Bit Rate Conversion

Okay so at the moment all my songs are at 256 kbps. They all sounds great never had any problems with that but i compressed them down to much smaller sizes even 96kbps and didn't notice a difference through headphones, my speakers on the iMac or my iPod touch speakers. Is there actually any difference in quality because i can't hear a thing different and it seems pretty pointless since i can half the size of all my tracks...

i'm just wondering if i play it loudly on large speakers if it will make a big difference
Again, it depends on your ears and the speakers. I can easily hear the difference between 96kps and 256kbps, even with earbuds, but your mileage may vary.
128kbps might be a good compromise. But if 96kbps works for you, why worry about it? You can always reimport the CDs at a higher bit rate if you find that at some point down the road you want better quality. If you're working with tracks purchased from the iTunes Store, you should be keeping backups of them at their original quality as well, so the same applies.

Similar Messages

How do I change the conversion to 128Kbps option to a higher bit rate?

I have a lossless music library spanning 160 GB. Of course this will not fit into an iPhone, so I want to convert it to a lossy format for the time being.
I also want to keep my lossless library in iTunes. So the only option that I see for these two conditions to coexist is the "Convert to 128Kbps when syncing" option.
However, I find 128Kbps VBR too low quality. Is there any way to increase the bit rate (perhaps to V1 or V0) without manually re-incoding my music library?

Prodo123 wrote:
Is there any way to increase the bit rate
not in iTunes. however, you can use this script:
Lossless to AAC Workflow v2.2
Two scripts assist with importing/managing Apple Lossless or AIFF audio files and sending converted AAC copies to a mounted iPod set to "manually manage songs and videos".
Lossless to AAC Workflow (CD->iPod):
Imports each enabled CD track as an Apple Lossless or AIFF file Makes a converted AAC copy of each imported file Adds the AAC file to iPod, deleting the original AAC from iTunes.
Lossless to AAC Workflow (iTunes->iPod):
Makes a converted AAC copy of each Apple Lossless or AIFF track selected in iTunes Adds the AAC file to iPod, deleting the original AAC from iTunes. In this way you can keep archived lossless files on your hard drive, and manageable AAC files on your iPod.
Yes, iTunes 9.1 will auto-encode tracks to iPod, but only 128 kbps AAC; these scripts enable use of your Custom AAC encoder setting.

Video bit rate after conversion

Hello everyone,
Im wondering, if i have a file of x format, with 50Mb video bitrate, and I convert it using compresor 4 to ProRess 422, the result will give me a video with .mov extentin with video bitrate around 120 Mb, if I convert it to Proress (LT) it will give a result of around 70Mb video bit rate.
Will the new outputs have true clean bit rate, I mean the margine btwn 50Mb and 120 or 70, will it be showed , so will the new video show a better result, or it will just show same result at 50Mb. 2nd, in case I reconvert from Proress 422 (LT) (70 Mb) to anyformat (not necessarly using cpmpressor 4) to any format havn video bit rate again 50 Mb, will the output be the same of the original 50Mb that had the x

If you are concerned about this issue, do your own tests.
Make a copy of a representative sample of your original material in ProResHQ, one in ProRes422 and one in ProResLT
Put your original in a ProRes4444 timeline in V1 and one of the copies in V2. Apply the difference matte.
Do you see anything? Do the same process for all three variants of ProRes.
Now, convert the material to your delivery format and put it back in the ProRes4444 timeline on V1 and one of the ProRes copies on V2 and apply a difference matte. Again, what do you see?
If you see a solid screen of black, there is no measurable difference between the files.
If you do see artifacts, do an A/B comparison on a good grading monitor - sometimes stuff that shows up in the difference matte can not be seen by the eye even in dedicated A/B testing.
Have fun.
x
fwiw - all ProRes varients are 10 bit codecs. They are designed to absorb a great deal of editing/compositing without degrading. This is why you want to get any material that was acquired in a long GOP, compressed format OUT of that format as soon as possible if you will be grading, compositing or doing any work beyond simple cuts.

What are the best data and bit rate setting for uploading from final cut express to Youtube?

