Audio Encoding Quality

Hi guys,
What is the best audio format for storing a big music DJ library on iTunes and be sure of having a good: Sound Quality/ with smaller possible file size? (without affecting the quality that i have to play arounds my sets?
1 Aiff?
2 Apple Lossless?
3 Acc 320?
4 Acc 256?
is that rank correct?
Thanks in advance

In terms of quality, that's basically correct though AIFF and Apple Lossless will be sonically identical. In terms of file size, that list would go from largest file size to smallest, if that's what you mean.
If you want true CD quality, go for Apple Lossless. That will give you a file sonically identical to the original CD but at about half the file size from the original.
If you want a compromise between file size and sonic quality, AAC at 320kbps will probably not be for most people be sonically distinguishable from the original CDs unless you have a really high-quality playback system and the environment is quiet (i.e. not your usual dance party).
But I'd suggest that you import a few representative CDs at the various rates, set up a representative system, and take a listen for yourself, perhaps with the help of a few friends. Then you can decide what works for you in your setup and usage.
Regards.

Similar Messages

  • Audio Encoding Quality  - ipod Nano

    I am importing my music CD's into iTunes using the Apple Lossless Encoder setting to obtain the higher music quality.
    When I am syncing my 7th generation iPod Nano, is it downloading the music into the player in the Apple Lossless Encoder format or is it defaulting back to the ACC encoder format?
    Thank you for your assistance.

    Unless you have turned on the option to convert everything to load it then it is using Apple Lossless.

  • Audio Encoding & Ken Burns Problems Persist - More Help Please.

    My previous thread (10/27): Encoding Audio in iDVD for 41 hours. Is there any hope?
    --72min iMovie, many high res photos, iTunes music, voiceovers, sound effects (20.9G)
    Since then:
    I reimported Music Store songs from CD and tried iMovie to iDVD again , menu took 50min, video encoding took 4.5hrs, audio encoding went 12 hours till I force quit. (Should I have waited longer?)
    I then was able to create a Quicktime Movie (Full Quality) in 36hrs, but the Ken Burns photos were so horrific (shimmering) that I decided to try creating a Disk Image. Is there any chance the results will be better? (Burn w/Toast6)
    I also tried exporting iMovie to my JVC GR-DVP3 video camera. Only got colored checkerboard patterns.
    If the Disk Image approach doesn't work, I'll be back at square one. Anything else I might try?

    Wow, this sounds like a long time. Is this DV? Or
    H.264?
    The extension is .dv What is H.264
    Remember that iDVD will create standard resolution
    video, even if you are feeding it HD material. So
    use Export> Quicktime> Full Quality DV.
    I did.
    The shimmering might improve once it is burned to
    disk, but it might not. I also find it is different
    on different players. PhotoToMovie does a better job
    than iMovie/iPhoto of avoiding shimmers.
    I heard that, but it took me 2 weeks to make my movie and at present I can't bear the thought of redoing all my KB photos.
    I also tried exporting iMovie to my JVC GR-DVP3
    video camera. Only got colored checkerboard
    patterns
    Check the iMovie forum for this one, but it sure
    seems that something must not be hooked up right.
    Was it in VCR mode?
    I have a post on the iMovie forum, iMovie recognized the camera and it recorded, but all I got was sporadic patterns. The manual shows DV to DV operations but no computer to DV. Maybe my camera isn't compatable.

