what is a wma song b/c my itunes just converted all my songs to it?

Question

so is this good or bad for my music and will it affect how it plays on my computer or i pod

Answer 1

WMA = Windows Media Audio

Answer 2

Back when song files became smaller and more portable with computers the *.wav file was the first. This version has a simple header to identify it as the file it is (aka bell.wav) the rest of the file is pure audio. WMA (Windows Media Audio) came out not too long after and allowed the same song to be compressed smaller. when Mp3 came about, the quality war started as mp3 was smaller, then both versions went back and forth for a while. Then finally, Someone let the user decide what quality they want their songs. Now, we are in what seems to be the security war, which started when Metallica and few other major artists decided to sue Napster for their loss of royalties. In their pure forms both wma and mp3 are just as versatile, and can be just as secure. When you buy music from iTunes it downloads in one format but can be converted to the other by iTunes and iTunes alone. Why? Because of Metallica, both wma and mp3 have their alternative secure codecs. WMA's version still looks like *.wma but if you try to copy it to another computer you need your iTunes membership password to play it. The mp3 secure file looks like *.mp4a or *.mp4 both also require you iTunes password to play on other computers but only on ten computers altogether. While these wars went on, nobody did a thing the original Wave file (*.wav). That means, if you download a song, find a program that will convert it to a wave file, rename it (turn Kryptonite.wav into Krypt.wav) then convert it back to mp3 or wma (your choice) you can distribute it as you wish. You do, however have to find your own wave file converter, I won't tell you where to find it. If you do find for some reason you prefer mp3 over wma or vice versa, there is, in the prefernces menu a toggle that will let you chose what you prefer, iTunes will then automatically retranslate all your songs to that format. Each time you do that, however, you have all the orignal files still on your computer, which meens, at this moment not only do you have the *.wma format that iTunes converted for you, but you have all the same songs in their original format, you have twice the music. I suggest using iTunes to consolidate your library to a different folder then delete the originals.

Answer 3

WMA stands for Windows Media Audio
It’s a file format that is used but a lot of media players.
I tunes might be using that format as its more "Secure"
But that label here is misleading. Secure in this case means the software can control who gets to play the file. This might not be why it's using the format, but would be my guess. As the more popular MP3 format has no mechanism to "protect" against you sharing the file with another computer or music device.

Answer 4

WMA is short for Windows Media Audio, the format Microsoft created for digital music. It is the default windows music format these days and can be played on any Windows Media Player.

Answer 5

WIndows Media Audio. Like when you use Windows Media player to copy from your CDs. iTunes only plays mp3, so it will convert them.

Answer 6

to the best of my knowledge, i tunes runs off apple, well anyway, wma is a file extention for a music file, like .wav, .mpeg or what have you, like jpeg is for pics, what it is is windows version of a file format for songs. it is common to MP3, but strips the file just a little different.

Answer 7

It stands for windows media audio, it's like mp3, only the quality is not as good.

Answer 8

The 'perfect' and maximum sturdy way might want to be that you should purely burn the song to a CD and then rip that cd to mp3 format. there's a software "noteburner" that acts like a CD-Burner, even if it is going immediately to a mp3 report. yet noteburner isn't loose,

Answer 9

Windows Media Audio - if you use the sound recorder it records in that format.