MP3 to Atrac?

[akurei]

Hi,

I have approx 25 gig of MP3's on my PC's hard drive at the moment. Would i see any improvement (reduction) in size if i convert all MP3's to Atrac or Atrac3Plus?

If you think i should convert them i also wish to normalise my tracks as many have different volume settings. Can anyone reccomend software to do this in one bulk process?

also.....(last question - promise )

when converting from MP3 to Atrac3Plus what bitrate is best (i want to get approximate same sound quality as a 192kbps mp3)

any help is much appreciated! bye

[Guest Stuge]

I personaly don`t recommened to convert Mp3`s to Atrac .

In which bitrate you have your mp3 files ??

[akurei]

My mp3's are a mix of 192 and 256kpbs (i use it in the car and can tell the difference between 128 and 192 quite definitely)

[Guest Stuge]

You can convert you Mp192kpbs or Mp3 256kpbs to Atrac 3 Plus 192kpbs (Recommended)

[pata2001]

Why waste time converting your MP3 to Atrac? You'll only get lower sound quality due to transcoding. If you have different volume of your MP3s, use a freeware called MP3gain to properly normalize them.

[akurei]

Why waste time converting your MP3 to Atrac? You'll only get lower sound quality due to transcoding. If you have different volume of your MP3s, use a freeware called MP3gain to properly normalize them.

I though Atrac was a smaller file size?

but yeah, i appreciate the loss in sound quality. Looks like i'm best to just normalize then!

cheers all!

[Guest Stuge]

I though Atrac was a smaller file size?

No ,files size of Atrac 192kpbs is equal to Mp3 192kpbs or WMA 192kpbs ...File size of same is for same bitrates whether it is Atrac ,WMA,or Mp3 .

And Pata is absolutely right .

[maggior]

I though Atrac was a smaller file size?

but yeah, i appreciate the loss in sound quality. Looks like i'm best to just normalize then!

cheers all!

As Stuge commented - ATRAC 128kbps files are the same size as MP3 128kbps files. The "smaller file size" feature comes from the fact that you can use lower bit rates on ATRAC to acheive the same sould quality of MP3 files. For instance, it is said that ATRAC at 105kbps sounds just as good as MP3 at 128kbps. This is a matter of personal opinion - you would have to evaluate it yourself and see what your ears tell you. To my ears, ATRAC at 105 sounds as good as MP3 at 160. Others may think differently.

Of course, the bit rate sound quality comparison assumes you are starting from the original (i.e. lossless) source to create each file. As I'm sure you know, once sound quality is lost, it cannot be gained back simply by converting to another format.

You might want to be careful with the mp3 normalization. I'm almost certain that that would entail decoding the mp3s, normalizing the audio, and then reencoding back to mp3. This would be just as bad as converting your MP3s to ATRAC. If you really want to normalize the files, it would make sense to decode the mp3s to wave files, normalize them, and encode them to ATRAC. If you have to reencode, why not encode in the format that you desire. BTW, ATRAC will supposedly give you better battery life.

In short, if sound quality is a significant concern, I think your best bet is to just put the mp3s on your player as is.

Rich