  • Solution to audio encoding problem achieved

    I was using clips from my Sanyo Xacti Camcorder, imported into iMovie as mpeg 4 files and unable to finish the project in iDVD as the error would come in the audio encoding stage.A quick test is to export the iMovie files through Quicktime and it would stop cold, saying something is wrong with the file.
    Going through the forum here,many had posted reasons is because iDVD cannot handle audio files with deviations from sampling rate of 48k, and somehow the audio files may work if it is converted to aiff , with sampling rate of 48k.I found a way to do it last night.
    Export the imovie to GarageBand. When GarageBand finished the video track and sound track imports, adjust the volume of the sound track as desired.
    Make sure the GarageBand preference to set export movie in full quality, not ipod or email quality. Then export the movie to disk, and the resulting Quicktime movie must have the original audio tracked enabled before it is used in iDVD. Check the Quicktime movie by quicktime player, and under movie property, you can check that enable box.
    The finished product is a Quicktime movie that has both video and audio files that iDVD can handle and use.And it saves time in audio conversion by doing it in GarageBand first.

    I was unable to export the imovie to quicktime, as the error message came within seconds , saying about something wrong with the file. The only way I could export the file to quicktime format is through GarageBand.
    GarageBand is the application to add another sound track , and it preserves the whole imovie and could be exported directly to iDVD, instead of exporting to
    Quicktime format first. The only reason I did this "extra" step was because I already knew if the Quicktime movie would not fail in iDVD, and it is quicker to check it this way then to wait 10 hours for iDVD time.
    It was already recognized that iMovie does not do audio conversion, and when the audio files are not native to iDVD(i.e. 48 Hz sampling), the iDVD would crash.
    See
    http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=800972&tstart=30

  • Encoding quality in DSP 4

    Hello. I'm having trouble with the encoding quality in DSP. I exported a short film from FCP in DVC Pro HD format in quicktime. It looks great in the computer. However, when I import it into DSP and it encodes it, the final product looks very poor. For one, the titles look terrible and whenever there's movement the compression appears obvious to anyone. I've tried to get the best encoding and it looks the same. Is it a regular problem? Does this happen to all compressed footage? or am I doing something wrong? I even suspect that it looks better on iDVD.
    thanx

    Length is 28 minutes.
    Bit rate 8.0 - Max Bit rate 8.6
    Audio was mixed in FCP. Sample rate 48K 16 bit
    Media is TDK DVD-R
    the titles are generated from FCP
    In both my computer screen (cinema display) and tv Sony Wega, the dvd version doesn't look professional-especially titles.
    how do you do it to look great?
    thanx

  • Audio encoding preferences

    I see that Encore gives me the opportunity to change my project preferences for audio encoding to one of 4 settings, starting with 9 mbps as the highest, and defaults to 8 mbps. Is it best to set it to 9 for quality unless space is an issue? Or is there another reason for the different settings that I don't understand?

    >peak bitrates of 8375 and 8272 in 2 key points
    A BURNED disc is not going to play as well as a PRESSED disc... which is part of the reason the movie studios are able to produce discs that play "everywhere"
    To
    Burn Error Proof DVDs (Well, close to error proof!)
    Use the SLOWEST possible burn option your burner will allow in Encore, since it is much better to take a bit more time burning the disc than it is to burn "fast" and have a disc that won't play
    Set the VIDEO portion of the transcoding options to a Maximum of 7,000 so your burned disc will have a better chance at playing in desktop players (which support burned discs, if at all, only as an "after thought" of the DVD specification)
    Use AC3 or PCM audio transcode settings for best player compatibility (some discussion of MPEG audio not being supported by all players)
    Buy and use Taiyo Yuden (or Verbatim?) brand blank discs
    Read this
    ENTIRE message http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?128@@.3bc2ca16
    And this one
    Tips for Authoring and Playing a DVD
    Discussion of
    Peak Bitrate

  • Audio Encoding Beachball

    Hello
    I have read the posts about the lenght of the Audio Encoding process, and most suggest to be patient... However, is there a way to tell if the beachball means that it is really encoding and one must wait, or if the program has frozen.
    The reason I ask is because I left it overnight and found it in the same place. When calling the force quit menu, iDVD appeared as 'not responding'. I had to force quit it.
    This has happened twice already, but I'm not sure if iDVD a ctually stops responding by me calling up the force quit menu or not.
    In other words.... how can I tell if the beach ball means 'still working on it' and therefore must leave it alone or if it means 'I´m stuck' and therefore one must force quit ans start again
    Thanks
    K

