Music File Questions

Okay I have amassed this huge pile of music on my computer. About 50gigs worth!! Its all in diffrent formats, etc. Which is better to use the .wma or .mp3 format? What are the pros and cons of each and I have some that is in itunes format as well, how do I convert that to .wma or .mp3.? Or maybe there is a better format to convert all of it too I dont know about? What converters do you all use to convert fils also? Thanks for any help

 

WMA is generally smaller than MP3. You can use I tunes to convert them into MP3 then Windows Media Player into WMA if you want. I personally use Cheetah Converter.

 

I use Foobar2000 to convert because it can convert into a variety of formats and do mass conversions

 

I personally use Creative's software. I've converted all my files into WMA stereo 96kbps. This compacted the files by about 33% and I have noticed no degredation in sound quality AT ALL! Another bonus is that it saves mundo battery power while playing tracks at a lower bit rate for laptops and mp3 players alike. With my player I can go a week or two without having to recharge it and I listen to it frequently.

 

I'm not quite sure about WMA meyers, but MP3 is a very popular file format and offers good compression compared to other file formats. AAC might be a file format worth considering. It gives better compression than MP3 and the sound quality of both is about equal. You could simply use Apple iTunes to convert your music collection into AAC, although it could take a while....

I think AAC is a format worth considering for you, as you have a big, 50GB music collection, you could save some hard drive space. The drawback with AAC is that this file format is not supported by all Media Players, the iPod is compatible with AAC, but a couple of the Sony ones are not, as far as I know.

 

Yeah I have a dell axim pocket pc that I use as my portable media player, and it wont support the AAC format I dont believe. I have tried the Itunes player and not real sure about I really like the Winamp program. But alot of people are using Itunes now maybe I need to play with it somemore!!

 

Okay I have been looking around the web, and have some MORE questions. MP3 vs WMA. Some of the stuff I have read says that .wma although saves some space may not always play on some machines, etc due to some rights issues? IF I decide to go with MP3 format, what is a good rate to encode it down to that I will not lose sound quality, etc. I have read 96, but want to make sure it doesn't sound bad. Although I like alot of what I have read on WMA, seems like if I want to share my music, etc. MP3 may be the most versatile, etc. Dang so many diffrent options!!

 

well, since everything is already in a lossy digital format, there is no sense encoding at any other bitrate than what is already encoded. I would personally leave it at 128kbps, maybe consider re-encoding with variable bit rate, which will basically squeeze as much as possible out of a given filesize. for best compatability, go with mp3.

 

yeah, I agree with encoding into Mp3's into 128kbps, however, when I hooked up my laptop to some decent 4.1 altec lansing speakers, I did think there was a distinct sound quality difference from 128kbps to 192kbps. I would go for 192kbps.

 

Lil Mayz brought up a good point. The bitrate at which you encode the music should depend on what you are going to use to listen to it. If you just have regular headphones or laptop speakers a lower bitrate is acceptable (and possibly preferable), but if you have a high quality multiple speaker system, you may want to have a higher bitrate. I have never personally compared the difference of the same song at a high and low bitrate on a very high quality sound system because I don't have one, but this makes sense. If you are just going to listen to your music on your mp3 player or laptop then a lower bitrate is the way to go.

 

Mp3 is very universal format... so my advice - convert everything to mp3! Personally I convert with SoundTaxi and in case of protected media it reaches high results too )

 

Hmmm, very interesting. . . I knew we'd see ways around the DRM protection sooner or later

 

Here's one more anti-drm guide: http://www.nomoredrm.com

 

I convert my files @ 160kbps. I would suggest no less than 160kbps, or else you will tell a difference.

 

I wish mp3 wasn't so mainstream; I would much rather have everything in .ogg, but everyone uses mp3, and if you convert mp3 to ogg it will lose some quality.

 

As said above, .wma provides slightly better compression than mp3, but it's a Microsoft-specific format. Far from all players can handle it.

mp3 is pretty much *the* standard (unfortunately, as it's not the best, and is also covered by a couple of patents limiting its use).

.ogg would have to be my recommendation. Very good quality/compression, and completely and entirely free for any kind of use. No DRM and no patents or royalty fees for anyone involved, no matter what you use it for.

(That said, almost all my music is in mp3. Just can't be bothered to do anything about it)

Oh, and convert directly to the format you need. Each conversion loses some quality (because both wma, mp3 and ogg are lossy formats. So each time you convert to one of them, you risk losing a little bit of quality. It's no problem if you, say, rip a CD and encode it directly as one of the three, but converting, say, a wma to mp3 and then the mp3 to ogg is an awfully bad idea.

