Music File types and sizes

Well I heard that different music file types (MP3,WMA,OGG)etc. are sometimes larger or smaller. I think that mp3 files are larger than wma and ogg files and since the meizu plays all three, is it possible to take a whole collection of MP3 files and then convert them to either ogg or wma? That way since they take up less space than mp3 files you could fit more songs on 4GB worth of space

Originally Posted by Cey

Well I heard that different music file types (MP3,WMA,OGG)etc. are sometimes larger or smaller. I think that mp3 files are larger than wma and ogg files and since the meizu plays all three, is it possible to take a whole collection of MP3 files and then convert them to either ogg or wma? That way since they take up less space than mp3 files you could fit more songs on 4GB worth of space

im not sure of this process, but ill love it for someone here to post a link to a good formatter of this kind...:D

Converting from one format to another will cause a loss of quality.

Long time ago I was using:
BeSweet (http://dspguru.notrace.dk/)

"BeSweet is an audio transcoding tool. it lets you convert audio files from one format to another.
supported formats : MP3,AC3,WAV,MP2,AVI,Aiff,VOB,Ogg Vorbis. BeSweet also includes some nice signal processing features :
- One-pass & Two-pass Normalization. Dynamic Range Compression.
- Sample-Rate Conversion. Frame-Rate Conversion (NTSC to PAL, etc'..)
- Partial Encoding of long streams. Splitting & Merging audio streams.
- Extraction of audio streams from AVI & VOBs.
- Delay Correction. Silence Insertion.
- Support for external plugins.
The whole transcoding process is done with floating-point arithmethics, reaching high-quality encodes.
No intermediate, temporary, files are being created by BeSweet while running. saving precious disk space."

wow thanks =]

But will transcoding from mp3 to either ogg or wma give me more space on my meizu?

Originally Posted by Cey

wow thanks =]

But will transcoding from mp3 to either ogg or wma give me more space on my meizu?

It will only save space if you chose a bitrate or quality level which produces a smaller file.

Ogg Vorbis will give you more quality per size however: don't transcode as it will degrade the quality considerably. Rerip the music, if you own the CDs. WMA will generally not give you more quality per size, it gives either inferior or the same quality as MP3 at the same bitrate.

greetz
mfb

Originally Posted by mfb

It will only save space if you chose a bitrate or quality level which produces a smaller file.

Ogg Vorbis will give you more quality per size however: don't transcode as it will degrade the quality considerably. Rerip the music, if you own the CDs.

greetz
mfb

whats a good bitrate and quality level to format to?

Hard to say, you can lower your bitrate of cause. But for me it's better keep it at high as possible. I would prefer ogg if you want to use lower bitrates.
Use presets as possible like the "oggenc -q 3" or "lame --preset medium" maybe in your case. I would prefer, if you test with the settings, maybe you have the perfect ear or you are stone-deaf ... :-)))

Maybe you look into the comprehensive comparison between ogg and lame,I post the link before: http://www.digit-life.com/articles/oggvslame/

like Error said : transcoding from one lossy format to another will insert a huge amount of extra loss of quality ! If you transcode a 128 kbit mp3 to a 64 kbit wma you will hear a noticable loss in quality. But if you have an original CD and transcode that original waves to 128 kbit mp3 and 64 kbit wma, you will virtually hear no big difference (at least that's what people say about wma - I have a different opinion on wma).

If you want to keep your files small, try to gather the original waves or FLAC or APE and trancode them yourself. I personally use WinLame with 32-128 kbit vbr mp3, lowpass 22 kHz. That's small size but still enjoyable.

Well, like protocl says it is not useful to convert between lossy formats,
because the result will include less information.
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Ah, i´ve been too slow and right, it was error who said it first.