    Can't find a way to tell....
    There is no way to tell. My longest wait has been 30 minutes. Once it gets through the apparent "frozen stage" there is a progress bar that starts and runs a couple of minutes. But I haven't had any hours-long experiences like some people.
    Some times, creating a new "stream" of data out of iMovie solves the problem.
    You can Share your iMovie project back to a camcorder set to record 16-bit audio. Or you can Share to QuickTime Full Quality and use that file in a new iDVD project.
    Read this:
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302988

  • Audio Encoding Error--Solution!!!

    Hi. I have a solution to the problem of "audio encoding error". I went through the same frustration that has appeared on this forum. I even let iDVD run for 3 or 4 days with the hope that the spinning rainbow actually meant that something was working. After trying all the stuff on the forum, my answer finally came from one of the geniuses at Apple Store, Walnut Creek, California.
    I hope this works for all and saves you many hours/days of frustration. If my answer is not clear enough, email me at [email protected]
    Solution:
    -Do not use iDVD to encode your project.
    -Use iMovie to encode the project.
    -Export the iMovie as a quicktime. I chose to make my quicktime project 'best quality'.
    -Once the quicktime movie has been made, the new quicktime file has all of the transitions, audio, etc. encoded as one giant clip.
    -If you wish to make individual "chapters" from your main clip, you will need to import the main clip to iMovie each time you want a chapter. Edit each clip to the length of each chapter. Then export the chapter as its own quicktime file. If you want many chapters, do this many times. If you want just one long file, you don't need to do any further editing.
    -Open iDVD and set up your project themes, audio, etc.
    -Once your iDVD is ready, import the single or multiple quicktime files into iDVD. When you process the iDVD, it will still take some time but it should not freeze since the most complicated encoding was done by iMovie.
    -iDVD will take a several gb quicktime file and compress it to a smaller file once it places it into iDVD.
    A few additional comments:
    -quicktime files need to be on Mac HD and not on external harddrives.
    -encoding the iMovie may still take a long time depending on the complexity of the movie.
    I hope this works for you all. It took me a few days to figure out all the details even after I finally got on the right track. Yes, I agree, Apple should fix this obvious problem. Merry Christmas everyone and good luck with your projects.
    Andy

    Nice try asw, perhaps the genius at the Apple store forgot to mention that this solution only applies if the footage imported into iMovie was shot in 16 bit audio if not you will have massive out of sync audio throughout the entire project getting progressively worse at the end. 99% of the time people shoot at the default camera 12 bit audio. Quick time encoded from 12 bit audio in Imovie is definetely not the way to go. Apple are you listening.??? Merry Christmas to all !

  • Audio Encoding Spinning Beachball

    I have had the same problem for over a month now. As I am typing there is a spinning beachball going during the audio encoding process. What is a reasonable amount of time? I started to burn a DVD at noontime , it is now 7:00 pm and still spinning. The project is 48 minutes long with chapter markers, ten transitions, a slow motion clip, sound effects, and a song in the drop zone. I have even upgraded to 10.4.6, purchased Quicktime Pro 7.1.1 and reloaded the latest iLife update 6.02. I used to burn a DVD with the same content in about six hours before the update. I don't know what else to try other than a new Mac........ I even re-imported the original movie from my camera-but the same beachball is spinning!!! I have tried every solution that was offered in the discussion area but the beachball keeps spinning. I'm at my wits end-somebody please help. After twenty years with Apple, this is the first problem I have ever had-I hope they fix this bug soon..... I am ready to drink heavily.......Have easily spent a hundred hours trying to fix this problem....

