Database Users

Ring Tones using MP3

:lol: can I set MP3 song as ring tones at XDA II.

I hope somebody answers this one yes

No - but you can convert it to WAV or WMA

:lol: Thanks.

xda-rocks said:
No - but you can convert it to WAV or WMA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How do you get it to play a wma as a ringtone ?

With the WMA loaded on your XDA...
Start - Settings - System Tab - Add New Ringtone
Check the Tone(s) you want, click OK

take it easy...
or just simply copy it to \windows\rings...

Re: take it easy...
yourmate said:
or just simply copy it to \windows\rings...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can I have ringtones stored on memory card?
I just dont want to have 20 WMA files in main memory...

Ring tones on SD cards
Ring tones are used when your MDA gets awaken (phone call, alarm) and this needs to be pretty fast. Therefore you cannot use a card memory card. Many applications assigned to hardware keys stored on the memory card fail.

MP4 Ring Tones
You can use MP4 for ring tone. I've used Quicktime to convert mp3's to mp4 format. Hope that help!

I have ringtones stored on memory card of XDAII with no problems

Sorry to spoil your fun but check your \windows\rings folder. Whatever ringtone you selected will be copied into that folder before you can use it. You are actually carrying two copies if you think your tones are on the memory card!

Hi folks - this is my first post, so forgive any ignorance of any rule I have missed.
Can I just ask, I'm used to my trusty E200...
Can you set individual ringtones, for specific contacts, on the XDA2, like you can on the E200 Smartphone?
Thanks.
And is it easy to get rid of the O2 Active homescreen/today screen customisation, and use it like a proper PocketPC ?

Ring tones us wav
I had convert the MP3 songs (4 MB) to wav files, is about 30 MB, so I use sound recorder (come with Windows) to trim off the file to about first 40 seconds to reduce the files sizes (5MB), since when phone rings, it will automatic stop at about 30+ seconds when nobody answer the call.

Why leave them as wav's though mate? That's where you are going wrong.
Once you have the section you want and have saved this as a wav, then convert it to a tiny little wma file to use as a ringtone - usually around just 500K for a 40 second tone in 96Kps quality - you can even use 64Kps to make them even smaller in filesize.
See below for some examples of the ones I have done. Dance songs make good choices because of the long instrumentals that allow full 40 second tones etc.

Shadamehr
you have a point but i have some WAV files with excellent quality sound on a 22KH and 16BIT have the same size as the WMA files.
I mean you have a good solution there but it doesnt differ allot from my point of view. And i dont see why you need to play an MP3 file as a Ringtone while you only need 30sec of music if you creat an Mp3 for that time it wont differ from the WMA or WAV file size.
So i think a WAV file created with a good software (NERO) will give you a good quality small sound and WMA also...

I don't think ANYONE can or will agree with you about the use of wav's mate as being as small.
Simply put, as wma, or mp3, or mp4 are 'advanced' audio formats, then in short simple terms, WHATEVER you can get, sounding good, at whatever quality you opt for, as a wav file, can be saved as a wma file of the same or even better quality, always at a smaller actual file size.
That's why it's used mate.
Except for one caveat... If you prefer TOTAL PERFECT quality music, then saving as a high bitrate wav file will produce a better quality song, but of course at a MUCH higher file size.
It would be irrelevant however, when used as a ringtone, as the handset speaker, good as it is, cannot do it justice. So no point doing it. In other words, for a ringtone, then the quality of wma is more than good enough (as its actually a good quality format), but at a smaller file size by far than wav.
You CAN use wav if you like, but on the speaker of the XDA2 there is no quality benefit, but it WILL be bigger file size. Thus, the only real terms difference between wav and wma when used as a ringtone, is a larger file size if using wav.
To give an example... The ringtones I attached above as wma... They are around just 500K. The equivalent file as a wav would be around 5MB perhaps, depending on settings used.
I think that should explain the difference.
And I am not sure what you mean about an mp3 for a 30 second clip being no smaller than a 30 second wav file.
Forgive me mate, but I have to ask, what on earth settings are you using for wav, to get a 30 second clip the same file size as a 30 second mp3 or wma file?
PLEASE post an example here in mp3 30 seconds long, and wav 30 seconds long, in a decent enough sound quality format. I challenge you mate, as I suspect it will be at least 5 times larger in actual file size for the wav file...

