[hmunster2]

Hi, I am not sure where to post this question, I have a new car which has a USB input for media. I ripped some Cds to a Sandisk 32Gb flash (3.0) and did this in the standard Windows wma format at 192Kbps-they play fine in the car. I then noticed on my pc in the Windows media player that I had the option to change the format to Lossless, either wma or wav-I tried both- and at the same 192kbps bit-rate. Although they show up on the flash, and will play on the pc, when I tried to play them in the car, they would not play-
Can anybody help and tell me what is wrong-I am really not familiar with music-formats being lossless outside of blu-ray soundtracks. Is it not possible to play Lossless audio in the car because of a software limitation of the car?
Again, I am really not too up on the portable audio business, so please make your answer simplistic, so I can understand it. I tried posting under portable audio forum, but got no responses-didn't know where else to post.
Thank you

 

[koturban]

Hi, I am not sure where to post this question, I have a new car which has a USB input for media. I ripped some Cds to a Sandisk 32Gb flash (3.0) and did this in the standard Windows wma format at 192Kbps-they play fine in the car. I then noticed on my pc in the Windows media player that I had the option to change the format to Lossless, either wma or wav-I tried both- and at the same 192kbps bit-rate. Although they show up on the flash, and will play on the pc, when I tried to play them in the car, they would not play-
Can anybody help and tell me what is wrong-I am really not familiar with music-formats being lossless outside of blu-ray soundtracks. Is it not possible to play Lossless audio in the car because of a software limitation of the car?
Again, I am really not too up on the portable audio business, so please make your answer simplistic, so I can understand it. I tried posting under portable audio forum, but got no responses-didn't know where else to post.
Thank you

Most likely the car player can't handle the format you transcoded them to. The manual for the player should tell you.

 

[nalthien]

koturban is correct, above.

As an FYI, the bitrate won't matter for a lossless compression scheme as there's no bitrate for lossless. Put simply, digital audio is encoded and requires a matching decoder depending on the encoder used. Your car likely supports WMA, MP3, and AAC (all lossy compression codecs). To supported lossless audio, you need to first know what particular format of lossless you are encoding to--and if your car supports that format. Popular lossless formats include FLAC, Apple Lossless (ALAC), and perhaps more rarely Monkey's Audio and WavPack.

 

[hmunster2]

koturban is correct, above.

As an FYI, the bitrate won't matter for a lossless compression scheme as there's no bitrate for lossless. Put simply, digital audio is encoded and requires a matching decoder depending on the encoder used. Your car likely supports WMA, MP3, and AAC (all lossy compression codecs). To supported lossless audio, you need to first know what particular format of lossless you are encoding to--and if your car supports that format. Popular lossless formats include FLAC, Apple Lossless (ALAC), and perhaps more rarely Monkey's Audio and WavPack.

Thanks, I'll check with the tech guy at the dealership to see what formats it can handle-since it won't play, I guess it is only lossy formats. Good to know about the bitrate, but confused-isn't the bit rate the sampling rate and isn't there still a sampling rate for lossless ?

 

[nalthien]

Thanks, I'll check with the tech guy at the dealership to see what formats it can handle-since it won't play, I guess it is only lossy formats. Good to know about the bitrate, but confused-isn't the bit rate the sampling rate and isn't there still a sampling rate for lossless ?

No. By definition, a lossless compression scheme doesn't do sampling--that's why it's "lossless." Think of it like a .zip file--it's compressed; but, when, you uncompress it, you get the exact original back.

Check your manual; i'm sure it'll tell you the supported formats.

 

[Ratman]

Check the glove compartment for the car manual. Probably info in there about the supported formats. Good reading in the bathroom tomorrow morning.

 

[amirm]

Thanks, I'll check with the tech guy at the dealership to see what formats it can handle-since it won't play, I guess it is only lossy formats.

Your lossless rips are in WMA Lossless. My team at Microsoft developed that and WMA. While we did make an attempt to license WMA Lossless to non-PC devices, very few companies licensed it. So as a result, it is very unlikely that you find an in-dash unit that plays it.

Good to know about the bitrate, but confused-isn't the bit rate the sampling rate and isn't there still a sampling rate for lossless ?

For lossy encoding, once you reach 128 kbps data rate, the sample rate remains that of CD's 44.1 Khz. Below that the sampling rate could be lower but that is not a popular use case anymore. Regardless, there is no relationship between bit rate and sample rate.

Lossless audio encoders maintain the input sampling rate so if 44.1 Khz is input, that is what the output is. This is certainly the case when you tell WMP to rip into WMA Lossless. As noted, the data rate is variable here. It will average between 500 and 700 kbps most of the time. See this article I wrote on how it works: http://www.madronadigital.com/Library/LosslessAudio.html

BTW, I doubt that any documentation or the dealer would know exactly what formats your in-dash unit really plays. The best way to discover it is as you did: create some content, put it in the stick and then in the machine and see what happens. In general lossless support is unlikely to be there for any codec but it is worth trying to see.