Can anyone suggest the best data rate and bit rate presets for uploading footage from final cut express 4 to Youtube? What settings will provide the best resolution, quality, and match the current youtube requirements?
Thank you in advance for your help,
Susan Kayne

It depends on whether you are using aspect ratios of 4:3 or 16:9.
Below is some simple guidance that will provide good quality with reasonably small file sizes.
The first part is for 4:3 video:-
1. File>Export Using QT Conversion.
2. The "Format" window should say, "QT Movie".
3. In "Use" select "LAN/Intranet" from the dropdown menu.
4. Click "Save" and when it has finished encoding, upload it to YouTube.
If you are making 16:9 video (Standard or High Definition) do steps 1 to 3 above.
Then when you have selected "LAN/Intranet" press the "Options" button and in the new
window that opens press the "Size" button and change the "640x480" to "853x480"
To do this you will have to click on the 640x480 and a dropdown menu appears.
Select "Custom" from the bottom of the menu and in the window that opens
you will see 2 boxes.
Put 853 in the first box and 480 in the second.
Click OK.
Then Save it.

Using the "Convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps AAC" feature...

I recently discovered the "Convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps AAC" feature and used it to copy my entire 70 GB music library to my 64GB iPad. The music library now occupies only 45 GB. Awesome!!!
Unfortunately, the whole process took well over 24++ hours on my quad core Windows 7 computer (takes about 6 seconds per track). Questions:
1. Is it possible to speed up the process? Even though I am using iTunes 64-bit version, it seems that at no point is more than a single core being used at 33%. Seems to me like overall 8% of the CPU (33% / 4) capacity is being used for the conversion and 92% is being left idle. Is this just bad programming or is there anything I can do to speed up the process? Others see similar problems?
2. Now I have already started dreading the day, I need to restore my iPad (e.g., when OS version 4 becomes available). I would hate to have to do this process all over again. Should I need to restore my iPad, is there anyway I can force iTunes to back up the 128-bit AAC versions on my computer and restore it up from there?
Any insights into both these questions will be deeply appreciated.
Cheers,

ed2345 wrote:
malus_domestica wrote:
Thanks for the response.
So, I am wondering why iTunes uses only 8% of the processor power in converting the songs.
Possible reasons not to grab more of the CPU power (1) maybe the process is I/O bound due to all the writing, and is not processor limited? (2) since conversion is almost always a background program, and the user will typically have other things going on, maybe it intentionally limits CPU use?
I ran a few quick experiments (out of curiosity) and think the answer is #2. No apparent technical reason but potentially a limitation introduced by Apple's engineers to maintain a good user experience (for some people at least). I fired up 4 instances of dbpoweramp and ran multiple conversions and found that the process goes faster than what iTunes can do by an order of magnitude. With luck, someday Apple will have an option for users to select how much of processor bandwidth to be allocated for the conversion.

Re-sync at lower bit rate

decided to re-sync my downloaded music at a higher bitrate , and by doing so i used up nearly all of my available storage space on my phone. I would like to return to the lower bit rates for my entire collection of downloads, but not finding any tools to do this, any thoughts?

kiho - You got it! As you probably noticed, "Convert" in iTunes actually means "create a new copy." After conversion, you will have both versions in your library, so if you don't want the 320s any more, delete them. If you have playlists with the 320 versions in them, you can manually replace the songs with their new lower bitrate counterpart - that does not happen automatically. -Ed.

Convert higher bit rate songs?

This is an option on the device screen every tme I sync my iPod touch - now at OS v6.
Should I click on it and convert? And if so, to which kbps setting?

On-the-fly conversion is only available on the iPod shuffle. The iPod shuffle (probably because of it's limited capacity) has the option to "Convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps AAC". This option is not available for any other model iPod. Syncing anything larger than a shuffle and converting in the process would be a very slow process. For the larger iPods the files have to be converted in iTunes first or indeed have to have been imported in a compressed format prior to transfer.
There are a couple of ways to handle this, one is to convert the songs in your library and put them in a playlist to sync the iPod from, the other is to have a second library of compressed songs and sync the iPod from there:
iPod - Syncing Music
Using multiple iTunes libraries -Mac

How do I convert Ineligible (low bit rate, language lesions) to be eligible

I have a huge amount of language lessions that are 64kb encodings. They are absolutely fine for my use.
But my paid iTunes Match subscription refuses to upload them. I tried converting one to AAC but that did not help.
As I understand it, there are two problems: the low bit rate, and the genre is Books & Spoken .. both of which are not uploaded.
The genre is fine, I can change that to something that is "eligible". But the bit rate is a problem.
So how do I manage these language lessions so that the ones I want in iTunes match are elegible? I don't have all the original CDs and certainly don't want to re-rip them anyway, there are too many!
My guess is that I have to find an audio converter program and have them upgraded to whatever bitrate iTunes Match needs, and to change the genre to an elegible name, right?

