[gkinberg]

I am looking for a lossless codec that works with itunes as well as windows media player (WMP) other than wav format. Wav format seems to be a pain. After ripping to wav using dbpoweramp, I couldn't find that tracks in itunes because the album name and artist name was not displayed correctly in itunes. Ordinarily I would just use something else and forget itunes but my wife likes and uses itunes.

I am interested in WMP because I can play music wirelessly from WMP to my sony PS3 and on to the rest of my system. I was surprised how good this sounded to me - basically as good as playing the CD in the PS3. Using the PS3 for playback is a temporary scenario but I would like it to work for the time being.

If I use windows media lossless codec but then choose to play these files on itunes, it appears that itunes creates duplicate files in the form of apple lossless. I don't want to have a whole set of duplicate files. So any help or advice would be appreciated.

Thanks, Garth

[ted_b]

AIFF is lossless and works with both.  It is not a compressed format however.

[srb]

There are many discussions/debates on losless compressed files (FLAC, ALAC) vs uncompressed files (WAV, AIFF).  Although FLAC and ALAC are still bit-perfect, opponents say the minimal processing required to uncompress them affects the sound, and proponents say that for streaming, the smaller file size and less required network bandwith is better.
 
I won't get into that the discussion and that's not the topic here.  But as far as WAV vs AIFF, they are identical uncompressed PCM data files, with the only difference being the file header.  My library was originally all WAV because I had read that it was "superior", but my library has subsequently been converted to AIFF, for the metadata file tagging.
 
I have compared WAV to AIFF on numerous audio setups, some very high-end, and to my ears they are absolutely identical (as they should be).  Although there are some who say there is a sonic difference, I just don't believe it.
 
Steve

[ted_b]

Steve,
I didn't think this was about what sounds best, or to raise an issue with "do lossless codecs really sound the same", I thought the Op simply wanted to find a codec that 1) will play in both iTunes and WMP; and to a lesser extent 2) could store metadata so iTunes would recognize tags better.

[srb]

I didn't think this was about what sounds best, or to raise an issue with "do lossless codecs really sound the same", I thought the Op simply wanted to find a codec that 1) will play in both iTunes and WMP; and to a lesser extent 2) could store metadata so iTunes would recognize tags better.

I know, I was just giving the opinion that if he converted to AIFF, as you suggested, I didn't believe he would sacrifice sonics.
 
The only potential issue of sharing the AIFF iTunes library is the cover art.  Converting the WAV files to AIFF files embeds all the tags in the AIFF files, but that isn't the case with iTunes cover art, and most won't show up in another program like Windows Media Player, depending on how they were obtained.
 
For reasons I have never understood, if iTunes gets the cover art from the online database, it is stored in the iTunes database, and unavailable to other programs.  But if the cover graphic is dragged or pasted into the artwork window, it is stored in the file header.
 
For that reason I had to copy and re-paste the artwork back into the window on the majority of albums to get it to show up in another player (in my case J. River Media Center).
 
Steve

[gkinberg]

Ted and Steve, Thanks a lot for your input. However, I'm suprised because I ripped a CD to aiff format and tried to play it in WMP and was not able to. This could very well have been operator error because I'm not very familar with WMP and somehow don't find it very intuitive.

I would rip it with db poweramp and get the cover art from the internet. I think that method should work with both players correct? Eventually, I plan to move to J.River as my system evolves but I''m not there yet.

If aiff works with all three players: itunes, wmp and jriver then I will use that codec. Is there something that I need to do to read aiff files in wmp? Thanks again, Garth

[srb]

Garth,
 
I had never used Windows Media Player because I didn't like the interface as well as other players.  So I just tried to play an AIFF file in WMP and got an error that the file could not be played (I had double clicked the AIFF file in its folder location, as my AIFF file association is with WMP).
 
I then closed iTunes (which was open) and again tried to play the file and it now played.  I opened iTunes back up and the AIFF files continued to play OK in WMP.
 
So I added a few folders to the WMP Music Library, but they didn't show up.  What?  What I found was WMP can play AIFF files, but it can't read the tags, and therefore my AIFF albums were not showing up under Music, but instead under Other Media.  And just like WAV files, they had the song name only (from the filename) and no tags for artist, album, etc.
 
I had just assumed that WMP would read AIFF tags like every other music player that I have used.  Sorry, I'm not sure what the solution to your scenario might be, but I now know that I really dislike Windows Media Player!
 
Steve

[Vincent Kars]

You might have a look at J River Media Center.
It plays ALAC and AIFF
It can also act as a DLNA server.
This is what you need to have the PS3 see the audio.
You can also use it to play too the PS3.

[gkinberg]

Steve,

Thanks for the investigation that you did on my behalf. I would never have figure out what you did. After reading your post I looked into the media folder and found a whole lot of tracks in there from my library that are "misslabeled". I will look into correcting the labeling/tagging and that might correct the files location in WMP. However, based on your comments Steve, I get the felling that the solution will not be that simple.

If anyone has any comments, it would be appreciated. Thanks, Garth

[gkinberg]

You might have a look at J River Media Center.
It plays ALAC and AIFF
It can also act as a DLNA server.
This is what you need to have the PS3 see the audio.
You can also use it to play too the PS3.

Vincent, Thanks for the post. To be honest, I don't really know what DLNA is or how it works. Would the computer that runs JRiver need to be connected to the PS3 or my receiver via a cable. If so, will it need to be a special cable. Probably silly questions but what the heck. Thanks, Garth

[Vincent Kars]

Vincent, Thanks for the post. To be honest, I don't really know what DLNA is or how it works. Would the computer that runs JRiver need to be connected to the PS3 or my receiver via a cable. If so, will it need to be a special cable.

No.
If you want to play what you have in WMP on a PS3 you have to enable Media Sharing.
Under the hood this means your PC and the PS3 will do so using the UPnP/DLNA protocol.
This is simply an industry standard for streaming AV.
You have it already working.
If you switch to e.g. JRMC and you want to use the PS3 to play the content of the JRMC library then JRMC has to expose its library using DLNA.

[gkinberg]

If you switch to e.g. JRMC and you want to use the PS3 to play the content of the JRMC library then JRMC has to expose its library using DLNA.

Thanks again Vincent. Maybe if I used JRMC it would be obviouse but i wouldn't know how to expose its library to my PS3 using DLNA.

How is this done?
Can it be done with any player such as Winamp or itunes?

[kip_]

Thanks again Vincent. Maybe if I used JRMC it would be obviouse but i wouldn't know how to expose its library to my PS3 using DLNA.

How is this done?
Can it be done with any player such as Winamp or itunes?

IMO I would use Playstation Media Server to serve your tunes  and use whatever player you like on the PC

It's fairly easy to use and also does pictures and movies http://code.google.com/p/ps3mediaserver/