reencoding a bunch of mp3s to save file space

[stringcheeseincident]

i'm about to downgrade my mp3 player from 20gb to a new 6gb one, and even after cutting out as much music as possible i'm still coming up a little short (or long, for that matter). i'm looking to reencode all my mp3s to 112kbps or 96kbps, i want to do a few to test quality vs. size. anyway, once i figure out what bitrate i'm going to use, what would be the best program to efficiently reencode 6gb of mp3 files to a different bitrate? i was going to use dbpoweramp + LAME codec but it seemed like it was taking way too long. anyone have suggestions?

 

[Slick5150]

Could I suggest against this? MP3s at 112kbps (let alone 96kbps) is going to sound pretty horrible.

 

[stringcheeseincident]

sure...anyone else want to throw their ideas out there? i just put on an mp3 that was originally 192kbps at 5mb that converted to 2.2mb at 112kbps. played both all the way through, couldn't hear a difference. will it be a different experience through an mp3 player?

 

[FrustratedUser]

Don't do it. Get a new HD instead.

 

[stringcheeseincident]

i just bought a 6gb player, no 2 ways about that. would 160kpbs be too much of a loss?

 

[Traire]

112kbps would be ok, not great, but ok. Try 128kbps and see if the size is acceptible. Also be sure you enable the variable bit rate option, which will give you better quality at low bit rates than constant bit rate will. 128kbps is the lowest I personally would ever go on a MP3 file.

 

[Slick5150]

Originally posted by: stringcheeseincident
i just bought a 6gb player, no 2 ways about that. would 160kpbs be too much of a loss?

Couldn't you just not put your entire MP3 collection on there at once? Personally, I can't imagine ever needing more than 6gb of music with me at any given point in time.

 

[HardcoreRobot]

its not going to sound good, plus you are further compressing an already compressed source - i think it would be better to start from scratch

 

[Dman877]

On the crappy headphones that you are most likely going to be using with a portable mp3 player, the dif between 192 and 96 won't be noticeable, in my experience anyway. On a good stereo, I can tell the dif between 256 and 96 but its small. Since you did the test already and it sounded good, might as well go for it.

 

[Jeff7]

I suggest 128kbps minimum. I use 160kbps for my portable devices - CD/MP3 player in my car, and a small walkman-type player. Easier solution - only copy songs you like to the device.
I just can't figure out all the music you guys have. My entire collection is 16,608,284,038 bytes - and that's all FLAC, so think 60% compression ratio. As 160kbps MP3, that's all less than 4GB.


Anyway, I use CDex for most of my encoding. It does let you transcode MP3 files. Set it to LAME 128 or 160kbps, whichever you want (or even VBR, range between those two values quality set around 4), and let it do its thing. Yes, MP3 encoding will take time - maybe let it go all night, or more, if you've got a huge collection. Compressing data thoroughly takes a lot of processing. Heck, compressing a file to FLAC can take about half as long as the song is, assuming maximum compression is used.

 

[Noema]

Originally posted by: Slick5150

Originally posted by: stringcheeseincident
i just bought a 6gb player, no 2 ways about that. would 160kpbs be too much of a loss?

Couldn't you just not put your entire MP3 collection on there at once? Personally, I can't imagine ever needing more than 6gb of music with me at any given point in time.

I agree. 6GBs of Music at less than 128kbps should be at least 70 hours of music. Even if you listened to music non stop for 24 hours straight, that would be 3 days of listening.

I myself don't even have an MP3 player, just a diskman that can decode MP3s, and I burn a regular CD about once a month. And that's less than a gig of music.

 

[imported_ArtVandalay]

You may not hear a difference on the stock $1 buds that ship with most players, but somewhere down the road you may take an interest in sound quality and get some decent speakers or headphones, at which point you might regret having done this. If you have CD backups, then by all means go ahead.

 

[theGlove]

i suggest not going under 128 and also getting rid of some of your mp3s, they can't all be that good

 

[Slogun]

Sounds like you got yourself a 6GB Ipod mini...I've got one also as well as a 9GB music collection.

You also sound like someone who values your music, since your desire is to have it all in your player. Personally, I don't like to go below 128 and I think you will eventually regret a move to something below that.

Seems to me, the trend these days with diminishing cost for storage is to have larger bitrate files. I hear a lot of people encoding all their music into Apple Lossless or 320 bitrate.

For me, 6GB in my player is more than enough(actually, come to think about it, I've only got 2.76 gigs loaded). And if one gets tired of those 6gigs, it is a simple matter to clear it out and upload another 6 gig mix.

 

[BW86]

I would say to reencode your music to ogg to save a little space, but I just found out that the ipod doesnt support it