Just briefly, to clarify the difference between mp3 and wav file formats...
A CD of music, in wav format, would amount to around 10 to 14 songs, and it would take up a full 650MB to 700MB of file space on the CD.
A CD of mp3's, sampled at what is generally accepted to be near 'CD Audio' quality of 128Kb, would allow for around 100 to 150 songs to fill the same 650MB CD - a hell of a difference.
Finally, a CD full of songs, but recorded in 96Kb wma format, which is that level deemed to be of equal quality to CD wav audio, would amount to around 200 full songs on a 650MB cd.
So that being the case (and its simple fact, known to nearly all), how can you say wav and wma/mp3 have a similar file size, when used at the same QUALITY?
No chance.
You CAN fiddle with wav settings to get a NEAR similar file size, but it will STILL be a still slightly larger file. The QUALITY however will be a LOT lower.
So why have a lot lower quality, at still larger file size with .wav, when you can have .wma, at better quality, and lower file size?
That last sentence, is the explanation in final terms, for WHY people use mp3, or wma, as opposed to wav.
Wav for VOICE only is a different matter entirely as you can use REALLY low bitrates for acceptable results, but for true music, no chance mate.

Which app do you guys use to convert WAV or MP3 to WMA ?
Thanks,
Rob.

Rob_B said:
Which app do you guys use to convert WAV or MP3 to WMA ?
Thanks,
Rob.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Windows Media Encoder mate - it doubles up, as it allows me to convert video files too, ready for use on my XDA2.
There is LOADS more out there mate, but its free, and relatively easy enough, so I use that mate...
If it's not already on your system, the link is:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9series/encoder/default.aspx
Be careful to watch for line splitting if that link is too long for one line.
HTH

Assign Ringtone to group or specific number possible?

Hi
Can this be done....When in options I cannot seem to find the way to assign a specific ringtone to a specific number / contact and / or group.
Arjan

use ringtoneX from http://www.mtux.com. you can assign it to contacts and phone numbers
shareez

I agree Ringtone X is a lovely little application that let's you assign different tones by name, group, or number plus you can assign the default ringtone to specific numbers as well.
The current version can also play a variety of sound formats including midi, wma and wav.
Ed

you can also use a little very good freeware called PhonExt
http://phonext.oabsoftware.nl/
allow you to create and manage group ringtones and to assign personal ringtones to users.
can also be used for quick dialing with the today plugin.
Have Fun
B0b

Cyberb0b said:
you can also use a little very good freeware called PhonExt
http://phonext.oabsoftware.nl/
allow you to create and manage group ringtones and to assign personal ringtones to users.
can also be used for quick dialing with the today plugin.
Have Fun
B0b
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does it support the usual PPC 2003 ringtone formats, of wav, midi, AND wma though mate first?

I tried PhoneExt and it doesn't seem to work in WM2003

I also tried Phonext on my i-mate. The ringtone assignment doesn't seem to work on pocket pc os. The search contacts function works fine.
Any opinion on this?

i m using phonext on my XDA2 win2003 for a long time and i have no problem at all. i previously used it on my XDA 1 under windows 2002 and 2003 and i never had problems
i store my .wav in the /windows/ring directory and assign in my contact the ringtone i want to be play.
I did not try with .mid or wma i only use small .wav files
it works just fine.
just one thing : make a shortcut of the phonext.exe and drop it in the window startup so the the application run when you reboot

Cyberb0b said:
i m using phonext on my XDA2 win2003 for a long time and i have no problem at all. i previously used it on my XDA 1 under windows 2002 and 2003 and i never had problems
i store my .wav in the /windows/ring directory and assign in my contact the ringtone i want to be play.
I did not try with .mid or wma i only use small .wav files
it works just fine.
just one thing : make a shortcut of the phonext.exe and drop it in the window startup so the the application run when you reboot
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
wav wav wav...
Everyone keeps referring to wavs, but it seems no one is prepared to answer the question...
Does this application allow the normal PPC2003/WM2003 assignment of wma and mid files.
You and many others might still be using large wav files.
But the rest of us with WM2003 elect to utilise the much smaller and better quality wma files.
So asking yet again...
Does this application support wma files.
'Cos if the answer is no, it's usless to us.
So, anyone want to answer this time please folks?

well i can now answer to you now, i ve made some of a testing yesterday.
phonext only deals with wav, no wma nor mid files.
sorry dude
B0b

hhhmm better quality wma files as ring tones ?
yes mp3 and wma can be made to sound almost as good as a cd
but as a ring tone it's being played by the speaker of the xda
which is pretty low quality small speaker
it's pretty overkill
heck i bet you could take a wav file and make it mono and 8bit and changed the sample rate to 11Khz and would still be ok for a ring tone

that s how i encode my wav files, sounds good and quality is more than acceptable for me.
usually i got less than 150 K per ringtone for a 20 sec ring tone

