How Can I Change My Windows Media Player File Type?
By Sonia Waring
Besides playing digital music and video files, Windows Media Player can "rip" (extract individual music tracks from a music CD) and convert them to a compressed format for storage on your computer's hard drive. Windows Media Player can play a large variety of formats, but you must choose a particular format for ripping, such as MP3, some flavor of WMA, or WAV. The latter is actually the uncompressed format you'll find on commercial CDs.
Step 1
Open Windows Media Player.
Step 2
Click the small arrow under the "Rip" tab at the top center of the window.
Step 3
Choose "More Options...."
Step 4
Click the drop-down menu labeled "Format" in the center of the resulting dialog box. Choose a format -- WMA, MP3 or WAV -- from that menu.
Step 5
Move the slider under the label "Audio quality," if the format allows it, to adjust the sound quality and file size of the audio tracks.
Tips
- To learn more about the format choices, visit the CD Burner comparison site linked under "Resources."
Writer Bio
Sonia Waring has been a professional technology editor since 1998, focusing primarily on software reviews and how-to articles. She also edits copy for scientific journals, several websites, and an independent network security consultancy.