320 vs 256, CBR vs VBR, 44.1Khz vs 48Khz

Can someone please tell me the difference between the above settings when converting from CD/lossless?
I know the 320/256 is the bit rate, higher = better quality, I know what CBR and VBR *stand for*, and I know that 44.1/48 is the sample rate, but I'm not sure what it actually means.
Can someone help?
Thank you.

Constant Bit Rate means the same bitrate is forced in all parts of the music regardless of changes in the nature of the sound. VBR means the bitrate is varied as the music complexity changes, higher for more complex music. Normally you won't see anything as simple as "320" or "256" if VBR is used because a single number just reports the average bitrate (ABR) used across all the music since the number is rarely constant. I usually go with VBR though you are to a certain extent letting the encoder decide what needs to be encoded at what rate. As another poster commented, 320 CBR (which is the maximum bitrate in mp3) is used when you want to be absolutely sure but may result in unnecessarily large files. I rarely see any ABR go above 256 and many are closer to 200.

Similar Messages

Why can't I choose 44.1kHz instead 48kHz

When I export video using H.264, I cannot change the audio rate from 48kHz to to 44.1 kHz.
How can I change the audio resolution of 44.1kHz (just like the original file)?
It seems that Encoder produces slight audio glitches when resampling the original audio file.
Your help would be very much appreciated.

OK, thanks. That should mean that you have the latest H.264 installed. I've not used MP4, or MOV Export enough to really help you there, but with my Exports, I haven't encountered any Audio glitches that I could detect.
At least others will have the info, and may have some suggestions to help you.
We've pretty much ruled out the 44.1KHz to 48KHz as the issue, since the resulting conformed Audio performs well in PrPro. Something has got to be amiss in the Export/Encoding step.
Good luck,
Hunt

CBR v VBR for shorter projects

Hello everyone,
Just a general question really. For short projects under 60 minutes, is there any reason at all to use VBR settings, when you can set a pretty high bitrate (between say 7.0 and 7.4Mbps) using CBR. I would have thought that logically, encoding all material at a constantly high bitrate should yield better results (on short projects) than having some material encoded at a lower average under VBR settings.
Also, if the maximum bitrate advised for some DVD players is around 7.4Mbps, why does Compressor allow higher settings than this under its preset for 90 minute best quality 2 pass VBR, namely 6.2 ave with 7.7Mbps peak. I'm puzzled why the application provides an option to excede the recommended max bitrate - wouldn't this 7.7Mbps setting cause potential playback problems?
Do any of you amend this 90 minute preset to give even higher average and maximum encoding settings under 2 pass VBR for projects under 60 minutes, and if so, what sort of settings have you pushed it up to, and have you experienced any playback glitches on DVD players at those higher settings.
Most of my encodes are of sub 60 minute projects and I want to know for sure that I am doing the correct thing in encoding them at say 7.2Mbps using CBR. I assumed VBR is used on longer projects to give difficult passages more headroom, while lowering the overall average to give a smaller file size, but is there another reason for using VBR that I am not seeing?
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Alan

Compressor allows for 7.7 max and a very high 6.2 average because those numbers are safe for replicated (aka factory-pressed) discs. It's the real-world issue that DVD-Rs have more playback variables (the exact dye used on the disc effects the lasers on players differently, in particular) that leads to the recommendation not to exceed 7.5 max for DVD-Rs. (In particular, higher-end players, in my experience, choke of high-bit rate DVD-R/+Rs.)
As for optimum settings, I typically use 2-pass VBR Best, 4.5 average and 7.5 max for 95% of my encodes (from as long as 100 minutes to as short as 30 seconds). MPEG-2 encoding, in an ideal world, would have the average bit rate be half the max, but a 3Mbps difference is a good real world compromise. If you're doing anything with less than a 1Mbps difference, you're better off doing a CBR encodes. When I do go CBR, it's 5.5 Mbps but even then, I always use Dolby Digital audio. (If I have to go with AIFF audio, I don't use a bit rate higher than 4.5Mbps.)

CBR or VBR - What's the difference?

