View Full Version : 128 kbps vs. 320 kbps - difference in file sizes?
If you rip CDs to 128 kbps .mp3s, about how many 76 minute CDs could you fit on a 30GB x5? How would that figure change if you used 320 kbps .mp3s?
Um...isn't this mostly a basic math question?
I'm at work right now, so can't take the time to think about it.
yes it is, but I flunked algebra twice, so I need help!
rhymesgalore
11-04-2005, 14:07
OK, let's do a little math:
128kbps means 128 kilobit per second.
So first you divide 128 through 8, to get kiloBYTE per second (8 Bit =1 Byte)
= 16KByte per second
Now you simply multiply that by 60 (to get the amount for one minute) and by 76 (to get to the time per cd
= 16*60*76 =72960 KByte
this you have to divide through 1024 to get to MegaByte (1024KByte are one MegyByte)
=72960/1024 =71,25MB (the space needed for a CD of 76min in 128kbps MP3)
So all you have to do is divide this through the space available on the 30 Gb X5.
It stores 30.000.000 KByte, so to get to MB you have to divide it again through 1024
=30.000.000/1024 = 29296,875MB
So now you simply have to divide the two numbers
=29296,875/71,25 =411,18
So you could store 411 Cd's in 128kbps (CBR of course)
And now you can do the maths for 320kbps yourself ;)
PS.: The actual space on the X5 is a bit less then the Optimum, since there's some space reserved for the OS. The actual number can be viewd under information in the option menu, i'm too lazy to look for myself.....)
If I calculated correctly, I could only fit 164 CDs on the player if the mp3s are recorded at 320 kbps. Quite a difference!
rhymesgalore
11-04-2005, 15:04
164 is correct by the way ;)
I'm proud of you, young padawan. But keep away from the DARK site of the force, and it's leader Darth Jobs and his ipodtroopers!
BlueHawk
11-04-2005, 18:16
You'll probably find that most songs will be best around 200 kbps (run lame with VBR and you'll find an average of somewhere between 191 - 228 kbps when you put together a reasonable size collection). I've got about 1000 songs on my 20 Gb and used about 6 Gb.
You can't really tell the difference between 192kbps and 320kbps unless you have an amazing pair of ears. Even then you are probably pretending to yourself. But you can tell a difference between 128kbps and 192kbps.
Always go for 192kbps!
First post, btw. :D
Pete7874
11-11-2005, 08:54
Sometimes 192 kbps mp3 can be a bit insufficient for very rich content. That's why I personally use VBR, which hovers around 192 kbps, but can jump higher during those passages that contain more complex material.
Two words: --preset standard.
duhriddler
11-30-2005, 21:11
I can tell the difference between 320 kbps mp3 and FLAC, so I just use FLAC. Then again, I have a really small music collection, so I can afford to use up the extra space that FLAC requires.
Try using OGGs too. MP3's getting on a bit and with newer codecs like vorbis you can push the bitrate lower while maintaining sound quality. And lower bitrates means smaller files. They take a little more decoding power though, so it's a small tradeoff between space and battery life if you want to look at it that way
m_memmory
12-06-2005, 04:35
Also try using something to ABX the files that you create (test to see if you actually can tell between low bitrate rips and the original wav that was extracted from your audio) I tried this and found that I could tell the difference (most of the time) between the original wav file and any encode at all (using ogg vorbis) but that between Q0 and Q6 I couldn't really tell much of a difference with my ears (I was so amazed - always thought my hearing was pretty good with music!)
Anyway, I now realise that I can rip at Q4 (highest rate I can find where it gets harder to notice between the ogg file and the original wav) and get about 45Mb per album :D
Konechiwa
12-08-2005, 21:01
I convert all mine to WMA 192 CBR.
WHY-
Smaller size
around 200kbps, still high quality
minimal gap (compared to OGG)
I currently have 47 CD's ripped (about 1/3 of my collection) and it takes up a little less then 4GB.