    I have tried every solution that was offered in the discussion area
    Well then this is probably stuff you've heard before but here goes anyway -
    Audio Encoding problems come in three flavors:
    1) Vanilla - This is the most common - the "freeze" when encoding audio is normal, you get a spinning beachball, and even when looking at activity monitor iDVD and its helpers are "not responding." Solution? WAIT....and WAIT some more, wait at least as long as it took to encode the video, and iDVD will still often produce a great DVD. I agree it shouldn't work this way, but that's the way it works.
    2) Chocolate - Still pretty common, but a bit more trouble. Often caused by 12 bit audio, iDVD needs 16 bit audio. Try "extracting audio" in iMovie or export and reimport to tape after setting the camcorder to 16 bit.
    3) Pistachio - much less common. Could be other problems with your audio, such as CBR MP3s or who knows what....this is sort of the catch-all for other audio issues. Again, try extracting audio and/or exporting your iMovie to full quality DV. Convert CBR MP3s to AAC format.
    Check other things in your project against this list:
    http://discussions.apple.com/click.jspa?searchID=-1&messageID=2466511
    What is a reasonable amount of time?
    As I said above wait at least as long as it takes to encode the video. But if I were you, I'd wait overnight just to rule out waiting as a solution. Definitely look at that sound file you dropped into the iDVD menu, make sure it is not a CBR MP3, and that your CMs and transitions follow the rules in the link I provided. Make sure you are using "save as disk image" and have 20GB for free space..........
    And since you do have transitions & special effects(slow mo) and sound effects, you might try exporting your iMovie back to your camera or to full quality DV. This will render all the sound and effects, and then you can re-import to iMovie, add chapters, and use that movie in iDVD. This simplifies iDVD's and QT's job during encoding.
    I am ready to drink heavily
    Well just skip the heavily part, and this is a good activity to do while waiting on the beachball.......
    John B.

  • HELP! - Audio encoding question

    I understand the word 'Patience' when it comes to the audio encoding portion of the DVD I have created, I also realize that it may look like it is "not responding" but how can you tell when it really is not responding? I look at my activity meter and is it safe to say that if I have no other processes occuring and iDVD is running from 75-98% of processor that the application is still responding just more patience is required? Currently I have 102 min DVD burning that now has been adio encoding for 6 hours. Is this right? Help!

    My 45-minute project contained 2 additional audio tracks for music/effects and it took about 15 hours to burn. The final product had problems throughout, such as audio tracks being muted (the original movie audio, not the additional music/effect files). I decided to export every chapter as full quality DV movies, create a new iMovie session and import the new files thus rebuilding my entire movie. After that was done, I tried exporting to iDVD again and this time the process was smooth and the DVD was burned in about 4 hours.

  • Encoding Quality concerns

    Hi all..
    Am running iDVD `09 and have noticed allot of posts regarding which encoding quality "better" than another.
    Apple's help, goes by what this forum claims, Best Quality: up to 60 minutes, High Quality: 60 to 120 minutes (1 to 2 hours), or Professional Quality: anything over.
    However, Apple also goes by (and again probably this forum does too), those encoding settings are specified for single layer... No one mentions what quality for dual layer.
    And all these settings are only applicable if you play the resulting DVD on your Mac. They don't mention of sharing or viewing on a standard HD TV.
    Having said that, this poses a few questions:
    1. If I select a certain quality, why would it be different viewing on a TV screen (CRT or LCD) vs viewing on your Mac ? I would think the quality would be the same as you've burned it that way.
    2. I always use High Quality whenever possible (regardless of length), this is because I don't want to wait 4 hours just for something you can get about the same for 2. Plus, the quality is acceptable.. for me
    I guess thats just me, but the first one is more important.
    For example, my source movies are from VHS tape, Their recorded into mpeg2 format with EyeTV software from Elgato.
    I then use iDVD to encode them in High Quality... Why would this quality be any different if I were viewing either on my mac, or viewing on my 32" Samsung LCD TV.?
    Just find it interesting to see quality matters depends what your going to be viewing the final product on. For some reason, I just can't see why it would.