I would like to add 1 note to Neil's explanation of cbr vbr. I have never used vbr in authoring and I have beend doing it for a very long time. The reason is simple. When you encode mpeg video, the bitrate can fluctuate to levels above the bitrate you have set (nominal bitrate). If you download bitrateviewer and load an mpeg file into it you will see what I mean. You may have a 7k bitrate, but there may be spikes that go up to 75k. This presents 2 problems. As Neil pointed out, the buffer may run dry on a console player and create playback problems due to a bitrate that is too high. However, even earlier than that, your project may not build because it does not fit on a disk. You may get a general error or unidentified error. The reason for this is simply that a higher bitrate (caused by spikes) takes more space. My simple rule of thumb is this. When setting your bitrate, never set it so high that the mpg files would fill the finished dvd beyond 90% of it's capacity. I have an excel spreadsheet that works perfectly for estimating bitrate. If anybody wants it, simply e-mail me at [email protected]
Regarding VBR, it will allow you to set a higher bitrate for your project, resulting in higher quality. This is especially true on projects that have a lot of stills or footage that does not have a lot of movement in it. The bitrate drops when the image is simpler. However, I have not experimented with VBR because that is what my professional colleagues recomment, so why mess with what works when a new glass master at the replicator will cost you $250 and possibly a client.
jonathan

The Automatic setting generally works very well indeed, and it appears that the transcode engine has been massively improved for Version 2.0 of Encore.
As an example, I am in the middle of a 4 disc set, all DVD9.
Was preparing the Client QC disc for disc 1, with almost 4 hours of video on it.
All set to Automatic, with the bitrate calculated to be 4.6Mb/sec according to Encore (Which does not seem to use the standard 4-5% overhead) and let it rip - expecting the transcode to take all day (previous tests with an external MPEG-2 encoder using VBR gave me 4 times real time to encode).
It completed writing the entire DL image in 3 1/2 hours flat.
Video quality was superb.

CBR vs VBR which is best

I realize there have been alot of postings (mainly mine) on this subject but........
Which is best and under what circumstances would you use these. I have been reading about this and it still is'nt clear. I have vers. 2 on my desktop and 2.1 on my laptop. All answers I have suggested that CBR is best, but is this all the time?
Jeff
G4 DP 1 GIG G4 laptop 1.25, MBP 2.0 1 GIG Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Jeff:
My two cents . . .
I'm using Compressor 2.0. With the standard VBR presets I use to get some pixelation in particular in transitions. That's solved using same preset changing just to CBR setting.
My projects uses to be short and then a bigger m2v ile size is not a problem for me.
Someone using 2.1 could tell us if the VBR problems have been solved.
Hope it helps !
Alberto

Keeping Sample Rates in Sync: 44.1kHz or 48kHz?

After reading about, and working with, sample rates in FCE and Soundtrack, I'm a bit confused about which sample rate(s) to use to keep audio and video in sync.
For example:
In Soundtrack Express, I'm working with a music track -- 44.1kHz/16bit/stereo; and a voice track -- 44.1kHz/16bit/mono.
When I export the mix to FCE I get a default option of 48kHz/16bit, which resulted in a 48kHz .aif file.
And since my FCE sequence defaults to an Aud Rate of 48kHz, it seems like the audio and video sample rates in this example would be in synch. Is this correct?
On the other hand ...
if I imported the same 44.1kHz music file directly into FCE, and created the same 44.1kHz voice over file, I'd have two files with a 44.1kHz sample rate as part of the FCE sequence, which has an Aud Rate of 48kHz. Would this configuration be considered out of synch? And if so, what problems would it cause?
Finally:
1. Do the sample rates of all media in a FCE sequence need to have the same sample rate as the sequence?
2. If so, does this sample rate need to be 48kHz?
3. Or, am I off in how I'm thinking about this?
Any feedback would be appreciated.
Thanks.

Tom Wolsky wrote:
2. It should all be the same. If you captured video that was 32K then everything should be 32K.
In my example I didn't capture any video: I imported a music file and did a voice over, both of which were 44.1K. So are you saying, that by rendering the media sample rates get synched up with the sequence aud rate?

