Mp3'z

[Xtreme23]

For those of you who might know about mp3 playing on the Axim....

do you have to convert the mp3 with some third party to listen to it on the Axim? I'm getting a CF card specifically for games and mp3's to store on and will play them from the CF card on the Axim... I didn't know if you have to convert them like you would for a video to be played on the ppc.

Any insight would be great! I've read somewhere where move down the bit or something to save space.. does that degrade the quality of the sound at all..hmmm

[Janak Parekh]

do you have to convert the mp3 with some third party to listen to it on the Axim? I'm getting a CF card specifically for games and mp3's to store on and will play them from the CF card on the Axim... I didn't know if you have to convert them like you would for a video to be played on the ppc.
No, you can copy them over. That said, WMP is not the best MP3 player for Pocket PC's. You might want to consider several others, such as withMP3 (http://www.citsoft.net/product.asp?lang=ENG&menu=S), or PocketMVP (http://www.pocketmvp.com/), or iPlay (can't link to this one).

--janak

[TheBacklash]

You can do what I do and rip the mp3's that I put on my Axim at 40kbps.

Sure you will lose some quality, but you will gain the ability to carry much more on a single CF card. If you really pay attention, you may hear the difference, but odds are your using small headphones/earbuds and the sound quality loss will be minimal to distinguish from a 128kbps mp3.
Personaly I'd rather have a bit more space than high quality sound.

BTW: the SD card on my Axim carries my programs and games, the CF card is entirely for MP3's, and the Wi-Fi card swaps out when I need it.
128mb CF card, mine anyway, holds around 85 mp3's. Give or take a few, depending on song length.

[spursdude]

You can do what I do and rip the mp3's that I put on my Axim at 40kbps.

Sure you will lose some quality, but you will gain the ability to carry much more on a single CF card. If you really pay attention, you may hear the difference, but odds are your using small headphones/earbuds and the sound quality loss will be minimal to distinguish from a 128kbps mp3.
Personaly I'd rather have a bit more space than high quality sound.


Oooh, that sounds awful to me. :oops: Of course, it all depends on how much you care about quality. I care quite a bit, and thus I can barely stand MP3's at 96kbps, let alone 64 or 40kbps. Some other people, however, don't really care as much, and that's fine for them.

I listen to WMAs - I got the Windows Media Bonus Pack (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download/bonuspack.asp), which lets me convert MP3's to WMA's. A WMA at 64kbps has about the same sound quality as a 128kbps MP3, and (obviously) it takes up half the space. I've never had problems playing WMAs on my Maestro, but I have had problems with MP3s. For me, it's a great combination of both small size and good quality.

[TheBacklash]

the human ear can BARELY tell the difference.... and how about over 5 minutes per 1.5 megs... can your .wma do that?
if you record a mp3 at i think 128kbps, and one higher, your ear can't tell the difference, because EVERYTHING that is cut off is beyond the eardrums capable limits.... I really don't pay much attention to the music IF I do start to listen to any. the only time I listen to music really is when I'm on my bike and use my MD player. it don't matter what kbps it's at, you can never tell the difference at speed between 40 and 128, ever. it all sounds the same.

personaly there's about 80 songs I even listen too anymore... music is pretty much gone from my life. My cd's have about an inch of dust on them.

[shawnc]

I listen to WMAs - I got the Windows Media Bonus Pack (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download/bonuspack.asp), which lets me convert MP3's to WMA's. A WMA at 64kbps has about the same sound quality as a 128kbps MP3, and (obviously) it takes up half the space. I've never had problems playing WMAs on my Maestro, but I have had problems with MP3s. For me, it's a great combination of both small size and good quality.

This sounds like the optimal solution for me. Is there a WMBP (or similar product) that you are aware of that will work with Windows ME?

[Sven Johannsen]

Shawnc,
Yes, Windows Media Bonus Pack for WMP7.1, http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download/bpreadme71.asp

For what it is worth, re-encoding mp3's into wma's is never the optimal solution. It is preferable to encode the original audio into the format you want directly. Any encoding scheme loses some fidelity. Re-encoding takes that file with lost fidelity and loses some more. Of course if you don't have the original audio .... :roll:

