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Poll

If I [ever am to] download files in lossless formats with overkill resolution, ...

I keep the file I received, out of principle. (If I currently have compatibility issues, any conversion is "temporary" until I can replace by the original).
I never change resolution. I possibly recompress to one favourite codec that supports it.
Like 2, except that resolutions that are "already wrong" are not sacred. Who wants to keep a in 192/24 a digitized bootleg tape recorded in audience?
I hardly change resolution, except when I must for compatibility.
I usually downconvert to "something useful" (say, CD-resolution) in a lossless format
I usually convert to a lossy format anyway. CDDA is also "overkill resolution".
I also usually transcode overkill-bitrate lossies - like 320-kbps mp3s from Amazon - to a lower bitrate.
Topic: Do you keep "hi-rez" downloads as hi-rez, or do you convert? (Read 48659 times) previous topic - next topic
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Do you keep "hi-rez" downloads as hi-rez, or do you convert?

Poll! About the files you keep in your sacred music archive - not about the subselection you encode at 48 kbps for the memory card you put in your car stereo, but that should be clear?

I do from time to time get files in resolutions above CDDA. I  keep the resolution, but recompress to FLAC if I can and WavPack if I must. Have not yet gotten any "lossless" file that does not fit WavPack. Except overkill analogue rips ... they sometimes get reduced on a "what idiocy!" basis. So I voted 3.
I've had cases where I mess up my "albumversion" tags, and then the format can tell me a bit about where the file came from (yes I know I mess up that by reducing analog rips ...). And keeping the resolution costs me about 1/1000 of the hard drive (which of course will annoy me when, at some time in the future, it becomes nearly full).

(I put this in General audio, because it is not about lossless compression methods.)

Re: Do you keep "hi-rez" downloads as hi-rez, or do you convert?

Reply #1 –
If it is 24/48k or less, I don't really bother about anything other than encoding as FLAC (if it isn't already). I could, and maybe should downconvert those files, but just can't be bothered.

Anything above that gets downconverted, because although storage is cheap, those files take up a ridiculous amount.

Re: Do you keep "hi-rez" downloads as hi-rez, or do you convert?

Reply #2 –
I convert everything higher than 16/48 to 16/48 FLAC, because everything I own plays 48kHz audio without issues. If I need to convert to lossy, the Opus encoder won't have to resample the file a second time before encoding.

I've even gone to the trouble of writing a quick shell script that fires up SoX for the conversion and brings across all tags etc.

Re: Do you keep "hi-rez" downloads as hi-rez, or do you convert?

Reply #3 –
I don't keep anything over 24/96. but I don't necessarily bother to convert that. And bats are not rare here: they might be listening!

As for the truly absurd higher sample rates: disk space is cheap but not free, and certainly not infinite. Especially if one keeps good backups.
The most important audio cables are the ones in the brain

Re: Do you keep "hi-rez" downloads as hi-rez, or do you convert?

Reply #4 –
I converted a 24/88.2 to 16/44.1 recently and the size went from over 100 MB to 32 MB. And since I don't care much for bats' entertainment and I don't think I have speakers with a response range of over 20 kHz (at least not according to the specs) I don't really see the point.

Re: Do you keep "hi-rez" downloads as hi-rez, or do you convert?

Reply #5 –
CDDA rates for me and if purchased as HighBitrate i store it somewhere as backup. I don't suffer from the fear of ringing.
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!

Re: Do you keep "hi-rez" downloads as hi-rez, or do you convert?

Reply #6 –
I keep them as-is. 3TB disks are dirt-cheap now. Not even out of "principle", but simply because I can't be bothered to convert them, as there's no reason to.

Re: Do you keep "hi-rez" downloads as hi-rez, or do you convert?

Reply #7 –
Although rare in my library to have any highres I do keep the original sample rate and bit depth and number of channels including layout but converted to either FLAC or WavPack (when FLAC can't handle something).  Any sample rate conversions are done in real time on any PC I'm using while listening.

Lossy formats in high res maybe converted to a compatible format, but the original file is always kept and playback is always attempted with the original to see if it's working before doing any conversions.

The same could be said of formats that are low res (22,050 Hz, 8-bit for example) with the above that's followed for high res but with one exception that a compatibility conversion maybe done if a certain system did low quality resampling to a higher sample rate for a particular game (handled on a case-by-case basis).  This situation is a more common one I run across than the high res one.

For mobile devices, compatibility conversion maybe done to keep everything at one pictualer sample rate,  bit depth, number of channels, and compression format if it's needed to maintain a more consistent playback for that device (i.e. a device that handles sample rate changes poorly or a particular file format poorly, etc.)

Most files in my library are 44.1 KHz, 16-bit, Stereo from purchased CDs.

Re: Do you keep "hi-rez" downloads as hi-rez, or do you convert?

Reply #8 –
Quote from: tehabe on
I converted a 24/88.2 to 16/44.1 recently and the size went from over 100 MB to 32 MB.

Sounds reasonable. Just tested: Nine Inch Nails' "The Slip" (HA celebrity alert), the 24 bits / 96 kHz download.
Using a working HD + double backup, hard drive costs are about $100 per TB, and so I spend about 9 cents on keeping that album (artwork and all).
Cents saved by going CDDA: around 6.66, the number of the centibeast.


For comparison, with flac -8 as image, my bitrates are:
Original: 2926 kb/s
44.1/24: 1476 kb/s
96/16: 1391 kb/s
44.1/16: 773.
So by and large, there is one doubling for the bats and one doubling for the eight LSBs of noise.