44.1khz to 48khz

When I film public speakers, I give them a small digital recording device that plugs into a lapel mic, to augment their voice. However, the device records at 44.1 khz. How can I convert the files I get from it to 48khz, so I can mix it with my DV, and not have to slow it down by .015 (or whatever it ends up being)?
I have tried bringing it into a seperate project, with 44.1 as the projec's uadio settings, and then exporting to a 48 quicktime movie, but it has changed nothing.
Thanks for the help!

Sorry...did not understand that you meant out-of-synch tempo-wise or speed-wise. So you recorded your audio on a separate device, (say, a DAT recorder) and intended to synch it with your video? I can not see how audio sample rate (and/or converstions between 44 and 48 kHz) would ever effect speed. I am wondering about the devices you used to record you audio and video, and if you used the same ones to capture to digital. Or, perhaps the power supply to the units was not consistent (between recording and capture) and created a slight speed shift in a tape transport mechanism. Obviously, I have no clear idea sorry. Hope somebody has a definitive answer for you.

On2 VP6 in Premier Pro: CBR default? (only?)

I'm just beginning to work with Flash video export in Premier Pro CS3.
I don't see any option for selecting CBR or VBR output.
Does this mean that it is CBR? CBR by default? CBR only?
TIA,
Carolyn

I don't have CS3 installed any more, but I seem to remember that there was the option for VBR encoding, along with CBR. I'm working from memory on that, so this memory is subject to error However, it was 1-pass only. Two-pass VBR encoding--at least for VP6--was added in CS4. The VBR option should be somewhere on the Video tab in the exporter window.

Adobe Premier Elements 13 Missing VBR 2 Pass

I recently just got Adobe Premier Elements 13, I've used Elements 11 and 12 prior.
In the past versions I am able to select VBR 2-Pass rendering export for H.264 videos. Now, however, in this new version I only have the option of CBR or VBR, 1 Pass.
This is under AVCHD of course, selecting MP4, and customizing settings. I can input the bitrate I want, I can change the profile to High and 5.1, but no matter what I do there are only 2 radio buttons, either CBR or VBR, 1 Pass. There is no option for 2-pass VBR like there was in Premier Elements 12. I'd hate to have to downgrade to get VBR2 support.
Thanks

BrentJustice
Thanks for the reply.
I do not believe the following will be a quick answer route, but you could consider filing one of those Adobe Feature Request Bug Report Forms.
Adobe - Feature Request/Bug Report Form
For all intents and purposes, the Adobe Premiere Elements Forum is a user to user forum. However, when a new version of the program is released and at other
undefined times, an Adobe presence is noted in the form of posts from people identifying themselves as Adobe Staff or PRE_help. There have been several
of these appearances since September 24, 2014, release date of version 13 until now. Hopefully one of them will see this VBR, 2 Pass matter and offer some
insights on its apparent disappearance from many of the Advanced export settings. I am still wondering about the 2 options in the save dialog for the customized preset.
Neither seem usable. So, I leave the options unchecked. This latter matter applies to version 12 and 13.
Lots to explore and learn.
Best wishes
ATR

MS Media Player 10 WMA Support W

My Nomad Zen doesn't play the latest files I rip with the new Media Player version 0.
[Windows Media Audio 9. - VBR Quality 90, 44 kHz, stereo -pass VBR]
Is this a problem with my unit or do I need a firmware upgrade to support this?
If this is a firmware issue, Is there any hope for a firmware upgrade?
Message Edited by PeterH on 0-7-2004 04:55 PM

