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Topic: how to encode mp3 to mp4 w/o losing quality (Read 8943 times) previous topic - next topic
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how to encode mp3 to mp4 w/o losing quality

Hello all..

I am fairly new to aac/mp4/m4a stuff. Here's my problem, I have 128 - 192 kbps mp3 songs that i use on my old mp3 player. Now, I have currently acquired a new music phone, Sony Ericsson w810i which plays mp3 and mp4/m4a(which are just the same, right). The phone only has a maximum memory of 1gb so i would want to compress my mp3's to mp4(or m4a depends on what is best to be used) so that iwould end up in a much smaller file size without sacrificing sound quality. I am very new to these that no matter what i read out there, i just get confused more and more each time.

I would like to know which program would be best used for these. and at what bitrates I need to encode them to not lose sound quality. I have also researched about a certain codec from Coding Technologies:

http://www.codingtechnologies.com/products/aacPlus.htm

It says there that I can encode cd quality sound at 48kbps and that is just what I want. Can anyone pls help me with this. I would also know if my cellphone could play files that is encoded with this codec.

Pls. also suggest programs that I need to use. Free programs are my priority but bought programs are also considerable depending on the price. Any help would be grreatly appreciated..

Thanks

how to encode mp3 to mp4 w/o losing quality

Reply #1 –
Any transcoding from existing mp3s will cause quality loss. If you can, rerip from source to AAC. A good compromise for filesize/quality would be HE-AAC at about q .25, but you should find out what suits you by ABX testing. However, 48kbps can hardly be called CD quality - it can be okay for listening on the go. AAC encoders are not really very different, you could use the Nero AAC codec (free) with foobar2000 (free) or with dbPowerAmp to transcode.

how to encode mp3 to mp4 w/o losing quality

Reply #2 –
My only reason for going with mp4 is to minimize file size without sacrifing sound quality. But according to my understanding of your relply, if ever I transcode to mp4, I will still be using the same bitrate. right? Meaning I will still have the same file size. So if thats the case, transcoding my mp3's to mp4 is unecessary. Right?

how to encode mp3 to mp4 w/o losing quality

Reply #3 –
no

you will lose (some) quality by transcoding

follow imalive's advice and transcode your MP3 collection to NERO AAC -br 64-96


later

how to encode mp3 to mp4 w/o losing quality

Reply #4 –
Your songs will certainly lose quality if you transcodes, according to HA wiki.

There's a listening test that I'm participating (for now, only finished 8 samples). During testing I found at least one codec for each sample that I cannot distinguish any difference from original source. I assume that would be the high anchor (iTunes AAC 7.0.2.16). Thus, IMO, I would say using 96kbps ACC should be transparent.

how to encode mp3 to mp4 w/o losing quality

Reply #5 –
Quote from: zombiewerewolf on
Your songs will certainly lose quality if you transcodes, according to HA wiki.

There's a listening test that I'm participating (for now, only finished 8 samples). During testing I found at least one codec for each sample that I cannot distinguish any difference from original source. I assume that would be the high anchor (iTunes AAC 7.0.2.16). Thus, IMO, I would say using 96kbps ACC should be transparent.


AAC at 96 kbps should indeed be nearly transparent. But as you're probably not always listening to music with full concentration, without background noise, I would definitely also consider using HE-AAC at 48 kbps - it means double the number of songs and the quality hit isn't that much - but you'll have to test that for yourself.

The w810i indeed supports HE-AAC. The Coding Technologies encoder (using their brand name "AACplus" for HE-AAC) comes with Winamp, which has a very neat transcoding option for syncing with external players (ie, every song you transfer to the phone automatically gets transcoded to HE-AAC aka AACplus). I'm using this combination with my own w810i.

how to encode mp3 to mp4 w/o losing quality

Reply #6 –
Quote
The phone only has a maximum memory of 1gb

I believe that you underestimate your phone!  Read the last post of this thread - http://www.expansys.com/ft.aspx?i=119273&thread=919 - for more information about SE phones and their supported Memory Stick capacities.

how to encode mp3 to mp4 w/o losing quality

Reply #7 –
Quote from: eofor on
But as you're probably not always listening to music with full concentration, without background noise, I would definitely also consider using HE-AAC at 48 kbps - it means double the number of songs and the quality hit isn't that much - but you'll have to test that for yourself.

The w810i indeed supports HE-AAC. The Coding Technologies encoder (using their brand name "AACplus" for HE-AAC) comes with Winamp, which has a very neat transcoding option for syncing with external players (ie, every song you transfer to the phone automatically gets transcoded to HE-AAC aka AACplus). I'm using this combination with my own w810i.



