How to choose Options

[Cora]

Sorry, I just found some documentation. I was looking for Help in the menu options now I see the "?" button.

What bit rate should I choose? What file extension should I choose?
I have a 512 flash player. If I convert music at what bit rate do I get a decent quality without compromising too much space? Should I choose MP3 or WMA? I understood WMA compressed the files more, but a technician at Circuit City said MP3 was smaller. Is that correct?

I converted music using Windows Media and when I play back the music, I hear a lot of popping sounds.

I looked through the FAQs but didn't see a basic guide for folks who just want the basics without having to experiment. Are these called "compression" settings and is there a standard set of settings listed somewhere?

[xoas]

Re: How to choose Options

Cora-
You might want to start with Spoon's Audio Guide for an introduction to some of the more popular audio formats. You will find this here: http://www.dbpoweramp.com/spoons-aud...de-formats.htm
(this is the page covering codecs, there is more to the audio guide that you may also find helpful).
As to what format is better for you, this really depends on a variety of factors. One of those factors is the issue of use-not all listening is serious and done in ideal listening environments. So for these uses you probably do not need as high a quality for your conversions as you would want if you were converting for archival backup of your audio tracks. A second use issue is which formats are available for a particular use. In this case, youor flash player would appear to support both wma and mp3. If it also suppported Ogg Vorbis, this might be an even better choice (but this would not be the case if your flash player does not support Ogg Vorbis). Likewise, since my car audio player only supports mp3 and cd formats, those are the ones available to me.

The two big issues you need to address are the issues of space and quality. The trade-off of course is that the more you compress your audio files the more tracks you can fit on your player. The less you compress a file the higher quality you will have. These are issues you need to decide for yourself. These decisions should be guided in part by the other factors I mentionned earlier but basically it comes down to what your ears tell you is or is not important. What I can tell you is that you almost certainly want to not go below 64 kbs for wma (although some users do) or below 96 kbs for mp3 (although we have had users who also do). As the Audio Guide suggests, WMA is often used at 64 or 96 kbs. (or in the latest version of wma, quality setting 10). Most users here seem to agree that in terms of quality, a track encoded in wma at 64 kbs is roughly equivalent to an mp3 file encoded at 96 kbs and a wma file at 96 kbs is roughly equal in quality to an mp3 file encoded at 128 kbs. (although therer are a few users who believe this advantage does not really exist and there are rather more users who might agree with the common hype that wma at 64 kbs is equivalent to mp3 at 124 kbs and at 96 kbs wma would be equivalent to mp3 at 192 kbs (this second is much more rarely made). So I would recommend you check out wma at both 64 kbs and 96 kbs and mp3 at 128 kbs, 160 kbs, 192 kbs and (if you are a demanding listener) 240-240 kbs.

As for the statement by your computer tech at Circuit City, it may or may not be the case that mp3 creates a smaller file than wma at the same compression level. But this apparent advantage would be offset at lower bitrates by using a greater compression setting for wma than for mp3. It might be possible that your tech is thinking about mp3pro, which is supposed to maintain a higher quality (roughly equivalent to wma) at higher compression levels. Mp3pro files can be played as regular mp3 files. However, mp3pro files that are played as mp3 files will end up sounding no better (possibly worse) than mp3 files if they are played as mp3 files. To really use mp3pro files you need a player that will read and play mp3pro files as mp3pro files.

As for your pops and crackles with your wma files, was this on your computer or on your flash player? If it is showing up on your computer, this is a technical issue. At one time we had an FAQ on this, although it is eluding me. Does this only happen with wma, or does it occur with mp3 and wave also? Does it happen only with ripping tracks from a cd or when converting files already on your computer? If it is occurring only when you are ripping tracks from cd, try ripping these tracks first to wave format and then to wma or mp3. If your pops are only occuring on wma when played on your flash player, check the manual for your flash player to make sure that you are encoding to wma settings that your flash player supports. It may not support vbr (variable bitrate) settings, it is even more unkely to support wma 2-pass files, wma pro settings or wma lossless settings.

Hope this helps.
Feel free to post any other questions you might have. If you need more help with your pops, please reply with the answers to the questions I raised.

Best wishes,
Bill

[Wayne]

Re: How to choose Options

It depends what you mean by decent quality. The main reason people have to experiment is because not everyone's hearing is the same. The quality of the sound can also be effected by the quality of the player and the headphones.

A friend of mine at work likes his audio files at the highest quality however this does mean that they are large, but then he does have a very expensive hi-fi system at home.

WMA (v9.1 - 2 pass) does seem to create smaller sized files than MP3 when creating files of similar quality.

In the end there is a trade off between size and quality.

Wayne