PeterH
I have a similar problem, but at least I can play the files I encode on my Zen Xtra. I have isolated the cause to the Windows Media Audio 9. codec. I can literally encode any WMA file at any compression rate (92, 256, 320 kbps ? CBR? etc) and the track length error is repeated (Read below for more info?)
Here?s the link to my thread: http://forums.creative.com/creativel...id=27390#M7053
Which says this...
<"I am having problems with tracks encoded as Windows Media Audio 9. ? CBR 320 kbps, 44kHz, 6 bit, stereo single pass using Adobe Audition .5 (in this instance ? though this problem occurs with various other WMA encoding programs such as Audio Conversion Wizard .65).
<These encoded files play fine on my pc using Windows Media Player 0 (or any other player) indicating a correct track length, but when these files are copied to my Zen Xtra (60GB) the track length display incorrectly. There is no problem with the mp3 equivalent - encoded CBR 320 kbps, 44kHz, 6 bit, stereo ? which work perfectly on both my pc and Zen Xtra.
<In detail - a 74 minute continuous play track may display as 2m 24s (depending on the file, the track length always varies) and as such I can only fast forward to this extent. If I was listening to say, 37m 24s on this track and depressed the fast forward button, holding a second or two, and then let go, it would jump back to 2m 24s despite indicating say 45m 37s. A nightmare!
<I could understand that there may be a problem ascertaining the correct track length on a VBR file but these are CBR.
<Any ideas or suggestion are welcome?"
I certainly don?t want to use older WMA codecs to encode my latest material. I have the most up-to-date firmware, drivers & applications available but no remedy.
Here?s the email I received from Creative after contacting them direct?
?Thank you for contacting Creative Technical Support.With regards to the issue, could you kindly do a Clean Up on the playerby accessing Recovery Mode?
Below are the steps on how to access Recovery Mode. Turn off your Zen player. Hold down the Play/Pause button and insert a paper clip into the Reset hole on the Jukebox Zen. Remove the paper clip from the Reset hole and then release the Play/Pause button after the recovery mode has started. The Jukebox Zen will enter the Recovery Mode and the following options will be displayed:Clean Up (Performs a disk scan on the players hard disk)Format All (Formats the players hard disk - Note: all contents will be lost) Reload OS (Reloads the Operating System on the Jukebox. Note: Reloading your OS, will not effect the contents of the files stored on your Jukebox Zen)Reboot (Reboots the device).Select the first option to do a Clean Up. This allows the player to re-organize the files on the hard dri've, and fix any file problems that may have developed. After a clean-up, if you reboot, a symbol with the message "Re-building Library" shows up before normal functioning (depending on the amount of songs on your Zen, it might take a few minutes to rebuild the library).After doing a Clean Up, do download and install the latest firmware update for the player from our website at the following link.http://us.creative.com/support/downloads/Under Product Type, select MP3 Players, followed by Zen (Hard Disk Dri've/ Micro) and then select NOMAD Jukebox Zen Xtra. For OS, select Windows XP. The file to be downloaded is Creative Jukebox Zen Xtra Firmware Update version .20.08 (.03 MB).After downloading the file, kindly access Recovery Mode on the player again and this time select the 3rd option to Reload OS.NOTE: Reloading your Operating System should not affect the contents of your Zen.WARNING: Before reloading the OS, the firmware update from the website MUST be downloaded onto the computer first in order to complete thereload process.From Rescue Mode Scroll to Option 3 and press the scroller. The Message "OS will be erased. Reload it via USB. Continue?" appears Choose the correct icon (Yes). "Erasing OS..." appears.When you see the message "Start Firmware update now!" do so as quickly as possible.FIRMWARE UPDATEownload to its own folder and extract the firmware on your computer. After that, install the firmware by following the on-screen instructions.
I think I need to send them another email clarifying that it is a problem with the WMA 9. codec. Perhaps they might have the answer?
Laters
WOODS

1 hr vs. 2 hr to a disc

When creating a project to be burned on a Verbatim DVD, I know the limit is up to 2 hours.
Now, conversely, if I only have 45 mins to one hour, can the DVD burned in one-hour mode, perhaps improving the quality of the picture? Or are recording speeds

say, you want to burn a SD-iMovie project. 1h = 13GBs..
now, iDVD has two parameters to set:
CBR vs VBR/best quality vs best performance .. (this is.. ahh, too complicated, wiki your own.. )
and bitrate.. perhaps you have heard of sample-rates with audio? 128kb vs 320.. ?
same with video, and in short:
the bitrate defines quality.. the higher = the better
limit is on DVDs, by standards, ~9Mbit/sec.. ≈ 4GB/h
soooo, if project is <60min, iDVD sets automatically to 9Mbit/sec
next bench is 90min
finally 120min = ~ 4Mbit/sec..
for your convenience there are no 'bitrate sliders' nor 'bitrate calculators' as in other encoding tools (Compressor, VisualHub, ffmpegX, Encore ...)
if you like to improve quality, stay under 60min with your projects

