NexGen to MP3; bitrate suggestions?

[re8]

I'm helping a friend build a website for her radio show, & can use suggestions for a good bitrate for the MP3 exports. I think VBR is the best, since it is almost equally talk & music, but don't know how to get the most quality for filesize. Suggestions please?

Or maybe I can grab the music files somehow, & test it out myself?
TIA

 

[chriscollins]

Is this for the podcasting feature?

I make all mp3's 320 CBR. There are still some players (older) that squeak and squawk during VBR files.

320 will help mask any content within the podcast that came from another mp3 as well.

 

[hvz]

Beside sample rate, it makes a big difference which encoder you use, and with what settings. I tested a lot of different encoders years ago, and at the time LAME was generally good, but I have heard tracks where I preferred a Fraunhofer mp3enc31 128 kbit/s MP3 over a 320 kbit/s LAME MP3. For lower bitrates this mp3enc31 was clearly the best MP3 encoder, but it contained a bug: It cannot handle any audio above 16 kHz, which might be a problem for higher bitrates.

LAME has probably been improved a lot since so don't use this information, but perform tests.

 

[chriscollins]

HVZ, if they are using what is built into NexGen, I believe it is Fraunhofer. I know that is the case with Audiovault.

 

[Mike Brewer]

Get .wavs out of NexGen. If you have to compress use a lossless codec like FLAC - and if that's not an option follow the 320 CBR recommendations above. Do NOT use VBR - you don't gain anything with it.

 

[Kent T]

Use MP2 or AAC. MP3 is not multi-generational and artifacts easily. And in many broadcast plants, there are more than one conversion from analog to digital or the other way around.

 

[RolfTaylor]

Kent wins the prize.

MP2 at 384 kbps or AAC at 128 kbps. Constant bit rate. 32kHz or 44.1 kHz sample rate (48 kHz would not be a problem, but since you will be coding twice best to keep the coding ratio as low as possible). If the only encoder you have is MP3 use 320kbps 32kHz sample rate.

Or you could go with Enhanced APT-x 384, but encoders are not easy to come by.

Use MP2 or AAC. MP3 is not multi-generational and artifacts easily. And in many broadcast plants, there are more than one conversion from analog to digital or the other way around.

 

[re8]

more qualifications

Thanks for all the replies!

Sorry, I should have been more clear with my request:

• Needs to work on most players, from cell phones to car MP3 players. (Perhaps a few ancient won't handle VBR well, but do all MP3 players play MP2?
• Quality is a bit less of a concern than filesize; she can not afford much bandwidth, & the 1hour program needs to be downloadable on a phone. It is an A.M. station with crappy RealAudio streaming, so it is easy to get better quality than that

Yea, I've been trying to get a .WAV file out of them for a month to test myself, & I keep getting the run-around. This is an unpaid web design project for an acquaintance, so I'm not too hot on spending too much time either. They are unwilling to spend much time with the actual conversion; I might be lucky to get them to use Adobe Audition instead of NexGen to convert. They will upload via FTP/HTTP for me, but NO tagging etc.

Thanks for recomdations for FLAC & 320CBR MP3, but we don't have the bandwidth for those.

How many MP3 players can't play VBR at all? I think my car MP3 player gets confused when I scrub VBRs, but it will still play fine.

I can't seem to find any somewhat recent test aside from: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/06/concluding-the-great-mp3-bitrate-experiment.html

cheers

 

[xmusicmatt]

Re: more qualifications

Thanks for all the replies!

Sorry, I should have been more clear with my request:

• Needs to work on most players, from cell phones to car MP3 players. (Perhaps a few ancient won't handle VBR well, but do all MP3 players play MP2?
• Quality is a bit less of a concern than filesize; she can not afford much bandwidth, & the 1hour program needs to be downloadable on a phone. It is an A.M. station with crappy RealAudio streaming, so it is easy to get better quality than that

If it's a talk show .. I would go (if you have to do mp3) 64kbps 22khz mp3 mono CBR files.. Those should be fairly quick to download and despite the lower quality for voice they will do fine and play just fine on mp3 players and not eat much bandwidth.

 

[chriscollins]

Re: more qualifications

Thanks for all the replies!

Sorry, I should have been more clear with my request:

• Needs to work on most players, from cell phones to car MP3 players. (Perhaps a few ancient won't handle VBR well, but do all MP3 players play MP2?
• Quality is a bit less of a concern than filesize; she can not afford much bandwidth, & the 1hour program needs to be downloadable on a phone. It is an A.M. station with crappy RealAudio streaming, so it is easy to get better quality than that

If it's a talk show .. I would go (if you have to do mp3) 64kbps 22khz mp3 mono CBR files.. Those should be fairly quick to download and despite the lower quality for voice they will do fine and play just fine on mp3 players and not eat much bandwidth.

I agree with Matt.

 

[Mike Brewer]

I think there's a bit of confusion here (at least there was on my part).

The thread title led me to believe that files were being transferred from NexGen to MP3 for use on another computer, NOT to be downloaded or streamed online.

Based on the OP's replies it looks like that's NOT the situation.

For online downloading MP3 is the most universal and AAC is close. Minimum bit rates: 64kb/sec MP3, 32 kb/s AAC. Obviously higher is better.

If you can only go with one format - use AAC.

 

[re8]

Re: more qualifications

If it's a talk show .. I would go (if you have to do mp3) 64kbps 22khz mp3 mono CBR files..

That's part of the problem, it is mixed talk AND music (she interviews musicians & plays their work in between, so close to 50%/50%. That is why I first thought of VBR. But you're right, if 100% talk I would go with low rate mono.