Thanks guys. It apparently works to simply convert to AAC 128kbs. The genre lable seems to be OK as Books & Spoken.
There were some bumps along the way, ending up with 3 of each lesson at one point! .. But I think this is all going to work just fine.
It does seem bizzare that this rule is in place, and certainly is going to end up with a LOT of unhappy customers.
Folks should be aware that the AAC conversion creates a copy so the originals can be saved after the conversion, then deleted from the Library.

"Video bit rate too high" error

When Building my DVD SP project, the compiler throws the above error when muxing one of the tracks (three previous tracks are compiled OK). Encode Mode is "One pass VBR", motion estimation is "good" and Encoding mode is "encode on build". I have changed the max. bitrate from 7 to the lowest available (about 5) and the average bit rate from 4 to much lower. No solution.
The offending movie is a QT produced in FCE 4 using "Export as QT movie" (not "QT conversion".) It was made by my camera mounted on my car as it was driven around various roads.
PAL, 16:9, standard definition (ie., not HD). The total size of the project reported by DVD SP is only 3.1 GB.
I have in the past used Compressor. If that is the answer, what preset should I use?
What can I do please? Thanks.
Please note: I use DVD SP 3.0 and have Compressor 1.2

SOLVED! I put it through Compressor (which I had not used for seveal years) and the problem has gone (as a recent answer to another poster advised — I should have done a search!).

Buy FCE? Mixed formats? Mixed bit-rates?

Hello All,
History:
I ran into a very depressing reality about a year ago in iMovie (9). I came to realize that the project I spent months on had dv video with mixed 12 & 16. I ended up with the most depressing sound issues. I don't want to get into the history now and here. I am very tired of people telling me that I needed to record at 16, etc. etc. I know that now but that doesn't do anything to the large number of video files I have, some in 12 and some in 16. I have way too many to export back to the dv and reimport at 16. I am not hung up on the sound quality... if its a little fuzzy, fine. I can deal with that much better that it utterly messing up my "art" and basically stopping me in my tracks from doing what I want to do.
To complicate things, I no longer use that camcorder that I bought a decade ago. I now have Canon Vixia HF S200 (Imovie 9 support says: Canon VIXIA HF S200 - AVCHD dile format - Issues w/ Memory Video stabilization limitations and Filming in Cinema or 24p mode more... ).
I have spent hours and hours perusing forums, blogs, etc trying to figure out how to deal with my dv files with mixed bit-rates. But I still have no idea what program could help me with that...
1. First I was looking for a video converter to convert all my dv in 12 bit to 16 bit. I don't want a lesson in what I should have done... Is this possible? Can I just take my 12 bit .dv file and convert to .mov in 16? Quicktime Pro? Roxio? In FCE? I really need confirmation on this.
2. Do I even need to do #1? Does FCE allow me to use video in Avchd, avi, mov, dv (IN 12 BIT AND 16 BIT) in one project? If not, what would one suggest? (that is for a hobbiest and doesn't need the highest quality but maybe simplest route?)
3. I can "make do" in iMovie, but would be excited to get at least FCE for more options and expand my hobby/desire in art. I'd like ideas on how to move forward in the most effective and logical way. We are pretty slow in our house to modernize. We just got a PS3, but don't plan on burning to blu-ray, at least not yet as a lot of our family doesn't have it and I will burn to standard DVD and youtube most often. I understand that my HD camcorder might have to be dumbed down in quality (still better than what I had)? So thoughts with that might be useful before I get too far ahead of myself but also leave myself room for growth.
I hope on spending $250 to get what I want need. But if there is a much more streamline way to deal with this for $500 or $1000, taxes are coming back, and I could make it work even if it stings, a lot. And although I don't really want to (or am I able to) spend money on this, this is my main hobby and my familiy depends on my renderings as well for preservation of family history, etc. Please advise.
Thanks in advance!

