Tag: music
Freeme2: an alternative to Fairuse4wm
by Jim on Feb.07, 2010, under DRM, Security
This handy program – Freeme2 – is an open source project that removes pesky Digital Rights Management (DRM) protection from Windows Media WMA audio files and WMV video files. This is rather handy for those older MP3 downloads you may have purchased, as many sites are now selling their music without DRM. This program is a little harder to use than FairUse4WM, but it’s always nice to have an alternative in case FairUse4WM does not work; however, you may prefer Freeme to FairUse4WM!
There are download links both in the middle and one at the bottom of this article.
This post is taken from my old site Tech Rant. For some reason the exported xml did not contain this post, so for that reason I am recreating the post. I know that Tech Rant got a lot of traffic for providing links to software such as FairUse4WM; so I feel this site should begin to take some of the burden away from the old one.
When using FreeMe2 you have the choice of using the third party helper program or manually using the command line to free individual tracks of DRM. Download links and instructions on how to use both versions of the software are included in this post. For those who are not command line savvy, or are used to FairUse4WM’s interfact, I highly recommend you use a GUI when using FreeMe.
FreeMe2 should also work with Vista and should also run on Windows 7; although, problems have been reported with Vista. If you are using Windows 7, you should try using XP Mode; the tool should be more reliable. Alternatively, you can always try running FreeMe in a virtual machine; such as VirtualBox.
Please only use these program to remove DRM from files you already own, or for educational purposes. 406NotAcceptable and Tech Rant do not condone piracy.
Please remember that none of these download links are hosted by any Linode, 406NotAcceptable, Dreamhost, or Tech Rant server . They are all external. Always use a virus scanner when downloading files from third party sites.
Download links
Latest Version, source, and help file
Latest version
FreeMe2 Helper
Instructions for use with FreeMe2 Helper
Simply copy the executable into the same folder as freeme2.exe. You can to drag and drop complete folders on it which are being processed recursively (i.e. with all subdirectories).
Instructions for use without helper:
From the readme
How to use freeme2
Freeme2 is a command line application. You need to learn how to use Windows command console to run it.
How to use freeme2 to remove DRM from Windows Media .WMA and .WMV files (command line console)
1. Put your DRM protected media files in the same folder as Freeme2.
2. Run the Windows command console: Hit “Start”->Hit “Run…”->type CMD->Hit the “OK” button.
3. Then, once in the command console, change the directory by using the “cd” command to the directory where your FreeMe2 is located.
4. Extract your license keys. You can do this with drmdbg.
5. Type the following in the command line console:
Code:
freeme2 <name_of_drm_wma_file>
and press the Enter button
How to use freeme2 to remove DRM from Windows Media .WMA and .WMV files (drag-n-drop)
Drag-n-drop method is much easier than the one using command line console:
1. Put your DRM protected media files in the same folder as Freeme2.
2. Extract your license keys. You can do this with drmdbg. If you use drmdbg you can
take the drm2-i.key file generated by drmdbg, rename it to drm2.key and copy it to the FreeMe2 folder.
3. Drag your sample.wma file onto FreeMe2.exe. It starts up and runs fine.
The latest version of FreeMe2 supports decryption engine from MPlayer. There are three options to use freeme2: v,s and 2. Any combination of those is valid:
* v – verbose mode
* s – ask for SID
* 2 – use FreeMe2 original decryption engine (by default we use MPlayers one).
Example configurations:
* Decrypt file
Code:
FreeMe2 some_file
* Decrypt file in verbose mode
Code:
FreeMe2 -v some_file
* Decrypt file but force program to ask for sid
Code:
FreeMe2 -s some_file
* Decrypt file but force program to ask for sid in verbose mode
Code:
FreeMe2 -vs some_file
* Decrypt file but force program to ask for sid in verbose mode using FreeMe2 decryption engine
Code:
FreeMe2 -vs2 some_file
Download link
Freeme2 is a freeware open source piece of software that removes Digital Rights Management (DRM) protection from Windows Media WMA audio files and WMV video files. This program is a little harder to use than FairUse4WM, but it’s always nice to have an alternative in case FairUse4WM does not work.
