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[SBrandsborg aka Mouseman]

Hey
 I know this subject have been talked a lot about here
but What format is best when im gonna convert from MP3 and WMA files
i have startet converting all my wma files to ogg but there come some very bad clicking sounds...

[scodan]

Depends what you mean by "best format".  Monkey's Audio would sound the best, since you would not lose sound quality.  With any lossy format, you will lose sound quality (and potentially introduce artifacts).

You have the option of starting over.  If your files are legit, that is.

[DocLotus]

Hi Mouseman;

You’re converting from WMA? Why?  It’s a great format!

But otherwise, I have read in a PC journal that converting simply does not work for the following reasons…

The sound quality usually diminishes due to…
* Small incompatibilities between the old & new format.
* Any lossy format is a compromise between quality & file size as a lot of data is simply thrown out in the ripping process… this is how the file is compressed.  Must of the missing data is information that our ears simply has a hard time hearing such as a quiet musical note that is covered over by a louder note.  All music is made up of simple waveforms plus harmonics.  When a quieter (smaller) waveform is covered by a larger waveform of the same frequency, the small one is discarded in the ripping process with no apparent lose of sound quality (to our ears that is).
* So… the results are this.  You will not achieve better sound buy converting an existing ripped file to another format as 90 percent of the original frequencies are missing due to the original rip.
* If you want to achieve better sound quality you must re-rip the music with the new format or use the existing format at a higher bit rate.

The bottom line… THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH HERE!!

HAVE FUN?

[scodan]

You’re converting from WMA? Why? It’s a great format!

It's only "great" if you need really low-bitrate files for a portable or something.  And I mean REALLY low bitrate, like 96 kbps or less.

Generally good advice, though.  Re-ripping to a non-lossy format (like MAC) is ideal, if the required storage space is available.  This is where music thieves run into a problem; they're stuck with the quality level of the file they originally stole.  (I am not accusing anyone in particular of music piracy; merely making a point.)

[zevele1]

I share APE in case you want to know

[NY40Male]

my collection was 128 WMA files..but for streaming it stunk..
you need to download to stream and there is a 20 second delay
as they download...(or at least for me)..so what i started doing
is convert them from wma to ape..then back to mpc...im sorry
but ape might be the best...but the file sizes are huge..but i
figure if ape makes a perfect copy then the ape isnt gonna change
it much (losing quality) then from ape to mpc for streaming
any music that i download from emusic in 128 mpc i leave those alone

[SBrandsborg aka Mouseman]

yes i love Wma BUT i can't store covers in the files so it suxx

[ChicoSelfs]

Here is article very interesting ENTER HERE
The next text is from that page

"A Note About "Transcoding"
Some people have a lot of music in mp3 format, but do not have the original CDs (cough). Others have the CDs, but spent months ripping and encoding all of them into mp3 format and don't want to go through the trouble again. Such people are often tempted to take their mp3s, decompress them into WAVs, and re-encode them into Ogg Vorbis files. Some have even gone so far as to create tools to automate this process.

If you care about sound quality, you should never, ever do this. Ogg Vorbis uses similar but different techniques to remove information, and by transcoding, you lose information twice. Similar to faxing a photocopy of a fax, the "transcoded" ogg will always sound worse than even the original mp3."
The same things hapen to WMA or another lossy format

[zevele1]

Mouseman

It is true that convert from one format to another one is not a good thing to do

But you may find"a deal" good to you.Let say,quality allmost the same ,or a small loss worth the fact to be able to put sleeves

Here is what i do when i want to test a format-from ripping a cd,but you can do it with convert-
-takes some songs of different styles,loud music,sweet music and so on
-convert them to any format SETTING MJ NOT TO DELETE ORIGINAL FILES
-make a play list from original files and converted
-play them ramdom

DO NOT STAY IN FROM OF MJ TO KNOW WICH FORMAT PLAYING

just do something else; surf,make your bed,manucure.......

If one format is very bad,you will notice it according to your ears.
If you stample songs in from of MJ,after few minutes you will be lost,not sure of anything

I'am a BIG fan of ORG.
But in your case,i will go for mp3.ORG is a little like wma,you do not have all the features mp3 has.
You may find a "deal" when converting one time.
But if you convert a 'wma to ORG'  to mp3,sure you will get very bad sound

[SBrandsborg aka Mouseman]

what about wma version 9???

[Poison Dan]

Mouseman,

IMHO, transcoding from WMA or MP3 to another lossy format is a very bad idea.

Transcoding between lossy formats can only result in anything decent if the original file if of a very high quality and high bitrate.

For example, if the original file is a MPC --insane file (with bitrates of about 250 kbps), the result will probably be acceptable.

If you want to convert e.g. a 128kbps MP3 or a 96kbps WMA to e.g. Ogg Normal (-q5), I guess the result will sound pretty bad, and there is not much you can do about it.

My advice would be:
- If you still got the original CDs, rip them again, and encode to OGG this time.
- If you only got the MP3 or WMA file, you will need to use some pretty high bitrates for the destination file to keep the "quality degradation" as small as possible (Ogg Vorbis High or MPC Xtreme or Insane). Another option is to go lossless (APE), and then the quality will be exactly the same as it is now. In any way, the resulting files will be a lot bigger than the original files.

The problem you are facing is exactly the reason why I use APE for my entire CD collection. That way, I can easily switch from one lossy codec to another, because I will always use the lossless APE files as a source, so I'll never lose quality because I have to transcode from one lossy codec to another.