Do any of the traditional mulitizone media servers support WMA? Do you care?

Quoted from the Escient Home Page: (note I don't know what limitations if any exist.... I haven't used an Escient for WMA playback):

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I think it played it back as soon as I added the WMA file. However I think it might convert the file but couldn't be sure.

I was so unimpressed by the Escients demo I had, I kicked it for another 2 years.

Thanks, Fluid and Springs.
Would WMA playback be an important feature?

Well Windows media ripped to WMA by default and unlike iTunes it added alblum covers. So some customer have computers full of WMAs.

Both WMA (MS) and AAC (APPLE) are codec’s that are based heavily on previous .mp3 codec’s.

In the case of WMA, it was probably originally positioned as a competitor to MP3, with the real reason the project existed, being a compression technology that could be used w/o the licensing fees that MP3 would have brought with it... at the time. However, it was adapted to be a delivery platform for DRM equipped files.

AAC started out as another MPEG2 stream, like MP3, but is now mostly MPEG4. Even though it technically has some performance advantages over MP3, the only real reason for its popularity is the support for a DRM framework.

In this context, I consider the WMA and AAC technologies similar, in that they either offer no technical / performance improvements or any improvements they do offer are not realized in real world adoption / acceptance, but are technologies that are now being pushed on consumers because of the requirement for DRM.

The fact is that WMA does not HAVE to be equipped with DRM, so Microsoft would like to see the popularity of the WMA increase as a general purpose codec, because as widespread use of its codec goes up, so does consumer support of channels that would deliver DRM protected content, ergo, content providers' support of MS and MS partner bodies.

I do not see any reason to advocate to consumers to utilize WMA except where it is done so by choice to download DRM equipped content. Any boxes that I personally own are switched to open standards codec’s such as WAV, FLAC, or MP3. I do not recommend to any consumers to utilize channels that provide DRM equipped content, but rather that consumers purchase "hard" software and then rip it to their machines. Any consumer that pays money for software should be able to do what they want with it for their own use, in their own home. The main drawbacks with purchased media via DRM WMA, is that the media is crippled from a performance perspective, in that it is usually delivered in a low bit rate format, to allow convenient delivery given current broadband speeds, and also that the consumers' options are quite limited in what they can do with the media once they do have it, especially with respects to multiple location (rooms within same dwelling) delivery and support of portable devices. If they purchase "hard" software, then they can rip it to the appropriate format, such as uncompressed / lossless to be legally played back on a high quality media server or highly compressed to be placed on a portable player. The consumer can also choose, as is appropriate for an open market, which products they want to use, versus the DRM's reality of only allowing certain devices to work with others. (Why do I HAVE to use an iPod to play purchased iTunes music, forgetting the question of why would you want to use anything else)

So back to the question, do I care, yes I do... I am highly disappointed that any traditional media server would embrace WMA, because they will either not be equipped to play DRM WMA, which only causes more of a nuisance than it solves, or they will have to collude with DRM content providers... which is their own choice, but not in line with the strategy that I recommend.

On a side note, I think that eventually the American public will have enough of DRM and would hope that they would form a watchdog organization that would allow an appropriate voice of reason against media groups that have virtually unlimited resources to bear, given the consumers' addiction to music and video content. If we are lucky, maybe in 10 or 15 years it will be congressionally mandated that all DRM bodies be forced to provide tools to unlock all DRM content and cease and desist in any future DRM efforts. The money saved on DRM technologies, licensing, etc, throughout the industry, and profits gained in distribution, could then be applied towards finding and prosecuting the legitimate pirates. If the pirates are off shore, why should any country's citizens be punished? If traditional software providers cannot survive on equal footing with the landscape of the internet, then perhaps their business model is outdated and not viable, but being outdated and not viable is not justification for regulation and changing the nature of what is supposed to be an open entity... The Internet, that is. (Internet2, well maybe that won't be open or free)

Crestron AAS

I have recently had one of the new SE-160's for evaluation and can say that I'm impressed with it for the money.

Yes WMA is supported, but NOT WMA Lossless. I have almost all my own music in WMAL and it wouldn't play. (I had it networked as a share). It will happily stream MP3 and WMA lossy, so if I use one I'll have to convert my WMAL files to FLAC first.