If lossless is not there, use the highest bit rate lossy that the device can play without glitching. VBR with quality set to 100 is ideal. Failing that, 320 kbps would be a good substitute. For in-car entertainment, those will sound as good as lossless audio.

 

[Ratman]

BTW, I doubt that any documentation or the dealer would know exactly what formats your in-dash unit really plays.

Does it hurt to look... or ask?

 

[amirm]

Does it hurt to look... or ask?

It does hurt. You just don't know it. You don't go and ask a person on the corner street what medication you should take vs your doctor. Bad information is worse than no information.

The car companies produce cars and know everything about them. The in-dash unit however comes from another company so what the car company knows is second hand information and routinely wrong. Worse yet, the OEM company that produced the in-dash unit may not know what formats their device plays either! The reason is that they themselves source playback hardware from a silicon manufacturer which provides an SDK with a set of decoders. The OEM company writes the "player" which calls those functions. They test it with MP3 and AAC and once it works, they calls it done, often not knowing what other formats that hardware company library may play. Hardware companies tend to stuff as many decoders as they can as otherwise, they may lose sales. So their list can easily be longer than what the OEM company thinks.

Another scenario is that the OEM company knows their hardware plays other formats but don't want to disclose it as they would then have to pay the royalties. By not mentioning the feature they also escape patent litigation for said formats which is another motivation to not talk about much lesser used formats. This especially a big deal if the car company asks for indemnity and the OEM is inexperienced enough to say "yes" (i.e. be liable for any and all patent claims).

The only way to really know is to do what OP did: play the content. Create or download a set of songs in different formats and see what plays. That outcome trumps anything the manual, the dealer or even the car company would say. None of this is theory as I routinely find more formats than is documented by the device to play. Or limits they put on them that don't hold in practice.

And good luck calling the dealer and asking "does my stereo play Ogg Vorbis? How about ALAC? WMA Lossless?"

 

[Ratman]

LOL! Sometimes you can be funny.

You may be correct, but I still don't see any harm to check the car's manual and/or perhaps ask a Lexus tech. Only a few minutes perhaps.
It may save time recording and testing every conceivable format.

Do you really advocate that no one should read (or believe) a manual? If everyone read their manuals, new threads seeking "help" would probably drop by 30%.

 

[amirm]

LOL! Sometimes you can be funny.

Was not intending to be. Working with every audio and video company to get our technology which OP is asking about incorporated into silicon and hardware players was part of my team's job at Microsoft. Sharing that knowledge is not intended to be joke. Lack of proper information flow was routine. I had a full time person who would go and find all the devices that played our formats, yet the company had not reported any royalties on them. The list included who is who in the consumer electronics business! Their lawyers would often be in shock that their company was in default of their licensing agreement due to lack of follow through in their development teams indicating what technology they were really shipping. We were of course nice with them knowing how routine the problem was.

You may be correct, but I still don't see any harm to check the car's manual and/or perhaps ask a Lexus tech. Only a few minutes perhaps.
It may save time recording and testing every conceivable format.

You didn't read or understand what I wrote then.

And there is no "Lexus Tech" to call. A mechanic at a car dealership is not a Lexus Tech. Nor is he taught anything about how your audio electronics work. I know because I have spent a ton of time with them trying to sort out bugs in my infotainment devices. The only thing they know to do is "reset" the device, "reload its firmware" or exchange it. Nothing else is in their vocabulary. But maybe in your next response you share with us the wealth of information you have gained about the capabilities of your in-dash audio unit after talking to them.

Do you really advocate that no one should read (or believe) a manual? If everyone read their manuals, new threads seeking "help" would probably drop by 30%.

"A manual?" No. The manual for a car telling you what formats it plays versus trying the real files? Yes. What the manual says is of little to no value with regards to audio formats played compared to testing the device which can be done in a couple of minutes.

As to reducing clutter on forums, if everyone who had no knowledge whatsoever on the topic did not post generic responses like "read the manual," we would be way ahead.

 

[Ratman]

Well, it's wonderful to have informed contributors to set everyone on the proper course.
OTOH... I'd still take 2 minutes to check the manual anyway.

BTW... you "liked" post #2 . That poster stated, "The manual for the player should tell you." Perhaps you should also correct him/her or "unlike" the post.

 

[amirm]

Well, it's wonderful to have informed contributors to set everyone on the proper course.

Seemingly not seeing how you keep repeating that someone should follow the manual instead, even though we have not heard you do the same in this context.

