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Mp3 To Atrac

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I've noticed how bad mp3's sound when directly converting to atrac3 plus 256kbps.

From what I have read, I get the impression that the best quality is attained when these mp3's are burnt to an audio CD (which can be a virtual) and then converted by sonic stage into atrac.

If the above is true then it makes me wonder if there would be any benefit by converting these mp3's to wav files first, and then converting from there. I ask as I can easily set up a batch transfer in Sound Forge, which is much less hassle for me than burning an audio CD or creating a virtual drive.

Thanks in advance

Andrew

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It will make no difference whatsoever, other than wasting additional time on the task.

The processing chain is thus:

MP3 file -> MP3 to PCM decoder -> PCM to ATRAC/3/plus encoder -> OMG file

What you're talking about doing is just making several of the steps manual, which serves no purpose whatsoever.

People [including myself] generally go the CD Image route if they come across MP3s that SS refuses to convert correctly by itself. It is also often the easiest route to go when converting from formats that are no supported by SS at all, such as FLAC, OGG, MPC, and the like. This method has the added advantage of automatically tagging tracks if you are doing whole albums, since SS's CDDB support will identify the tracks on a CD image just as readily as it will a CD.

Incidentally, if you want better-quality encodes [from any source], copying via the optical in on your portable [which uses the hardware codec rather than SS's software codec] will do a better job of things, regardless of what recording mode you use.

Also - to really get the best sound quality, use an original CD as the source. Chances are, if you're complaining about the quality of the MP3-atrac/3/plus transcodes, it's because you have been downloading or encoding mp3s with poor-quality settings. It pays to be both informed and discerning in both cases, i.e. download or encode at the highest quality you can find.

After all, the rule is GIGO [garbage in, garbage out].

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Thanks for the speedy response. I thought the CD route sounded a bit silly as it can't enhance the mp3. I was wrongly under the impression that sonicstage yielded better results when converting from PCM rather than mp3's, which was why I suggested the wav route as that would be quicker for me epsecially with the batch processing available in Soundforge. But now I understand it was just for people who were having trouble converting mp3's and other formats to atrac. I can be a bit of a thread skimmer sometimes wink.gif

I basically have a load of recordings from my old MD-MT20 minidisc that I recorded as wav and converted into 256kbps mp3's on my PC with lame. I am unhappy with how they sound when converted into atrac3 plus 256 using sonicstage. Unfortunately I deleted the original wav files as there were 30 MD's worth of material.

It would seem that the best way is going to be to find an md player with optical out so I can record on either to my soundcard or my Hi-MD player in PCM. Next best is record from audio out of my MD-MD20 to my soundcard (again) or Hi-MD. Or lastly, to pray that someone write a nifty bit of software that will allow me to transfer my old MD recodings from inside my MZ-NH900 via USB, as I've said before I would happily contribute to a project like that biggrin.gif

Andrew

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Why not just play the MDs as they are in the HiMD player?

The reason is because I need to start backing up my old MD's. A disk from the first batch of Md's I ever bought has started to skip. I'm basically looking for a way to back up these old recordings in the best quality way possible.

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Guest NRen2k5

The best way would indeed be to find a deck with optical-out.

Barring that... record the old MD's to PC in WAV format in the cleanest way possible, then to burn those WAV's to CD's, and then to *record* those CD's to a Hi-MD. When I say *record* I mean record, as opposed to transferring through SonicStage. SonicStage's ATRAC3(plus) encoder is not as good as the one built in to the actual recorders.

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The best way would indeed be to find a deck with optical-out.

Barring that... record the old MD's to PC in WAV format in the cleanest way possible, then to burn those WAV's to CD's, and then to *record* those CD's to a Hi-MD. When I say *record* I mean record, as opposed to transferring through SonicStage. SonicStage's ATRAC3(plus) encoder is not as good as the one built in to the actual recorders.

Good suggestion. I have one thing to add:

This means using extra CDRs, but backup all the WAV files [or use lossless compression on them and then back them up] to CDR as well. Audio CDs are not a backup medium; they play on CD player, yes - and you can rip them again later if needs be. Rips will basically never be 100% accurate, though.

Data CDs are more robust in terms of error-correction, and a truly random-access, meaning you can accurately pick off any file/track you wish to without worrying about dropped sample from your drives read offsets, &c.

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Yep, I agree with that. All my audio work is recorded to wav on then put on data CD's. It's just that I have this back catalogue of material on MD that I need to re record back into the computer. I just wished I had saved the wav files when I converted them all to mp3s the first time. I never really expected the original disks to start to fail considering they haven't been played that much - must be an age thing as some disks are 6 years old.

I should have got into the habit of recording anything from my old MD player to my computer on regular basis - instead of letting it build up. That's the joy of the Hi-MD format, I can get CD quality recordings and back it all up (with a lot less fuss) at a later date. Unfortunately I haven't got the time to record all my old MD's at the mo, I'm going to be mobile for about 6 months. Does anyone fancy doing it all for me, I'll shove a tenner their way wink.gif

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Yep, I agree with that.  All my audio work is recorded to wav on then put on data CD's.  It's just that I have this back catalogue of material on MD that I need to re record back into the computer.  I just wished I had saved the wav files when I converted them all to mp3s the first time.  I never really expected the original disks to start to fail considering they haven't been played that much - must be an age thing as some disks are 6 years old.

I should have got into the habit of recording anything from my old MD player to my computer on regular basis - instead of letting it build up.  That's the joy of the Hi-MD format, I can get CD quality recordings and back it all up (with a lot less fuss) at a later date.  Unfortunately I haven't got the time to record all my old MD's at the mo, I'm going to be mobile for about 6 months.  Does anyone fancy doing it all for me, I'll shove a tenner their way wink.gif

Hmm. How many discs are there to copy?

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You need WinNMD!

http://winnmd.net/winnmd.htm

This is pinned on the NetMD forum next door. It uses USB control of your NetMD device to control playback through audio or optical input to your PC and also has the ability to name tracks and albums automatically from CDDB. the really neat part is that it keeps tracks separate so you don't have to go through a giant WAV file chopping it up to get back to your original album track list

I'm using this to transfer an extensive talking books collection from original MD and NetMD to WAV and thence to MP3 and/or HiMD.

Cheers,

Alistair Cameron

Head of Technical Liaison (SECC)

Interaction

63rd World Science Fiction Convention

Glasgow, August 2005

http://www.interaction.worldcon.org

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