freddyjollo Posted February 13, 2010 Report Share Posted February 13, 2010 seems like the later VideoLAN players will now play non drm OMA and aa3 files without sonicstage being installed http://www.videolan.org/ aa3 files are not automatically assigned to the player unlike oma files but can easily be made to so in the normal way sorry if this is common knowledge. if so delete this comment Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freddyjollo Posted February 14, 2010 Author Report Share Posted February 14, 2010 Just to expand on this. The player is free opensource. So it seems there is no longer any need for Winamp or that parasitic plugin or with tampering with the registry to get Windows media player to work? The nice thing about this is since you can get the VLC for Linux & MacOS, we have a nice player for oma & aa3 files for those other OS. I can confirm the Linux version ( Ubuntu) works a treat. Cant confirm MacOS. VideoLan dont seem to puplicise the fact about oma & aa3 files very clearly. There is a single ref to .oma files in a verson history, but not in the web site spec descriptions. Its a matter of better late than never? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PsychoPimpKiller Posted February 17, 2010 Report Share Posted February 17, 2010 I downloaded it but haven't had a chance to install it yet. Maybe this weekend I will and post my opinion. It seems like it will play almost anything, which in some ways sounds a little too good to be true, but we will see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freddyjollo Posted February 18, 2010 Author Report Share Posted February 18, 2010 well I have only at the moment tried LP2 and LP4 modes - most of my disks. They play fine. I dont know about all the other bit rates. There is the matter of sound quality. I havent noticed anything bad thru my notebook - which is surely its' use? so the inbuilt codec seems good. That doesnt surprise me when u look at the long list of contributors Videolans player has many talents - apart form its' player, it can also convert between formats - I tried atrac to mp3. worked well & was quite fast. Also it includes a streaming server. I tried streaming atrac audio files to the virtual world Second Life. Fine. Oh by the way it isnt only an audio player, as the name suggests its plays video files. I must say I like it playing dvds as unlike some other alternatives it gets the formats ( widescreen, 4x3) etc right with very little effort- some other players I have used have distorted the picture. It can also be skinned, so you dont have to use the standard , rather plain look. There are lots! It will also receive and play (shoutcast) internet radio. So I think a good player and probably the only one that out of the box plays dmr free atrac files. And its all free! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avrin Posted February 18, 2010 Report Share Posted February 18, 2010 The poor thing doesn't seem to play ATRAC3plus, only ATRAC3 w/o gapless support. Even with the ATRAC3[plus] decoder or SonicStage installed on the system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfbp Posted February 18, 2010 Report Share Posted February 18, 2010 The poor thing doesn't seem to play ATRAC3plus, only ATRAC3 w/o gapless support. Even with the ATRAC3[plus] decoder or SonicStage installed on the system. That's because ffmpeg doesn't (yet) break the encryption. The #linux-minidisc project is similarly stuck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freddyjollo Posted February 18, 2010 Author Report Share Posted February 18, 2010 Thats a great shame. But for me( probably others also) Lp4 & Lp2 is ok.I am just glad I can store my atrac audio files on my NAS & play them on any PC without having to have Sonicstage running on them all & import them into it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freddyjollo Posted February 18, 2010 Author Report Share Posted February 18, 2010 How does Avrin's ATRAC3[plus] decoder work then? Is it in principle possible incoporate it into players like Videolan's, or is it only A Media Player plugin? It would be nice to have a player that just does its job & doesnt require any registry manipulation? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfbp Posted February 18, 2010 Report Share Posted February 18, 2010 How does Avrin's ATRAC3[plus] decoder work then? Is it in principle possible incoporate it into players like Videolan's, or is it only A Media Player plugin? It would be nice to have a player that just does its job & doesnt require any registry manipulation? Well it relies on the same set of files that WMP relies upon, namely a valid, authenticated copy of SonicStage (or its core engine, MagicGate). VLC is an "open-source" project, which means they are legally obligated to use only software that the developers didn't owe any license fees for; which it seems Atrac3+ is not (and may well never be). So they cannot connect to any of the Sony API's because it would be a violation of their *own* license agreement which every user of open source software has to accept before usage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avrin Posted February 21, 2010 Report Share Posted February 21, 2010 (edited) First of all, the decoder is not mine. It is created by SONY, and included with the free Content Transfer application. And it doesn't need SonicStage or OpenMG at all. You may use it on a system that never had SonicStage or OpenMG installed. Of course, it is only able to decode non-protected files. AFAIK, it works in the same way many other Windows DirectShow decoders (AX files) do, and, as such, may be used by any Windows program. E.g. WinAmp is able to use it, if you add OMA to the list of extensions for the Nullsoft DirectShow Decoder plugin, but it doesn't allow to fast forward, and causes WinAmp to hang on stop or exit. The decoder is initially designed for decoding ATRAC3[plus] files for a subsequent conversion to MP3 in Content Transfer, and not for playing back anything, and the fact that Windows Media Player is able to use it for playback w/o any problems, only tells about the reliability of the player. Edited February 21, 2010 by Avrin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfbp Posted February 21, 2010 Report Share Posted February 21, 2010 Thanks for the clarification, Avrin. I had not noticed that this free decoder would deal with Atrac3+. I must revisit the issue with a new PC I am installing, because being able to play that format without Sonic Stage is suddenly very interesting. When you say "non-protected" I presume you mean the File Conversion Tool has already been run (as opposed to outright DRM from Connect/Mora which I don't care at all about)? This API is Windows-oriented so won't help the ffmpeg (and Linux) people at all, right? On another matter, how are you coming with RH910? Stephen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avrin Posted February 21, 2010 Report Share Posted February 21, 2010 (edited) Non-protected means that the files were either not protected during ripping, or unprotected by the conversion tool. Connect/Mora files are definitely not playable (but, IIRC, they are playable by Windows Media Player if an authenticated copy of SonicStage is installed). Haven't checked the RH910 yet. Edited February 21, 2010 by Avrin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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