Rudegar said:
hhhmm better quality wma files as ring tones ?
yes mp3 and wma can be made to sound almost as good as a cd
but as a ring tone it's being played by the speaker of the xda
which is pretty low quality small speaker
it's pretty overkill
heck i bet you could take a wav file and make it mono and 8bit and changed the sample rate to 11Khz and would still be ok for a ring tone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi Rudegar mate.
I'm originally an Orange SPV E200 user...
Had this since October last year.
Done more tests between wav, and wma, than i would care to go into.
Modaco Smartphone website covers this issue to death, with loads of users chipping in.
The completely unanimous agreement?
WMA is the better file format to use, for the balance between quality and file-size.
Proven. Not speculation. But as ever, each is free to decide for themselves. All I am saying is that in a debate that has ALREADY ran for ages in relation to another device, the consensus is this conclusion.
Let me point out, that if you use a low quality wav, you can use wma to make an equivalent 'low' quality tone, but at a smaller file size.
If you want high quality wav, you can use wma to encode in VBR 320K, and get a superb high quality tone, but STIll at a smaller file size than a very high quality wav file.
So its entirely up to you what quality you opt for - all I am saying is that once you settle on the quality level you like, using a wma file at a generally equivalent quality will result in a smaller file size.
Not fish-wife's tale mate, accepted fact, hence why compressed file formats such as mp3 and wma are used the world over - a decent enough quality for audio, and much smaller file sizes.
The wma files that I use... they are 96K quality, around 40 seconds long each (took me ages to create my catalogue, but I've been doing this for a long time remember). They are all around 500K file size.
If I were to utilise wav files instead, to do them at a quality that was acceptable on the phone/XDA2, they would weigh in at around 2MB.

Shadamehr
with my wma encoder i have one handle which is bitrate
with a wav editor i have
sample rate
mono / stereo
16bit vs. 8bit
and Cyberb0b (even though i havent heard that 150K ring tone of his) have a 20sec ring tone as wav
personaly when i store music on my xda2 using wma i do it in 64K/b sec which is not the best quality for listening to music but it's be all means way overkill for playing a ring tone using the nonheadset speaker of my xda2
suppose it can in some ways be compared to
everybody know that jpg is better then bmp
but if i were to draw a picture in pain using black on the white
saving my picture as 2bit bmp is WAY better an option then saving it
as jpg
with screenshots in windows gif as a rule is a better format then jpg
and with these 2 examples i'm speaking both quality and size

I use wma 64 as ringtones and i will NEVER use wav..
and i can tell the difference between 64wma and 32wma through xda ii speaker.. this speaker is not total crap.. it's the best ive ever heard in a pocket pc/phone.. even when watching movies and clips i cant use anything less than wma 64..
IMHO more than wma 64 is useless(when using the speaker)
and less than wma 64 is noticeable (when using the speaker)

i suppose what one use as ring tone also mean a great deal
i mean if somebody use a song or their own voice yelling to pick up the phone
compared to one who found some ring tone like an old type of phone they once had and use that
or a dog barking or .......

Shameless plug.
I've some ring tones encoded in WMA available from my website.
Cheerio
Howard

it might be better with WMA, but i do not listen to my rigntones all day long, i just need a cool sound to recognise who is calling me in the daily noisy diturbance.
Usually i even use 4 or 5 sec repeting sound making wav no bigger than 20 or 40 ko as the sample file included.
i m sure wma is better, but i might use that to listen to music, i do not care my ringtones have or not a CD quality
and as far as phonext is the only free soft i have found to assign ringtones to contacts i ll continue this way.
maybe the developper of the app will release a new one including wma, i hope so....
if some one got a better free soft for assigning ringtones to contact and creating groups, i will follow

Rudegar said:
Shadamehr
with my wma encoder i have one handle which is bitrate
with a wav editor i have
sample rate
mono / stereo
16bit vs. 8bit
and Cyberb0b (even though i havent heard that 150K ring tone of his) have a 20sec ring tone as wav
personaly when i store music on my xda2 using wma i do it in 64K/b sec which is not the best quality for listening to music but it's be all means way overkill for playing a ring tone using the nonheadset speaker of my xda2
suppose it can in some ways be compared to
everybody know that jpg is better then bmp
but if i were to draw a picture in pain using black on the white
saving my picture as 2bit bmp is WAY better an option then saving it
as jpg
with screenshots in windows gif as a rule is a better format then jpg
and with these 2 examples i'm speaking both quality and size
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Rudegar,
Send me ANY of your wav file ringtones.
I'll encode them into wma audio, and the quality will be comparably the same (certainly no pronounced noticeable deterioration), and they will be smaller file size.
And that being the case, then why would anyone use wav that doesn't have to?
Why do you think it was such a sought after feature of WM2003 - wma tones?
To have tones of comparable quality, but at lower filesize.
Yes, of course its not a lossless compression format (though little known fact, neither is wav!).
But it IS a format that can be reduced in file size considerably, with virtually no noticeable difference in quality.
Audiophiles can supposedly tell the difference at the HIGHER end of the quality scale (though I have to admit I can't), but it was always accepted that at the lower end, no real difference could be noticed.
So, if you can save a tone in a two formats, either of which SOUND much the same, but one is a lot smaller file size than the other, which would you use?

