Subject:so frustrated.......

Posted by: prophet

Date:9/17/2004 8:45:56 PM

I am putting cassette recordings on my computer via sound forge. I have a IPOD and i dont know how ,where or what format to save this in so that i can import it to my IPOD..HELP

Subject:RE: so frustrated.......

Reply by: musicvid10

Date:9/17/2004 10:05:06 PM

Save the files as .wma (128 kbs if you want good quality)
Use the Apple software to import them to the iPod
At least that's how my students do it.

Subject:RE: so frustrated.......

Reply by: Rednroll

Date:9/18/2004 8:28:35 AM

I believe the Ipod reads .MP3 format.....I'm actually kind of surprised to hear it supports .WMA, since wma is Microsoft and the iPod is Apple. I have a couple friends with the Ipod and they tell me when they transfer files, they use the software as previously suggested. I have an RCA Lyra and you can use the included Music Match software to transfer files or even cooler is that the Lyra shows up just like a harddrive on your PC and you can just use the windows explorer to drag and drop files to and from it. I just mention this because I haven't used the iPod to transfer files, but you might want to check that out if that is possible.

Subject:RE: so frustrated.......

Reply by: musicvid10

Date:9/18/2004 9:05:12 AM

Red,
According to my student, the iPod imports from wma or mp3 to its proprietary format, AAC. You can only use their iTunes software, which he says can be a pain sometimes.

He prefers .wma as the intermediate file format because it preserves the high frequencies better than .mp3 at the same bitrate, and he and his friends all use Windows Media Player to rip cd's.

I've just started saving wma to my mp3 player (not an iPod) and I can hear the difference between the two when played side-by-side.

Subject:Update

Reply by: musicvid10

Date:9/18/2004 12:22:38 PM

Looking at the Apple website, it looks as if the iPod will import from .wav files as well, so you could certainly save them that way in Sound Forge.

Subject:RE: Update

Reply by: Rednroll

Date:9/18/2004 5:56:31 PM

What you heard of WMA vs. MP3 is probably pretty accurate. I did a compression study shoot out awhile back looking at the frequency response and comparing them to the original full bandwidth WAV file. Here's the information if you're interested. If you just compare the WMA 128kbs vs the MP3 128kbs, you'll see WMA frequencies go up to about 17.8Khz, where MP3 goes up to 15.8Khz. Actually, the best bang for the buck is the .Ogg Vorbis compression, but unfortunately no one really supports that in consumer products that I've seen.

Source
Uncorrelated 16/44.1Khz Pink Noise .WAV 10.0 Mb Full Range

Format>compressed file size>data rate>Compression ratio>Freq resp.
.PCA> 8.79 Mb >1.4:1> Full Range
.MP3> 2.29 Mb >320 Kbs> 4.37:1> Full Range
.MP3 >1.37 Mb >192 Kbs> 7.3:1> Brickwall Low-pass at 20 Khz, slight roll off starting at 15Khz
.MP3 >939 Kb> 128 Kbs> 10.65:1> Brickwall Low-pass at 15.8Khz
.MP3 >470 Kb> 64 Kbs> 21.28:1> Brickwall Low-pass at 10Khz
.Ogg> 972 Kb> 128Kbs> 10.29:1> Full Range with a +3dB High Freq boast starting at 10Khz
.Ogg> 696 Kb> 96Kbs> 14.37:1> Brickwall Low-pass at 16.5 Khz with a +3dB 10Khz boast starting at 10Khz
.WMA> 2.34 Mb >320Kbs> 4.27:1> Brickwall Low-pass at 20.3Khz
.WMA >1.17 Mb >160Kbs> 8.55:1 >Brickwall Low-pass at 19Khz
.WMA> 965 Kb> 128Kbs> 10.36:1> Brickwall Low-pass at 17.8Khz

Subject:RE: Update

Reply by: musicvid10

Date:9/18/2004 7:00:17 PM

This is useful information.
Thanks!!

Subject:RE: Update

Reply by: MacMoney

Date:9/19/2004 6:09:07 AM

Thanks for the info Red

George Ware

Subject:RE: Update

Reply by: Rednroll

Date:9/19/2004 7:45:30 AM

a little further info of the data. The original source file was a full bandwidth stereo pink noise 16/44.1 Wave at 10 Meg in file size. For the Sony PCA compression, this is a lossless compression. As the data shows you don't gain much for a compression ratio using PCA, but I've been told it's a much better compression ratio if you're compressing music files, rather than pink noise.

Subject:RE: Update

Reply by: musicvid10

Date:9/19/2004 9:01:24 AM

"...better compression ratio if you're compressing music files"

It is indeed better for music, 1.7:1 or 1.8:1
It is better yet with mixed music and speech (live shows and revues), often above 2:1
I think it is a Huffman-type encoding scheme that makes this possible with PCA
Not too usefull for distribution because the format is not supported on the outside,
but a godsend for SF owners like me who archive massive amounts of audio on our hard drives.

Any exerience with the WMA9 Lossless compression?

Subject:RE: Update

Reply by: Chaim

Date:9/21/2004 10:57:50 PM

There are a number of lossless compression codecs available for archiving sound files. Some work better than others. I ran comparison tests on Monkeys Audio, FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, Wavepack, Shorten, and a few others. I finally settled on Wavepack because it had very fast compress and uncompress times, near the top in actual compression ratio, and I liked that it has a command line interface, so I could simply move to a folder (Command prompt) and enter "Wavepack *.wav" and be done with it. I tend to get about 2:1 compression. It's also free.