will be to set up a way he can quickly select and fire one up at random from among his various files. I'm thinking a playlist, perhaps.

"win player that runs on XP is V11, and it does not play 24/48 wav files. Which is why I started looking elsewhere."

I have about fifty hours of 24 bit / 48 kHz wav files from analog tape transfers and I'm listening to one of them on an XP SP3 machine running Windows Media Player 11.0.5721.5280.

After working on this exercise, I have a higher opinion of WMV than I had before. It was not my first choice (I voted for DVD), but at 3mbps total bit rate and Windows Media Audio Lossless the video holds up a lot better than MPEG-2 and 24 bit / 48 kHz wav. I'm learnng new stuff every day. None of it is making me any money.

It looks like the access method or presentation method is still a consideration for you.

Yes to your last sentence, John.

It came down to the client's comfot with the playback interface. He just liked the QT player batter than Windows Media player (I know. Both will play both formats) better and wanted the security of the player matching the format.

Who's to argue with a client.

The renders seemed of about the same quality, at least to his ears, so we went in that direction.

Curiously, the .MOV audio came out of Vegas at a lower level than the originals. I have no idea why.

I'll have to dig into the two approaches after I clean up from this, and the problems I've had with playback on the Win player 11.

I have the same version you do, and it wouldn't play my 24/48 files rendered in Cakewalk Sonar, or those files whose levels I modified in Sound Forge. Didn't say why, BTW. Can't recall why I concluded it was the 24-bit thing, but I must have read it somewhere.

Thanks again to all for the suggestions.