On Friday, June 13, 2003, at 03:00 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
Hi David,
First off, just a heads-up that you are conflating a couple of different terms here -- the *bit size* of the sample and the *bits per second* (i.e., bit transfer rate) of the MP3. All of your MP3s are 16-bit, same as a CD. It's only the bit rate -- measured in bps -- which is variable.
Well, I want something that is listenable, but still downloadable by dialup users. I'll try some 32-bit samples and see what I think.
I think 32 bps MP3s sound appalling. I don't think you should use anything less than 128 bps, and I would avoid VBR (variable bit rate) encoding, because some players -- possibly QuickTime for Windows -- have problems with VBR-encoded MP3s. (Early versions of QT for Mac did not handle VBR very well.) Also, dialup users don't expect to be able to access real-time streaming audio with any consistency. Heck, I'm on 608k DSL and *I* don't expect to be able to access real-time streaming audio with any consistency. Just make the MP3's downloadable and people will listen to the files when they are done downloading them.
Regarding your problems with stutters and dropouts -- before you purge QT from your system, I would try first downloading the very latest version (v6.3), and see if that helps. I would also suggest making some test files at 128 bps, non-VBR, to see if that makes any difference. As for your friend with the Mac, how is he/she playing the files? Playing MP3's from within iTunes is much more reliable than playing them from the QuickTime player, or from a web page using the QuickTime plugin. Your files sound fine to me (apart from the unacceptably low bitrate, IMO).
Incidentally, a Windows version of iTunes should be available before the end of the year, so that would give you another option as far as playback goes.
Good luck.
- Darcy
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