Multiple versions of songs

I have an album which I had bought and ripped some time ago. I loaded it into the cloud and it was identified there. On my Mac the album in iTunes looks fine. However, when I replicated it to my iPhone the album was listed twice, once with all songs, once with only three of them, and without the cover. So I played around with the settings for compilation, album information etc, but without success. Then I downloaded the songs again on my iPhone with the Match functionality. Still no success.
Then I checked how the songs on my iPhone are displayed in iTunes and found that each song is there in 3 versions:
- 320 kBit/sec (I guess that's how I ripped it)
- 256 kBit/sec (VBR) - whatever that is
- 256kBit/sec, buy date today (those seem to be files I downloaded today on my iPhone)
How do I clean up this mess?! Thanks for your help!

Have same problem with up to 12 copies of songs. Apple told me must delete manually, thus I have now reduced 7,500 songs (1,800 originals) to 6,400. As was mentioned to me earlier, for same reason when I downloaded Itunes, due to reinstall of xp, it downloaded numerous times. Apple could not explain why happened, just luckly I guess

Quality of downloads??

Hi, I have used many other services for DJ downloads before, Beatport, Juno, Ithink, bandcamp etc, but never this one.
So I have an account now, I have the stupid 3rd party software. I have a song I want to download.
But it just asks 'do you want to buy this song'.. it doesnt' listen what it will be!
I don't pay for MP3s, I only buy lossless formats.
So I need to know if this is flac, wav, alac etc.
WHere are the file info details? I refuse to buy mp3s..
And it's like entrapment, selling music with no quality details...
As DJ I refuse to play anything under 320 cbr and this says 256 cbr is PLUS option with DRM or something!??!?!!
I see full albums for sale here for more than say Juno and more than say a physical CD in the shop. Is there something wrong with Apple?? Mp3s are WORTHLESS compared to lossless formats... especially considering the listener doesn't get a cover, physical medium, lyrics booklet etc...no resale value etc...

I had another thread about this I can't even find anymore..
someone in that thread said it was 'clear' here about quality:
iTunes Plus
iTunes Plus songs and music videos are encoded in our highest-quality, 256-Kbps AAC format. There are no burn limits on iTunes Plus, and it’s free of DRM (digital rights management) limitations. This means iTunes Plus content will play on iPod, iPad, Apple TV, all Mac and Windows computers, and many other digital music players.
Well, to me that isn't clear. Not only did my potential purchase NOT specifiy whether it was 'plus' or 'regular' formats, it also appears to me that the above is a lie, entrapment - 'encoded in our highest-quality'.. I thought Apple lossless was higher than 256 CBR AAC?
Hmmm...
Goodbye for deleting my posts and not responding with decent answers.

Few Questions about

Hey there, I just bought a Creative Zen 4GB yesterday, and so far, I absolutely love it. Haven't had any problems syncing music, price was great, and much more versatility than an iPod. I just have a few questions. First, is there a way to turn the backlight totally off without putting the player on hold? I know that the backlight dims within 5 secs, but it still stays on. Last, the video converter tells me that my file is not suitable for playback, so I choose to convert it, but it refuses to convert the video. Is there any other converter I can use? Thanks a lot for the help, I am very impressed by this product.

I use SUPER with K-Lite codec pack.
SUPER:
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Video/Encoders-Converter-DIVX-Related/SUPER.shtml
(Choose AVI, and then XviD or DivX, set the bitrate to about 650kbps, make sure the resolution does not exceed 320x240, and set the audio to 4400Hz MP3, and choose an audio bitrate of your choice. Drop your file, click encode, wait, if you get an error, try AutoGK).
K-Lite codec pack (so you have all the revelent codecs required for decoding/encoding on your system):
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/K_lite_codec_pack.htm
You could also try AutoGK:
http://www.autogk.me.uk/
(In the custom size box, allow about ~6MB for every minute of playback, for example, if the input video is 3 minutes, set the custom output to 8MB, this is just so the bitrate doesn't exceed a bandwidth that the Zen can't decode. Also set the maxium width in advanced options to "320", and the audio to VBR or CBR of your choice, I'd say 92VBR).
Message Edited by mogster on 05-7-2008 06:48 AM