    Encoding quality has nothing to do with what you are viewing your movie on. I'm not sure where you got that idea. To compress video, software analyzes images and motion. Mpeg2 is highly compressed, so it takes a long time to do this. If you do it quickly, it may result in visual artifacts. If you take a long time to do it, the software may be able to compress more efficiently, avoiding artifacts. You said that you feel that you get the same results in two hours as opposed to four. If you are using a short video, then the bitrate is high enough that the differences may be minimal. Or you may not be able to see them yourself, but someone else could. So if you are comfortable trading off quality for time, then you can use the encoding setting you like. But it has nothing to do with how you play it back.
    Dual layer discs double the capacity, so you can double times you listed.
    You talked about viewing on an HD tv; you understand that DVDs are only SD by definition, right?
    Now, it is possible that DVDs will appear worse depending on how you watch them. There are a few reasons why this might be:
    1. People get used to high definition broadcasts and Blu-ray discs, and forget how DVDs look by comparison. Or they may not have stared hard at a DVD the way they do while making their own DVDs. Then they want to know why their homemade DVDs look worse than any other Hollywood discs (with its professional lighting, colorists, directing, cameras etc.) This is sort of like wondering why the wall you just painted doesn't look even after two days of painting; you just might not examine someone else's wall as carefully.
    2. Flat screen TVs are progressive, but DVDs are interlaced, as is our broadcast system. So HDTVs have deinterlacing circuitry which may do a good or poor job. Amateur footage (lots of shaky movement and rapid pans) can make interlacing artifacts look worse.
    3. Some people try to preview their DVD on their computer, a high-resolution progressive display. A DVD looks awful in comparison with all those nice menus, pictures, and fonts. Also, they are sitting about twenty inches away.
    So it is possible for the perception of quality to be different depending on your viewing device. But the encoding settings are about how the video is compressed to mpeg2.

  • IDVD audio encoding error

    I currently have 10 different quicktime files that i've created by exporting 10 different iMovie projects.
    I've created an iDvd project and dragged all 10 .dv files in. Everything works well in the preview. the total project is 3.6 out of the 4GB available.
    the entire project is on an 250 GB external harddrive attached to a mac laptop (so having available space is not the problem, i have over 130 gigs free)
    i press burn, and the encoding begins. everything's running smoothly for two hours, all the videos are encoded. once it reaches "Audio encoding" i come across an error. it recommends me to "Delete Encoded Assets" and try again.
    Which i have, and it's still not working.
    Something about the Track.
    i've created dvd's before with this exact same hardware. I even just created one now, using just one of the quicktime files. For some reason, this big project just won't happen and i'm on the edge of reason here.
    I'd appreciate any help.
      Mac OS X (10.4.1)  

    Is there any audio associated with the video?
    iDVD 5: Audio encoding error when burning a DVD
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301876
    iDVD: Troubleshooting issues with burning discs
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302925
    Sue