Re: Do you keep "hi-rez" downloads as hi-rez, or do you convert?

Reply #9 –
I'm also of the opinion disc space is not worth worrying about. If I continually bought lots and lots of music and hi-res downloads then maybe it'd be time to think again but all my music fits in 1TB currently so I also have 1 on-site backup in a fireproof safe and one off-site backup in a fireproof filing cabinet at my parents. And the originals are all in my sisters attic as I have no room :D

Re: Do you keep "hi-rez" downloads as hi-rez, or do you convert?

Reply #10 –
Oh yeah, another reason to convert to 16/48 for me; my DSP crossover/EQ's ADC/DAC setup works at 48KHz, so anything higher is obviously irrelevant for the final result in my case ;-)

Re: Do you keep "hi-rez" downloads as hi-rez, or do you convert?

Reply #11 –
> I usually downconvert to "something useful" (say, CD-resolution) in a lossless format

This. Because (if done right) this only throws away stuff that cannot be heard even in theory, and there is no rocket science involved. 
This is stored in lossless because there's enough disk space and because lossy codecs are improving with time so I'd like to be able to benefit from that; + sometimes I may need to re-convert anyway because I want to add some filters before encoding, etc.
a fan of AutoEq + Meier Crossfeed

Re: Do you keep "hi-rez" downloads as hi-rez, or do you convert?

Reply #12 –
Always save my Hi-Res as it is. Harddrives is cheap so........

Why buy something in Hi-Res and then convert it into something else. Think ur better off to buy a digital download in CDDA quality at once then.

Re: Do you keep "hi-rez" downloads as hi-rez, or do you convert?

Reply #13 –
If you can chose between CD and high frequency files, yes. But sometimes you can't.

Re: Do you keep "hi-rez" downloads as hi-rez, or do you convert?

Reply #14 –
Quote from: tehabe on
If you can chose between CD and high frequency files, yes. But sometimes you can't.
At bandcamp the flac version is sometimes only HighBit for example.
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!

Re: Do you keep "hi-rez" downloads as hi-rez, or do you convert?

Reply #15 –
Quote from: NetRanger on
Why buy something in Hi-Res and then convert it into something else. Think ur better off to buy a digital download in CDDA quality at once then.
  • CDDA version may be not available
  • CDDA version may have different mastering than hi-res, for whatever reason. For example, I bought both versions of Pentatone's Tchaikovsky Violin concerto, Julia Fischer specifically to check that and they are different. I'm not saying though that I can hear that difference :-)

Re: Do you keep "hi-rez" downloads as hi-rez, or do you convert?

Reply #16 –
Downconvert everything to 16/44 lossless. Even if HDDs are cheap, physical space is not infinite.

Re: Do you keep "hi-rez" downloads as hi-rez, or do you convert?

Reply #18 –
"192/24" 🤣
EZ CD Audio Converter / FLAC or WavPack

Re: Do you keep "hi-rez" downloads as hi-rez, or do you convert?

Reply #19 –
Please, can everyone who thinks that hard-disk space is that cheap buy a spare one for me next time?

Yes, I remember needing to get purchase of a server disc at work authorised. Prices have fallen absurdly since those days, but still, each jump, each additional disk, is a very feel-able expense. My music collection is pretty-much fixed these days: now I'm filling space up with photographs.

If I was still digitising LPs, I wonder if I could bear to delete the original rip. Probably not <Blush>.
The most important audio cables are the ones in the brain

Re: Do you keep "hi-rez" downloads as hi-rez, or do you convert?

Reply #20 –
I recompress all the lossless purchases I intend to listen to with my preferred codec and highest compression mode and strip away embedded album art to further reduce size. If sample rate was higher than 48 kHz I'd resample.

Some Bandcamp purchases are 24 bps and so far I have kept them that way. Their sample rate is 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz and the files haven't been too huge. But if I'll run into space problems I won't hesitate to convert them to 16 bps.

I keep some hi-rez and DSD files around for foobar2000 testing.

Re: Do you keep "hi-rez" downloads as hi-rez, or do you convert?

Reply #21 –
Am I the only one here who converts to a lossy format and doesn't keep the original ? o_0

Re: Do you keep "hi-rez" downloads as hi-rez, or do you convert?

Reply #22 –
Quote from: leonsk on
Am I the only one here who converts to a lossy format and doesn't keep the original ? o_0

Apparently.

Re: Do you keep "hi-rez" downloads as hi-rez, or do you convert?

Reply #23 –
I convert them down to CD quality, but for some reason I keep the original files on a separate backup drive. Paranoia probably.

Re: Do you keep "hi-rez" downloads as hi-rez, or do you convert?

Reply #24 –
Quote from: Thad E Ginathom on
Please, can everyone who thinks that hard-disk space is that cheap buy a spare one for me next time?
You could have one of the old ones I got when 250 GB were the cheapest per gigabyte ... except that it doesn't pay off to ship it? ;-)

On a more serious note, the "cents per gigabyte" thing is a bit artificial of course: either you need another drive, or you don't. I see that those files of > 48k and/or > 16 bit files make about a 0.3 percent increase assuming they will downconvert to average bitrate.
Of course that will be annoying when my hard drive is "between 100 and 100.3 percent full". I guess that is when those old 250 GBs will be used for a (bootlegs!) folder that I do not index in my usual fb2k setup.