MP3s and size

[animlmed]

Ok all, is there any way to alter the format of an MP3 to decrease its size? Perhaps adjusting the quality of it? Thanks in advance for any info!

[trachy]

You can use any number of programs to modify the bitrate, which will significantly affect the size of each file. You can make it anywhere from 8Kbps to 320Kbps, typically. Another way to tweak the size of your MP3s is to try MP3 vs. MP3 Pro. Pro is a newer algorithm that rips at 64Kbps and still produces respectable sound.

Take MP3 advice (mine included) with a grain of salt. Some people are concerned with the subtle differences between formats, while others aren't.

Oh yeah - welcome to PPC Thoughts!

[animlmed]

Why thank you. :) I've enjoyed reading and learning here, and i decided to join in on the conversation.:) Im new to MP3's. Ive hd my toshiba for a while, but MP3s are a new technology to me. I'd love to be able to decrease the amt of space they take up. Thanks for the advice!

[trachy]

One last thing - you don't necessarily have to corner yourself into MP3s. Give the OGG and WMA formats a try. You may find you can get smaller files with acceptable quality out of these as well.

Good luck!

[Kati Compton]

If you're going to convert MP3s to either smaller MP3s or to a different file format, I would instead suggest re-ripping the songs direct from the CDs into the new format. The problem is that MP3 (and ogg and WMA) are all "lossy" compression techniques. Some of the information gets thrown away to make the file smaller. So what happens when you re-encode is that you end up losing much more of the file data than you would encoding it directly, as compressing at differnet rates or with different formats chooses different bits of data to throw out. Essentially, anyway.

[Unreal32]

Shorten the song. Who needs a whole song anyway? :lol: :wink:

[trachy]

Shorten the song. Who needs a whole song anyway? :lol: :wink:

Yeah, who needs all those choruses? Knock it down to one and you've probably eliminated a minute per song! :lol:

[Pat Logsdon]

I've had pretty good luck converting MP3s to the OGG format. It just about halves the size, and I can't really tell the difference between the two. DON'T try to convert MP3 to WMA, however - that way lies madness.

[spursdude]

DON'T try to convert MP3 to WMA, however - that way lies madness.
Please explain - I've done that to a lot of MP3 files, and I here no quality problems at all. And I have a sensitive ear.

[Pat Logsdon]

DON'T try to convert MP3 to WMA, however - that way lies madness.
Please explain - I've done that to a lot of MP3 files, and I here no quality problems at all. And I have a sensitive ear.

I suppose it's POSSIBLE ( :wink: ) that I could have set up the conversion incorrectly, but when I attempted to convert several batches of 128 MP3s to WMA format, I ended up with lots of hissing and cracking, and some weird "skipping" sounds. I also noticed that the file size wasn't all that much smaller, either.

I tried it a few different times with a few different settings, made sure nothing else was running on the system, etc., but could never get anything even close to acceptable.

dbPowerAmp, however, converts everything nicely with the default settings.

Did you have to tweak anything, or does it just work right for you "out of the box"?

[Kati Compton]

I suppose it's POSSIBLE ( :wink: ) that I could have set up the conversion incorrectly, but when I attempted to convert several batches of 128 MP3s to WMA format, I ended up with lots of hissing and cracking, and some weird "skipping" sounds. I also noticed that the file size wasn't all that much smaller, either.

I suspect this is from going from one lossy compression to another, as I warned about above. If you generate straight to WMA or ogg there shouldn't be that problem.

If you were converting from 128 MP3 to 128 WMA that wouldn't make the file size smaller if at all. The point of WMA/ogg is that you can get nearly the same sound as an MP3 from a lower bitrate.

[spursdude]

DON'T try to convert MP3 to WMA, however - that way lies madness.
Please explain - I've done that to a lot of MP3 files, and I here no quality problems at all. And I have a sensitive ear.

I suppose it's POSSIBLE ( :wink: ) that I could have set up the conversion incorrectly, but when I attempted to convert several batches of 128 MP3s to WMA format, I ended up with lots of hissing and cracking, and some weird "skipping" sounds. I also noticed that the file size wasn't all that much smaller, either.
Well, the file size will only be smaller if you encode at a lower bitrate: :D You didn't mention what bitrate the WMA was.

I use Windows Media Bonus Pack (http://www.wmplugins.com/ItemDetail.aspx?ItemID=7) for Windows XP which provides Plus MP3 to WMA converter. It works very well - it converts batches of MP3 files into 64 or 96 kbps WMA files. The quality is excellent, although my ear is noticing blemishes in 64kbps files with my great new headphones. But 96kbps sounds great. Not to mention that the WMA files work perfectly with WMP for PPC.

[Nellwaskilled]

Ok all, is there any way to alter the format of an MP3 to decrease its size? Perhaps adjusting the quality of it? Thanks in advance for any info!

things to consider.

-128 kbps in general is approximation of CD quality, lower than that you'll start to miss a great deal of 'goodies' detail.
-on lower than 64kbps, if you have the original source, try using .ogg instead of .mp3
-Try doing mono first before reducing bitrate, It might sound better overall while reducing the size. (ie, mono FM first, before going to AM quality)
-WMA is one of the better format for ultra low bitrate for speech/phone quality recording.