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WMA formatting versus MP3; when is one better than the other and is there even that much of a difference? I have pondered this a couple of times as I was downloading things and uploading other things and making little studio remixes of my own music. So I decided maybe it was a good idea to put one next to the other and see what I could come up and pass that info on to someone else.

WMA stands for Windows Media Audio. So no, you can’t escape Mr. Gates no matter how you try. WMA is Microsoft’s cornerstone for audio production and distribution. Most WMAs can be found on internet sites and the like. They are generally larger files than MP3s and are considered by Microsoft to have a higher quality than any other format. The main boast of WMA is simply that with the bitrate, amount of bits per nano-second, that WMAs offer the audio accuracy should be more dead on than with MP3 files.

When several countries’ labs converged to take on the evil that is Microsoft (not my words) they formed the Moving Pictures Experts Group (MPEG) and their third generation of audio software was called MPEG3 or MP3. My typing hand is very thankful for that. MP3’s main attraction has to be a greatly reduced file size to WMAs. They achieve this by cutting out the parts of the recording that the human ear can’t normally hear anyway. The result was a smaller program, or audio file.

The difference in quality between WMAs and MP3s is miniscule, even at the same bitrate, but still it can be noticeable by some. Of course a bad audio track will sound bad in both, but be more noticeable in MP3 format. WMAs win for that sort of versatility.

MP3s are smaller files and have slowly become the standard over time, so that is something that definitely works in the MP3’s advantage. WMAs are still mostly used on computers, where bitrate and to an extent, size is not as much of an issue as a personal player. So on a player it’s advantage MP3 for storage capacity saved. On computer it’s WMA for versatility and performance.

As to whether your MP3 player will play a WMA, the answer is “most likely yes.” There’s no reason why most will not. The thing to consider is if you want a lot of WMAs and MP3s on the same device, it won’t hurt anything, but things can get kind of weird. It’s a personal choice really. Hard drive space has increased a lot since the first generation of MP3 players were marketed, so space isn’t an issue anymore, but still, sticking to one format is a good idea.

Converting from WMA to MP3 format is not a bad thing and can be done on nearly any home computer. The problem is getting a good conversion rate and speed. This process can take awhile. Converting from MP3 to WMA takes a little less time, but unless you have a WMA specific project, it’s kind of a silly thing to do. The more you convert any file, the more quality you lose. Like making a copy of a copy of a copy and so on.

On the whole when you compare WMA to MP3 format, MP3 serves a much bigger audience and fulfills their needs just fine. While WMA format is in a lot of ways more flexible for the home record maker, the difference in playback between the two in nominal. It was a 4 to 5 split decision but when we went to the cards, MP3 won.

Zeeman Haus enjoys writing articles online on a variety of subjects. You can check out his latest website on Touch Screen Mp3 Players which provides top deals on touch screen MP3 players From Creative Labs, Coby, Visual Land and more.

Trying to record your webinar?

I can give you a few tips, but before I do, let me explain why you would even want to record it at all.

- Replays

Many people who couldn’t attend your webinar live are still interested in your products or services. So, providing a replay is a great way to get more sales and even have your customers pass the replay along to others virally.

- Product Creation

A webinar recording makes a great stand-alone product when you upload it to a password protected site or burn it to a CD.

- Training Module

Similar to product creation, you can add your webinar recording to one of your existing products or use it as additional training for a specific topic. You can even use your recorded webinar as a bonus for one of your major products.

So, how to record a webinar?

Some webinar hosting companies have a recording feature built in, but you always want your own recording as a back up. And strange as it may sound, your recording may higher quality.

Step 1: Begin your webinar by logging into the host compnay as the organizer.

Step 2: Using a SECOND computer, login as an attendee to your own webinar.

Your second computer should have screen capture software like Camtasia. When you use this software, you will be able to capture the audio and video from your webinar. Once it’s recorded, you can convert your webinar into whatever kind of file you read.

Step 3: On your second computer that is recording your webinar, set your screen parameters and audio settings and hit “record.”

Also, follow these technical tricks: set your audio to record “inline.” Use a 1/8″ to 1/8 audio jack so that the computer records only the webinar and not your voice coming through from the second computer. This way you can be in the same room with the computer that’s recording your presentation.

You can even see in real time what your webinar attendees see. Just plug one end of the 1/8″ cable into the microphone jack and the other end into the headphone jack. This will also give you a great opportunity to double check how the recording is going.

Step 4: At the end of the webinar, either burn the recording to a CD or upload it to the Internet.

You can also spice up your recording by adding music on the front end and back end. Make sure to use royalty-free so you don’t get in trouble. You can also add a “call to action” on the web page that has your webinar replay. This way, they don’t have far to go when they watch your replay and want to buy!

So, record your webinars and start watching your online or offline business explode using webinars!

Stephen Beck is an expert at showing individuals and small businesses how to explode their sales using webinars! He invites you to an amazing FREE weekly webinar to pick up tips on hosting your own webinar and how to record a webinar yourself. Hurry, these fill up fast! Lock in your place here: http://www.WildlyWealthyWebinars.com.

In the day before laptops, it absolutely was a lot of easier to suit your computer with a secondary CD or DVD drive, which made the process of copying or duplicating a disc incredibly simple.

All it took was putting the original CD in the primary drive, an empty CD within the burner drive, and hitting ‘burn’ within the CD duplication program of your choice. With laptops, however, it’s just about as straightforward to fit another drive within the chassis – not that everyone would know how to try and do it with a stationary laptop either, but that’s besides the point.

Therefore, if you merely have one CD or DVD drive, how do you are doing it? The foremost obvious method would be to copy all the info on the disc onto your computers exhausting drive, removing the disc and replacing it with an empty one, and replica your files directly from the exhausting drive onto the new medium. This will work fine for most discs (be it general knowledge, games, movies) but some can prove a lot of problematic.

Music CD’s, for example, typically use hidden files and a shortcut system, that means that that if you merely open the disc and view the files on your pc, then copy them, all you will copy may be a link to the file on the CD – hence the new CD will not work, as all it will have on it is shortcuts to files that don’t exist on that medium.

So if you would like to duplicate a music CD, how does one get around the shortcut issue? Well, there are several ways. What might otherwise be the simplest is to create use of a program that you will most likely have on your pc already, specifically Windows Media Player.

If you put the music CD into your pc and open it with Windows Media Player, you will be given the choice to ‘rip’ the music, which means that the software can copy the music files onto your onerous drive (normally they will be put in My Music, within the My Documents folder). Once that has been done, you may be in a position to copy the files onto a blank medium using a CD burning program of your alternative (e.g. Nero, or Windows designed in burning function).

If you dislike duplicating a multitude of files onto your onerous drive, you’ll download a compression program like Winrar. Once installed, this will allow you to right-click on the CD drive below ‘My Pc’ and choose ‘Save to archive’ – if you do this and choose to avoid wasting it as an ISO file, it can duplicate the CD or DVDs content onto your hard drive as one file.

Most decent burning applications will then be able to repeat the files onto an empty disc directly from the ISO file, unpacking the file because it goes. This makes the process less messy, and saves a bit of disc area (that, as you may recognize, is particularly valuable on laptops!).

Polinta may be a company that provides CD Duplication and Replication services for Audio CD, CD Rom, Video CD and Software CD services and products. It’s strategically located in Malaysia and has immediate shipping potentialities to Australia.