Bit rates : "good" in mp3 is "high" quality in ACC ?

When I got my Mac in late March, and commenced w/ the importing, I knew nothing of bit rates. Don't know much more now.,.,...but a friend recently pointed out the rate of 128 being lossy.
Checking preferences, we see that in mp3, 128 is indeed the lowest of 3 choices_yet in ACC encoding, it's listed as "high".
I'm sick to the bone at the thought that the nearly 10,0o0 items I've imported into iTunes are now ALL in need of a re-do !!
Is 128 in ACC actually inferior ?
I'd imagine that converting the entire library to mp3's doesn't do more then slightly "expand" tracks that were encoded lossy to begin with !
==oY!==
TIA,
~~~=Dave

Is 128 in ACC actually inferior ?
Not if you play back using a 'standard' audio system. On high end systems you may notice lack of 'depth' compared to playback of an original (store bought) CD. AAC 128 kbps is good quality for general purpose.
Importing your CDs is always a choice between the available space on your HD (and/or iPod) and the audio quality.
The best audio quality is achieved by importing your CDs in AIFF, WAV or Apple Lossless.
The first two are uncompressed formats, having all audio information, but they result in huge files (about 10 MB per minute).
Apple Lossless is a compressed file format, still has all audio information (it's lossless as the name implies), but results in smaller file sizes (about 5 MB per minute).
MP3 and AAC are lossy compressed file formats, resulting in small file sizes (about 1 MB per minute at 128 kbps). Both compressing methods 'throw away' certain, less important parts of the audio.
AAC is considered to have a better algorithm (calculation method).
As a result AAC at 128 kbps is as good as 160 kbps mp3.
If you're happy with the audio quality of AAC 128 kbps (same format as songs sold in the iTunes Store) there's no need to redo them.
Converting these songs to 160 (or 192) kbps mp3 will not improve sound quality, but worsen it.
Omitted parts of the audio cannot be recovered (only calculated).
As AAC and mp3 use different calculation methods, some of the audio information will be omitted again and worsen the quality.
If you are unhappy with the audio quality, import a few tracks in losless formats (AIFF, WAV or Apple Lossless) or AAC and/or mp3 at higher bit rates.
Listen to them on your system and determine which quality sounds good for your ears.
Remember though, importing at high bit rates or uncompressed formats requires lots of disk space.
Hope this helps.
M
17' iMac 800 MHz, 768 MB RAM, 200 GB HD, DL burner Mac OS X (10.4.8) iTunes 7.0.2

Similar Messages

Bit rates, file type, MP3 encoders, quality settings etc.

Can someone provide me with or point me to a good explanation of various sound file types and settings and how it relates to sound quality and disk space? I've been importing tunes, recording some streams etc. and I realize I need a definitive source to explain to me how I can get the best sound quality, with all the variables involved: bit rate (64, 96, 128kbps etc.), file type (AIFF, WAV, MPs etc.), MP3 encoder (Apple lossless, AIFF, AAC etc.) Thanks in advance.....

OK. The following is my opinion.
iTunes supports 5 formats. WAV and AIFF are uncompressed and lossless. Apple Lossless Encoding (ALE) is compressed and lossless. MP3 and AAC are compressed and lossy.
WAV, AIFF, and ALE give the same quality as a CD but are too bulky for use in an iPod. The practical choices are MP3 and AAC.
AAC gives better quality for a given bit rate. However, it is not as widely supported as MP3. Many non-Apple players cannot handle AAC. So choose between MP3 and AAC accordingly.
Both AAC and MP3 allow you to select an encoding bit rate, usually in the range of 32 to 320 kb/s. That number affects the audio fidelity of the compressed file as compared with the CD quality original. Given that you will be using a good stereo at least part of the time, I suggest go no lower than 192.
You can do a web search and find listening tests, etc. You can also take a couple of tracks, rip them at 192, 256, and 320, and see if you notice anything better with the higher numbers.
Enjoy the music!

MAC TO PC MP3 MASTERING HIGH QUALITY

I don't get it. When I play a new bounced track on my mac through I tunes or quick time the song sounds loud and clear , but when i transfer it to my p.c., the song is not loud @ all. Would this be a pc problem?

quicktime has its own volume control which defaults to a max setting. depending upon how your volume is set on your computer this can throw you off. by example the itunes volume default is at like 80%. also your volume settings on the pc are worth noting. but i'd be willing to bet the match volume in itunes is your biggest culprit.