[Janak Parekh]

the human ear can BARELY tell the difference.... and how about over 5 minutes per 1.5 megs... can your .wma do that?
if you record a mp3 at i think 128kbps, and one higher, your ear can't tell the difference, because EVERYTHING that is cut off is beyond the eardrums capable limits....
No, that's not true. The bitrate is not really equivalent to frequency range; rather, higher bitrates have a better sampling rate, which gives you better reproduction on higher frequencies. Listen to the cymbals of a song recorded at 40kbps, 64kbps, 96kbps, 128kbps, and 160kbps. The change is noticeable. I can clearly tell the difference between 128 and 160 for sufficiently polyphonic melodies, especially classical music. At low frequencies, the cymbals reduce down to a tinkling sound. I rip everything now at 160kbps Ogg, which is fantastic. The quality of speakers/headphones, plus background noise, also make a big difference

By the way, the big reason WMA is generally better than MP3 is that it does variable bit-rate (VBR) encoding, which causes a 64kbps to range between 160 and 40kbps throughout the song. VBR MP3 is quite similar. If you really want to encode at low bitrates, I'd strongly suggest doing VBR MP3, WMA, or especially Ogg, which is known to trounce the other two.

personaly there's about 80 songs I even listen too anymore... music is pretty much gone from my life. My cd's have about an inch of dust on them.
Maybe that's why 40kbps doesn't bother you :) I've got several gigs of MP3's/Ogg's, and I'm on the low end of things, I suspect.

--janak

[shawnc]

For what it is worth, re-encoding mp3's into wma's is never the optimal solution. It is preferable to encode the original audio into the format you want directly. Any encoding scheme loses some fidelity. Re-encoding takes that file with lost fidelity and loses some more. Of course if you don't have the original audio .... :roll:

Sven,

Thanx for the excellent advice. I will probably convert from MP3 to wma and see if there is a noticible difference in quality when listening using headphones. Since I am not a music affecionado, I'm guessing that I may not even notice the difference. Many of my MP3's were taken from Napster so the original is no longer availble.

If I do notice a difference, then I'll go back to MP3 and get a bigger storage card.

Again, thanx for the advice.

[TheBacklash]

According to O'rielly, mp3-tech.com and others.

128kbps is the limit of noticible difference on the computer. beyond very high end equipment, you can't tell the difference between that and the CD origonal. or the difference is negligble, as one test put it.

40kbps is about what FM radio is sent out at (56kbps)

True that I could care less about the current music scene, So the "quality" of the recording means nothing to me. I pretty much quit listening to music made after roughly the early 90's. it'a all crap to me now...

If yuou spend a fortune on high end equipment to get the audio to sound perfect, fine. but as they said without professional equipment you can't get there. nothing records nearly as good as live. even 320kbps CD's.

the human ear can't distinguish anything above 20hz, the 16-20hz level degrades quicker than anything else. Most people can't tell the difference of anything above the 17hz range, due to hearing loss over time. thats where the MP3 starts ripping stuff out. Remember xing first did this. they only switched because of the "audiophile" complaining about loss... although studies have proved that that range is the first to go, and odds are most people can't hear what is lost anyway.


You can continue to record at higher bitrates and store very few songs, but if you complain about the loss in quality, you shouldn't record anything below 320kbps, thats what CD's are at , anything less is complete loss... IF you can tell the difference. I'll record at 40kbps on my Axim, for those few songs i listen to over the PocketPc, and continue to record ATRAC LP4 on my MD player (64kbps) and will never complain about any percieved loss in sound quality. A lp4 MD can hold well over 4 hours of music per $1 disc, and on my bike you can't tell the difference between 320 or 64kbps.

I to have about 3 gigs of mp3's on a server here, all my old songs I like are in there, rarely listened too. If i turn on the radio, it's about 90% AM. only 1 FM station gets any listening to by me, and rarely do I do that.

Been in the music scene, been to the concert, got the T-Shirt. now I grew up and realized Music is worthless in life except passing the time here and there...


BTW: the last time I used Mp3's on a PocketPc, was on the flight to Las Vegas, over a year ago... they just sit there taking up space, with the occasional play to show people what a pocketpc can do standard that a Palm can't.

[Janak Parekh]

128kbps is the limit of noticible difference on the computer. beyond very high end equipment, you can't tell the difference between that and the CD origonal. or the difference is negligble, as one test put it.
I'm sorry, they're wrong. I have two rips of a Dandy Warhols CD (Thirteen Tales from Bohemia, it's an amazing CD, btw) right here, one at 128kbps MP3 and one at 160kbps Ogg. Admittedly, the latter is a VBR-based codec, but there is a noticeable quality improvement. I was playing the 128kbps MP3's in a van as we were coming back from a trip in Baltimore and several of us noted that the cymbals and other percussion instruments sounded rather "clinkly". This was before I told them it was a 128kbps encoding.

