Thread: MP3 or RealOne format? Both Supported in WinAmp & MediaEngine?

PLZ by all means dont support the invasive Real One player. Rip into MP3 format. Use lame while you are at. DO a google search and you will find tons of information regarding LAME.

PLZ PLZ PLZ dont use Real.

For the love of all that's holy DON'T USE REALPLAYER!

Realplayer souds absolutely terrible, it's a propritary format and their software fills your system with crap. It should not exist.

Use MP3 or OGG vorbis.

Mp3 is compatable with just about every media player out there. It's the standard for music compression. The Ideal bitrate is 192kbps

OGG vorbis is not supported by as many things (I do not know if media engine will decode it) but it sounds better then MP3. and has smaller filesizes. I rip all my music to OGG vorbis now. If you have a really good soundsystem you want to go with OGG vorbis or you'll be disapointed by the results. Ideal bitrate for OGG vorbis is a maximum bitrate of 192 kbps and a miniumum bitrate of 128 kbps.

You cannot burn OGG Vorbis files to a music CD.

Winamp has supoorted OGG Vorbis for quite some time now.

I hope this helps you.

You should also try using some software other then realplayer for ripping your CD's. I know many people use Exact audio copy. I use CDex, but it's a troublesome program to use.

Importantly. Test things first to see how they sound. Don't rip 400 CD's before finding out that your results sound like crap.

Or Windows Media Players wma?

If you don't want to lose any sound quality, don't compress it. Leave it as wav file or just make an iso copy on disk and mount using alcohol 120% or daemon-tools.

or you could use flac. It is lossless, free, and supported by winamp via plugins i think. I would recommend ogg vorbis for a compressed codec that sounds good

So many options.

Compressing to mp3 format.

Period end of discussion

If you can do OGG vorbis, do that, otherwise, go with mp3. Do not (I REPEAT DO NOT) use real crapper.

I have edited the source for ME1.7.7 to play Ogg Vorbis, just an addition of 2 lines, so it parses them rather than saying "No valid file found". It won't parse the artisit/track properly from what i've found in my limited testing of playing like 1 album

If you want it, it's here

**DISCLAIMER** Always back up your original file, and I take no responsibility for anything that may go wrong caused by anything **DISCLAIMER**


Edit: Alternatively, if you want to do the same changes yourself (ie you don't trust me!) do the following:

Find the line in playlists.frm
LCase(right(mp3FileName, 4)) = ".wma" Or _
and add the line
LCase(right(mp3FileName, 4)) = ".ogg" Or _
which will show *.ogg files in the playlist (do the same for any other file types you want to play)

Find the line in settings.frm
If LCase(right(sName, 4)) = ".mp3" Or LCase(right(sName, 4)) = ".wma" Then
and change it to
If LCase(right(sName, 4)) = ".mp3" Or LCase(right(sName, 4)) = ".wma" Or LCase(right(sName, 4)) = ".ogg" Then
which will allow you to sync *.ogg files if you use directory syncing (again, add Or LCase(right(sName, 4)) = ".xxx" for whatever other file type you wish to sync)

There, those are the two simple lines to add/change, which is done in the exe file I linked earlier



Garry

I've done many comparrisions of different compression formats, and mp3 just does not cut it anymore. Ogg vorbis always comes out head and shoulders above the others in blind tests.. if you're looking to preserve your collection of music, you absolutly cannot go wrong with 192k vbr Ogg.

wow - so I guess NO REAL AUDIO!!

I am an audiophile (we all are to an extent - maybe I am just anal), I looked at FLAC and was going to go with that now I am thinking 192k vbr Ogg

so FLAC or 192k vbr Ogg???