Bear in mind that hard drive manufacturers pretend there are 1000B in a KB, 1000KB in 1MB and 1000MB in a GB to make their drives look bigger. This includes the HDD on the X5. If you look on the website somewhere it says *1GB means 1 billion bytes.
I read somewhere that 192kbps wma's have a way better quality than 192kbps mp3's (and for that matter all bit rates like 128 wma's are way better than 128 mp3's) so for that reason I've been recording in wma.
can anyone tell me the advantage of an mp3 over wma besides being more popular ?? :bigsmile:
MP3 is probably the worse lossy you can use IMO. So I would hope a wma would sound better but size them up next to an ogg and ogg wins.
I read somewhere that 192kbps wma's have a way better quality than 192kbps mp3's (and for that matter all bit rates like 128 wma's are way better than 128 mp3's)
Where did you read that? Sounds unlikely to me that there are significant difference in quality,
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=40607
here it says WMA pro is statistically slightly better than LAME mp3, I doubt normal WMA is any better than that.
Advantage? does non-Microsoft count as one? Although I'd stay with ogg since you already got X5 (or so I presume).
Newer codecs like WMA and OGG Vorbis produce better results with the bits you give them - obviously the higher the bitrate, the more bits there are to go around and there's a point where even the worst codec would have enough bandwidth to produce a great sounding file.
192K WMA will be better than 192K MP3 in the same way that a 256K MP3 would be better, there's a difference but it's not night and day and not everyone will hear it. Newer codecs really shine at lower bitrates where you can really cram the filesize down and still retain good sound quality, whereas an MP3 at the same bitrate would suffer much more (especially in the high end). There's a comparison here if you want to listen to a couple of examples
http://www.xiph.org/vorbis/listen.html
The advantage of MP3 is that it's easier to decode, so you won't strain your X5 as much and the battery life will be longer. Also I think the X5 just has an easier time playing them, at least as the firmware's written - MP3 isn't designed as a gapless format and Vorbis is, yet the gap time is way smaller for MP3 on the X5. Wacky
CptnObvious999
02-11-2006, 22:22
I don't think the battery life is that effected by OGG vs MP3. A lot of battery life goes into the screen and a lot goes into the harddrive. So by having smaller files in OGG you decrease the amount of work on the harddrive, although it is a little more taxing on the CPU it makes up for it with the harddrive. At least thats my theory I would be interested to see someone with test results on this.
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=21904&hl=
As you can see wma is one of the worst formats, anyone who says wma at 128kbs sounds like mp3 192kbs is full of shit.
The D: that post is 2 years old, a lot changed in 2 years. WMA is probably not the worst any more, but not much better than the rest if it is better at all, I think iTunes AAC is now actually quite up to the quality of OGG and MPC now, at that bitrate.
CptnObvious999
02-12-2006, 22:05
The D: that post is 2 years old, a lot changed in 2 years. WMA is probably not the worst any more, but not much better than the rest if it is better at all, I think iTunes AAC is now actually quite up to the quality of OGG and MPC now, at that bitrate.
Yeah but to bad its at 128Kbps. I've heard that is comparible to 192Kbps MP3 but it still sounds like it came out of my anus.
frankmulder
03-30-2006, 14:45
I use OGG q5 for music where the gap produced by the X5 doesn't matter, and FLAC for the rest. Haven't done any ABX test, btw... Is there a simple program for Linux?
CptnObvious999
03-30-2006, 15:05
I use OGG q5 for music where the gap produced by the X5 doesn't matter, and FLAC for the rest. Haven't done any ABX test, btw... Is there a simple program for Linux?
oggenc [INPUT FILE] -q [QUALITY] -o [OUTPUT FILE]
(of course change the things in the boxed CAPS)
afruff23
03-30-2006, 15:08
WMA is less compatible, sounds worse at the higher bitrates, profits go to M$, will probably never be open source(MP3 will be open in 2010), is not currently supported bugfree on Rockbox, etc. You people saying WMA>Mp3 at higher bitrates. I think you're thinking of WMA Pro, I have no knowledge of this codec(is it even playable on devices which support WMA). MP3 supports ID3 tags natively. MP3 loads faster on most things(I don't think it does n the X5's native fw though).
