Thought ACELP codec was okay for NT 4.0....

JDeGraff wrote on 3/27/2002, 12:33 PM
Maybe somebody knows this one off the top of their head. I'm rendering content for our company into .asf files. I thought I'd heard somewhere that the ACELP audio codec was okay for NT4.0 systems that had the last version of Media Player for NT installed. Since 16kbps/16kHz ACELP still sounds better than 32kbps/44kHz WMA7 or 8, I was hoping to use it but some of our users are reporting problems with ACELP encoded files (severe stutter, skipping, distortion).

1.What WAS the last version of WMP for NT?
2.Know if it's still available from M$?
3.*IS* it (ACELP) supposed to work under that environment?

As always, thanks for the help!
Jesse DeGraff
Video Production Specialist
Network Appliance, Inc.
The Evolution of Storage™

Comments

Cheesehole wrote on 3/27/2002, 1:55 PM
>>>1.What WAS the last version of WMP for NT?
6.4
>>>2.Know if it's still available from M$?
YES
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download/default.asp
>>>3.*IS* it (ACELP) supposed to work under that environment?
It is one of the built in codecs in WMP 6.4 so my guess is YES but I haven't used it much. I have trouble getting it to sound good. any tips? I even wrote an email to ACELP but they never responded.

So how are you rendering to ASF since Sonic Foundry doesn't support that format and the functionality has been removed from Vegas?

I've found that narration doesn't come out good in WMA7/8. has that been your finding as well?

- cheesehole!
JDeGraff wrote on 3/27/2002, 4:11 PM
When I render to .asf I just change the .wmv extension to .asf. Seems to work like a charm :) A M$ dude on another list mentioned that (come to think of it, I'll post my question there too :D ). Since WMA 7 or 8 SUCKS even at higher bitrates, I was setting up the render for 16kbps/16kHz ACELP. Unfortunately, it seems at least some of our NT 4.0 users are getting wonky playback. If we can't figure out a way to easily fix this, I may just be forced to use the tunneled, flangy, CRAPPY WMA 7 or 8 :(

Jesse
Cheesehole wrote on 3/27/2002, 10:36 PM
>>>When I render to .asf I just change the .wmv extension to .asf. Seems to work like a charm :) A M$ dude on another list mentioned that (come to think of it, I'll post my question there too :D ). Since WMA 7 or 8 SUCKS even at higher bitrates, I was setting up the render for 16kbps/16kHz ACELP.

I see. you are rendering to WM7/8, and are using the new codecs. in that case you are not necessarily rendering files that are compatible with WMP6.4 so you should test throroughly.

I keep VV2 installed so I can still render to the ASF codecs.

my problem is I want to maintain compatibility with folks who are using Win2k or even WinNT4 but may not be connected to the internet. that requires rendering to ASF for real, using the WM6.4 codecs, which sound much better than WM7/8 for narration anyway (I use MPEG Layer 3 at 64 kBit/s, 32,000 Hz Mono)

- ben (cheesehole!)