Re: [ARSCLIST] Listening Copy

["Richard L. Hess" <arclists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello, Farris,

If you have 44.1/16 WAV files on a server already, and your listening 
"dumb terminal" can connect to that server over 100 Mb/s Ethernet, 
then there may be no need to go to the trouble of making MP3 files 
from the WAV files.

The WAV file is only running at 1.4 Mb/s, much less than the capacity 
of a 100 Mb/s of the Ethernet connection. I can run 44.1/16 WAV files 
reliably over a wireless 802.11g network (one file is all I've ever tested).

There is significant variability between MP3 encoders. When I run the 
one that comes with Samplitude (and I'm not sure which one it is any 
more, since I didn't have to execute a separate license as I did in 
the past) there is an option for highest quality that takes about 5x 
as long to encode as the lowest quality. The highest quality at 128 
kb/s and above (I like doing music at 192 kb/s) sounds very much like 
the original WAV files.

I recently received a 160 kb/s MP3 of a song to audition done by a 
recording engineer that sounded substantially worse than the 128 kb/s 
Windows Media file ripped by the artist for my convenience. When I 
finally got the CD, neither sounded as close as the MP3s I make. For 
larger projects, I usually batch convert MP3s overnight as I cannot 
take the time during the work day to run them.

I was totally amazed at the difference in quality between various 
lossy encoders and don't want to repeat the experiment with the song 
noted above.

Cheers,

Richard

At 11:03 AM 2007-02-12, Farris Wahbeh wrote (in part):

> After all this critical and great feedback, I don't see why we shouldn't
> offer researchers and patrons MP3 files for listening purposes
> only.Thesefiles would be accessible via a media player available on a
> computer or MP3
> player in-house only, eliminating copyright infringement issues as we would
> be using these for educational purposes only and not distributing in any
> way.
>
> For now, I'm still thinking of using a lossy format, since the originals are
> flat unprocessed transfer WAV files. WAV files are backed up, and listening
> formats can be changed easily in-house.

Richard L. Hess                   email: richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Aurora, Ontario, Canada       (905) 713 6733     1-877-TAPE-FIX
Detailed contact information: http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.