1CD=2 LOSSY encodings:low and high quality
Reply #14 – 2006-02-17 13:32:10
a double LOSSY backup : A & B(A) for hi-fi listenings and mind tranquility and (B) for minimum size (portable for instance) A) my hesitations for lossy backups are between mp3 320, wavpack lossy 400, and ogg (?kbps) B) i already opted for -v4 or -v5 with lame 3.97b [a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=364699"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a] If you really can't go for lossless (what I really suggest you if you want to definitely get your peace of mind about playback quality and transcoding efficiency), I'd suggest:B) LAME -V5 --vbr-new for portable playback. Average filesize is really decent (album bitrate on my classical music library is comprise between 90 to 150 kbps and reaches an average of 130 kbps). If you listen a lot of quiet music (by quiet I mean low volume tracks), it may be interesting to use -V4 instead of -V5, in order to prevent ringing while listening your music at high volume (often necessery on nomad conditions). But -V5 should be more than correct (I'm rarely disappointing by it). A) I can't recommand anything here truly reliable. Keep in mind that for simple playback , all formats should be OK at ~400 kbps. Not only MPC, Vorbis, WavPack, but also MP3, WMA, atrac... Unless you're a critical listener with a good experience in artifacts hunting, your choice should be based on what appear to be the most conveniant format for you. For transcoding , there's a general consensus about the superiority of formats like WavPack lossy or DualStream (=OptimFROG lossy). The latter is better at the same bitrate, but is significantly slower on decoding (thus transcoding or re-encoding process). But I can't tell you if the consensus is valid or not: there are few listening tests on this subject. Anyway, if I really had to make the same choices as you, I'd probably use one of these unusual formats at high bitrate. But are you really saving disk space with (130 + 400 = 530 kbps) this dual solution over lossless coding? When I was looking for an excellent, transparent lossy format, I always felt anxious and worried and therefore often changed my settings, encoding and encoding again the same disks with different formats or different encoders with different settings. These bad feelings were gone when I switched to lossless. Now I'm perfectly happy (but I must say that lossless is more friendly for classical music lovers: average bitrate is ~600 kbps). Lossy encodings at ~250 kbps are maybe more interesting in the perspective of saving space. With high bitrate MP3 encodings, you should have high quality encodings compatible with most digital players (flash, CD, DVD, HDD...) and perfectly suitable at home with good equipment. It's probably what I would do in your case. MP3 even at high bitrate isn't absolutely perfect, but it opens so many doors (all portable players, most DVD players, all softwares are compatible with it) that I feel alternative solutions like Vorbis or AAC (slightly better quality for experienced listeners) as much more unconveniant.