On 13 Jun 2003 at 16:03, Darcy James Argue wrote: > On Friday, June 13, 2003, at 03:00 PM, David W. Fenton wrote: > > 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.) . . .
I have QT6 and it handles VBR just fine. But I can't see any great benefit, as the sound quality improvement is not enough more for the slight drop in file size. > . . . Also, dialup users don't expect to be able > to access real-time streaming audio with any consistency. . . . Yes, but faced with downloading .5MBs for every minute of music vs. 1MB for every minute, the former sounds like something worth doing. > . . . 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. . .. Well, I've got 6.0. I've not had any problems with it whatsoever. I find it annoying to have to constantly be updating things. Actually, now that I think about it, it very well may be that the problem is due to having done a Win2K repair a few weeks ago. Perhaps that mucked up some subsytem (I had to re-install my Easy CD-Creator because of some componenet problem that was probably the result of the Win2K re-install), and just re-running Quicktime setup would do the job. Of course, since it's a web-installer-based setup, I doubt I'll get anything other than the new version of Quicktime. No, it actually re-installed QT6.0, but it didn't help. I just upgraded to 6.3 and so far it's working. Seems to *sound* better, too! Well, there are still dropouts, so it must just be Quicktime. Oh well, at least I've got other players that can handle it. I think I'll just switch the association for MP3s to Windows Media Player, after all. Someone else wrote and suggested WinAmp, but that's infested with spyware, as are all the more popular MP3 players, and I simply won't abide having those kinds of things installed on my PC. > . . . I would also suggest making > some test files at 128 bps, non-VBR, to see if that makes any > difference. . . . I already did that. Those have the same problems for me. > . . . As for your friend with the Mac, how is he/she playing the > files? . . . Dunno. > . . . 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. . . . Well, I dont' know exactly how she's doing it. I would expect her to be just using the web browser plugin. I know her computer is a G3, but it's got OS X (dunno which version), so it may have iTunes. I'll suggest it to her. > . . . Your files sound fine to me (apart from the > unacceptably low bitrate, IMO). Well, they don't sound at all unacceptable to me! > 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. Well, I like Apple software (though, of course, there was that disaster with the QT player UI). Right now I'm struggling with the program Dennis recommended, which seems to make all the files at 192bits, as they are bigger than my 128bit files made with FreeRip. EAC also has more trouble keeping track of my CD drive, which FreeRip has no problems with. I like the additional control in EAC, but I can't get it to work. -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
