ReliableMP3 Conversion Software

Loobz

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Hey all.

Can anyone advise me about reliable MP3 conversion software. Basically I have a lage collection of tunes that I wish to back up but I want to convert them into WMA or equivalent. Can anyone recommend something?

What file types can I convert to that will play on standard cd player?

I know the net is full of this stuff but which one works best and is reliable?

Thanks. Any info much appreciated

: )

Big Chief

www.musicmatch.com

have always used this and its very reliable..

audio files on cd are .cda (compact disc audio) but ive never heard of putting those on to your hard drive, ive only ever burned them onto cd

Loobz

Thanks. I want to put audio files on a cd. What should I convert them to befor I burn them to cd? I want to keep quality and use as little space as possible.

quarryman

try dbpoweramp. it will convert just about everything.

RE*AC*TOR

as far as i know the only format a standard cd player will play is cda - ie about 70mins per disc - a normal cd. Obviously Nero will do this automatically from mp3s when burning.

A lot of dvd players will play mp3 on a disc, however.

WMA format is no better than mp3 - and as they are both lossey formats- i wouldn;t recommend interconverting without good reason.

leeroybrown

I always recommend DBPowerAMP. It's free and very reliable. I once ripped and encoded (High Quality VBR) about 15Gigs of audio CD's with it in one day without a single problem.

MP3 (Variable Bit Rate) is probably the best choice purely because of it's compatability.

Afaik MP4 gives approximately the same audible quality at half the bitrate so if space is your primary concern it might be an answer.

OGG is definitely worth looking at as it probably gives a better quality to size ratio than VBR MP3 (I'd also advocate OGG due to it's open source nature).

garthv

yeh dbpoweramp is what i use,converts any audio file to basically anything you want(including .ogg).
dmc audio input that comes with poweramp is also a great tool for ripping cd's.Rips them really fast and excellent quality aswell

Loobz

dont wanna sound uneducated but what is .ogg?

leeroybrown

http://www.vorbis.com/

Basically it's the open source answer to high quality compressed audio. An excellent format.

Loobz

Or does anybody have a list of all the audio types available and their quality copmpared to others etc. I wanna learn about them.

sceptre

Originally posted by Loobz
Thanks. I want to put audio files on a cd. What should I convert them to befor I burn them to cd? I want to keep quality and use as little space as possible.

If you want the music playable on a standard CD player, essentially you don't convert them to anything at all. Any decent burner software (Nero or whatever) will convert the files to PCM audio (the only format readable by a standard cd player) on the fly

Loobz

Ah right. Nice one. Its just I have a load of mp3's, wma's, winamp files and such on my pc and I want to back em up on cds. Wanted to use the correct format.

ArthurG

I've used dbPoweramp and found it good - however I'm not able to get it to do .ram (Real Audio file) to .mp3 at all. Have downloaded the CODEC but no joy, get a dud file as output.

Can anyone recommend a program to do this please?.

Thanks!

Creamy Goodness

google for cd_ex or EAC (exact audio copy)

EAC is the best for mp3's

jabberwock

musicmatch is very good at ripping cds and has a good CDDB lookup-- supertaging system.
dbPowerAmp is also extremely handy and with all the codecs you can change any audio to any format you like.
gotto love monkey format.

ArthurG
I recently had to coverted some rmj files. found a way of doing it using winamp. It was on some site. basically two downloads for winamp and hey presto. i'll have a look for it again.
basically you get winamp to play the realaudio and you've changed to the output that it save a new file as wav. then you convert that to whatever.

sceptre

Originally posted by Loobz
Or does anybody have a list of all the audio types available and their quality copmpared to others etc. I wanna learn about them.

If you're still interested in general reading, first few links here (google for "audio formats", go figure:)) might be of use.

(quite useful - 1, 2, 3)

Loobz

Thanks for all the info peoples. : )
Cant wait to try dbPowerAmp

Catsmokinpot

nero burner will burn mp3's in to cda that will play on cd and it works perfect, just go to the wizard - create audio cd and drag everything you want on to the cd

carrolls

Get an MP3 to Wav converter
http://www.pbueche.de/freeware/media_mp32wav.htm
Then use Nero to burn the Wave files to CD in Audio format.
Done and Dusted.;)

Catsmokinpot

Originally posted by carrolls
Get an MP3 to Wav converter
http://www.pbueche.de/freeware/media_mp32wav.htm
Then use Nero to burn the Wave files to CD in Audio format.
Done and Dusted.;)

you can just drag mp3 files to nero and it converts them while its burning:) cuts out that horrible middleman

Ste-

Originally posted by ArthurG
I've used dbPoweramp and found it good - however I'm not able to get it to do .ram (Real Audio file) to .mp3 at all. Have downloaded the CODEC but no joy, get a dud file as output.

Can anyone recommend a program to do this please?.

Thanks!

.ram isn't a music file at all.
It's a file which links to the file thus creating a stream.
Open the .ram in notepad and see what I mean.

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by Big Chief
www.musicmatch.com

have always used this and its very reliable..

audio files on cd are .cda (compact disc audio) but ive never heard of putting those on to your hard drive, ive only ever burned them onto cd

I use musicmatch for tagging but the interface sucks big time.

You can use iTunes too and its free.

Loobz

nice one. Loads of info, just waht I need. Cheers : )

zep

As said earlier Exact Audio Copy, for ripping from CD, the best....
U then also need an encoder. Use lame for this with razorlame as the gui.
This is what most rippers use and I can comfirm that the results are the best ull get.

Zep.