Why not VBR?

[wonderboy2005]

earlier tonight, i decided that once i have my ipod, i will want my CD collection on it too (along with the exponetially larger collection of downloaded music). so i went and downloaded CDex, and ripped half a dozen CDs at VBR 128-320 at the highest settings of everything. they turned out great. they sound better than anything ive downloaded, yet on average are about 2/3 the size. they turned out to be just a little bigger than 128k Mp3s.

so my question is, why dont more people use VBR? fewer people would complain about quality, and fewer people would complain about filesize. everyone wins. so why not? all i can ever download is CBR 128, 160, 192, and the occasional 256 & 320. why???

[method77]

it depends on the client that you are downloading from. Some clients have more VBR than regular files

[notbob]

i get vbrs all the time--it's all about where you look

[wonderboy2005]

well... where should i look? those big hubs you get into wont work for me... i have a total of 90 gigs of space, but of that, im able to share maybe a 5-6 gigs.

[method77]

if it's pop stuff you are looking for then there is no need of getting in those hubs. If not, well.... share more

[notbob]

didn't you ever hear of chris myden and ubernet?

[wonderboy2005]

i wouldnt touch most pop stuff with a ten foot pole. and yes i have heard of chris myden and ubernet. i never really gave it much thought though... maybe i will.

[method77]

start your thinking here

[wonderboy2005]

start your thinking here

already ahead of you :)

so i take it that one, or maybe both of you have access to this hub? if so, how many people are generally on it?

[isus]

more people don't use vbr because many 'average joes' are happy enough to put a cd in the drive, wait for mmjb to launch, and then press record>start. they never play with the settings.

[que-em]

more people don't use vbr because many 'average joes' are happy enough to put a cd in the drive, wait for mmjb to launch, and then press record>start. they never play with the settings.

I was just about to say something similar to that. Most people who use kazaa see the bitrate as 128 so they just assume that's what it is supposed to be. Like you say they could use vbr and it will allocate the bits not needed where there is greater need producing a higher quality music file at relatively the same size. If they are going to use CBR they should at least start at 160-192 because you can tell the difference.

[RJ5500]

Ugh. MMJB sucks!

It came with some JaMP3 portable audio player I got for a gift a few years ago.

Damn, I don't like that brand.

128k is barely listenable to me. I download a minimum of 192k songs these days unless 128k quality is the only option I have. I've tried DC, but it's no good for a dial-up user.

VBR is great. I usually rip my audio CDs into two formats. The first is 224k VBR (with Lame 3.93) and the second is VBR Mp4s.

Nero 6 does a great job of creating "audiophile" Mp4s.

[phalkon30]

I think most people are not aware of VBR, it also takes longer to encode.

I do 32-320k mp3's...is there any advantage to setting the low end higher? I get insanely small file sizes for near cd quality music.

One other thing, some networks (like kazaa) don't display vbr well. It will display the first frames bitrate, which can make it look like a really crappy mp3.

[wonderboy2005]

VBR is great. I usually rip my audio CDs into two formats. The first is 224k VBR (with Lame 3.93) and the second is VBR Mp4s.

Nero 6 does a great job of creating "audiophile" Mp4s.

mp4's huh? arent mp4's and AAC files one in the same? what sort of file sizes do you end up with when encoding to mp4? assuming relitively similar quality to the VBR mp3's you produce also?

phalk - i doubt there really is an advantage to having the low end higher... when seting CDex up, i was fiddling around with some settings and accidentally set it bact to a low of 128, and didnt notice till i ripped all of the CDs.

with ubernet, like any P2P app, i dont want to share the popular RIAA controlled stuff. but that pretty much eliminates everthing in my collection. however, my parents have a bunch of country music that isnt under the riaa's control. would they look down on this? ripping music for the sole purpose of getting into the hub?

i dunno...i think ill just stick with my current ways until i get to college.

[origin]

mp3 vbr sounds like thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis much better to my ears, I mean I might be def in one of them(j/k) but it shure sounds good :gj. It not only sounds good but it has a smaller filesize so also makes for a swifter download. The reason I believe vbr files are not that frequently available on p2p networks as much as the common dredfull(128 kbps CBR format) is because it is a knowledge issue if I as the end user knew the difference betwen the 2 formats and understood why I should stick with a VBR encoded file rather than a bulky CBR file I would of course go with the more effcient(sounding) smaller file sized mp3. So the problem of that most of the p2p comminity in technical details that retain to this issue therfore they shall stick to the sh**y formats, But we as the educated ones would go for quality and provide quality because we expose it for all it is worth.good day.

l8