Convert WMVs to MP3s with Windows Media Player

The Windows Media Experience

As children we are all probably taught not to look a gift horse in the mouth and when a huge multi-billion dollar corporation presents you with a gift, then that rule should certainly apply. The corporation we are referring to is Microsoft and the unsolicited gift is their excellent Windows Media Player which comes bundled with Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7.

When regarded as part of Windows package, Media Player really is an excellent player, and provides a more than adequate way to store and categorize media. There's one catch though, Windows has a default format called WMA, and that format is often not compatible outside the Microsoft platform.

There are many examples of this lack of compatibility between WMV files and the more widely used MPEG format, used for short films, or the MP3 format for music. The most well known frustration is that faced by those of us who want to listen to music in a setting away from our computer, such as on an iPod or on their car radio.

However Microsoft must have anticipated that this would be a problem and has actually presented an easy option for music lovers to convert their WMV files to MP3 format with the minimum of fuss, hassle and, most importantly, expense.

Making the Formats Compatible

Windows XP, as a matter of course, will save any music downloads in your "My Music" folder as MP3s. To do this, all you have to do is…

1. Go into the folder and select the music you wish to convert to MP3.

2. Insert a blank CD-R or CD-RW disk into the appropriate disc drive.

3. Open the Windows Media Player. Once it is open, make sure that the music you wish to copy is marked;

4. Press the burn button and make sure that the destination is the empty CD.

5. Finally, open the Tools menu in Windows Media Player and then click Options and pick out the Rip Music Tab.

As you would expect the default option to save these ripped files will be WMV, which, if selected, would defeat the point somewhat. So scan down the list of options and you will discover that you can save your music in MP3 format.