How to play DRM encoded wma

[sox]

I need a way to play DRM encoded wma on a portable music player.

Audiobooks I want to listen to often come in WMA DRM so I bought a portable WMA player and figured I could use virtualbox running windows XP to load the player.

Not so. Although virtualbox is supposed to provide all USB access to windows, I can't see the media player in XP. I can see it as a usb disk, but I can't access the WMA player itself to load the wma. That is I can transfer mp3s but not WMAs.

Anyone know why? Is there a brand of WMA player that will work with virtuabox.

Right now I use a windows program (running in virtualbox) to transcode the WMA to mp3. This program basically plays the authenticated wma files through windows media player and then grabs the audio out which it converts to mp3. (So I only am transcoding media I own the lic too since windows is authenticating it).

But this is near real time process-- a 24 hour book takes 12 hours to process.

Anyone have a better, and hopefully mac-only, solution to this?

Please note: there are many programs to convert WMA to mp3 but when there is DRM I don't know of any other than windows media player itself, since there is the authentication step. And at present I don't know of any that run on a mac.

[cwtnospam]

Think long term. Even if you are able to get this done, buying proprietary DRM media isn't in your best interests. There are tens of millions of Mac owners out there, and in these tough economic times our business is increasingly important to these companies. Let them know that you require them to use open formats.

[tlarkin]

Google search flip 4 Mac, it plays windows centric media files on your Mac. There is a free version and a pay for version should suffice for what you want to do.

I can't say for sure about the DRM, as I don't use DRM on anything.

[sox]

A possible and legal approach is to burn it to a CD and then re-rip it.

However virtual box does not support CD burning, just CD mounting.

Right now I'm trying to create a disk image of a cd on a mac and mount it on windows in the VM. But nothing I do seems to work.

When I try to mount it from virtual box it never shows up in "my computer" and when I try to open the image from in windows I can mount it but windows says it is in an unknown format.

How does one mount an image in windows and make it act like a (writable) CD drive.

[trevor]

Right now I'm trying to create a disk image of a cd on a mac and mount it on windows in the VM. But nothing I do seems to work.

Create a .iso disc image of a CD on your Mac, not a .dmg or .img.

Note that .cdr disc images and .toast disc images are actually .iso disc images, and can be simply renamed to .iso for use in the Windows VM. This is NOT true of .img or .dmg disc images.

Trevor

[ThreeDee]

Google search flip 4 Mac, it plays windows centric media files on your Mac. There is a free version and a pay for version should suffice for what you want to do.

I can't say for sure about the DRM, as I don't use DRM on anything.

Flip4Mac can't play DRM'd files, as Microsoft won't license the encryption keys to them.

[benwiggy]

Whilst there is a "moral" case that if you bought it, it's yours to do with as you wish; the legal case differs depending upon where you live.

Where you live, there may be legislation like the DMCA in the US, which may make it illegal to use one of the WMA DRM cracking programs that you can find on the internet if you search for them.........

But fundamentally, I agree with cwtnospam, that you should discourage the supplier from using such DRM in the first place.

[sox]

Trevor,
I think you may be on to something but I'm have problems creating the .iso. I used to to this in tiger but Leopard is baffling me. I am using the disk utility gui. It forces you to select Mac OS HFS or MS-DOS as the files system which seems odd if you just want an iso cd.

moreover the most obvious looking option is "CD/dvd with iso". but when I select that option it goes throught the process of creating something (progress bar and all) then it gives me an error. Instead I can just select cd/dvd I get a restricted set of further options.

so far I can't figure out why I can't create the iso.

And as for the rest of the comments: first this is not "cracking the DRM". I have the licenences and the licenses grant permission to make cd copies in whatever format, and to play and capture the audio output. I am not cracking the WMA. But I am transcoding it. But that is legal.

And as for moralizing if I should support DRM or not. Well that's really not a topic here.

[benwiggy]

And as for the rest of the comments: first this is not "cracking the DRM". I have the licenences and the licenses grant permission to make cd copies in whatever format, and to play and capture the audio output. I am not cracking the WMA. But I am transcoding it. But that is legal.

And as for moralizing if I should support DRM or not. Well that's really not a topic here.
If you read between the lines, I was actually suggesting that you just remove the DRM and then you should be able to convert it faster than real time.

[sox]

As far as I know there is no known crack of WMA crypto. Perhaps you know different.

[fazstp]

And as for moralizing if I should support DRM or not. Well that's really not a topic here.


Doesn't seem like a moral issue to me if you have to go through all this just to listen to them.

Sorry, just my 20 cents. I know it doesn't answer your question.

[benwiggy]

As far as I know there is no known crack of WMA crypto. Perhaps you know different.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=mac+wma+drm+removal+utility&btnG=Google+Search&****=

[sox]

These solutions to remove WMA DRM seem to either ones that burn to a cd-r, burn to a virtual cd-r, or play the music and capture the output. Which is basically what I'm trying to do here. They do not actually "crack" the WMA. they just use your lic to transcode it one of those three ways.

in some cases the WMA will have a "burn lock" which means windows media will not allow it to burn to a CD so a lot of those programs don't work if they use a virtual CD-r or real cd-r. You can however do the play-n-capture route but that's real time which for audio books is slow.

In any case this brings me back to the original question of how can I mount a writable cd-r or virtual cd-r in win xp under virtual box.

[cwtnospam]

And as for moralizing if I should support DRM or not. Well that's really not a topic here.
I don't think the moral issue is as important as the business issue. Like it or not, who you purchase from is an important business decision that can have repercussions down the line. If you support a company that imposes these kinds of restrictions (see next quote) on you, who do you have to blame?
These solutions to remove WMA DRM seem to either ones that burn to a cd-r, burn to a virtual cd-r, or play the music and capture the output. Which is basically what I'm trying to do here. They do not actually "crack" the WMA. they just use your lic to transcode it one of those three ways.

in some cases the WMA will have a "burn lock" which means windows media will not allow it to burn to a CD so a lot of those programs don't work if they use a virtual CD-r or real cd-r. You can however do the play-n-capture route but that's real time which for audio books is slow.

In any case this brings me back to the original question of how can I mount a writable cd-r or virtual cd-r in win xp under virtual box.
You may need to try Parallels (http://www.parallels.com/) or VMware's Fusion. (http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/)

[trevor]

moreover the most obvious looking option is "CD/dvd with iso". but when I select that option it goes throught the process of creating something (progress bar and all) then it gives me an error.

What is the error message exactly?

If you create a new user on your computer and log into that new user, can the new user create an .iso disc image in Disk Utility?

Trevor

[sox]

Trevor the error message seems to be a bug in Leopard DiskUtility, I've got other folks to try it and all get the same message and a failed iso creation.

"unable to create foo.dmg (no such file or directory)"