Heartland

Some people are talking very bad about Liveshows which come from MP3, why? It depends on the bitrate.....
I just wanted to know why some of you are against it ?
(Do you have all your concerts on audiocds?)

No, I don't have them all on music cd.

I'd rather have them mp3. You can fit more on a disk that way, and I usually only listen to them at work which means I have to use my computer to listen anyway so sound quality isn't that great. Also, my entire collection is now mp3 for soulseek purposes. (Well almost!)

i'm all for mp3 - as long as the bitrate's over 128.

As a non geek...what is bitrate and why should I care?

I like 128 bitrate MP3s, they're suitable for listening to on a PC, but it all depends on the codec used. Some of them sound crisper and punchier at 128, but sound bloated and wallowy at, say, 320. On a decent hi-fi, anything recorded from MP3 always sounds flat, dull and grey.

@Black Planet: Bitrate is just how much info is crammed into the file. CD Audio contains more info than an MP3, and obviously sounds better as a result. MP3 works by compressing some stuff and removing some other stuff that you theoretically "can't hear", as well as some other stuff that is deemed "unimportant". It's like the difference between a mosaic and a photo, for instance. Hope this helps.

Now I'm confused.

Does this bitrate thing have to do with taking an audio cd file and converting it to MP3 format? And what about when you take your mp3 file and burn it to an audio cd rather than just copying the disk? And how do you know what bitrate you've got on a mp3?

Sorry I am not very tekkie about all this ....

Black Planet wrote:Now I'm confused.

Does this bitrate thing have to do with taking an audio cd file and converting it to MP3 format? And what about when you take your mp3 file and burn it to an audio cd rather than just copying the disk? And how do you know what bitrate you've got on a mp3?

Sorry I am not very tekkie about all this ....

MP3 is a compressed format, more important it is a "lossy" compressed format, this means that once it gets compressed some of the info is "thrown away", never to return. Burning MP3 to audio CD won't recover it. It's gone.

To determine an MP3's bitrate is pretty bloody simple, but depends on which MP3 player you're using. If it's winamp then it's proudly displayed in one of the little blocks to the middle-right-center of the window. It usually ranges from 64k/s (poor) to 320k/s (good quality).

understand?

I usually don't bother downloading MP3s that are under 192k/s, but if I like the album, and if it's available I usually end up buying it.

When you make mp3:s from an audio CD, the quality is dependent upon the bitrate you choose, i e the size of the bricks in the mosaic representation of the original image (tune). There are different algorithms available for the task, some more adaptive than others, e g "this piece should be blue" vs "the piece to the left is yellow and the piece to the right is red, if this is supposed to be a seamless transition, this piece ought to be orange", yet again using the, albeit flawed, mosaic comparison.

Since file compression is about removing data, it all boils down to the question of what data you can remove, without the general image getting too blurred.

When you burn an audio CD from mp3 data, since the audio CD format is a fixed data amount set, the removed data somehow has to be recreated, which, in the case of poor mp3:s to begin with, may "add insult to injury".

Generally, bitrates of 192 kilobits per second (kbps) and higher are indistinguishable from the original CD audio track, at least on lower end systems, and bitrates in excess of 256 kbps are ridiculous.

When you play an mp3 in WinAmp (my preferred player for mp3:s, just stay clear of v.3) the bitrate is conveniently displayed below the song name.

I've never written such a long entry on a web forum before, I think. May I be excused?

the "lame" mp3 encoder at 128, 164 or 192 kbps does a pretty neat job

For lower bitrates, <=128 kbps, WMA or Ogg Vorbis is the way to go. I usually use LAME, VBR, q1, 32-256kbps myself. Sorry about the tech-junkie stuff, Planet.

ok, this is pretty easy to understand.

For all intemts and purposes the human ear cannot tell any difference between a CD track and the equivalent track as a 192kbps MP3. Anything lower than 192kbps and and drop off in quality can be detected.

Personally I always rips a CD to MP3 at 320kbps even if it it is taken from a CD that has been burnt using 192kbps just to preserve as much of the quality as possible.

One thing you cannot do is re-code a 192kbps MP3 into a higher bitrate. This will affect the sound quality.

As far as weeding goes, I always use the original CD that I have been sent when I copy it, not MP3s.

As for finding out the bitrate of a MP3, if you use Winamp 2, double click on where the name of the song is scrolling in the window and info will be in the bottom right of the new window that opens. Apart from that, I don't know how you find out! Windows XP used to tell me when I highlighted a MP3 before I installed I-Tunes. Now it doesn't. And I got rid of I-Tunes as well.

The other thing of course are people who code in MP3pro. These are MP3s coded in MPEG2 layer 3 instead of MPEG1 layer 3 (I think). The bitrate shows as being lower, but the quality seems higher. Maybe Jenzi can give a bit more detail on this as he seems to have a lot of stuff in this format.

It can all get very confusing!

Some many geeks. Who knew?

I did.... a long time ago. Now look at me...you lot are like the Borg...assimilating me into geekdom!

Wait til JohnnyBoy finds out!!!

mugabe wrote:For lower bitrates, <=128 kbps, WMA or Ogg Vorbis is the way to go. I usually use LAME, VBR, q1, 32-256kbps myself. Sorry about the tech-junkie stuff, Planet.

What? Obviously way over my head! And no need to explain...I'm going to wallow in my ignorance ...and resist becoming a geek.

Black Planet wrote:What? Obviously way over my head! And no need to explain...I'm going to wallow in my ignorance ...and resist becoming a geek.

http://www.theonion.com/onion3604/doesn ... ision.html

I have absolutely no problem with mp3's, my collection of Sisters is a 50/50 split and when you think about the quality of some of the live stuff... well.

Blast

my intension for this topic was, that somebody does not accept if the source is mp3/mp4/ogg - only audio cds.
can anybody tell me the person who can say if the music (A LIVE-BOOTLEG) is a audio-cd (BOOTLEG) or a winamp file.
i think the quality of a live recording is always under a studio recording except a digital mixing desk recording, so it is more hard to hear if this audio cd or a mp3....
i was a bit confused
(personally i like the AAC codec which is inside of I-Tunes)