I tried out this program just to see how well it did compared to the likes of MuvAudio and Tunebite. Wow… let’s just say it doesn’t live up to its 13x speed that’s boosted on its sales page. Also I find it really funny that WMAConvert is nothing more than Sound Taxi with a new name. Is this because Sound Taxi received so much bad press about how awful their software was that they thought changing the name might increase sales?

Poor WMAConvert has an identity problem:
http://fidex.biz/
http://www.wma-convert.com/
http://www.soundtaxi.info/

Also just to bad mouth the WMAConvert/Sound Taxi team a bit more… notice how on the bottom of their web pages they are trying to grab the attention of search engines for all the keywords they list. This worked back in 1995, but not anymore (so much so that I think WMAConvert got itself banned from Google). Now I can’t “prove” they are banned from Google, but you’ll notice they do not show up in the search engine at all: http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...dconvert%2ecom Also their Page Rank is zero. My initial assumption was that this was a new domain / new product; but no it’s listed on many download/shareware web sites and the domain was registered back in March of last year.

Thanks for this info. I fell into the trap of downloading and installing URGE first which of course updated my Windows Media Player to the latest 11 build (which is FairUse4WM incompatible as of right now). I tried the tutorial you posted thinking it wouldn’t work (yeah I’m a pessimist) but to my surprise and delight it worked, and continues to work, flawlessly.

I will always prefer FairUse4WM over any other program for two simple reasons:
1) It’s free
2) It doesn’t involve ANY re-encoding of the song; it simply strips the file of the DRM protection/encryption.

However if I had to choose an alternative it would be Tunebite hands down. Not only does their software convert up to 4 songs at once, but their latest version (version 4) allows for an acceleration factor up to 3 times (up to 2 times if using WMP, which most likely you are). Their new version also doesn’t load up a WMP window as well during the re-encoding process (I hated that) so now it’s all “behind the scenes.”

I personally went with the Platinum version because it allows for video processing too (I download TV shows occasionally from iTunes). Personally I think the price is steep at $46.90 but here is a link (http://tunebite.com/tb4emplatmpeg4) for 55% off (for a total of $21.10). I know I sound like a Tunebite sales person here (honestly I’m not) but if you HAVE to choose an alternative to FairUse4WM this should be it.

I just saw an ad for URGE today on MTV so I thought I would give it a test drive. I have to say honestly hands down URGE is the best music subscription program I’ve seen to date (I’ve used just about all of them: Rhapsody, Napster, Virgin Digital, Yahoo! Music). The only downfall is yes, it does require WMP11 (this can be a non-issue though with the above tutorial). The coolest feature is their search which displays results in real time (narrows down the list as you type in the search box) which looks like it might be coded in AJAX. I believe they are still working out some bugs, but I haven’t noticed anything yet personally (fast download speeds, fast searching, etc.). At $99/yr it is slightly higher than Yahoo! Music but after a couple hours with URGE I decided to make the switch and cancel both my Napster and Yahoo! Music subscriptions. Microsoft is also backing MTV/VH1/CMT (Viacom) and trying to make this the rival to iTunes. If any company could do so, I think Microsoft and Viacom are defiantly a good fit.

All for now...