well i dont have any ring tones well non that i use anyhow
i use a tone called dog bark which came with my rom
maybe cyberbob have one
and i never claimed that wma was bad
just that wav files need not be that big in size if one had to make due with them one could limit their size and not suffer
much in the way of quality when it came to ringtones

Mp3 as Ring Tone for XDA II

can anyone tell me is there a function or software to make it possible for Mp3 to be as a ring tone?

I convert all my ringtones (MP3 and WAV) to WMA using Sound Forge 7.
They get really small and remain very good soundquality.
Oggi

Converting to WAV is a bad idea
Convert the mp3 to WMA (Windows Media Audio) , U will conserve the quality , less file size and u can set a .wma file as a ringtone !
Recommended software: MP3 to All Converter

Oggi,zimo4321,thanx,
but plz. give direct links to download on of these programs.

google knows best
http://www.google.dk/search?q=+Sound+Forge+7&ie=UTF-8&hl=da&btnG=Google-søgning
http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/
this is the best tool i've come across and it's opensource

Forget paying for Soundforge - use dbPowerAmp - it's free and integrates into the shell
Transcoding will result in quality degradation, but not in so far as you'd notice it as a ringtone

dangel said:
Forget paying for Soundforge - use dbPowerAmp - it's free and integrates into the shell
Transcoding will result in quality degradation, but not in so far as you'd notice it as a ringtone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ok,where can i download(link) dbPowerAmp :?:

How about using using Windows Media Encoder which is a free download and has pre-defined settings for encoding for use on PocketPC etc?

http://www.google.dk/search?q=dbPowerAmp&ie=UTF-8&hl=da&btnG=Google-søgning&meta=
this is the first place i would look for dbpoweramp

Has anyone experienced lag when using a bigger file as ringtone?
I have. When I use a .wma file which is bigger than 500k, up to 900k, there will be a lag. When there's an incoming call, the unit will light up first, but the ringtone will not start after 2 "toot-toot" or about 2 to 3 seconds later. I've simulated this using my landline to call my mobile, the lag is terrible for bigger files.

Hardly surprising when the ring tone has to be loaded into memory before ist starts playing, why do you want or need a ringtone of 500k or more?

because a 10 to 20 seconds .wma is that BIG!

Fair enough but my ringtone is the 02 Advert theme which is 30secs in length and only 300k? Encoded from an .mp3 using Windows Media Encoder.

Thanks guys
But 1 thing, did u guys actually found out that when setting the converted files as ring tone the sound quality of the files actually became softer ? is there anyway to make it louder? no point setting it as ring tone if u cant actually hears it.. thanks

1. When converting to WMA do this into mono mode (file will be twice smaller than stereo) and lower bitrate. U can't see the diffrence with this mono, little MDA speaker. speaking from my experience best result will be with 32 kb/s which gives 45 s ring about 200KB.
Check this one out http://annawhite.net/avatar/14-samuel_jackson-gmg pocket.wma souns great IMHO.
2. U can make WMA or MP3 louder with any good software mensioned above. If UR software doesn't have this function it means clearly that's not a good one . It's not easy to find good WMA soundeditor but U can (before converting to WMA) convert MP3 to WAV and there are plenty of applications which have this functionality. There will be no quality loss becouse any converting software does exactly the same (convertion from MP3 to WMA means that software does an uncompressing to raw - Wav format and then compressing it again to desired format).

MIDI as Alarm

Hi,
I read that it is possible to have MIDI files as alarm sounds so i put a midi file i use on my old SE in the windows directory and when i go to choose the alarm tone i don't see it. is this supported in MDA Compact? what am i doing wrong? please advise. thanks

were did you read this? afaik... you can use midi, wav, mp3, wma for ringtones (via caller id app) windows mobile uses wav and wma for ringtones, but wav only for alerts. hope this helps.