<a href=”http://rapidshare.com/files/132357269/freemecollection.zip>Latest version, source, and help file
When using FreeMe2 you have the choice of using the third party helper program or manually using the command line to free individual tracks of DRM. Download links and instructions on how to use both versions of the software are included in this post.
FreeMe2 should also work with Vista; although, problems have been reported.
Again only use these program to remove DRM from files you already own, or for educational purposes. Tech Rant does not condone piracy.
Please remember that none of these download links are hosted by Tech Rant or Dreamhost servers. They are all external. Always use a virus scanner when downloading files from third party sites.
Download link
<a href=”http://rapidshare.com/files/132357269/freemecollection.zip>Latest version, source, and help file
Instructions for use with FreeMe2 Helper
Simply copy the executable into the same folder as freeme2.exe. You can to drag and drop complete folders on it which are being processed recursively (i.e. with all subdirectories).
Instructions for use without helper:
From the readme
How to use freeme2
Freeme2 is a command line application. You need to learn how to use Windows command console to run it.
How to use freeme2 to remove DRM from Windows Media .WMA and .WMV files (command line console)
1. Put your DRM protected media files in the same folder as Freeme2.
2. Run the Windows command console: Hit “Start”->Hit “Run…”->type CMD->Hit the “OK” button.
3. Then, once in the command console, change the directory by using the “cd” command to the directory where your FreeMe2 is located.
4. Extract your license keys. You can do this with drmdbg.
5. Type the following in the command line console:
Code:
freeme2 <name_of_drm_wma_file>
and press the Enter button
How to use freeme2 to remove DRM from Windows Media .WMA and .WMV files (drag-n-drop)
Drag-n-drop method is much easier than the one using command line console:
1. Put your DRM protected media files in the same folder as Freeme2.
2. Extract your license keys. You can do this with drmdbg. If you use drmdbg you can
take the drm2-i.key file generated by drmdbg, rename it to drm2.key and copy it to the FreeMe2 folder.
3. Drag your sample.wma file onto FreeMe2.exe. It starts up and runs fine.
The latest version of FreeMe2 supports decryption engine from MPlayer. There are three options to use freeme2: v,s and 2. Any combination of those is valid:
* v – verbose mode
* s – ask for SID
* 2 – use FreeMe2 original decryption engine (by default we use MPlayers one).
Example configurations:
* Decrypt file
Code:
FreeMe2 some_file
* Decrypt file in verbose mode
Code:
FreeMe2 -v some_file
* Decrypt file but force program to ask for sid
Code:
FreeMe2 -s some_file
* Decrypt file but force program to ask for sid in verbose mode
Code:
FreeMe2 -vs some_file
* Decrypt file but force program to ask for sid in verbose mode using FreeMe2 decryption engine
Code:
FreeMe2 -vs2 some_file
Download link
Latest versionDownload link
Fixing FLAC music for the N900 media player
by Jim on Dec.14, 2009, under Maemo, Operating Systems
The N900 uses gstreamer, a media system used by many Linux distros and it does support Flac; however, the built in media player is unable to read the Flac/Vorbis tags because it can only read IDV3 tags. This results in all your Flac media being dumped in one folder marked ‘other’. This makes the N900’s media player useless for lossless audio. This can be worked around, but if you plan on putting a lot of music on to the N900, you may want to wait for the tag to be supported.
Basically, what you need to do is get IDV3 (ideally IDV3V2) tags on your Flac media. Now, many tools will not let you do this, as the Flac format is designed to use Vorbis tags; but, the format does also support IDV3 tags! I found that using DBpoweramp, you can set the encoder to use IDV3 tags when dealing with Flac files. So all you have to do is re-encode your Flac media collection, to Flac (yes, that is weird!) and the tags should be automatically changed the IDV3 by DBpoweramp. It should only take 2 minites to ‘encode’ an album, so it won’t take ages to encode enough Flac files to fill the N900!
You can use a tool such as Mp3tag, which states the type of tags used by the file to confirm the changes.
The files should now automatically be indexed by the media player in the N900. This will also work for Canola.
