Hello,

I'm new here (but not a new reader) and I've a question to ask:
I received for my birthday an ipod 5G 60 Go and I would like to encode my CDs to transfer them in the ipod but I don't know what codec to choose (MP3 or aac) nor what bitrate.

Could you help me please ?

Thanks in advance

EDIT: A Lame developer said (on this web site) that the future was aac...

I would go with AAC at 128 kbps, but you should decide.

Do you have any other devices that you will want to use the songs on? If you just want something simple and you ONLY plan to use the songs on the iPod/iTunes, then I would just use iTunes to encode to AAC at 160 kbps VBR. If you want more flexibility, then I would use another program to encode to LAME MP3 (can't use iTunes for this, unless you are on a Mac). The options for that are a little more complicated, but you would want to use one of the presets. Read more about the recommended options here

Thank you but why that low (128) and what would make me decide ?

According to latest collective listening test, ~130 kbps may be enough to get excellent encoding with both AAC (iTunes) and MP3 (LAME). I'd therefore suggest to start with this bitrate and then evaluate by yourself the perceived quality. If it's OK for you then keep it or even try with lower bitrate (112...). If not increase the bitrate by few kbps. Try to blindly evaluate the quality.

The difference between AAC and MP3 also appeared as unsignificant on average. Individual results may vary. My preference is for AAC (iTunes). But besides quality there are also other point to consider:

- battery life (on iPod, the choice between AAC and MP3 doesn't make any difference)
- compatibilty: MP3 is much more supported and if needed you can use the same encodings on your DVD players, different portable players or friends.
- gapless: LAME encodings are gapless whereas iTunes aren't. Nero Digital AAC is gapless but average quality of latest encoder is untested. Gapless playback is possible even on iPod with RockBox firmware. But several people can live with gap. So it's up to you...

Thanks for that.

Actually I'm quite used to encode CDs (-V2 VBR NEW most of the time) but I had to change computer (I broke the other one and I lost all my MP3s) so I have to reencode everything . I would use the songs (for the moment) with my ipod and with the computer...

(I'm french speaking so sorry for my english)

I would use MP3. Its immensenly more compatable, and seems to perform on par even with AAC at the bitrates you mentioned, so it makes the most sense.

Plus if you ever decide to use Rockbox on your ipod, you can get gapless playback for LAME mp3s.

Well, if you were happy with V2 --vbr-new before, then I guess I would just stick with that. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

It may be overkill and therefore pertinent to optimize the bitrate to fit its own listening abilities. High bitrate => less music => less battery life. Lower bitrate => more music => more battery life for the same perceived quality

I was happy with it but since I have to reencode everything, I just wanna be sure (it takes time to encode )

True enough.

That's true, but it's the case since 9 years:
"AAC was declared an international standard by the MPEG group by the end of April 1997." (source). Since this date AAC was designed to replace one day MP3.
This replacement is obviously taking more time than expected So don't bother too much about future.

If you decide to go for MP3, please don't use iTunes built in MP3-encoder, use Lame instead.

To be honest I never noticed any difference between Lame -V2 and -V5 and anything else (using the original headphones) and I'm quite sure that AAC wouldn't change anything.

I used to encode using -V2 VBR NEW (from LAME 3.97) just "in case" (I would change tools or ears ) I would make the difference (one day)...

When I read all those listening tests I wonder how you can make such differences between the codecs when I don't .

Even if you'll start to hear a difference one day, your encodings can't suddenly appear as crap. You'll only hear from time to time some subtle distortions you didn't heard in the past (which are usually infinitely more subtle than all urban interferance you should bear while walking on the street: cars, people crying, alarm, etc...).

By raising the bitrate in order to avoid possible quality issue in the future you'll for sure encounter other issues much more quickly, like short battery life or full hard drive.


I'm not saying that high bitrate encodings are necessary useless, but this "audiophile" choice isn't always a wise one.

Well thank you very much everybody

Theoretically Ogg/Vorbis and AAC should sound better because they were developed with the shortcomings of MP3 in mind and have beter ways to tackle known issues. That's probably the reason Gabriel (one of the Lame developers) said AAC is going to be the future. However, in real life, the listening tests show that people can't really distinguish between Vorbis, AAC and MP3 even at 128 kbps, let alone higher bitrates.

If you say you can't hear those things other people say or think they hear I think you should stay with MP3 and try Lame @ V4 or V5. It will save space and is without a doubt the most widely compatible lossy format.

One last question (I hope so).
Should I use MP3Gain after encoding (with EAC) or should I leave the MP3s the way they are ???