H.264 .m2t high bit rate playback problem ...

I'm still coming up to speed on some of basic video concepts so bare with me.   I have a 9 minute 1280x720 video; 59.94; source came from a Contour+ bike helmet type camera that stores .mov/H.264; separate audio track from MP3 files.   I exported an .m2t file file using the H.264 Blu-ray format/preset.   Besides checking TS multiplexing, the only other items I changed from the default were Maximum Render Quality and VBR, 2 pass.   This file plays fine on my PC with Windows Media Player.
Next I went down the layman's road of thinking higher bit rate = more information per second = higher quality and slid the target bit rate all the way to the right to 35, which in turn adjusted the max bit rate to 35 as well.   VBR 2-pass, max render, etc. still applied.   When I go to play this .m2t file under WMP it chokes and jerks.
I just wanted to ensure this result is expected and not some issue with my hardware or software configuration or other underlying systemic issue. I was expecting this file to play just like the other one above.   Feedback?
I have a new PC that followed the VideoGuys DIY9 spec closely: i7 3930, 32GB, GTX670, WD Caviar Black RAID0, etc.
Thanks

WMP overall is a pretty unreliable media player IMO. The media players I tend to stick with are VLC,Splash Lite and KMplayer. In my experince sometimes with interlaced footage VLC doesn't play it back very well if it's a scene that has a lot of movement regardless of how you tweak it's deinterlace filters/options etc. So in those cases I use one of my other media players.
Basically what I'm saying is that no media player is perfect for every scenario although WMP is certainly my least favorite.

Bit Rate to high

I use compressor 2 with 5.0 low and 6.5 high settings 2 pass best encoder, with 1h 30 min movie, 48 - 24 audio, 4.2G showing in DVDSP
DVD SP stops and "high bit rate' message pops out.
What is the reason? I don't think the bit rate compression used is to high. (I used higher before)
thanks,

It's almost certainly because of the audio... try using Dolby Digital files instead of .aiff files - they are a good deal smaller and the bitrate can drop to 192kbps for stereo files.
.aiff files have a bitrate in excess of 1.5mbps - so there is a substantial saving of bandwidth when you convert them to AC3.

Higher bit rate duplicates...

I recently lowered the bit rates for all my song files in itunes, but now I have duplicates of both the new lower bitrate, and the higher bit rate as well of each file. Is there anyway to delete the higher bit rate files all at once without deleting my whole entire library? I know I can display all the duplicates at once. If I uncheck the lower bit rate files, but keep the higher bit rate files checked, can I still delete the higher bit rate files at once without deleting every file?

Sorry it took some time but there was some other housekeeping to do on the script.
Visit the page where my DeDuper script lives and download DeDupeKeepSmall.
tt2

Maximum Bit Rate help

I have been trying to find the best bit rate settings to display from a USB drive on an Xbox 360 or PS3. I found the recommended settings but the maximum bit rate that I set it at, is always exceeded during playback.
For example if I am using the h.264 codec with the bit rate settings of VBR and the maximum bit rate set for 10 Mbps, my bit rate will always spike way higher then 10 Mbps during scenes with more movement. A scene where I'm pointing my camera out of a moving car with houses going by displayed a bit rate of 38.8. In case anyone is wondering I use the bit rate counter on my PS3 to find the bit rate at any give time.
Now When the bit rate spiked at 38.8 for that scene, it dipslayed fine on my PS3, but when played back on my Xbox it stutters a little at that moment.
If I use a CBR of 10 Mbps the bit rate still goes quite a bit over 10 Mbps but didn't approach 40 Mbps like it does when using a variable bit rate. When using a CBR it played back flawlessly on both devices but there was a little drop in quality.
Is there something I am doing wrong or is this just how it works? I assumed the target bit rate is what you are shooting for and the maximum bit rate would never be exceeded. Is that not the case?

I took that it could be inaccurate in to consideration but when I play a blu-ray back the bit rate usually fluctuates between 25-35 Mbps so I assumed the readings were pretty accurate.
I'll try the VLC player as you suggested when I get home. Does it show you the bit rate during playback, the average bit rate, or what?
Also if I set my maximum bit rate to 10 Mbps should it never exceed that?

Issue with playing 320 k bit rate files on iOS 5

I was able to successfully update my iPhone 4 with the iOS 5 however to my (unpleasant) surprise I realized that all the music files of 320 K Bit rate that I had could not be played with this new OS. All other music files (of 128 K bits rate) was able to play normally.