Speaking of CT vs Nero Digital, I've found many more samples that were transparent (or really close to) to my ears with Nero Digital than with CT, especially at 48kbps and lower. You might want to try the two out.

how to encode mp3 to mp4 w/o losing quality

Reply #8 –
Quote from: dv1989 on
Quote
The phone only has a maximum memory of 1gb

I believe that you underestimate your phone!  Read the last post of this thread - http://www.expansys.com/ft.aspx?i=119273&thread=919 - for more information about SE phones and their supported Memory Stick capacities.


Thanks for the information. I have checked the website and saw the my phone can officially suppport 4gb. I'm happy about that. Well, did that info came from sony ericsson?as I can see with the 750i models if you use more that 2gb's and something happens with it, Sony ericsson will void the warranty, right? And regarding with the 1gb limit that i have known, it actually came from Cingular's website. Cingular also is my celphone carrier company.

About transcoding to AAC, I will try Imalive's suggestion about the Nero AAC Codec and Foobar2000. I have actually downloaded foobar2000 a few days back but actually have no time to do this at the moment. I will be updating you guys again. Thanks for all the help.

how to encode mp3 to mp4 w/o losing quality

Reply #9 –
I believe that you are correct in all cases.

Quote
(This is from Sony Ericsson call centre not the customer services dept.)
The K750i (and the W800i) oficially support memory sticks up to and including 2GB. Sony Ericsson are aware that people are using larger memory sticks but they do not guarantee them to work and so will not honour any warranty claim where it is found that the phone was being used with a 4GB memory stick.

The W810i does officially support the 4GB memory stick though.

Good luck!

how to encode mp3 to mp4 w/o losing quality

Reply #10 –
ok, I now have tried to convert 1 music file. I tried br 96 and found out that (for my ears), it is transparent. But on the lower right corner of the foobar2000, why does the bitrate change constantly while playing?On my original mp3, I saw that it was constant 128 but on the AAC it constantly changes from 62-77-96 and so on..theres a lot of differet nos. in there but just in that 60-100 range. My other question is that, why does it only indicate AAC? Should it not supposed tobe indicatign HE-AAC? Or did I do something wrong?

Thanks.

PS. I would like to thank you all guys for helping me open my eyes on this thing. Im quite very happy with the results of my transcoding as I can fit may songs on my phone now that I can compress the file size.

how to encode mp3 to mp4 w/o losing quality

Reply #11 –
Quote from: chaps3031 on
ok, I now have tried to convert 1 music file. I tried br 96 and found out that (for my ears), it is transparent. But on the lower right corner of the foobar2000, why does the bitrate change constantly while playing?On my original mp3, I saw that it was constant 128 but on the AAC it constantly changes from 62-77-96 and so on..theres a lot of differet nos. in there but just in that 60-100 range.
That is normal and intended. The encoder reconsiders how complex the music is at any given time, and allows it more or less space to be encoded to. This is why good quality at low bitrates becomes possible.
Quote
My other question is that, why does it only indicate AAC? Should it not supposed tobe indicatign HE-AAC? Or did I do something wrong?
Don't know about the foobar version, it sometimes displays AAC or HE-AAC, but if it sounds transparent to you and you just used the -q0.25 switch with the nero encoder, it should be HE (you can also check that in the foobar right-click dialogue option "Show file info (special)", where you should find in "aac_profile" "HE-AAC").

Quote
PS. I would like to thank you all guys for helping me open my eyes on this thing. Im quite very happy with the results of my transcoding as I can fit may songs on my phone now that I can compress the file size.
  you can even experiment a little bit with even lower bitrates. One downside of AAC is its comparatively slow compression algorithm.

EDIT: Ah, just realized you use br 96. Try the q switch instead, it should work even better, although the total bitrate of the resulting file can vary a bit with this.

how to encode mp3 to mp4 w/o losing quality

Reply #12 –
Hi guys! I'm new to all this encoding things!

Using the search I found this threat that faces *exactly* my same problem. But in my case I have a Sony-eric K800i that I think supports AAC+ too.

I have studied all you guys said  to chaps but I have found some problems using both methods


1) Nero Digital + foobar

or

2) Winamp pro

With foobar: The thing is that using foobar Im not really sure if it's using the aac+ profile and not the aac... I have tried looking for the right-click dialogue "Show file info (special)" but I cant find it  instead I got into the file properties-->codec (AAC)--> codec profile (AAC SBR). Is that HE AAC?

With Winamp: there is a aac+ profile str8 away which makes life easier for newbies such as me... but the thing is that some os my MP3s cant be transcoded as the provoke an error: "Encoder couldn't be opened" Also, there seems to be no option for VBR, only CBR


---------

Last but not least I wanted to ask you guys something, I was wondering what wouls result in less battery consumption for my cellphone: using VBR, CBR or ABR? I have absolutely nothing but my intuitition to support this but VBR, being constantly changing bitrates, wouldnt make battery last shorter?

oh and I have tried with both methods at 64Kb and the sound awesome!

