Hi,
What I can find in the options now is "convert unsupported formats and high bitrates", and according to the help this is used to "convert the files whenever they are in a format or include a bitrate your device does not support".
1) How does MC know what bitrate my device supports? All it knows is that I have a memory card that will be inserted into a phone.
2) What I was looking for was a way to specify a maximum bit rate that may be independent of what the device *supports*. In other words, even if a device supports 320 kbps MP3 files, I may still want to convert to a maximum of 128 kbps. In this specific case I want a maximum of 80 kbps using Nero Digital as an external AAC encoder, because memory is limited and higher bit rates don't provide much improvement on a cell phone. Is this possible? If so, I can't find the option. Note that MC probably doesn't even know what bit rate I'm converting to, since that is specified on the command line of an external encoder.
I just tested with my current settings, which include "convert unsupported formats and high bitrates", and MC sent 240 kbps MP3 files unmodified to the phone, using three times as much space as if it had converted the files first.
I don't want to convert files unconditionally because I also want to sync some audio books that are stored in 64 kbps MP3 format on my hard disk and there's absolutely no point in trying to upconvert them to 80 kbps HE-AAC format...
Right now it seems my only option is the following:
1) Remove all audio books from the sync list
2) Set options to "delete from handheld" and "convert unconditionally"
3) Sync
4) Add audio books to the sync list
5) Set options to "dont' delete from handheld" and "never convert"
6) Sync
Am I missing something obvious in the option dialogs?