mp3 to mp3 Options

[navarre]

ok here's the deal, i have a lot of music. i mean a LOT. and i want to save it all on my hard drive. some of it is really important to me so i will use FLAC. but a lot of it is not THAT important but i don't want to loose it either.

so, because FLAC uses a lot more disk space than mp3 and i don't have a HUGE hard drive i was thinking of backing it up to mp3. the thing is, most of my cds were burned from mp3 files (good quality mp3 files, 192k and upwards).

so the question is, if i encode a mp3 file of, let's say, 192k again to mp3 at 320k CBR, will there be a significant loss of quality? i know that in theory yes but what do you think realistically speaking? is it really that bad?

[rpp3po]

If the files on the CDs are not already transcoded and really rather 192 than 128 kbit/s, transcoding to 320 CBR could work. It may already be ABXable, but not plainly annoying. I don't recommend a considerably lower target bitrate, because the artifacts will get very annoying.

Edit: You could also give V0 a try.

This post has been edited by rpp3po: Mar 31 2009, 11:23

[uart]

the thing is, most of my cds were burned from mp3 files (good quality mp3 files, 192k and upwards).

Do you still have acess to the original mp3's from which the CD's were burnt? If so then without a doubt your best option is to just to archive those. Using CD's burnt from mp3's is a pretty poor archiving strategy.

This post has been edited by uart: Mar 31 2009, 11:26

[navarre]

the thing is, most of my cds were burned from mp3 files (good quality mp3 files, 192k and upwards).

Do you still have acess to the original mp3's from which the CD's were burnt? If so then without a doubt your best option is to just to archive those. Using CD's burnt from mp3's is a pretty poor archiving strategy.

yeah i know... the problem is that i don't have access to the original files...
do you guys know of a better option...?

[robert]

ok here's the deal, i have a lot of music. i mean a LOT. and i want to save it all on my hard drive. some of it is really important to me so i will use FLAC. but a lot of it is not THAT important but i don't want to loose it either.

so, because FLAC uses a lot more disk space than mp3 and i don't have a HUGE hard drive i was thinking of backing it up to mp3. the thing is, most of my cds were burned from mp3 files (good quality mp3 files, 192k and upwards).

so the question is, if i encode a mp3 file of, let's say, 192k again to mp3 at 320k CBR, will there be a significant loss of quality? i know that in theory yes but what do you think realistically speaking? is it really that bad?

I don't get your point. You are saying you are out of disk space, why would you want to transcode your files into larger space consuming ones at lower quality??

[navarre]

ok here's the deal, i have a lot of music. i mean a LOT. and i want to save it all on my hard drive. some of it is really important to me so i will use FLAC. but a lot of it is not THAT important but i don't want to loose it either.

so, because FLAC uses a lot more disk space than mp3 and i don't have a HUGE hard drive i was thinking of backing it up to mp3. the thing is, most of my cds were burned from mp3 files (good quality mp3 files, 192k and upwards).

so the question is, if i encode a mp3 file of, let's say, 192k again to mp3 at 320k CBR, will there be a significant loss of quality? i know that in theory yes but what do you think realistically speaking? is it really that bad?

I don't get your point. You are saying you are out of disk space, why would you want to transcode your files into larger space consuming ones at lower quality??

because a mp3 file is significantly smaler than a FLAC file.

[robert]

And why don't you just keep the 192k file, why transcode it????

[navarre]

And why don't you just keep the 192k file, why transcode it????

i don't think you understood:

the music is all burned in audio cds. i want to put all of that music in my computer but i don't have access to the original files. the computer that held the files does not even exist anymore. get it?
i could use FLAC but i was wondering if the quality difference from the FLAC files to the 320k files woulod be negligible enough for me to save disk space...

[rpp3po]

Why is it so hard to understand that the OP has got audio CDs, that were originally burned from MP3 sources? There are no original MP3's anymore to keep instead of transcoding or going lossless for originally lossy content.

Edit: Redundant.

This post has been edited by rpp3po: Mar 31 2009, 11:51

[robert]

It's hard to guess, because it wasn't mentioned in the first post and that's not a common practice to me. I was assuming it was about MP3 data CDs (something more common practice to me).

[а.п.т.]

so the question is, if i encode a mp3 file of, let's say, 192k again to mp3 at 320k CBR, will there be a significant loss of quality? i know that in theory yes but what do you think realistically speaking? is it really that bad?

If you don't insist on mp3 format, you can consider transcoding to ogg vorbis or aac/mp4, this could give probably better results at even lower bitrates. I would add also mpc to the list of possible target formats. Anyhow, you should try with few samples at least, choose an approximate target bitrate, transcode to 2-3 formats and decide for yourself. This is what I would do.

[navarre]

so the question is, if i encode a mp3 file of, let's say, 192k again to mp3 at 320k CBR, will there be a significant loss of quality? i know that in theory yes but what do you think realistically speaking? is it really that bad?

If you don't insist on mp3 format, you can consider transcoding to ogg vorbis or aac/mp4, this could give probably better results at even lower bitrates. I would add also mpc to the list of possible target formats. Anyhow, you should try with few samples at least, choose an approximate target bitrate, transcode to 2-3 formats and decide for yourself. This is what I would do.

thanks man, i guess i'll have to do that...

[pdq]

Another possibility would be to convert first to lossy wav and then to FLAC. This would make the FLAC files much smaller but may have significantly less chance of introducing audible artifacts.

[2Bdecided]

ok here's the deal, i have a lot of music. i mean a LOT.

...most of my cds were burned from mp3 files (good quality mp3 files, 192k and upwards).

You might have a lot of music, but do you actually own it?*

If you do own it (e.g. legal downloads) then let's hear about the scenario that brought you to this sorry situation. Whether it's due to data loss, or due to buying proprietary / DRM'd formats, I'm sure it will act as a cautionary tale to others.

Cheers,
David.

* - my apologies, I got carried away - this isn't doom9 - AFAIK it's not strictly against the terms of service to talk about backing up illegally downloaded audio here on HA, though I'm not sure most users would condone it.

[navarre]

the computer where i stored all the files just died years ago. it was an old computer and i couldn't even save the hard drive.

sorry there isn't much to tell.

[pdq]

That still doesn't tell us why you don't still have the original CDs. (Not accusing, just pointing out)

[navarre]

original cds?! dude some of the music i downloaded, other music i have the cds, the rest i copied from friends of mine.

what does it matter?!

[Nick.C]

So, for the CDs that you do have, all you need to do is re-rip.

[navarre]

So, for the CDs that you do have, all you need to do is re-rip.

well that much i know. the problem is the rest...

[2Bdecided]

the problem is the rest...

There's a really simple solution:
http://www.cdwow.com/


(And yes, if I was any funnier, I'd give up my day job).

Cheers,
David.

[pdq]

original cds?! dude some of the music i downloaded, other music i have the cds, the rest i copied from friends of mine.

what does it matter?!

Ask your friends to recopy from them? Just trying to find ways to avoid reencoding, which is undesirable.

[navarre]

i'll follow a.n.t's advice and try different formats.

thanks