The_Gza

What rate do you chaps use when burning MP3's for in-car use? ATM I've only burned a couple for use with my new HU, both around the 158(?) rate, which only gives me around 1.5 CD's worth on a CD-R.

From reading other posts it seems as if most people are getting much more on their CDR's than this - what rate are y'all using to cram these on, and what sort of sound quality is the result?

ozzy

I think the lowest I've ever tried was 128Kbps, but most were 192Kbps. I couldn't tell the difference to be honest, unless it was a poor rip I'd downloaded off the net.

I've got a hard disk MP3 player, so I'm up too 320Kbps now

Stefan

The_Gza

How many tracks did you get on a CD at those sort of rates then Stefan?

ozzy

Chris,

At 128Kbps, a 5 minute track is roughly just shy of 5Mb in size. So, if I use a 74min/650Mb CD, then I can squeeze about 130 tracks on it.

The same length track ripped at 192Kbps is roughly 7Mb in size, so you're looking at about 90-odd tracks.

I've seen some CD writers looking for a 2sec gap in between tracks, so that could reduce the overall number of tracks slightly.

If your HU supports larger 80min or 90min CD's, then you can obviously get even more on.

How many are you managing to burn onto CD?

Stefan

ozzy

Chris,

You're not copying your MP3's as Audio tracks are you?

If you use something like Nero, you should just copy them as data files, just like you were burning a normal CD.

If you create an Audio CD, then it works out how many can fit by using the actual playing time of each track.

So, if each track is 5min long, you'd only fit 14/15 tracks onto a CD.

The right way


The wrong way (if you have an MP3 headunit that is)


You can see from the blue bar along the bottom showing how much room is left on the CD. If you burn them as Audio tracks, you won't fit much on.

Stefan


[Edited by ozzy - 8/22/2002 4:22:36 PM]

The_Gza

That's what I've been doing wrong then! Durrr!

I was only getting about the 14 tracks as you mention onto an 80 min CD.

Where would I be without ScoobyNet

Cheers Stefan

The_Gza

It also explains why my head unit played them okay but didn't recognise them as being MP3's.

[Jesse the Farmer]
This evening, I will mostly be burning MP3's
[/Jesse the Farmer]

Jon Jonzz

Provide your head unit will support it, you could use ABR (Average Bit Rate) instead CBR (Constant Bit Rate, which will give you a smaller file. If you use a good encoder (e.g. Lame), then you are unlikely to notice much, if any, difference in quality.

ozzy

LOL, at least it's a simple fix Chris

My personal choice of CD ripping tool is CDex, but Exact Audio Copy is quite good too.

Happy burning,

Stefan

The_Gza

I have been using Windows Media Player to get the tracks off the CD in the first place, then another program (can't remember what it's called off the top of my head) to change them into MP3 format from WMA. Will have a look at those ones you mentioned though

I've got a horrible feeling I've been doing this slightly **** about elbow though

Jon Jonzz

Yes, (if you are doing so, you want to avoid converting from wma to mp3, as both are "lossy" compression programs. Wav to mp3 is best.

ozzy

Chris,

Just download CDex (it's free). It converts to WAV first, then to MP3. It's the same method used by EAC (Exact Audio Copy), but CDex does both conversions on the fly, whereas it's an obvious two step process with EAC.

You just stick in the CD, it reports the track info from CDDB, then just click on the MP3 button and away you go.

It takes around 15mins per CD on my PC, but I'm ripping them at the highest rate/quality.

Stefan

The_Gza

Cheers Stefan and Jon,

I've found that CDex here - will download it tonight get get ripping

Mad Mav

Try dbPowerAMP (Lame) its pretty cool, and free

Andy

audio g man

I've just cut my first disk of mp3 files. I normally convert from mp3 to normal cd format but I though I'd give this a go just to see if I could do it with the software I've got which is "NTI Plus"

I used 612MB of a 700MB disk, 143 tracks which took 9-10 mins to complete. As for the rate, I don't have a clue. It didn't say and it didn't give me the option to alter it.

It's playing now using Windows Media Player. I'll take it to work tomorrow and try it out in the various MP3 headunits.

I've heard MP3's on disks played on MP3 headunits b4 and found the quality to be way off normal CD which is why I've not done this up until now.

PiNkEyE69

I use Audiograbber with the Radium enhanced Fraunhofer codec to rip my cd's.

For CD's to use in my in-car MP3 player I usually rip at 192kbps, which will usually net me around 7 albums per CDRW, although I have been thinking of upping it to 256 for my long driving vist to Wales this weekend.

However when I rip to odd try to fit on my Panasonic SD75 walkerman I rip at 128, maximum number of tracks on the 128MB SD card and I don't notice much quaility loss as the headphones are naff

What Codec's do you guys use? I tried using the LAME one but I kept getting pops in the music every now and then.

ozzy

Just using LAME v3.92 No pops or bangs so far, but I haven't listened to every MP3 I've ripped. With 500+ CD albums, I'll just sort them as and when I come across them.

Stefan

Jon Jonzz

Likewise, using Lame 3.92.

I use AudioGrabber for the ripping and RazorLame for the encoding, as it has the ability to use the command line options - e.g. --alt-preset standard, which most people consider gives the best quality with the smallest file.