EDIT: Typos
frankmulder
03-31-2006, 03:43
oggenc [INPUT FILE] -q [QUALITY] -o [OUTPUT FILE]
(of course change the things in the boxed CAPS)
Hey, I actually know the syntax of oggenc. :winker:
But the problem is that you know which files have which quality. I think a test in which random files are presented and in which you don't know what quality you're listening is better. That's the idea of an ABX test, isn't it?
WMA profits go to M$
Uhhhhhh
I don't think the battery life is that effected by OGG vs MP3. A lot of battery life goes into the screen and a lot goes into the harddrive. So by having smaller files in OGG you decrease the amount of work on the harddrive, although it is a little more taxing on the CPU it makes up for it with the harddrive. At least thats my theory I would be interested to see someone with test results on this.
The main battery drain with the drive is spinning it up from stopped, which happens with any file - OGG files are smaller (at the same quality) but the difference isn't going to be so much that the drive would have to be kept spinning significantly longer for the MP3. I mean I don't have any figures on this, but I can't see it being a big additional performance hit.
The player itself runs significantly slower when playing OGGs (try using the file browser while one's playing) which makes me think that the decoder isn't exactly optimized anyway. But check it out on the net - people have done battery tests with different formats and OGG comes out significantly worse off for playing time. Us X5L owners don't need to worry though!
afruff23
04-23-2006, 00:26
What do you mean tzetze? You think MS just created WMA to be made available for free? It's patented and MS gets tons of money in royalties from software developers and device manufacturers.
If mmore people switch to using WMA, then more manufacturers will support it. Then MS will jack up royalties. Now, you're enslaved to a patented technology. Support free technology an don't use WMA(one of the many reasons not to use WMA).
What do you mean tzetze? You think MS just created WMA to be made available for free? It's patented and MS gets tons of money in royalties from software developers and device manufacturers.
If mmore people switch to using WMA, then more manufacturers will support it. Then MS will jack up royalties. Now, you're enslaved to a patented technology. Support free technology an don't use WMA(one of the many reasons not to use WMA).
You know MP3 is patented right
Zeus's Uncle
04-23-2006, 17:50
You know MP3 is patented right
Correct. It's cheaper to build WMA support into a device than MP3 support.
It's 75 cents for MP3 decoding / $1.25 for the encoder (note it is more expensive for the pro version $1.25 and $5.00 for decoding/encoding)
It's a dime for WMA decoding, two dimes for encoding, or a quarter for both. (Double that for the pro versions).
So to decode MP3s it costs over 7 times as much as it costs decode WMAs on your device. Or you could both decode and encode WMAs for a third the cost just to decode MP3s.
http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/hardware.html
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/licensing/default.mspx
afruff23
04-23-2006, 21:43
Isn't libmad a free mpeg audio decoder for non-commercial purposes (i.e. Rockbox)? MP3 will be open in 2010; don't expect WMA to do the same. I didn't say MP3 was not patented either.
WMA has a free audio decoder in ffmpeg as well, but that's floating point(aka will play very slowly on most portable devices).
Isn't libmad a free mpeg audio decoder for non-commercial purposes (i.e. Rockbox)? MP3 will be open in 2010; don't expect WMA to do the same. I didn't say MP3 was not patented either.
WMA has a free audio decoder in ffmpeg as well, but that's floating point(aka will play very slowly on most portable devices).
MP3's going to be open because the patent is expiring, not out of any kind of altruism. Same will happen with WMA eventually. Your point was that developers and manufacturers had to pay Microsoft money to use/support WMA, but the same is true for MP3. There are free encoders and decoders for both formats, I've never had to pay to encode or play anything.
I mean don't get me wrong, I'd prefer something like OGG for the improved sound quality and because it is an open format - I've had too many problems messing with ASF and WMV files to have any truck with those kinds of formats. But raging against the machine with the 'M$' stuff because they charge royalties, and then telling people they should use MP3 is kinda missing the point, you know?
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