 

I'd look to a good multi-format player instead of re-encoding a bunch of music. Unless you go back to the original CDs, (which I'm sure you still own...) and re-rip them you are only going to degrade your collection. I use LAME to make MP3s and usually use a VBR 64 K to 224K profile.

 

.ogg is a filetype. The compression is called Vorbis. And yes, it's awesome. Vorbis > AAC > WMA > MP3 for 1/2 channels, AAC > Vorbis > * for surround.

 

I stick to MP3's because almost anything can play it, and its less restricted than others.

96 or 128 give good quality sound (being that the file is quality to begin with). Only reason to use 192 or higher is if for some reason you feel you really need it. Like connected to loud speakers or editing.

Basically what Iceman80403 said.

 

...no. very no.

 

Well, technically .mp3 is a filetype too. The compression is called MPEG 3...

 

96 or 128 give good quality sound

Explanation?

96 and 128 gives me good quality sound using my mp3 player, smartphone or even just playing thru my desktop or notebook.

It really depends on the
Quality of the Original file,
speaker output (headphones or speaker),
and other things.


But anything below 96 is noticeable. IMO

 

I can definitly notice the difference between pretty much any bitrate; 96 is just crap imo, 128 is not too good; but even from 192, to 224, to 320, you can notice a difference; (i have nice earphones too, and get totally immersed in my music.. the slightest bit of distortion really bugs me, and it is very noticeable.)
I usually encode variable bitrate from 192 to 320.

I'm sure the type of music makes a big difference in the noticeability too; You probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference with rap or hiphop or something, but with avant-garde, technical progressive speed metal, you need the highest bitrate you can get to really experience the full effect and depth of the music.

 

No, it's MPEG-1 layer 3

 

Pfft...
(Serves me right for not looking it up)
Well, it's really Moving Picture Experts Group-1 layer 3 then....

Depends on the speakers too, obviously, but 128 doesn't come close to the original quality. Some people notice it more than others though. But very few people would consider 128 to be "good quality".

 

Ogg is a container format.

 

OK where to begin. For starters, WMA (I'm assuming you're talking about the one where the highest bit rate you can have is 192KBps) and mp3 are both 'lossy' formats, that is information has been cut out in order to reduce the file to such a small size. Note that actual CD quality (i.e lossless) is considered to be in WAV format which is a constant bit rate at 1411KBps.

So if you were to convert from one lossy format to the other, you certainly wouldn't not gain any enhancement in sound quality, more likely no improvement or reduction of. Really, what you want to do if you want to move other to another format is to rip from original CDs or WAV files on your comp and convert into your desired format. But if the only files you have are those lossy ones and no other (and if you've been illegally downloading them, naughty boy), then you really have no choice if sound quality is paramount.

Now the debate is whether folks can actaully discern differences in sound quality between formats at various bit rates and in doing so, ending up on the thorny area of subjectivity. If we're to assume you're just going playing tracks through your comp through speakers then the difference probably won't be massive. To me, and probably a few people, we can hear that 64 or even 192 KBps is inferior to 320 KBps when comparing within the mp3 format. But if you were to compare that to 192 WMA then the difference maybe too hard/marginal to pinpoint with the inferior speakers present. To really appreciate the subtle nuances that make the big differences we percieve in sound quality, one really has to use better audio equipment. If we bring headphones into the equation then a computer can be considered a sufficient source. For example, playing all kinds of bit rates in mp3 and wma format through my notebook speakers, I can barely tell the difference and if there was any, its probably not worth it in terms of file size. Now if I plugged in my headphones ( Sennheiser Hd 595), I can more clearly spot the artefacts and inferiorities of lower bit rates, although the extent to which the comp is transparent ( how little a component should intefere with the signal path i.e as little as possible in most cases) is not enough to be truly indicative of bit rate/format discrepancies.

To sum the advantages/disadvantges of mp3 versus wma:

1) mp3 is a universal format and will be supported by practically all devices.
2) mp3 is generally a quite good file size to sound quality ratio
3) wma some might say is better sq at lower bit rates
4) wma has less universal support, but shouldn't be too much of a problem if a computer is your source

My recommendation would be to stick to mp3.

 

OMG why bother. What's the huge difference in sound file formats? As long as the bitRate is decent....

 

It does matter if you have a portable device with limited file format support. Why encode to a bunch of different formats at a "decent" bitrate and then wonder why they don't transfer or play on your portable player?

 

I'd go with mp3 and definatly no less then 128, I usually aim for 192-320 personally. But I usually use Sennheiser phones(PX100). Although I would like to have better quality music(WMA or something that might sound better) I'd rather it to work practically everywhere I go, thus I choose mp3