I am neuviemmefemme too...
When I wrote:
I don't want a lesson in what I should have done...
What I mean is each time I have gone searching and read blogs of others who have this same problem or when I have asked for help, all I had found was the response "well you should have recorded at 16 bit". Yes, gotcha. Noted. I am continually learning from my mistake because I am only learning from trial and error, self-direction, manuals, and people telling me what I have done wrong. But, if all one EVER says is "well you shuda recorded at 16 bit audio" and no constructive help on how to work with the error of having all this video with 12 bit audio and to move forward, I'm not going to get anywhere. I got it, I recorded at 12 and should have at 16. (I don't even have a camera that records in 12 bit anymore...) And yet, I am still stuck with hours and hours of digital video embedded with 12 bit audio and an extensive project that I spent months on that will be tossed in the trash if I can't figure out how to convert videos with 12 bit audio to 16 (or find out if it is even possible and with what software) so that all the video clips can co-exist in this project together (all in the 16 bit range).
So back to your constructive help - I'm finally getting somewhere. You are saying that QuickTime Pro will allow me to convert my .dv files with 12 bit audio to another video format that has 16 bit audio. (AIFF suggested?). Should I expect a loss in sound quality? (which is fine, just curious).
I do not understand when you say the iMovie captures as DV (.dv) stream and FCE cannot use that format w/o conversion. I thought that iMovie projects could go directly into FCE for further editing, etc? Will the project be prompted to be converted? I am not understanding this...
In your second point, you write that FCE works natively with DV (quicktime) and AIC. Does AIC=AIFF? In 1 you mention that I should convert to AIFF so that FCE can work with it natively?
It seems I need further understanding of the different file formats. I haven't been able to fully understand what makes the different formats names different other than some work in some and some work in others, but it doesn't make much sense to me and I'm not really sure what will work in one or the other? Is there a resource that explains this well?
And finally, FCE doesn't work with .mov or .avi? ("All other formats must be converted prior to importing into an FCE project"?)
Thank you very much for your help
Message was edited by: mkusafr
Message was edited by: mkusafr

Apogee 16X, Gigas, Sample Rate Conversion, and Summing/Monitoring

I'm trying to do an update on my home studio rig.
I've decided to get the new Quad Core 3g G5.
I've decided on the Apogee 16X/Symphony card combo.
I need to rout the outputs of six PCs into Logic; One PC is running KYMA/Capybara, one PC will be running the Native Instruments Kore/Komplete VST host; and the remaining four are running Gigastudio 3. All the PCs are lightpipe out. At present, I run the lightpipes into a Hammerfall lightpipe-to-MADI converter, and from there onto a MADI card via coax directly into my present G5, the Dual 2g.
I monitor though a Sony DMX-R100.
So far, no problem.
But, I've decided to start working at 96k, so my present scenario becomes more difficult, as my sample library (about 1.2 terrabytes) is all 48k.
I'd sort of like to get rid of the DMX, but Im considering using it as a submixer for the PCs, running analog out of it into 12 channels one of the Apogees. That would solve the problem of sample rate conversion. But it would still leave me with a pretty big piece of gear that I'm not sure I need.
The other thing I'm wondering is about summing and monitoring... I'd like to be able to avoid ganging everything rhough the Logic 2-bus, I like it better when I can spread things about a bit in groups, also there are a few other things (like the movie audio and a DVD player) that I need to be able to monitor through the same system.
I also would like to be able to use my Fairchilds and Pultecs on the 2-bus of whatever I'm monitoring through, which would mean somehow returning that through Logic, or using my 2g Dual as a sort of mix&stem storage/archive/networking computer. (Which I'm not wholly opposed to.)
Any ideas?
Dual 2Ghz G5 Mac OS X (10.4.7)
Dual 2Ghz G5 Mac OS X (10.4.7)

96k (at least) is pretty important, because as well as doing the normal sort of workaday film and pop level audio, I'm also doing this very intimate project for an audiophile vinyl company, and it's stipulated that I must use 96 at the very least. I'll probably be doing that stuff at 192, and I will be keeping almost everything third-party off the processor. The company would prefer that I did everything to a 2" analog 8-track, but that's where I drew the line. Thing has to be aligned every three hours of operation, cause the track widths are so high, and the thing's pretty old, I'm afraid.
For the film and pop stuff, I still like 96k, cause... I dunno why, I guess, now that you mention it. But even when stuff is downsampled, I still think it sounds better when its recorded at higher resolution.

Real time sample rate conversion?

Recently upgraded all my hardware and software.. I want to record audio at 96khz - so I set my hardware to 96 and set logic to 96 in audio - no problem... except when I want to record new audio on an old project - I set the software to 96khz, and hey presto my old files recorded at 44.1 play too fast....
The ref manual says logic will do real time sample rate conversion, but doesn't suggest how this is done.
If I have my hardware set to 96khz but Logic to 44.1 so the old audio plays okay will my new audio still be recorded at 96?
I could probably convert all the files individually using the sample rate converter in Factory, but I want to avoid this lengthy process as I'm talking the last 8 years of work!
Anyone out there know anything about this?

