WMA Lossless Encoding, and Windows Media Player

[Mudkip2345]

Hello all, I have a few gaps in my knowledge related to title, and I was hoping you guys could help fill me in.

My entire library is in WMA Lossless, for the most part ripped from CDs through Windows Media Player. I had a few MP3 and WAV files floating around due to YouTube and Bandcamp, and decided to finally transcode them to WMA with the rest of my library.

Configuring fre:ac, a few questions related to the encoder.

1. Does the "Write uncompressed WMA files" checkbox more or less create a file identical to WAV but in WMA format?
2. For what purpose are the different channel options for, does the source file have to have separate tracks for all 6 channels in 5.1? I notice it fails when I try to use this option.
3. When selecting the highest sample rate, when the file is a presumably lower rate, does it just ping the same sample multiple times to result in the large file sizes? Does the compression algorithm not cover that? (I know that selecting the auto select format option covers this, I just want to learn how it works,)
4. I noticed by accident when feeding an output WMA lossless file back into fre:ac it brings up the warning of converting a lossy file to lossless, despite it being a lossless file. Is there no way to differentiate between WMA and WMA Lossless?
5. I have read elsewhere that ripping through WMP is not good. Is this true, and if so, is it worth re-ripping my library?

[enzo1982]

Thank you for your post and for choosing fre:ac!

1. Yes, "Write uncompressed WMA files" will write uncompressed PCM samples as you can find in WAV files, but in a WMA container, so you can use e.g. WMA tagging.
2. Yes, to use the 5.1 WMA format, your source files need to have at least 5.1 channels. When the source files have more channels, you will get a 5.1 downmix.
3. When selecting a higher sample rate, the input will be resampled to that higher rate. That's more sophisticated than just repeating samples multiple times, but I wouldn't consider an upsampled file lossless anymore.
4. The current version of fre:ac tries to guess whether a WMA file is lossless by looking at the length and file size. However, if a lossless file is compressed to a very small size, it can be mistaken for a lossy one.
5. WMP does not support advanced features like offset correction or AccurateRip verification, so you cannot be 100% sure to have a perfect rip. If you do not notice any issues with your rips, it's probably not worth re-ripping them though.

With all that said I'd like to add that I don't think WMA Lossless is a very good format. It has limited software and hardware support, limited sample format support (e.g. 48 kHz only supported at 24 bit) and some other quirks. If you're not required to use WMA Lossless, e.g. because some hardware player you use only supports that, maybe consider using a more common format like FLAC.