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Author Topic: VBR vs CBR - Is there a big advantage?  (Read 1210 times)

MightyA-MAN

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VBR vs CBR - Is there a big advantage?
« on: May 03, 2002, 06:04:20 am »

Hi there!

Sorry to bother you with a quite basic question, but I'm not too deep into MP3 yet, but just on the way to convert my music CD collection of about 1200 CDs to MP3 (puh, a long way to go).

Usually I encoded the music with a 128 bitrate, but now tried the VBR mode (bitrate normal; encoding process high quality [slow speed]). The bitrates are now somewhere between 120 and 180 and I need more space.

Now my question: Is it worth using VBR? Will I really have a better overall quality? I mean some parts of a song might be only on 100, some are on 190, so is the encoding process really that smart using a higher bitrate when needed and less if not needed?

Thanks for any answers and/or hints. (I don't know where to look for such answers on the web.)

Cheers,

Mighty A-MAN
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Gatobrit

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RE:VBR vs CBR - Is there a big advantage?
« Reply #1 on: May 03, 2002, 06:54:51 am »

MightyA-MAN - this has been covered many times on Interact so you may want to try a search. I seem to remember a thread in the last couple of weeks that went into this pretty deeply.
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Namaste,
John

nila

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RE:VBR vs CBR - Is there a big advantage?
« Reply #2 on: May 03, 2002, 09:07:13 am »

The answer you want is that if your really worried about space as an issue, and to be honest, even if your not that bothered but just want the best quality compression then you should probably be using VBR with LAME v3.92. I think www.r3mix.net has quite a lot of info on it.
If your going to be converting that many CD's as well if I was you I wouldn't worry about space but instead just go for quality.
Ripping that many will take alot of time and effort and if your going to do them as CBR then do them as 192.

Here's how to Rip them properly though.
Change your rip settings to Digital Secure because I'm presuming with a collection that large, a lot of them are older and damaged.
Using secure will give you the best quality rips. Make sure you use CDDB on each album to get all the track info.
Rip the albums then using Media Jukebox and set it up with LAME to encode them for you as well.

There's a program called mp3Gain which is used to Level out the volumes on all the songs. It might be worth using this on each album after you rip it.
I've only used it once personally as I just heard about it so I'm going to be testing it myself. From what I hear though it works pretty well.

After you've done that, what I do but you might not want to, is I use a program called cdtag  (www.cdtag.org) to then create .sfv and .m3u files for each album.
The .sfv file is a verfication file so that at any later date you can check the tracks to make sure they're still perfect and the file hasn't become damaged.
The .m3u is a playlist file for all the songs on that album.

After that you just use MediaJukebox to manage them all and look after them Next Page.
When your ripping though make sure the album's correct dates are entered and you might want to get images for each album too which works quite nicely in MediaJukebox when using the new Album View plugin.

If MediaJukebox cant find the cover you can try the images category on google or if that fails you can do one of two things - scan the covers yourself or else go to www.cdcovers.cc and download the covers from there.

All in all, when I rip a new album I usually have this in the album directory:

.sfv file = CRC file to check files are in perfect order later. (winsfv is the program u need to use to check it if u dont have it already)
.m3u file = Playlist of all the files on that album.
-front-cover.jpg = cover to the album.

|PLS| all the songs.

It helps you to keep a really thorough collection that u know will be around for many years to come Next Page
I use 192cbr personally but in terms of quality, high quality VBR rips are better nowdays - old habbits just die hard for me.
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MightyA-MAN

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RE:VBR vs CBR - Is there a big advantage?
« Reply #3 on: May 04, 2002, 12:18:16 am »

Hi John! Thanks for your hint. I'll check it out (I just haven't found anything satisfying for the last couple of days).

Hello Nila! Wow, what a great help. Thanks a lot for this! Seems like there is a lot do do more than just ripping if I want to have a perfect collection. I have a question regarding the verification file: I usually store the cover of an album into the file itself. Will this then be considered as faulty? Or doesn't affect this the decision about "good" or "bad" at all? Another one: I downloaded the latest MP3 Encoder from the MJ website (where it says it is based on Lame). Just to make sure: When I chose the VBR mode, this is the Lame based encoder then, isn't it? (My question might sound strange, but within MJ it doesn't say Lame anywhere and I'm just not sure.)

Thanks again and take care,

Mighty A-MAN
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nila

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RE:VBR vs CBR - Is there a big advantage?
« Reply #4 on: May 04, 2002, 01:57:40 am »

Hi again,
ok - how the verification file works is that it creates a Cycle Redundancy Check file.
ANY change to the file will result in it failing so yes, saving the image in it will change it and make it fail.
The way to overcome this is to make any changes you want (ie saving images inside the file etc) BEFORE u create the check file.
Get it how you want it then create the check file. That way it'll always be the same.
Another thing, although saving the image in the file itself means that you have the file as self containing as possible, it also means that if you have say a cover of 200Kb and 10 songs then each of those 10 songs is going to become 200kb bigger by saving the image into it instead of just having a single 200kb image separetely.
I recommend saving the image simply into the directory itself rather than embedding it into the mp3.
Especially with as many albums as you have it'll save you quite a lot of space overall.
using the example sizes I mentioned about you'd be saving nearly 2Mb just from that one album.

