codecs

[jamos316]

as i know nothing about this subject, this is probably gonna sound the stupidist/easiest question. but here goes:

i want to start transfering all of my cds to computer.
what do you use as the codec as I dont want to lose any quality at all. what would the file size likely be?
i know about lossless codecs, and everyone of them is labled in this site as 'no audio quality lost'. this confuses me as there is so many of them and the compression rates seem to differ from each codec.
the thing that also confused me is that i downloaded a track in mp3 format. i converted the file to .flac format. i went into the properties of the audio track, clicked the audio properties tab. it told me that '56% of original, 1.7 to 1 compression'. i guess the 56% means the audio quality compared to what you would get if listening straight from cd. this isnt 'no audio quality lost' as i said before.
also if i take a mp3 file and encode it to a higher form, does this improve to quality of the audio file?

as i said at the start. im sorry for this question and i would appreciate anybody who replys and explains everything to me

thanks

[Spoon]

Re: codecs

The % shown is just the file size, there is no point in converting a mp3 to lossless as nothing is gained. Nothing can improve the quality of an already encoded mp3 file.

[jamos316]

Re: codecs

what codec would you reccommend using? (FLAC, Apple, WMA, MP3.......)

[Wayne]

Re: codecs

what codec would you reccommend using? (FLAC, Apple, WMA, MP3.......)

The codec to use will depend on how you are going to play them. On your PC, MP3/IPod device, streaming audio to your hi-fi etc. At the moment most of my music is in mp3 format due to the fact that it is a format that has most supported by those gadgets that I own.

If I was to start again and go totally lossless I would most likely go with flac due to the fact that WMA and Apple are both proprietary formats. To support my iPod (and iTunes) that does not support flac I would maintain a second copy of the files as mp3 too.