Also, I've heard about the Fraunhofer tests; the conclusion the MP3 inventors found was that 256kbps was virtually equivalent to CD audio quality, at which point most people could not notice differences in double-blind tests. I'd be willing to agree with that; 160 is very, very close to perfect for me.

40kbps is about what FM radio is sent out at (56kbps)
The difference being that FM sends out analog, not digital signals. You get an effective 40kbps because of the noise.

nothing records nearly as good as live. even 320kbps CD's.
Of course. (BTW, CD's are 176kBps, or roughly 1,408kbps, not 320kbps.)

the human ear can't distinguish anything above 20hz, the 16-20hz level degrades quicker than anything else.
... exactly where percussion instruments live. :)

Again, frequency range is not equivalent to bitrate.

Remember xing first did this. they only switched because of the "audiophile" complaining about loss... although studies have proved that that range is the first to go, and odds are most people can't hear what is lost anyway.
Hmm, maybe my ears are sensitive then. :?

I'm no snotty audiophile, believe me, we have a cheap 4.1 speaker set in our office, and because of all the computer noise in here it's worthless to invest in more, but we can still notice the difference in encodings. We're slowly reencoding everything as we get the time.

Been in the music scene, been to the concert, got the T-Shirt. now I grew up and realized Music is worthless in life except passing the time here and there...
By all means, you're entitled to that opinion. :)

BTW: the last time I used Mp3's on a PocketPc, was on the flight to Las Vegas, over a year ago... they just sit there taking up space, with the occasional play to show people what a pocketpc can do standard that a Palm can't.
I listen to MP3's (well, Ogg's now) on my Pocket PC for at least an hour every day on the train. Nothing else works as well in washing out the background noise with something I can either sleep or relax to. And I've tried a lot of things.

--janak

[TheBacklash]

It is clear that the 128kbs rate does not produce a quality equal to a CD on a good quality Hi-Fi installation. We can wonder if Fraunhofer's institute has not made an error by limiting its ACM pro codec to 128kbs. However, in the context of a computer use, the quality is equal to the one obtained by reading an Audio CD on a CD-ROM reader. The quality at 128kbs is also indentical to the one obtained with the original CD on a mini or midi Hi-Fi installation, and on the vast majority of Hi-Fi installations in separated elements. The test equipment is indeed better than the majority of Hi-fi installations.

Conclusion : For a computer use, the 128kbs rate produces a quality equal to an audio CD. But in the case of an MP3 use in advanced Hi-Fi, it is necessary to use a 256kbs bitrate to reach an identical result to the CD sound.

From mp3-techs test.

[Janak Parekh]

From mp3-techs test.
Yeah, I saw that one. Basically, we agree. :)

My point all along is that there is a noticeable difference... whether it's between 40kbps and 128kbps, or 128 and 160kbps. In the former category, one can often notice the difference with headphones or computer-grade speakers; in the latter, you need more than the cheapo $10 speakers that might be on your desk. It doesn't take thousands of $ of equipment, though...

--janak

[Kati Compton]

It is clear that the 128kbs rate does not produce a quality equal to a CD on a good quality Hi-Fi installation. We can wonder if Fraunhofer's institute has not made an error by limiting its ACM pro codec to 128kbs. However, in the context of a computer use, the quality is equal to the one obtained by reading an Audio CD on a CD-ROM reader. The quality at 128kbs is also indentical to the one obtained with the original CD on a mini or midi Hi-Fi installation, and on the vast majority of Hi-Fi installations in separated elements. The test equipment is indeed better than the majority of Hi-fi installations.

Conclusion : For a computer use, the 128kbs rate produces a quality equal to an audio CD. But in the case of an MP3 use in advanced Hi-Fi, it is necessary to use a 256kbs bitrate to reach an identical result to the CD sound.

From mp3-techs test.

Any idea what kind of audio equipment they were using with the computer, though? There's a range of speaker/sound quality on computers as well.

If we're talking about playing mp3's through my Vaio notebook's speakers I probably couldn't tell the difference above 32, let alone 128. :( But on my desktop I can definitely hear the difference between even a very good VBR 96 and a VBR 160.

[TheBacklash]

The listening equipment is the following :


Teac VRDS 25 CD reader
MIT T2 cables
Yamaha AX 1050 amplifier
Denon PMA 960 amplifier (for frequencies <50Hz)
Celestion speakers