As for the encoder on the site, it says it is based on LAME v3.92 so I'm presuming that it's just the full LAME v3.92 so yeah, go ahead and use it.
For the best possible encoding with LAME using VBR I was told this will give you the best:  -q 0 -d -v -V 0 -k
U choose MP3 Encoder VBR - then choose custom from the quality field and enter that by clicking on advanced.

For best quality and small file sizes I was told this set of parameters:
--nspsytune --vbr-mtrh -V1 -mj -h -b96 --lowpass 19.5 --athtype 3 --ns-sfb21 2 -Z --scale 0.98 -X0

lol - dont ask what they all mean cause I'm not fully sure. That's just what I was recommended by some true computer geeks/geniouses.
The standard VBR options provided with Media Jukebox however should also provide pretty good encoding as they are preset parameters.
Just choose which quality - size compromise you want and go for it.

The best sfv program I have found in terms of ease of use is this one: pdsfv which can be found here:   http://pdsfv.isonews.com
I dont think they work if you have spaces in your file names however which is where cdtag comes in useful as it will replace all spaces with underscores.



It'll take you a little bit of playing to get used to cdtag and sfv files but in the end it's worth it.
Main reason I discovered this is my FAT table got messed up, I then had to use a recovery program to scan every inch of my hard drive to find all my files. It found tons but I had no way of checking that all the files it found were complete. For the ones with .sfv files I could check and I deleted the ones that were messed up.

If you want an easy life just rip and encode and u'll have a good quality set of mp3 files.
If you want a perfect collection that you can check to make sure it's not corrupted at any time put the extra effort into the .sfv's.

Either way, ripping your own mp3's is always fun and a good learning experience, especially playing with other formats too to test them.

U might possibly even want to consider using ogg vorbis for your collection instead of mp3. It means it wont be as shareable but from everything I hear the quality is superior.
Just play around a bit before u start doing the full collection. At the end of the day, the best rip is the one that sounds best to you yourself.
Try ripping in a few formats, with a few different parameters and see what u think of the produced file sizes and the sound of the files.

Enjoy!
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MightyA-MAN

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RE:VBR vs CBR - Is there a big advantage?
« Reply #5 on: May 05, 2002, 03:21:34 am »

Hi Nila! Thanks so much for your astonishing reply! I think I've never found someone being more kind and helpful anywhere on the Internet. I very much appreciate your help and your effort in supporting a "newbie".

By the way: I usually resize covers down to 30-40 kb, but yeah, at the end it's still a waste of space if the collection goes bigger and bigger. Regarding the OGG Vorbis I would first need to check if my Archos Jukebox Recorder can handle such files. Regarding the sfv programm: I hate those underscores, and never used them. But if I want to follow your recommendation (which I will), I think I have to accept them.  

I just checked your profile and found out that you like cars and girls (like me, lol). What's your favorite car under 50 grand? Well, feel free to answer to this. If not, then not.

Have a great Sunday!
Mighty A-MAN
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MightyA-MAN

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RE:VBR vs CBR - Is there a big advantage?
« Reply #6 on: May 05, 2002, 03:24:14 am »

Ah, forgot one question: Since you recommended it, I now used Secure Rip (I didn't know that feature before, as many other things before your replies). I have a CD where one track has a 99.96% quality. I ripped it again and again, but it stays the same. Is there a chance to get it better, or is the Secure Rip more for my personal information that a track is not perfect, rather than getting it perfect?

Cheers,

A-MAN
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nila

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RE:VBR vs CBR - Is there a big advantage?
« Reply #7 on: May 05, 2002, 04:43:31 am »

Next car I want to buy whenever I can afford it is a BMW. I love them. I'll have to buy a second hand one though cause it's going to be a long time before I can afford a new car. Plus they're a waste of money as buying one with say 3000 miles on it will save u a fortune and the car is in near perfect condition.
I LOVE porshe carerra's but doubt they come under the 30k mark.

As for the underscores, I hate them too but nowdays I've stopped caring as I never see them as the only way I see my files is through Media Jukebox or other such programs which go by id3 tag and not the filename. Again, the .sfv files are good but not necessary, they're just a nice extra.

Dont worry about the quality report.
How it works (or at least this is how I think it works, EAC does it like this). It tries to rip it, if it detects any errors it then tries again and compares it to the first rip, if they match it uses it, if they dont it tries again until it gets a perfect match up with the rips therefore giving you the best possible rip that you can get from your damaged cd.

The report just gives you an idea of kind of quality the track was.
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