Web Video queries

Hi Guys,
It's been a while since I posted, so I just wanted to let you know that we have been making progress and slowly working through the issues we have had. I have to say that we could not have got this far without the invaluable information on this forum. We are extremely grateful here in the sandbox to all who have helped us thus far. :-). Incidentally, many of the problems we faced in the early days seemed to have been caused by a faulty CPU on our computer, which was running at some 70+ degrees!
Also, all of the following helped ensure a stable working environment for those perhaps experiencing the same issues we had: (not in order and all advice obtained from this forum!)
Reinstalled PrE
Updated to the latest version of PrE
Cleared out organiser and started over.
Obtained a new separate huge hard drive for Media only.
Upgraded to 4 GB RAM
Bought an Nvidea 9400 GT card then fell back the driver as per postings about the latest driver causing problems.
Followed postings about optimizing the PC (removing start up programs etc) from Bill and Steve et al.
Always set PrE to have High CPU priority.
Learnt how to create titles correctly using cut and paste within 'Project'.
Still don't understand how PrE renders titles and face the problem of having to re-render some titles everytime the project opens but hey ho..I'm happier than I was 2 months ago!
Use Digital Media convertor to get the right format for all files within a project.
OK. So we now have our small production ready to convert to flash for testing on our website. This process has raised the following questions which I hope can be answered here:-
We intend to use the 'Flowplayer' player as we have used this before and it seems quite easy to configure. In the past we have converted our 'non PrE projects' (Powepoint to flash for example) to .FLV format as this was the only option available to us with the application we were using. I see that PrE has 3 main options for web videos - MPEG / AVI / FLV.
Should we stick to Flash video 8 700K? At the moment this gives a 15MB flash video for our current 3 minute PrE project.
The default for Flash Video seems to be NTSC. As our projects are all PAL format - will this cause problems or does FLV always use NTSC?
The 'Advanced' section shows some settings we are not familiar with:
Format: FLV or F4V?
Resize Video? Should this be the same settings as our intended Flash Video size within Flowplayer?Bitrate Settings?
Codec - Sorenson Spark or On2 or VP6?
Bitrate Settings - CBR or VBR?
Encoding passes - One or Two?
We've noticed that when converting to Flash, generally speaking the quality is good, apart from certain pieces of video where we have a Videomerge effect for example. This really pixelates and doesn't look too good at all. Is there anyway around this or is to do with the quality of the source footage?
We have a few 'flickers' on some Fade tranistions. Again - source footage? These flickers are actually in PrE so not related to the FLV conversion.
We have imported some LOGOs (png and jpg) images which don't look so good. We have noticed that if we build the logos again within PrE using TITLES, they look much better. This is very time consuming however.
I think that's it for now. Any help would as ever, be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Craig
Very hot Egypt.

Craig,
The ultimate creation tool for logos, is Adobe Illustrator, or another full-featured Vector design program. The use of Vector allows one to resize to one's heart's desire and NOT degrade the image in any way. Now, Video cannot use Vector art natively, so Rasterization MUST take place somewhere in the workflow. I strongly recommend that one does this Rasterization in an image editing program, that can Import the AI files from Illustrator, and do the Rasterization there. I output these to .PSD (because I use Photoshop), and Import those files. I also do any resizing in PS, prior to my Save_As PSD, though one can still do a tiny bit of Scaling, without adversely affecting the quality.
I like the PSD format, as it preserves Transparency, while JPEG does not, and GIF only allows 1-bit Transparency, either ON, or OFF, no Feathering, or partial Transparency. PNG will allow for more control of Transparency, but I already have everything I need in PSD to begin with and my NLE programs love PSD, so I just save a step and the compression.
If I am creating a Raster logo (pixels and not mathematically created Shapes), I will do this slightly oversized, and then Scale down a little for my final output - again to very close to the size used in the Video.
I have not used GIMP, but many sign its praises. I've always had PS, so I am never looking for an alternative.
Good luck,
Hunt

320 vs 256, CBR vs VBR, 44.1Khz vs 48Khz

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for