nomar05

I'm trying to figure out which format (WMA, MP3, OGG, VQF) to use. Here is one website's conclusion.

Because of compatibility, popularity and the soft- and hardware-support, home-users should decide in favour of Microsoft’s product (WMA).
There are however only two bitrates one should choose in order to get the best sound-quality without any audible differences to the original files:

with classical music: 160 kbps
with rock/pop-music: 128 kbps
Everybody who still uses the long-proven MP3 should take the following bitrates to get the best sound-quality without any audible differences to the original files:

with classical music: 192 kbps
with rock/pop-music: 160 kbps

full article here:
http://www.cdburner.ca/digital-audio...io-results.htm

Anybody else care to offer an informed opinion on how to squeeze the most out of a 128MB CD card? Any suggestions on what Rippers & Encoders to use? Freeware would be preferred.
I currently have CDex v1.50 installed.

TIA

fibrizo

Make sure when encoding in mp3 to use VBR. I get decent audio files with 128kb vbr and good classical at 160kb vbr.

For most people though, 64kb WMA 9.0 VBR uncapped is decent (that's what I use for general music.)

Double-Trinity

Well... unfortunately file format isn't the only considertion for Pocket PC, the audio quality in good quality speakers and headphones in Windwos Media Player PPC is TERRIBLE, and most 3rd party apps only support MP3s... so right now I use MP3 160/44 with Pocket Music.

argee

I found a powerful freeware converter that supports wma ver. 9, the beauty of the program is that is has several combinations of bitrates that you can use to convert to either mp3 or wma. I find wma better since the sound quality is definitely better than mp3 specially on low bitrates like 20, 22 or 32 kbps. I generally use the 22 kpbs for my music, it does the trick specially since im using earphones to listen to the tunes on my axim. The best thing about is that i could squeeze songs to an average of 800 KB per song. Cool if you have limited storage on your card and youd want to store as much music as i would on your card. = ) The program's name is dbpoweramp. you'll have to download the wma 9 plugin separately to have wma support though but im telling you it works and best of all its free = )

Double-Trinity

Quote:

Originally posted by argee I found a powerful freeware converter that supports wma ver. 9, the beauty of the program is that is has several combinations of bitrates that you can use to convert to either mp3 or wma. I find wma better since the sound quality is definitely better than mp3 specially on low bitrates like 20, 22 or 32 kbps. I generally use the 22 kpbs for my music, it does the trick specially since im using earphones to listen to the tunes on my axim. The best thing about is that i could squeeze songs to an average of 800 KB per song. Cool if you have limited storage on your card and youd want to store as much music as i would on your card. = ) The program's name is dbpoweramp. you'll have to download the wma 9 plugin separately to have wma support though but im telling you it works and best of all its free = )

ick... those bitrates sound like spoken-word bitrates, no offense

Handy

Hmm.. that review was a little disjointed in English. Personally, I'm not crazy about WMA format because only WMP will play it on a PPC and WMP is not a very good player.

That leaves Ogg and MP3. According to the charts in the review, Ogg beats out MP3 in most respects and is equal to or better than WMA in quality.

Also, I have several players on my PPC that will play Ogg and it appears to be becoming more popular as time goes on. And Winamp supports it on the desktop.

I've got a lot of content in Ogg format already, so I'll probably continue to use it.

nomar05

Thanks argee! I had the dBpowerAMP Music Converter loaded on my pc but didnt know about the Codec add-ons - found at:
http://www.dbpoweramp.com/codec-central-wma.htm

Note: the urls they provide are wrong. (I guess they recently changed their domain from www.dbpoweramp.net to www.dbpoweramp.com and did not update their download links). If interested, use the following links for Steps 1 & 2:

1. http://www.dbpoweramp.com/codecs/db-wmfdist-wma9.exe
2. http://www.dbpoweramp.com/codecs/dBp...odec-wmav9.exe
3. Reboot computer (full shutdown, not hibernate, suspend or sleep)

I was very happy with the audio quality after converting a MP3 128/44 to a WMA V9 64/44. I couldn't notice any dropoff. Now I'll be able to fit twice as many songs on my CD card. The Converter works really fast too!

fibrizo - what is meant by the term "uncapped"?

Thanks!

mm1719

I use MP3 to WMA conerter 1.3.3. I downloaded a trial version at www.download.com. I use it with my WMP. I convert my MP3's to 20kbps and don't notice one bit of a difference in the sound quality. I really don't see how anyone else does either. Besides, it helps me make the most out of my 32MB CF card. When you use the Axim with headphones it sounds like CD quality.

Double-Trinity

I notice a huge different in quality between MP3 and WMA at the same bit rates -- MP3 is far better. And you konw what, I even find a distinct boost in quality between the same exact files by not using WMP PPC

nomar05

...on 2nd thought, after reading all the WMP bashing in this forum, maybe I'll give Pocket Music another listen.

I also downloaded/installed the dBpowerAMP Music Converter Codec add-on for OGG.

I'd like to give GSPlayer a try also. I think it'll play ogg, but I when I tried to install it on my Ax, it installed on my desktop instead. I must have had the wrong .exe. :rolling:

Handy

If I remember correctly, GS Player does not use an install program. You'll need to copy the .exe to your PDA directly and then just run it. I copied it to my SD Card.

I used DexPlor to create a shortcut to gsplayer.exe. If you put the shortcut in /Windows/Start Menu/Programs the shortcut shows up under Programs.

GS Player does handle Ogg files and seems to do a good job.

Iwantbatteries

I use mp3 for ease of use reasons, but I might switch to ogg soon, unfortunately that will cut my old mp3 player out of the loop, not that I use it very often

nomar05

Call me crazy, but I'm very happy playing WMA V9 (64kbps/44MHz) files on WMP. I like WMP better than Pocket Music. It has a much better GUI, it plays mp3 files that wouldnt play on Pocket Music, and best of all (IMHO) it plays wma files encoded at half the bitrate that is required for the same quality mp3.

Am I the only one who likes WMP?

I'll shut up now :hide:

Double-Trinity

Quote:

Originally posted by nomar05 Call me crazy, but I'm very happy playing WMA V9 (64kbps/44MHz) files on WMP. I like WMP better than Pocket Music. It has a much better GUI, it plays mp3 files that wouldnt play on Pocket Music, and best of all (IMHO) it plays wma files encoded at half the bitrate that is required for the same quality mp3. Am I the only one who likes WMP? I'll shut up now :hide:

But again, the overall quality for WMP isn't that good, in fact, it's quite terrible when run through a nice speaker system. So you don't get the full benefit of higher bitrates anyway. I bet if y ouwere to test the files out on PC the resutls would be quite different, but I believe part of the problem is that WMP is very hard to encode and decode in a limited app like that, when you're dealing with a desktop app, it makes little difference, but since romspace is a premium, it is hard for them to make WMP top notch.

As for me, I like PocketMusic's UI, however, I use it all folded up, EQ windw I don't show, and the top window I fold. I also have a pointer directly to pocket music from the taskbar, and from hardware button, and folded uip so that it is just the control butotns on top (time, buttons, menu icon, and [-] [_] [X]) with the name of the song playing right below, it takes up 24 pixels worth of real estate on my screen, the same as one menu bar in an application. That means it is very very fast to open up with a click of a hardware button, signal to do something, then switch back, usually without even getting the stylus involved. however, if I need to, I can open up playlist to fullscreen.

argee

your not alone Nomar, not that its the only one ill use but i have to say, WMA does the job = )