TABLE OF CONTENTS While the general subject of the book is video, there are too many new and useful audio features in Windows Media 9 Series not to break them out separately and discuss their applications and implications. Microsoft's emphasis when promoting WM9 audio seems to be on the WM9 Player itself as opposed to audio production environments which is certainly understandable. But I'd like to showcase four basic workflow techniques that I use on a day-to-day basis.
Some depend on WM9, XP, or third-party software. Some were possible before but are now even more efficient. No order of importance is implied, but all of these techniques have proven quite useful at one time or another.
Microsoft may not look favorably on this one, but I still have clients who insist on using MP3. Also, I prefer to keep my personal music collection in high-quality MP3 format so that I can play it on whatever type of digital audio device comes along (a very general statement, but you get the idea). I believe WMA acceptance and usage will continue to grow, but for now MP3 still rules, in my experience.
That being said, I still do certain types of media production using WMA files, if only to save space. Microsoft claims that WMA files are half as big as MP3 files of equal quality, which does seem to be the case. When editing with Vegas 4 or Movie Maker 2 or creating web-based presentations with Microsoft Producer for Power...