I think it was on the AlarmToday user forum. i thought something was wrong. anyway, thanks for replying, it's a shame that midi cannot be used for alarms i don't think it's a technical or logical impossibility but microsoft works in mysterious ways i suppose. if there's a workaround or a program that would do this i would greately appreciate it if someone could point it out. once again, many thanks

Well, if you have a midi player for pocket pc installed you might be able to pull it off with AlarmToday.
On their site I read:
"Powerful custom alarms to play music (including complete songlists, MP3, WMA, OGG or Realplayer), open documents or applications and much more"
This should in theory make it possible to create an alarm event that starts the midi player software with the midi file of your choice.

Why not convert your midi file to wav it's very simple and then you can use it as an alert?

Do you know the wav file type is so much bigger than the other types of audio?

I sure do realize that but why would you need a whole song for an alert. Change the stereo to mono and 16 bit to 8 bit and trim it down to a length that it needs to be as an alert and it will not be much if any bigger than the midi file.
If you can't live with the shorter version then you should stay with midi because you are right they take up much lesss room, but I myself don't want a whole song played for an alert. The longest one I would ever use would be 2 seconds then let it repeat again for each alert.
If you use this procedure you can have many wav files as alerts.
I've had a recording studio here in Nashville TN since the early 80's and over the years I found out that if you will bend a little there is always a way to get what you want. Let me know if you need any help with turncating your wav files

Thanks for your thoughts
stratguy said:
I sure do realize that but why would you need a whole song for an alert. Change the stereo to mono and 16 bit to 8 bit and trim it down to a length that it needs to be as an alert and it will not be much if any bigger than the midi file.
If you can't live with the shorter version then you should stay with midi because you are right they take up much lesss room, but I myself don't want a whole song played for an alert. The longest one I would ever use would be 2 seconds then let it repeat again for each alert.
If you use this procedure you can have many wav files as alerts.
I've had a recording studio here in Nashville TN since the early 80's and over the years I found out that if you will bend a little there is always a way to get what you want. Let me know if you need any help with turncating your wav files
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I still use a SE P800 smartphone and what you just wrote is what I had to do. WAV files are big but with a bit of creativity in making an alert or ringtones it is just to easy. " Ask and you shall receive"
X-man germ

Cool by the way where did you get that last part of your handle "germ" are you a musician:?:

stratguy said:
Cool by the way where did you get that last part of your handle "germ" are you a musician:?:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, I am not a musician. My username is just a nick name from my first name and the germ part is only short for Germany.

Cool thanks, germ is a term we use in the music biz. Thats why I wonered :lol:

Maybe my music taste in "Rage against the Machine" which leads left can explain why I choose my name. Power to the People.

Wat Software do U use to do this? I am looking for a software that can transform anything in everything (mp3, wav) from original CD's. and cut them in small durations. I don't find that...

I use CDex, which BTW is a free program. I love it

Mp3 compression

hi all,
I know that you guys put ton of mp3 on the miniSD card but do you guys use some tool to make the size smaller?
i can't imagine storing the mp3 in its original size (5M)..
If you have used some tool to make the size smaller without the audio quality degrading too much, please list your tools here.Thanks

Depends on quality minimum with mp3 for music is 128kbps, but I use wma which has an equivalent quality at 64kbps so uses half the space. Give it a go, windows media player will rip wma,s and you can compare quality.

Thanks...
I remember reading someone using some other tools to compress mp3 and play with tcmcp player...can't find it anymore
On another note, i use tcmcp for mp3 but it doesn't have any hard button mapping to Next, Fast forward...etc....
Tcmcp seems like a popular player here but how can people get on with this lack of full feature?

baraider said:
On another note, i use tcmcp for mp3 but it doesn't have any hard button mapping to Next, Fast forward...etc....
Tcmcp seems like a popular player here but how can people get on with this lack of full feature?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Options/Settings/Select Page/Hotkeys

guttrhead said:
Options/Settings/Select Page/Hotkeys
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Duh...i didn't notice that select page...so lame.
So i have Mortsaver and tcpmp and i set all the buttons for tcpmp Next, previous...
but when i turn on mortsaver to make my 8125 a mp3 player, the buttons do not work anymore...some setting in mortsaver I need to set up?
I'm ready for another duh moment

I don't use mortsaver, so I can't help out there.

google for advanced WMA workshop...
great, try VBR (variable bit rate compression), this will make the program decide what bit rate to use depending on the quality of the original flie... use WMA format, you will end up with files that are 1/3 the sie of the original files with almost the same quality...
I am still waiting for my xda mini s, so I am not sure that WM player can play VBR WMA files
Regards,
Mohammad

Check out http://www.fenice.info/mp3reenc/readme.htm and also have a look at DB Power Amp (allows you to right click on an mp3 or a folder full of Mp3s and re-encode to a lower bitrate or wma).