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View Full Version : Reducing MP3 Bitrate Please Help.



wpowers
02-23-2005, 01:00 PM
I need a program that will allow me to reduce the bitrate of my MP3's to save space.
I was using and have loads of praise for DBpoweramp. But have now come into problems (Music converter.exe) so need another program. All I can find is wav to mp3 or vice versa.

Also gonna reduce bitrates to 128kbps is that ok for quality????


Please Help

ChristinaS
02-23-2005, 01:25 PM
I need a program that will allow me to reduce the bitrate of my MP3's to save space.
I was using and have loads of praise for DBpoweramp. But have now come into problems (Music converter.exe) so need another program. All I can find is wav to mp3 or vice versa.

Also gonna reduce bitrates to 128kbps is that ok for quality????


Please Help
dMC will convert mp3 to mp3 as long as you have the PowerPack (either still under free trial or registered).

128kbps is ok generally, of course it depends on what exactly youo need and for what purpose. If it's for your own pc, you may want to try wma at 128kbps (assuming you still have a higher bitrate file like the wav or maybe the audio cd to convert from) as that may be a better quality than the mp3 @ 128kbps, but fro the same file size. No point in converting from 128kbps mp3 to 128kbps wma as this won't achieve anything better, and would quite possibly result in a bit more quality loss just due to the extra conversion step.

iTunesIsEvil
02-23-2005, 01:31 PM
I need a program that will allow me to reduce the bitrate of my MP3's to save space.
I was using and have loads of praise for DBpoweramp. But have now come into problems (Music converter.exe) so need another program. All I can find is wav to mp3 or vice versa.

If you would like, I have a binary version of the L.A.M.E. encoder (which is what dMC uses) ver. 3.96.1 on my website... IF you would like to use it, you can download it here... (http://gk-soft.net/media/audio/codecs/lame.exe) The source from which it was built is located here. (http://gk-soft.net/code/CodecSource/lame-3.96.1/)

So what you'll want to do is to run it from the command line (cmd.exe) and do something like this:


lame -b 128 "C:\My Old MP3s\someMP3File.mp3" "C:\My New MP3s\someMP3File.mp3"

The "-b 128" parameter will make the file a 128kbps bitrate file. So you can substitute whatever number you want there really...


Also gonna reduce bitrates to 128kbps is that ok for quality????

Depends on how sensitive your ears are and how good your speakers are. 128kbps isnt too bad though if it makes a small enough to save you the amount of space you need, and it sounds ok to you. Asking "... is that OK for quality?" is like asking if 50 Cent is a talented musician... it's all about personal preference.



FYI: Personally I don't like rap. :thumbdown But that's my opinion...

ChristinaS
02-23-2005, 01:34 PM
Oh, I msised the part about dMC giving actual problems, I'd work on getting that sorted out instead of trying other programs. There's no earthly reason why that shouldn't work.