RaidenTunes outputs MP3 streams directly to Your client side Windows Media Player usually, although it's pretty convenient but it results into 2 problems.

1. Bitrate of the MP3 files in Your harddisk may be different from time to time, some are with higher bit rate but some are lower, same user experience can not be guaranteed with variable bit rate.

2. When the client is using Microsoft Windows Mobile 5,6 the songs must be in WMA format otherwise the portable device won't play them in a playlist at all.

Acer Windows Mobile PDA which are compatible with RaidenTunes

Becuase of these 2 problems, RaidenTunes supports an advanced way to ouput the songs, that is to transcode the MP3 to WMA before it sends out the songs to the client side Windows Media Player. This solves the above 2 problems because the bitrate will be constant and the mobile devices will be able to playback these songs.

How to setup

Download Windows Media Encoder 9 32-bit version from Microsoft website and please install it in the default location (C:\Program Files\windows media components\encoder\), in order to simplify the setup procedure please use all default options during the installation process. And You need to apply a hot fix if Your server OS is Windows Vista.

Windows Media Encoder 9 download location
Windows Media Encoder 9 for Windows Vista Hotfix

Windows Media Encoder 9 setup program

After the installation is done, You can turn WMA transcoding on in accounts options in RaidenTunes.

Enabling WMA transcoding in RaidenTunes

FAQ

Q. Will the song be compressed again and again when user plays it?
A. No, it is cached until You cleared the WMA cache.

Q. How much time will it take to compress a song into WMA?
A. Depending on the computing power of Your server, it takes 5-10 seconds on Pentium-D 3.0Ghz.