When I attempt to play the higher bit rate ones, it doesn't give any warning or crashes. The Play symbol at the bottom changes to "Pause" indicating it's playing and when clicked again it changes to "Play" indicating it's paused. But the time slider stays at 0:00
It may be noted that the high bit rate files plays normally on the latest iTunes software on my PC running windows 7.
I haven't yet tried to remove all the paylists first and then add them back when syncing it next time. That might solve this problem but I am not sure. Even if it does, this is a major defect with iOS 5 that has gone un-tested. with the previous version, I had no problems playing the same high bit rate music files.

After I faced the above problem, I did the following:
1. Sync the iphone after unchecking the playlist having the 320 K Bit rate music files. As expected the playlist was removed from the iPhone.
2. Checked the playlist and then re-sync the iphone. This time when the music files were copied to the phone, all the files having a bit rate higher than 128 K were automatically converted to 128 K Bits.
The above process made these high bit rate files convert down to 128 K bits and playable on the iOS 5.
The question is why is iOS 5 not able to play the bit rate higher than 128 K Bits while the older version could? Does playing the high bit rate files offer any better sound quality on iPhone?
I have played the high bit rate on my car's audio system (Harmon Kardon premium speakers) and it definitely sounds better than it's 128 K bit equivalent.

How to upgrade bit rate of ripped CD's w/o losing edited track info

I am in the process of re-ripping my music library to iTunes at a higher bit rate.
An annoying thing that happens is that track information that I have edited (e.g. corrected erroneous track names, added artist info, or other changes to the info automatically gathered from Gracenote), or custom Genres that I use, automatically resets to the Gracenote values. Sometimes the changes I've made are quite comprehensive, entailing a lot of work.
(Album art is not removed, however. That seems to be the only field that isn't affected.)
What I want to do is just pop the CD in, click "Replace" in the dialogue, and have iTunes replace only the audio data itself - +leaving everything else untouched,+ thank you very much.
I have tried disconnecting my Internet connection prior to the operation, but for some reason, this does not help - the information is still reset to whatever was originally gathered from Gracenote. (Is the default information cached somehow, I wonder...)
So: How should I go about achieving the above? How do I preserve my laboriously edited information when re-ripping my CD's?

cderalow wrote:
If you understood what I mean, you'll understand why it loses the information that's associated with the original.
My own experience is when you re-rip a CD and iTunes asks you if you want to replace your current version, it WILL retain all your custom data you added to the tracks including ratings, playcounts, and tags like song name, comments, etc.
cderalow wrote:
it's annoying, I know. Which is why I'll generally choose to convert over re-rip.
Except converting doesn't gain you anything and may even degrade the tracks. The original poster wants a higher bitrate than originally ripped at. Converting up in bit rate won't gain you any quality. Re-ripping from the original CD will.
Patrick

Optical audio out bit rate

I downloaded some 96khz/24bit flac files and tried to play them on my MacBook of late 2007. First, I used Songbird to play the files and hook up my Cambridge Audio DacMagic via USB but observed that the output was only at 44.1khz, I.e. just CD quality. Then I read that that's the limitation of USB audio and so I bought a toslink cable to feed the DAC via optical out. Well, it was still only 44.1khz. Wondering if Songbird changed the bit rate, I tried converting the flac file to apple lossless with XLD and then importing into iTunes. iTunes clearly show the files being 27xxkbps and yet my DAC still indicate it is receiving only 44.1khz sample rate. Is this the limit of the MacBook sound card? I could not find this answer from anywhere on apple's website.
When I use AirPlay to stream the file via apple tv and feed apple tv's optical out to my DAC, it showed 48khz. A little better. But I'm really after the full bit rate of 96khz for optimum audio quality.

Hi Maclover,
cheers for the fast reply! Yep that did the trick - typical, the panel was in the only place I didn't think to look, Doh!
Cheers again.

What is the maximum bit rate for a short NTSC standard def DVD?

I have about 30 minutes of content from FCP that I want to put on a DVD.
At first I tried iDVD and had problems with burning (although I did somehow make one DVD). So I built the project on DVD SP and made a DVD. However, the iDVD version looked much better. I checked out the file sizes and saw that there was 2 gigs on iDVD and only 1.6 DVD SP. Then I discovered the encoding options on DVD SP and I was curious what is the recommended average and maximum bit rate should be for the highest quality, yet still works in most DVD players?