Just fancied recording at the best quality possible - but you are right, the difference won't be that noticable and may even sound out of place.... in any case I can record at 24 bit with no adverse effect...
I noticed that trying to record audio at 96 when my hardware is 96 and logic at 44.1 has the effect of serious latency issues plus disk too slow errors. So forget that one.
Someone told me recently that the difference in bit resolution is more audibly noticable as a change in audio quality than sample rate... just out of interest I wonder if anyone knows if this is true?
BTW just recording guitars and stuff, some vocals, band kinda stuff...

Burning iTunes Plus and other 256 bit rate material to get best quality?

I understand that iTunes Plus and most songs on Amazon are provided at a higher bit rate than non-Plus iTunes songs in order to provide higher audio quality on playback. But, does this quality differential come through when burning a song to disc from within iTunes?
I ask because of an experiment I just conducted. I downloaded the same song from iTunes (not a Plus version) and from Amazon. The Amazon version takes up twice as much file space as the iTunes version. (The ACC file at 128kbps was 5MB while the MPEG file at 256 kbps was 11.6MB.) However, when I burned both songs to a CD, those files where identical in size. Further, when played on a near-audiophile stereo system, I could hear no discernible difference between the two.
So the question: Does whatever extra information and hence sound quality contained in the Plus or other 256 kbps material get lost in the conversion to audio CD format? Are there settings in iTunes I'm missing? Are there alternative software or file formats available that would burn audio CDs without this loss?
(I realize that whatever difference there is in sound quality would not be detectable on most equipment. What I'm looking for is to preserve quality differences that can be heard on high-end equipment. As it is, I'm able to tell the difference between well-recorded and produced commercial CDs and the same material bought through iTunes.)

The quality of compressed audio is not always linked to file size. I believe it is possible for a 128 kbps AAC file to sound as good as a 256 kbps MP3 file. MP3 is not the best audio compression format but it is by far the most commonplace. A 128 kbps AAC file isn't as good as a 192 kbps AAC file, however.
When your audio files were uncompressed for burning to audio CD they naturally became the same size because there no longer was any compression.
If your objective is to have audio CDs that sound best on high-end equipment then you should continue buying audio CDs rather than purchasing on-line music. That way there is no loss in audio quality from compression. I'm not aware of a source that is selling lossless on-line music downloads.

Very Low Bit Rate!!!

Ok, iTunes is not the best program of the computer planet music, far away…
All music sites offering the possibility to choice the format and downloading with a quality what we wants, no iTunes Store, WHY? I have professional equipment and disgust me to listen my music in 256kb very (LOW BIT RATE).
I spend the max in the MacBook Air (the best configuration), the must of sound card etc. for what??? It’s time to change and make a true revolution on iTunes and iTunes Store. For ex: when we listening one song on iTunes, the folder don’t come to the principal window if you are in artist’s mode! We need to search in the library to find the folder and get information or modify something!

Is the file stored in iTunes as a music file?
If so then the one way of getting it on your phone would be to convert it to a podcast or audiobook, which I believe will work.
It isn't a full conversion as such, all you do is change a tag in "get info".
Another way would be to choose "create AAC version" which should make it eligible.
I understand why you don't want to do this sort of messing around, but nfortunately at this stage in the release there are still lots of these sort of issues, most of which will likely be resolved in the next few updates.
If you don't want to do those steps then another option would be to turn match off until these issues get fixed. Obviously, we have no idea of timescales (or if that particular issue will ever get addressed). There are enough people being affected by it that I'd be surprised if it isn't a reasonably high priority though.

Encode at a lower bit rate when uploading to iPod nano 2nd gen

There is a feature that I liked when I used to put my music on my Motorola SLVR. When I synced my phone with iTunes I had the option to re-encode my files at a lower bit rate (I believe it was aac 128). I there a way to enable this feature for the iPod nano 2nd gen?

On-the-fly conversion is only available on the iPod shuffle. The iPod shuffle (probably because of it's limited capacity) has the option to "Convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbps AAC". This option is not available for any other model iPod. For the larger iPods the files have to be converted in iTunes first or indeed have to have been imported in a compressed format prior to transfer

Bit Rate Conversion

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