A few questions from a n00b
2002-07-28 19:34:45
Hi there! (I apologize in advance, this will be quite long) Yesterday I borrowed a few cd's and ripped my favourite 1 or 2 songs off each (i know its piracy, but if there are only 2 out of 10 songs i like, i'm not buying it). I've always done this to mp3's but then it clicked, 'aren't there things like mp4 and ogg around nowadays that are better?'. So I have had a look around and with a bit of difficulty, have started using AAC. And now I've found here, I have a few questions. I have looked the relevently titled threads in MPC and AAC forums, but still have these questions, so I hope I don't repeat other people and annoy everyone :o) Before, I used Xing MP3 v1.5 at 224kbs CBR. I preferred it to LAME, as to me it did a better job. But, I never liked how up to 16khz it was fine, but above that it looked like it made a botch of the frequencies, but at least it was putting something there unlike other codecs. And just to clarify, at the moment, all I'm doing to test files is use Cool Edit's spectrum analyzer, and er, non-blind testing (i can see the names, but try to be objective). -----------------------=----------------------- I know this is is probably the stupidest question, so I'll put it first. Simply put, I'm not sure if I'm best using AAC or MPC. To give as much info as possible... I'm trying to make near enough archive quality files of songs I want to keep. But, I don't want 400kbs files, I might as well just winrar them! I'm encoding at around 170 - 230 kbs depending on how hard the song is to encode (going on how high the bitrate is in a vbr mode), and how much I like the track. I don't really care about hardware compatability either, I have a wicked discman, and if I make decent enough files, I can just burn compilations to a cd. Looking on these boards, I really don't know what's what! MPC gives the best quality at high bitrates? (how high are we talking here?) but AAC is better as MPC is going defunct? Also, I'm swayed towards AAC simply because this AAC board is friendly and helpful (notably the guy with the scary transient-gendered picture), and what I've seen of the MPC board, its filled with sodding flame wars, albeit of a more 'intelligent' manner. Is there a "noticable" quality difference between AAC & MPC at these bitrates? -----------------------=----------------------- I am using AACENC 2.15, with a windows frontend by Ivan & Menno. I don't bother with FAAD, as I have downloaded a plugin for cooledit, and I have the in_mp4 and in_faac plugins for Winamp (which i think are working ok..). To make the quality of files I'm after, I'm not really sure what switches to be using... the -extreme switch makes files that are usually a bit bigger than I want. So, if it comes out too big, I use : -vbrhi -br 170 for example. Looking at the help files provided, it sais using the preset vbr's is RECOMMENDED for best quality files :oS Is that true, or am I best off deciding my own bitrates? Am I right in thinking it's ok to use the LC profile at my bitrates? A test on the Psytel site (i think) implied that you should use profile 1 or 2... but don't these only have noticable benefits in lower (64 - 128) bitrates? And out of curiosity... does the -production switch even do anything? I've encoded files at 64, 128 & 256 kbps, and noticed it only takes 5 seconds longer to encode in -production (for a 4 minute encode time).. and I can't see any difference in quality? (again, this is just using cool edit to look at the high frequencies) -----------------------=----------------------- How do I make .mp4 files? AACENC makes .aac files, which I can play in winamp fine. I would just prefer an .mp4 extension as a matter of taste. I had a go at renaming an .aac to .mp4 but that failed! -----------------------=----------------------- Again out of curiosity... I was wondering about the VBR modes. In my old Xing MP3, as far as I understood, a vbr file was made of a mix of standard bitrates (32, 48, 64, 80, 96, 112, 128, 160, 192, 224, 256). I take it AACENC doesn't work like this... and if so, why does Xing do it like that?! When I play a VBR AAC file in winamp, in the little box for bitrate, it just shows 218 (or whatever) the whole time. Is there anyway to make a plugin that shows the actual bitrate the whole way through? I just like seeing how it goes up and down! (and no, I would only want it in winamp, not a frame by frame analyzer!) -----------------------=----------------------- Reading about Dolby's licencing scheme for AAC made me laugh! Am I right in thinking you would give them songs, they encode them, charge you, and give them back? If so, does anyone know roughly the prices charged? And does that make AACENC & FAAC pretty darn illegal? I wonder if people start sharing more .aac's then Dolby will do a Metallica and try banning everyone who downloads one? :o) (my mate was proud to get a letter from Metallica banning him from Napster! Incidentaly, he owns all of their albums legally...) -----------------------=----------------------- If you don't mind answering any or all of these, it'd be greatly appreciated! :o) Many thanks, Iain