  • Audio encoding hang work around

    After scouring this discussion and the internet, it seems the following is true:
    1) The source of the audio encoding delay is the conversion of the audio to an iDVD friendly format;
    2) There is indeed progress being made even though the activity monitor may say not or you may get a not responding message;
    3) There are two work arounds that work well, but with a properly debugged iDVD we should not have to do this nonsense. Here's to iLife '07 fixing this mess, hopefully.
    So, as to #1, even if you first convert the audio and then lay down the audio to the iMovie project there are still delays, especially with longer movies. It is quite apparent that this is an iDVD bug as other programs convert audio files quickly. (As to camera audion, you have to make sure you are in 16 bit with your camera.)
    As to #2, by looking at the package contents (Command I) you can see the progress of the audio encoding even when you think it is hung and even if you get a not responding message. To do this open your local disk, go to documents which is where iDVD puts them, and look for the title of your project, highlight it and hit Command I. Note the bytes, close the info dialog, and then reopen again. You may need to do this a few times depending on RAM, clock speed, etc., but you should see a change in bytes after awhile. If so, there is progress being made, as painstakingly slow as it may be. (A 1h53m movie took about 40 hours on my G5 with 1.5MB RAM! Not acceptable!)
    As to #3, the same thing is being accomplished, by different means. In both case you are creating a new file that handles the audio encoding on the way out and then reimporting with audio encoded. In the first, you export to your camera and then turn around and import into a new iMovie project. Add your chapters and then open from iDVD. Save as a disc image and then burn from the Disc Utility application which can be found under Utilities.
    The other work around is sharing to Quicktime and then reimporing to iMovie as a new project, and do the same as above. Following the latter, it took me 40 hours plus before took about 5 hours.
    I hope this saves you all some time.
    iMac 20" G5 iSight   Mac OS X (10.4.7)   1.5GB RAM, Ext HD 250GB

    I think I may have found a solution to my problem. It seems
    to be related to how much resources(RAM) I have available to the
    program. If I try a lower resolution setting it works fine. If I
    set the priority of the program high I can use higher
    resolutions.

  • Audio encoding troubles

    After some time off, I'm again burning old family vhs and Hi8 tapes to dvd but this time w/our new intel core duo. I've tried varying the themes in iDVD but with some of them I get the spinning beach ball after the video encoding--at the beginning of the audio encoding. It simpy hangs up after about 30 seconds and the dreaded beach ball appears. I've tried to re-burn after splitting the clips so that none are longer than 15 minutes--still no go. I never add music so the only audio is from the original tapes or the default music with associated with the theme. This was never a problem with the dvds I creaed on our G4 using some of the older iDVD themes. Any ideas? thanks

    This was never a problem with the dvds I creaed on
    our G4 using some of the older iDVD themes.
    This lack of positive feedback has been around since
    version 5 and has nothing to do with themes. Just
    "bad" feedback.
    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302988
    My computer can take up to 30 minutes to get through
    this phase, depending on the iDVD project. Takes even
    longer for some people; like overnight...
    What I've done a few times is "force quit" and start over at the "share iMovie with iDVD" stage. Sometimes, after re-creating the iDVD project with the same Theme settings it whips right through the audio encoding (although it also has had to redo the video encoding first). I get frantic whenever I see the beachball on the screen and my impulse it to force quit whatever application I'm in.

  • Has Apple fixed the audio encoding problem?

    As many other people seems to have experienced before me, iDVD6 stops working when encoding audio. Everything works before that step but when it reaches the "Audio Encoding" sequence iDVD stops working. Did Apple fix the problem? What else can we do?
    Thanks for any reply.
    Frank
    iMac G5   Mac OS X (10.4.5)   PowerMac G4

    I followed your advice and restarted at 6:00 pm last night - this morning it was still going on - over 13 hours! The funny thing this time is that I got the 'rainbow ball' encoding audio at the beginning of the 3rd step, 'Processing movie' after only 1-1/2 hour. The last time I burned the same project, I got the 'rainbow ball' encoding audio message at the end of the 3rd step - in other words, it had processed the entire movie (which took 6 hours) and then began the encoding audio phase. I'm letting it run while I'm at work, but do you think there might be something else going on?
    Here are some facts which apply to both times that I have tried burning the DVD project:
    1. I have iMovie project (26Gb) on my external drive with about 15 Gb available space
    2. and the iDVD project is on the internal hard drive with about 50 Gb of available space
    The reason I moved the iMovie project to the external drive was because I would have only had about 24 Gb of available space if I left it on the internal drive (less than the movie itself).
    Which drive is doing all the encoding and needing the most space - the internal or the external? I was assuming it was the internal drive. Should I move the iMovie project back to my internal drive and start over?
    Thanks again - I'm a new member of this site and so far, it has been very helpful and informative!

Maybe you are looking for