Thanks a lot for all the help!

how to encode mp3 to mp4 w/o losing quality

Reply #13 –
Quote from: serlex on
With foobar: The thing is that using foobar Im not really sure if it's using the aac+ profile and not the aac... I have tried looking for the right-click dialogue "Show file info (special)" but I cant find it  instead I got into the file properties-->codec (AAC)--> codec profile (AAC SBR). Is that HE AAC?

Yep. The Nero encoder automatically decides which AAC profile to be used in order to reach an optimal result using the quality setting you specified. For instance, -q 0.25 always creates a HE-AAC file, but without Parametric Stereo, which makes sense with bitrates around 64 kbps.

Quote
Last but not least I wanted to ask you guys something, I was wondering what wouls result in less battery consumption for my cellphone: using VBR, CBR or ABR? I have absolutely nothing but my intuitition to support this but VBR, being constantly changing bitrates, wouldnt make battery last shorter?

The answer to this question is "bitrates", not the encoding mode, due to power consumption becoming more problematic with increasing bitrates. It doesn't make much of a difference whether a codec constantly stays at the same bitrate or if it keeps varying between low and high ones just to reach a result almost identical to the constant one. Hence, if you're concerned about the cellphone's batteries keep using low bitrates and encode to LC-AAC instead of HE-AAC, since SBR loves consuming batteries as well. Have a look at this posting of mine and the two follow-up ones, especially at the link Garf posted. Please note that the decoder specifications he linked to are examples of how the ARM processors perform on SBR decoding, i.e. these don't have to be representative for the entire bunch of HE-AAC decoders out there.

Quote
oh and I have tried with both methods at 64Kb and the sound awesome!

Try this setting in foobar: -lc -q 0.20 -ignorelength -if - -of %d
It produces slightly higher bitrates (~80 kbps) than your current HE-AAC setup, but nonetheless it might consume noticeably less batteries because it enforces encoding to LC-AAC, while possibly still maintaining satisfactory quality for your cellphone.

how to encode mp3 to mp4 w/o losing quality

Reply #14 –
Quote from: Junon on
Quote from: serlex on

With foobar: The thing is that using foobar Im not really sure if it's using the aac+ profile and not the aac... I have tried looking for the right-click dialogue "Show file info (special)" but I cant find it  instead I got into the file properties-->codec (AAC)--> codec profile (AAC SBR). Is that HE AAC?

Yep. The Nero encoder automatically decides which AAC profile to be used in order to reach an optimal result using the quality setting you specified. For instance, -q 0.25 always creates a HE-AAC file, but without Parametric Stereo, which makes sense with bitrates around 64 kbps.

Quote
Last but not least I wanted to ask you guys something, I was wondering what wouls result in less battery consumption for my cellphone: using VBR, CBR or ABR? I have absolutely nothing but my intuitition to support this but VBR, being constantly changing bitrates, wouldnt make battery last shorter?

The answer to this question is "bitrates", not the encoding mode, due to power consumption becoming more problematic with increasing bitrates. It doesn't make much of a difference whether a codec constantly stays at the same bitrate or if it keeps varying between low and high ones just to reach a result almost identical to the constant one. Hence, if you're concerned about the cellphone's batteries keep using low bitrates and encode to LC-AAC instead of HE-AAC, since SBR loves consuming batteries as well. Have a look at this posting of mine and the two follow-up ones, especially at the link Garf posted. Please note that the decoder specifications he linked to are examples of how the ARM processors perform on SBR decoding, i.e. these don't have to be representative for the entire bunch of HE-AAC decoders out there.

Quote
oh and I have tried with both methods at 64Kb and the sound awesome!

Try this setting in foobar: -lc -q 0.20 -ignorelength -if - -of %d
It produces slightly higher bitrates (~80 kbps) than your current HE-AAC setup, but nonetheless it might consume noticeably less batteries because it enforces encoding to LC-AAC, while possibly still maintaining satisfactory quality for your cellphone.


Thank you so much for all your help! One last question: *.mp4 and .m4a are both containers for AAC (and aac+) tracks, arent they?

I'll experiment ASAP with your suggested settings

how to encode mp3 to mp4 w/o losing quality

Reply #15 –
Quote from: serlex on
Thank you so much for all your help! One last question: *.mp4 and .m4a are both containers for AAC (and aac+) tracks, arent they?


They're even one and the same container, both conforming to the official MP4 specification. .m4a is just a renamed .mp4 file, introduced by Apple for the user to be able to differ between different contents, like .m4a for audio and .m4v for video.

I for my part am not too happy about what Apple did here, because this tends to cause some confusion in certain cases. For instance, I was cursing my mobile phone for months because I thought it not to be able to read .mp4 tags created by the Nero encoder, though it properly decodes both LC-AAC and HE-AAC in the .mp4 format; just until I found out that damn thing wants .m4a extensions instead, their tags are read properly. Kinda annoying, since this makes sharing the files with a good friend's mobile phone impossible - it doesn't accept any .m4a files, but .mp4 ones.