About Recording: Why is it limited every time on 128 KB/s?

[DerbyStar]

i wait on the iAudio 7 to get the new player - and then?
nooooooooooo
recording is limited again on 128 Kb/s - what is the reason for that?
why can't i record in 192 or 320 kb/s - is that a technical problem or even so?
(i had a player ago 2 years which record up to 320 Kb/s but it's out of order)
and then i read WMA? oh got what is it? why not mp3?
i have to record a lot of things and the to edit - even after that i have to recode and in this point 128 is two low!!!
plese tell me about the reasons - and sorry for my englisch, is not my language =)

[GSV3MiaC]

There's usually two reasons given:

1) Copyright. If the unit can direct-encode to high quality then the record company folks get all p!$$ed off, because they figure you're going around recording things you shouldn't (and then uploading them to bit torrent). Yeah yeah I know this makes no sense, but we are talking record companies here, it isn't supposed to. Some DAP makers used to have a deal where you could record, but not upload to the PC - hopefully history now.

2) Capability. It really does take quite a lot of CPU power to encode (in real time - if you get behind that is a disaster). Your PC does Ok, but that's running at 3Ghz with dual CPUs and eating 100w of power (your battery would last 10 minutes). Having said that, 128kb/s does sound pitifully feeble, even for the low power processors they use in DAPs.

Of course the microphone and input circuitry is pretty poor, so maybe someone did the sums and figured that anything over 128kb/s was wasted, given the quality of the signal you are transcoding from.

[Mauwzer]

Yeah I'm sure that DAPs that boast 320Kbps mp3 recording can't actually produce comparable results to the equivalent on a PC running encoding software. mp3 recording on a DAP will remain a 'novelty' for quite some time...

[DerbyStar]

ok there is a lot where i can say okay but...

"encode to high quality then the record company folks get all p!$$ed off" is no argument - for what? how records with a line recorder from the radio or something? all what i can do with the player, can i do with my PC, and even easier!
...and this argument is oppositly to "microphone and input circuitry is pretty poor"! (also what has the bitrate to do with the quality of the mic - thats are two different things - if there are interruption i have to correct them but i need even a high bitrate too!)
i need it for my dj work, to record live sessions with band or turntablism on the way.
and bit torrent is there every time if you have mp3players with linein or not - it doenst matter!


and for the second argument "Capability. It really does take quite a lot of CPU power to encode" is my writing on the top. i had an mp3player from MONOLITH ago 2-3 years with recording in radio/voice or line up to 48khz / 320 kb/s (there was a low akku but i records up to 3 hourse) but you could choose. and it works fine! but the player is out of order. now we have 2007!

i say not to static 320kb/s but a "choose" would be good.

the best on the market is SONY MD to record but it's big and looses unfortunately. Even SONY (COPY-KING-NO.1) says not i set the quality low, to get no high recordings. thats nonesense. moreover for people around me is the quaility not important. they would take also an 128 Kb/s mp3 and that records the iAudio 7.

But as is said i need more bitrate to edit und recode and for better listining.

[GSV3MiaC]

I'm having a little trouble with your English, but I shall try to reply. I already said 'recording company gets all p1$$ed off' was a poor argument, but it is one that some DAP makers have quoted .. go research iRiver and read all about it. They were not worried about radio, so much as direct encode from a CD deck connected to the device via line-in.

What the microphone and input circuitry have to do with the bit rate is as follows - if the input signal is complete cr&p there is NO POINT encoding it as flac, or 640kb/s WMA or whatever. What little you lose by going to 256kb/s .WMA you ALREADY LOST (and a lot more) on the way in to the device. If you have listened to the radio on these dudes you'll know that 32kb/s mono would be plenty good enough for recording that. If they have a real line in, then that should be better, but it is never going to be hi-fi. A proper line in and sound card already costs more than the whole DAP. The built in microphone are the cheapest money can buy too.

I'm not sure where you plucked your 128kb/s figure from in the first place though. The Iaudio 7 does actually let you set the bitrate to something other than default, according to the manual. You can even set different rates for different sources. See page 30, and you'll see FM radio apparently being recorded at 256 kb/s. However you may just be wasting space at that level. Try it and see.

[DerbyStar]

im sorry, im from germany, my englisch is not god:..

i get the informations from germany biggest mp3-player portal:
http://www.mp3-player.de/index.php?page=article&ID=5865

" * Aufnahmen sind von folgenden Quellen möglich: integriertes Mikrofon, integriertes FM-Radio, Line-In-Eingang
* Aufnahmeformat (Mikrofon): WMA (bis 128kbps, 22kHz)
* Aufnahmeformat (FM-Radio): WMA (bis 128kbps, 44.1kHz)
* Aufnahmeformat (Line-In): WMA (bis 128kbps, 44.1kHz)"

[GSV3MiaC]

Well, that doesn't agree with what the iAudio 7 manual (in English) says, or at least what it appears to show on the various recording pages. Looks to me like the upper limit is 256kb/s for .wma (same as playback). Would be 320kb/s for .mp3, except it doesn't record in mp3 format (and if it did that'd be no better than the 256kb/s .wma anyway, since they'd probably be using some fairly miserable mp3 encoder).

Maybe the German folks just didn't figure out how to change the defaults? See the manual, p41.

[DerbyStar]

ah okay i dont think that it's something about the german folk ;)

the shop write's onlys what's written on the pack, i dont think that they read the whole manual =) i think that doesn't do anybody with a shop on the world.
also the player is still not avaible in germany.

but thank you - now i know i can record up to 256 wma - thats ok for recode.

where can i see the manual digtial as pdf?

[GSV3MiaC]

Google is your friend. However so am I so ..

http://www.advancedmp3players.co.uk/publicftp/Manual/iAudio7.pdf

[DerbyStar]

ok thats i found but i read nowhere something about 256 kb/s - only "variable bitrate" but that can mean 96 / 112 / 128

[GSV3MiaC]

I repeat what I said earlier, see page 30. Read what is displayed on the player. However Exity (who has one) reports that apparently 128 IS currently the max, so I guess that manual is wrong (again). I can't see any reason why 256kb/s should not be possible, but then these are the same firmware designers who apparently can't implement gapless, playlists, or unlimited tracks/folders (all of which the Rockbox 'amateurs' have been doing for years) so yep, I guess they could screw up recording too, if they put their minds to it.

[DerbyStar]

...read that: http://www.iaudiophile.net/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.98

..he understands me ;)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

"The Line-In recording functionality is also useful for some people, but I am wondering how many people really use it. I tested it and the quality is very good, but still I much prefer using my iAudio M3 to do line in recordings for the simple fact that I can create 320 kbps MP3 files that I can convert to whatever I want. The iAudio 7 currently only offers a maximum of 128 kbps in the unpopular WMA format, which is pretty much pure madness. Cowon at the very least give users the option of recording in up to 256 kbps WMA. Next best of course is MP3, but to make everyone happy all it would take would be to offer WAV recording capabilities."

"Something that is not excusable though is the fact that recordings are limited to 128 kbps WMA files. Similarly Cowon should also make OGG and FLAC tag support work straight out of the box and not patch it “sometime” through firmware updates."

[GSV3MiaC]

I have one too now, and yep, it only (right now) goes up to 128kb/s, even though the manual clearly shows 256. Maybe they will fix it. My poor old ears can't actually detect much difference between 128kb/s .wma and .flac, anyway (and certainly not when recorded via a portable player) - the 128kb/s sounds just fine.

[vinnie97]

So is the Iaudio7 still limited to 128 kbps recording capability?