KMA or WMA/cdg

[jahern]

Do these two formats KMA-WMA/cdg have the same quality? If I use the same setting, say 192, they occupy the same space according to what windows explorer says (XP)

We talked about naming and the thread was moved to new features. If I convert my bin files to WMA/cdg the naming of the files is the same.

[ddouglass]

They are pretty close to the same and the quality should be about the same. The bigest difference is the wma+g, like the mp3+g has two files instead of one, but definately has better quality than the mp3. File name should be the same as the bin also.

[jahern]

I'm a little unclear about your response. Are you saying that they are the same or that one is better than the other? Which one is better? Because KMA named files don't always m i m i c the original names, I'm thinking of using wma/cdg until or if a new version of songverter does what I need, then switch to KMA for just what you said: a single file instead of two per song.

Thanks for your efforts and advice

[ddouglass]

Quality of sound and compression is very close to the same, so as you said use wma+g for now and wait to see if MTU can set up the kma option.

[jahern]

Yeah I probably won't put off re-importing my library until the file naming issue is changed, if it is. It's early in my thread, but noone has definitively said that KMA was higher quality than WMA/cdg. Frankly I think mp3g sounds very good, but I'm trying to go by the word of people with more sophisticated ears and machines. So I don't want to regret things later on when I get more sophisticated machinery etc. If the naming option for KMA is changed, I'm assuming I can always convert to that without any loss.

So it looks like I have a lot of work to do

[mindonstrike]

I thought kma and wma+g were exactly the same except for the added header information. I know kma's are based on wma audio so it should sound the same.

Sam

[jahern]

That's what I figured by golly!! I mean it seemed just like what you said, both based on WMA

[ddouglass]

The difference is kma has graphics embedded and wma doesn't so has an additional file.

[mindonstrike]

Dale it looks like you were correct.
This is from another thread where Lonman posed a similiar question about a year ago.

Originally Posted by bryan at MTUsupport

There are 2 types of .kma files. The First is the ORIGINAL .kma file created by Hoster when you Import into Hoster directly from a CDG disk using Import CD Tracks. This file is a TRUE .kma file. The Audio is compressed using the .wma format, from Microsoft at whatever Compression rate you have set in Hoster. The graphics are then ripped and combined into this .kma file, so it is only ONE file, not 2.

The second is when you import a .zip or MP3+G file from the Hard drive. This file is then has the .kma file header wrapped around it. This indeed is the EXACT same as your Original .zip or MP3+G file, it just has the .kma file header wrapped around it. So this file is what you are explaining in your first post, but our TRUE .kma file is not.

Sam

[bryant]

Originally Posted by mindonstrike

Dale it looks like you were correct.
This is from another thread where Lonman posed a similiar question about a year ago.


Sam

Can someone add more clarity to this, I now am a bit confused?
Thanx.

[admin]

Originally Posted by bryant

Can someone add more clarity to this, I now am a bit confused?
Thanx.

We're confused about your confused.

As a question and we can answer.

Jahern, as to WMA -vs- MP3 quality, at 192Kb rate, probably both will sound good. That's not much compression. At 128Kb, WMA will sound about the same as MP3 at 160Kb. So WMA can give you the same quaity at a higher compression ratio.

We are waiting for a bit more user feedback before doing Songverter 1.001 release. We will correc then BIN -> KMA naming error. We should have used the same naming convention throughout, but copying code pieces from other programs to do the same function, does ALL the functions the same. In this case, the Hoster naming of KMA files is different than Songverter. I'm sure that's how it happened.

[jahern]

I wasn't comparing wma and mp3. I'm assuming that KMA at 192 and WMA/cdg at 192 are exactly the same quality since they are based on wma, according to what I understand.

I believe that if I re-import all my discs to bin, then convert to WMA/cdg then my quality would be the same as to KMA. Then converting WMA/cdg to KMA later wouldn't pose any problem for quality loss.

Is that true?

I wasn't trying to put any heat or pressure on fixing the "BIN -> KMA naming error."

PS I haven't tested converting all formats to KMA, but WMA/CDG to KMA produces the same "naming error"

[ddouglass]

Originally Posted by jahern

I wasn't comparing wma and mp3. I'm assuming that KMA at 192 and WMA/cdg at 192 are exactly the same quality since they are based on wma, according to what I understand.

I believe that if I re-import all my discs to bin, then convert to WMA/cdg then my quality would be the same as to KMA. Then converting WMA/cdg to KMA later wouldn't pose any problem for quality loss.

Is that true?

I wasn't trying to put any heat or pressure on fixing the "BIN -> KMA naming error."

PS I haven't tested converting all formats to KMA, but WMA/CDG to KMA produces the same "naming error"

You are correct. And I would think any conversion to KMA would produce the same name result.

[bryant]

Think I got it.

[admin]

Originally Posted by ddouglass

You are correct. And I would think any conversion to KMA would produce the same name result.

I agree. As I stated above, we took code from Hoster's import screen, which included creating KMA files with DiscID-Track#.kma filenaming.