How small can you go (with music files)?

[shygirl41]

Hi there-
Just learned that it's possible to reduce the size of a music file by lowering it's quality....just how small can you go with a 5MB size file (ripped from a commercial cd) and still have a somewhat decent-sounding song? I ask because i'm looking for a way to upload & email the file without it taking forever. thanks.

shygirl

[LtData]

Re: How small can you go (with music files)?

How low you can go wtih bitrate and still sound good is up to personal taste. Try expirementing around with various settings. One thing that saves space but doesn't lower quality is setting the channels to "Joint Stereo" instead of Stereo.

[neilthecellist]

Re: How small can you go (with music files)?

And if you have dialup, *beep* that. Use Ogg Vorbis at 65 kbps.

If you have higher-bandwidth broadband, on the other hand, I'd stick with the standard 128 kbps WMA or a 96 kbps Ogg Vorbis file.

With those, you should be able to send a standard 3 minute song over email under a fair amount of time.

[ChristinaS]

Re: How small can you go (with music files)?

Hi there-
Just learned that it's possible to reduce the size of a music file by lowering it's quality....just how small can you go with a 5MB size file (ripped from a commercial cd) and still have a somewhat decent-sounding song? I ask because i'm looking for a way to upload & email the file without it taking forever. thanks.

shygirl

Whatever you do, you shoudl re-rip the song to uncompressed wav first (16-bit, 44.1KHz, stereo) and the convert it to different formats and bitrates until you find one that's small enough and still acceptable audio-wise.

Subject to what your recpient expects, I'd recomemnd converting to windows media - wma - at 32kbps, CBR or A/V CBR. This will sounds reasonably good and take up only about a quater of the space currently taken by what you have (I assume it's at 128kbps or more, possibly mp3 or wma).
You could also use wma VBR (1 pass) and select VBR 10 44KHz which results in a bitrate of about 57kbps - a bigger file though.

[shygirl41]

Re: How small can you go (with music files)?

Thanks everyone for your input......could you all maybe give me some more numbers with your suggestions, ie. assuming a dial-up, 56 modem connection, it should take {X} min to upload a WMA file at 32kbps or {X} min to upload an Ogg Vorbis file at 65kbps (never heard of an Ogg Vorbis file, btw). I really want to know more about the time factor (to upload stuff) before bothering to do anything else. Thanks a bunch!


shygirl

[xoas]

Re: How small can you go (with music files)?

There are too many variables to provide a very precise estimate of upload time. You have not specified playing time, for one thing. More important, there are a number of variables that affect modem operation and upload time.
I would not think that format would matter so much as would bitrate (although other variables-frequency, number of channels, joint vs. 2 channel stereo) will affect file size somewhat. And the smaller the file size the fasater your upload.
Under ideal conditions your modem will probably upload no faster than 33.6 to 53 kbs. A file encoded at 32 kbs should upload one minute worth of music in 57 seconds (at a transfer rate of 33.6 kbs) to 36 seconds (at 53 kbs).
The same file encoded at 65 kbs should upload one minute of music in 116 seconds (at 33.6 kbs) to 74 seconds (at 53 kbs).
Please note that your actual upload speed may be considerably slower. Please note that these are very rough estimates and I have treated this as a straight-ahead math problem (which it may not be). So other estimates, if they are provided, may be better (more realistic and accurate) than what I have given here.

Edit: Your ISP (Internet Service Provider) may use some compression techniques for uploads/downloads which might speed up the actual clock time for your uploads. What can safely be said is that a file encoded at 32 kbs should upload about twice as fast as that same file encoded at 64 kbs and 4 times as fast as the same file encoded at 128 kbs. pretty much irregardless of format. BTW-While Ogg Vorbis is a very nice format, if you decide to go with Ogg Vorbis or some other format (apart from mp3 or wma) you might want to check to be sure that your recipient has the right tools to open and play the file.

Best wishes,
Bill

[shygirl41]

Re: How small can you go (with music files)?

Wow Xoas!! Thanks for all that! Computing sure is a complicated business, isn't it?! :p I think your info is very helpful. Thank-you very much.

shygirl

[neilthecellist]

Re: How small can you go (with music files)?

Put it this way:

Good ISP - Yay! Fast speeds! Woot! r0x3rs!
Bad ISP that doesn't compress and transfers under 33.6 k (like AOHell) - Screw it and get a better ISP, like http://www.a1isp.net . I pay 2/3 less the price of AOHell and I get 2/3 more the speed, plus modem compression! And I almost never have any lockups or modem service down!

Note to the moderators: About my previous post....."Screw" isn't a cuss-word, is it? :confused:

[ChristinaS]

Re: How small can you go (with music files)?

Yes, Neil, it is a cuss-word. Because yore using it as one, that's why :(

As far as I know any accellerators ISP's may use on downloads do not apply to audio files, but just to text and possibly images. At least that's true for browsing. When it applies to images on web pages, they get reduced in quality. Audio/video components do not get compressed.

[neilthecellist]

Re: How small can you go (with music files)?

My ISP does NOT accelerate anything. It is naturally a 56K connection. Besides, if it were accelerated, I'd be uber-[COLOR=Red]upset[/COLOR], because then I would be viewing the same webpages over and over again... I used a web accelerator before and I would have to say it's the worst thing I've ever used in my life.

And, don't forget, I live in San Diego = big tecchy city. There are a TON of dialup, DSL, cable, satellite, even T1, T3, and DS3 connection companies that are available to the general public here. Naturally, my 56k connection acts AT around 52-56K (but with cheating *cough cough* I can go on to 64k sometimes....heehee)