OTOH... I'd still take 2 minutes to check the manual anyway.

It takes just as long to copy a file and hitting play on the unit. You seem to want to take someone else's word for what an Apple tastes like.

BTW... you "liked" post #2 . That poster stated, "The manual for the player should tell you." Perhaps you should also correct him/her or "unlike" the post.

No, I gave him the "like" for this part of his post: "Most likely the car player can't handle the format you transcoded them to. " Had you not repeated the part to read the manual that would have been the end of the conversation.

 

[Ratman]

This type of bantering is how I have been capable to remain married for 39 years.

I will now say again, "You're right sweetie. I'm sorry. Do what you think is best."

EDIT:
Post #5 responded, "Check your manual; i'm sure it'll tell you the supported formats."

 

[J_Palmer_Cass]

I agree with first you should "read you manual". This is not rocket science here.


You could also do an internet search. You could find the general most likely answer in a short length of time.


http://ezinearticles.com/?Car-Audio...-Part-1---Understanding-File-Types&id=3391762

"Most car stereos these days are MP3 compatible, but fewer can play WMA files without conversion and AAC compatible stereos are in the minority. Therefore, if you are not sure whether your car audio equipment is WMA or AAC compatible, it might be best just to convert all audio files to MP3 to avoid problems."


"Most sites and shops that sell car audio equipment give a run-down of the file types that every stereo supports."

 

[Ratman]

"Insist on Quality Engineering"
Saves time from reading the manual.

 

[amirm]

I agree with first you should "read you manual". This is not rocket science here.

Yes it is actually given the posts. See more below.

You could also do an internet search. You could find the general most likely answer in a short length of time.


http://ezinearticles.com/?Car-Audio...-Part-1---Understanding-File-Types&id=3391762

"Most car stereos these days are MP3 compatible, but fewer can play WMA files without conversion and AAC compatible stereos are in the minority. Therefore, if you are not sure whether your car audio equipment is WMA or AAC compatible, it might be best just to convert all audio files to MP3 to avoid problems."


"Most sites and shops that sell car audio equipment give a run-down of the file types that every stereo supports."

Did you do any checking to see if said blogger knows which end is up? She says this in the article:

"The stereo you have in your vehicle might well not be able to play AAC files, or even WMA. If your car contains a Panasonic CX-DH801N, for example, you would need to convert any WMA files to MP3 before it would be able to play them. "

The CX-DH801 is a DVD changer, not a head unit. A quick look at the said manual that you said folks should read says this:

Kind of hard to miss the mention of WMA right next to MP3. Panasonic was the first company to broadly license WMA. I know because I had to negotiate the deal at executive level with my peer at the time, Mr. Tsuga who ran the Audio/Video group. Mr. Tsuga is now President and CEO of Panasonic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazuhiro_Tsuga

And who is Ms. Rachel Lawrence who wrote that article of yours that you trusted? If you click on her name, you see this amazing set of articles she has written:

Recent Articles By Rachel Lawrence
Heuga Carpet Tiles for Your Bedroom
Home Improvement: Flooring • Published: November 2, 2011

Commercial Carpet Tiles For Your Dream Home
Home Improvement: Flooring • Published: October 20, 2011

Buying Commercial Carpet Tiles
Home Improvement: Flooring • Published: September 7, 2011

Hotel and Hospitality Carpet Tiles
Home Improvement: Interior Design and Decorating • Published: August 31, 2011

Christmas Parties - Book Early For the Best Event
Home and Family: Parties • Published: March 4, 2010

Van Hire - Keeping Your Cargo Safe
Automotive: Vans • Published: March 4, 2010"

And fifty more mentions like that. Her personal web page points to.... website keyword marketing in UK!

Here is the way that scam works. These companies go to small businesses, promise them in exchange for money to plant "articles" online as to improve search engine "organic" rankings (the list that shows up without paying for advertisement). Of course search engines have heuristics to detect such stunts and ignore these results. The work-around is to create fictitious "authors" like this, write "articles" for online places that publish anything, and with it, create a persona of a real person so that when the clear advertising "articles" show up, they won't be rejected by search engines. Hence the reason you saw that page. Of course the author link connects to the marketing web site and therefore, increases their ranking too.

You want to believe your methods of looking up such information, by all means do. Just don't waste our time with it please....

 

[amirm]

"Insist on Quality Engineering"
Saves time from reading the manual.

I am sure this is what it said in the manual to do:

 

[Ratman]

You've worked very hard to "prove" that manuals are useless in your own special way. Most don't agree, but that's okay.
Enjoy the weekend.

 

[stevew24963]

Perhaps a simple Google search will reveal what format the manufacturers audio system will and will not support. Just a suggestion.