Discussion: What encoder do you use for your PPC music?

[nic]

I think taking certain considerations into encoding (or re-encoding) music for use with your pocket pc is a worthwile discussion so here we go.

First of all, all of my music on my computer is encoded as MP3 224 VBR, i use the LAME encoder with CDex (free CD ripper/audio encoder). I rip everything into MP3 because I have a stereo in my other room that takes MP3 CDs and I also feel that 224 VBR MP3 is pretty stinken close to how the original audio sounds on my most expensive system.

When I first started moving audio files to my pocket pc I used windows media encoder 9 to "convert" the MP3's to WMA 70 CBR. The encoder works really nice for single files but lacks batch processes. I saw some programs for buy that would fix that, but who wants to spend money? There also isn't a lot of options as far as your bitrate is concerned, and I found too many high pitch artifacts while listening to these on my ppc.

Now I'm re-encoding all to .ogg files. I use CDex as my front end to re-encode my mp3's to ogg at approx 96 kbits/s. The music sounds great, and I'm wondering if I should try and push it down to 70 kbits/s to get even more music on my ppc. I'll have to experiment with it. I really love how I can fine tune the quality of my ogg files. I'm using WinamPAQ to play the ogg files currently. I find this program has a really buggy interface. It plays files fine, but it is really aquard to put playlists together, and it doesn't read winamp 2.x playlists (huh!?!?). Skin support is nice, but I'm having a hard time finding a good skin that looks ok on WinamPAQ (as the main window is scrunched).

What do you encode with/listen with?

-Nic

[upplepop]

I like the ogg format a lot as well and also use CDex to encode my files. To play them on my PPC, I use Pocket MVP (http://home.adelphia.net/~mdukette/index.htm)

One more thing... I would advise against re-encoding your existing audio files if possible. This can result in a dramatic loss of quality becuase you are encoding a file through two lossy formats. It's not as bad if you are using two different formats, but you should try to encode from the original source if possible.

[famousdavis]

I use Windows Media Player 9 on my desktop to encode into WMA format using VBR (which, until a few weeks ago, I hadn't a clue what that meant....thanks to this forum, I learned all about audio encoding benefits and drawbacks). For the same quality sound, WMA does a better job than MP3 in a small footprint, which is important on the PPC platform.

[nic]

One more thing... I would advise against re-encoding your existing audio files if possible. This can result in a dramatic loss of quality becuase you are encoding a file through two lossy formats. It's not as bad if you are using two different formats, but you should try to encode from the original source if possible.

Even though I agree with you 100%, the inconvienance of finding these now boxed up CDs (with their scratches and what have you) and re-encoding them far out weighs the loss of quality from re-encoding the audio from an MP3. I'm going to do some experimenting with it, but I doubt that I'd be able to hear a difference between 224 VBR MP3 -> 96 ogg compared to CD-Audio -> 96 ogg

We'll see :) but you make a good point.

[Pat Logsdon]

I use dBpowerAmp (http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc.htm). It works very well, but it's a little slow...about 2 minutes per song. How fast is CDex?

[nic]

Well CDex serves as a front end for the particular encoder you are using. As far as the ogg encoder I got, it will "re-encode" one of my MP3s in about 30 to 45 seconds on my Athlon XP 2400+.

When it comes to ripping CD's, CDex does a pretty fast job. But again this is more dependent on the encoder you are using and how fast your CD drive is. In my case, the bottleneck of the load is at how fast my CD drive can read a CD.

-Nic

[Pat Logsdon]

Well CDex serves as a front end for the particular encoder you are using. As far as the ogg encoder I got, it will "re-encode" one of my MP3s in about 30 to 45 seconds on my Athlon XP 2400+.
Which ogg encoder are you using? I've got an Athlon XP 3000+, and from what you're saying, it should NOT be taking me that long to convert a file...

[spursdude]

I rip all my CDs to ~80kbps VBR WMA files (the second slider option in WMP 9). The convenience, sound quality, and ease of use are all excellent.

You can convert MP3 files to WMA files easily with the Plus Audio Converter, had for free at this site (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download/bonuspack.aspx). It allows batch conversion, but no VBR support.

Other people suggest Ogg files, and I can say that I've tried them, and I can't tell any noticeable difference between ~80kbps ogg files and ~80kbps WMA files. I tried hard to, I really did. But I couldn't hear any difference, although I do have fairly good ears.

[nic]

Surgical Snack: Ogg Vorbis DLL Encoder (Xiph.Org lib Vorbis I 20020717)

I think I get it from the Gordian Knot codec pack found on this side:
http://www.doom9.org

spursdude: yeah, it comes down to listening to both and seeing which one you like more. If they both sound the same, stick with what softwares you like more then ;).

I play my music on my pocket pc on either crappy headphones, or crappy car speakers so low-bit rates are where it is at. I'll look into that Plus Audio Converter and run some tests.

[qmrq]

abcde (http://lly.org/~rcw/abcde/page/) one command.. and you're done.

If you're into graphics and such, KDE makes virtual directories ogg/ and mp3/ when browsing CDs. You can go into either folder, then click and drag to have songs ripped and compressed on the fly. Couldn't be easier. :)

For windows.. EAC (http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/) with this encoder (http://rarewares.hydrogenaudio.org/).

[maximus]

I use this program called goldwave (http://www.goldwave.com/), a simple audio editor/encoder/converter in one.

[GingerTommy]

I use EAC (http://www.exactaudiocopy.de) to rip my CDs to WAV.

My player / encoder / decoder / media server / etc.... is J. River Media Center (http://www.musicex.com/mediacenter/) and I use this to encode the WAVs to WMA lossless for the best quality playback and transcoding (MC converts WMA to bit-perfect WAV and then to the desired format).

From Media Center, I can convert the files to 80 kbps OGG for playback on PocketMusic (www.pocketmind.com/pocketmusic.htm).

If you have the hard-drive space for the lossless WMA then the results are superb. P.S. The whole process above can be acheived with freeware.