If you're using iTunes, and just using the MP3s on your iPod, just use the SoundCheck feature in iTunes

but, if you want replaygained MP3's for other software other then just your iPod use MP3Gain

It may be worth mentionning that all new audio formats really start to be convincing and useful when MP3 reveal obvious failures: at low bitrate mainly. The collective experience is telling us that LAME -V5 is close to transparency. Therefore, modern formats can't really be convincing in comparison (excepted maybe for people having better listening abilities) simply because there's nothing to improve (excepted on pathologic cases for LAME/MP3).
The choice for AAC, Vorbis and others will become more obvious at lower bitrate, like 96 kbps and less. Ideally, I'd suggest you to try AAC at 112 or even 96 kbps. You may enjoy the quality more than MP3 at this bitrate and therefore spare space. But whether it is really necessary with 60 GB free space entirely depends on your needs.

Another one:

As it's an ipod, I would like to use the cover vizualisation. Is there a maximum size (pixels and/or kb) ?
Thanks again

There isn't really a limitation on this (well, there may be an applicable limitation on filesize - not sure - but I'm speaking in practical terms), although I'd try to keep it at a reasonable scale. For iPod use, I save the front cover art as 342 x 342 pixels, with a target filesize ~150kb. Generally JPG "Baseline Optimised" at "Quality 12" with those dimensions gives me what I want, and appears to be roughly what is being used at the iTunes store as well, for what it's worth.

Of course, feel free to play around with what works best for you. Others will probably have different opinions. Bottom line: You are the one who will be listening to the music and looking at the covers. Trust your own judgement.

- M.

...I don't know what kind of urban environment you live in guru, but the sound of people crying is definitely not an everyday occurance where I live.

I checked at the iTunes store :
600*600

Oops! Well, it used to be 342 x 342! (They were scanning at 72dpi at the time....) Don't know when they made the switch, but I'll humbly apologise for any confusion.

Generally, for iPod-screen viewing, 342 x 342 is still more than sufficient. Still, as I said before, you'll be the one using these files; go with what feels best to you.

- M.

I use iTunes AAC 128 Kbps VBR. If I was to use MP3, I'd use LAME -V4 --vbr-new. I think it is fair to say both of those settings would offer similar quality, but -V4 --vbr-new would on average produce larger files (~165 Kbps VBR for LAME, whereas iTunes 128 Kbps VBR averages for me around 137 Kbps.)

I think that is a significant space saving using iTunes AAC, which means I can carry around more videos, photos and other data.

I use Nero's new aac encoder and am completly satisfied. No audiable artifacts thus far.

Me too. I used Lame mp3 -V4 --vbr-new until I got an ipod, now I use iTunes AAC 128 VBR. I figured I don't need mp3 for compatibility anymore because I can use the ipod as source as long as I pack two little cables (1/8" to 1/8" and 1/8" to RCA).

Hi everyone! I'm new to hydrogen, so don't be too strict Why nobody says that mp3's sounds badly on iPod's (except iPod Video and iPod Shuffle)? I have red about this many times, is that true?

Some parts are true, some not.

In fact 1st - 4th generation iPod have problems with mp3 with high vbr bitrate (eg -V 2 --vbr-new encoded ones). But mp3s with cbr don't sound more worse than on other mp3 players.

Don't trust the propaganda spread my mass media. Always trust your own judgement and try making an ABX test to see for yourself (I heard with iPod this is slightly tricky - but it's possible with an alternate firmware)

I don't believe that the dimensions for iTunes Music Store cover art are consistent, even now.

One thing to consider when selecting the art size - if you are on a Mac and use Front Row - is that Front Row will blow up the picture and if it was small to start with it will look bad. I imagine there might be now or in the future other situations in which the cover art is expanded, so you might want to future-proof by saving large pictures now.

I used to use Album Cover Art Downloader from http://kempele.fi/~skyostil/projects/albumart/

Using that, and amazon.com as the source, most of the covers are 300x300 or 500x500

and you can select whatever size you want, in case you want smaller

Then iTunes LT to tag the files with the artwork, granted you're using Windows of course

http://www.richardlawley.com/software/ituneslt/

Of course since I switched to rockbox, I could care less about album art

darky: I thought it was ONLY 3G and Nanos that did that.

I have a 4th Generation iPod Photo. When I first got it most of my collection was LAME 3.90.3 --alt-preset standard files. I had absolutely no problems playing those files, some of which were well over 200 Kbps VBR.

I slowly converted my collection to iTunes AAC just to save space.

The problem is not bitrate, it is bitrate variation. Older firmware have CPU scaling issues that make the player stutter when the bitrate suddenly rises, which does not happen with iTunes mp3 encoder. The workaround is to use exclusively CBR mp3 or reencode in CBR the faulty songs.
For you instance, I have several of these songs in my albums (about 90). So, it is just a matter of luck.

192kbps VBR AAC sounds great with my Hifi and my Sennheiser HD-25 (driven by 4Gen iPod).

Yeah I know but I have never heard of those problems effecting 4th Generation Photo iPods, I thought it was only a problem with the iPod mini and iPod nano.

3.90.3 -aps files have a (potential) fluctuation from 128 to 320 Kbps, so I thought that would be big enough to trigger the problem.

Why?

Because it's not supported unless you patch the source code and recompile

Too much work for someone lazy like me, so I've abandoned using album art

Thanks everyone for your help