Thanks.

DVD Bandwidth
The rate is not based on running time.
Some thoughts on rates
7.2 - 8.0 seems to be the general consensus for discs from computers. I play more conservative for the reasson listed in that link

High quality export?

Hi,
I've been waiting for the GarageBand '11 update just to find out now that some instruments sound wildly different than what my iPad plays.
I had hoped the GarageBand import of iPad project files would be my way to get a version above the quality the iPad exports for AAC, but apparently for my songs it's sounding so different that I hate what I hear (as opposed to what I hear from the iPad itself)
Is there a good way to get high quality renderings of the single tracks out of GB for the iPad? I'm willing to record each track individually in real time, but what kind of connection would I use? Or is there a way to dig into the .band files created by the iPad and get prerendered tracks that the iPad creates when it "optimizes" the track?

function(){return A.apply(null,[this].concat($A(arguments)))}
function(){return A.apply(null,[this].concat($A(arguments)))}sharp.r wrote:
They are .avi and .mp4. My camera is a fuigifilm fine pix and i'm using a macbook pro. I think that answers your questions but i don't entirely understand codec.
Read Bill Hunt on a file type as WRAPPER
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/440037?tstart=0
What is a CODEC... a Primer
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/546811?tstart=0
What CODEC is INSIDE that file?
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/440037?tstart=0
Report back with the codec details of your file, use the programs below
For Mac http://mediainfo.massanti.com/
Once you know exactly what it is you are editing, report back with that information... and your project setting, and if there is a red line above the video in the timeline, which indicates a mismatch between video and project

Sound quality: If you want to hear the difference between higher and lower bit rates

Have you ever wondered about the difference in the sound quality of music at different bit-rates? Can you hear the difference?
If you listen to 64kbps and 28kbps (either wma or mp3), you'll hear the great difference. However, if you listen to 28kbps and 92kbps (either wma or mp3), you'll find that there is little or no difference (to me, that is).
collegeboy wrote:
We all know that wma 28kbps sounds just as good as wma 320kb
ps.
the reason i and you go higher than 28 is because where able to. you can deny all you want.
If you want to experience better sound quality at higher bit-rates, the best thing to do is to listen to the music at a quiet place. This may sound like lame advise, but it really works. Try 320kbps for the best results. You'll be able to hear minor details you never had before.

SSR wrote:
Wayyyyyy back when I first started encoding MP3s I was using 28 with an inferior encoder. At the time I couldn't spot the difference, but now the difference is stark. Particular types of music (and more specifically instruments and combinations) do emphasise it though.
Actually, you cannot hear the difference when the background noise is loud, or example, public transport. I suggest that one uses a noise cancellation headset. $$$

Video Bit Rate Too High-how to reduce quality

I have a Creative Zen Vision M Version .40.02. The problem is a few of my videos have a high bit rate, which from what I have read is the problem. These videos are from the free digital copy that comes with the movie. I would like to know how I can either change this, if there is a firmware that would let a higher bit rate play(from what I have looked into it doesn't appear so), or if I can't play them on my player. Thanks for any help.

I don't know exactly what the total length of the video is in minutes, but I do know that it is 6.8GB for a dual layer. Probably at least 3 hours. I don't know what the target bit rate is? Is what you are referring is to what the compression I used in compressor?
I am using the setting DVD Best Quality 150 minutes 3.7mbps for video and the AC3 for the audio.
I am recompressing all the videos again just in case there was a problem with one of the compressions. I don't understand why it isn't working this time when none of the settings or compression had changed.
Thanks!!

Boosting Bit Rate for Higher Quality

In Two Pass VBR Best DVD (bit rate defaults to 6.2mbps), if I pump up the bit rate to 9mpbs or higher, will my DVD quality increase? File size is not an issue -- it's a 15-20 minute video.
David A.

In theory, yes.
However - +and this is key+ - increasing the bit rate past a certain point will reduce compatibility with many set-top players. For the most part, so long as you're using Dolby Digital audio, you can make due with increasing the average to, say, 6.5 mbps. I personally would not advise going higher than 6.5 mbps unless you're only using the DVD for playback on systems you know you can control (your home or you mac).
Also, there is a certain point of diminishing returns with encoding. The 90 preset (6.2 & 7.7) is already at the high end of things.

Bit rates : "good" in mp3 is "high" quality in ACC ?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for