cannot decode ACELP.net (ACEPLNET) encoded wma file

SanDisk MP3 players Sansa® Clip | Sansa® Clip+
1

I just purchased a Sansa Clip+  with firmware v01.01.05a and started copying files to the AUDIOBOOKS directory.  Some .wma files from one site will not play though.

So I checked the wma file with GSpot v2.70a and found that it is using a ACELP.net codec.
0x0130 (Sipro Lab ACEPLNET) - odd that it is listed with different spellings in different boxes.

Most of my google searching seems to relate this codec to real audio but here it is a wma file.  It would be especially nice to be able to use them as-is since I mostly use Linux and would rather not get into the mixing of Linux with proprietary.

Any suggestions?

2

Update:

I found a sample at http://www.voiceage.com/sons/am/m1n\_net\_6k5.wav which played fine.

I’d like to attach the smallest .wma file I have that doesn’t work but there does not seem to be a way to do it.  Does SanDisk have an upload site for this purpose?

3

I don’t think the sansas will play ACELP.net in WMA. I don’t think much of anything will, its not a very common format and is probably PC only.

4

@iwilldoit wrote:

Update:

 

I found a sample at http://www.voiceage.com/sons/am/m1n\_net\_6k5.wav which played fine.

I’d like to attach the smallest .wma file I have that doesn’t work but there does not seem to be a way to do it.  Does SanDisk have an upload site for this purpose?

No, SanSisk doesn’t have an upload area. But you can choose from many other free file hosting sites (rapidshare, mediafire, …).

If you post your file somewhere I could check it up. If it is not DRM protected then there is a fair chance that mplayer/mencoder is capable of converting it under Linux.

5

The producers of the audio recordings have added mp3 encoded files to their site in support of ipod users.  The mp3 files are about twice as big as the wma files that use the ACELP.net codec.  Maybe the ACELP.net codec is really that good or maybe better tuning of the mp3 encoding process would produce comparably sized files.  The file size difference is impressive though.

The recordings are easy to obtain yourself, for example:
http://www.cffm.org/sms\_teachings/sms091309.wma
http://www.cffm.org/cffmpodcast/sms091309.mp3

I think ffmpeg and/or mplayer can convert these wma files to mp3 but it requires using the w32codec package which I do not use.  I am planning to setup a virtual machine with a 32bit version of Linux so I may try it there.

It would be nice to be able to play the wma files on the Clip+ without conversion.

6

ACELP.net is a speech codec, so its more efficient at encoding speech then general audio codecs like MP3.  However its also an essentially proprietary extension of ACELP so I doubt you’ll see hardware support for it.

Converting to ordinary WMA or Ogg at low bitrate would make more sense.