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Originally posted by Vargas@20 February 2004 - 18:22
not that anyone here USES kazaa. or shares files on fasttrack, BUT if you do, it's best to encode as VBR instead of CBR if encoding over 128kbs, so they will show up in searches for regular kazaa users.
my 2 cents :lookaround:
Huh? :huh:
Why? Can you search for VBR or CBR on Kazaa? I dont get it...
Anyway, the real reason why you should rip to VBR
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Near the beginning and ending of a song (assuming it starts and ends softly), where the volume is lower, and the music is less 'demanding' in terms of its encodability, it makes sense to drop the bit rate, simply because there's not much there to encode, and the wasted space is overkill. In the middle of the song, where it may be more complicated, the idea of giving the encoder the option of 'bumping up' the rate on a frame-by-frame basis is great! You may end up with a file that's the same overall size as a 192kbps CBR, but that uses frames as low as 32 on the really dead parts, and as high as 320 on the really tough parts. The bitrate is dynamically adapting to keep the quality constant. To know that the whole file isn't bloated where it isn't necessary, is a real bonus.
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Q: My friend says that VBR MP3s are better. I've always encoded my MP3s with CBR, and I always thought that was better. Which one do you think is better? Is there an advantage to one over the other?
A: If you set your files to encode with CBR (constant bitrate) on a somewhat complex piece, quality will vary. If you set your file to encode with VBR (variable bitrate), the bitrate will vary but the quality won't.
Use CBR encoding to limit the size of the MP3 file or produce consistent and predictable file sizes. Use VBR for consistent audio quality, when you don't care about file size.
Most people encode MP3s in CBR because it has been around longer and maintains consistency in compression. In order to maintain constant bitrate throughout the file, difficult passages (for example, passages containing a relatively wide stereo separation), may be encoded with fewer than the optimal number of bits.
When encoding easy passages (for example, passages containing silence or a relatively narrow stereo separation), the encoder uses more bits than necessary in order to maintain the constant bitrate. Consequently, difficult passages may experience a decrease in quality, while easy passages may include unused bits.
VBR ensures consistently high-quality audio throughout an encoded file. It makes intelligent bit-allocation decisions throughout the encoding process based on a scale you set in the preferences. VBR produces an overall higher, more consistent quality level compared to CBR at similar bitrates.
Because a VBR-encoded MP3 file consists of variable bitrates throughout the file, you can't easily predict the MP3 file size. Don't use VBR encoding when you need to predict or limit the size of the MP3 file.
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CBR/ABR/VBR: the 3 encoding modes
LAME is able to encode your music using one of its 3 encoding modes: constant bitrate (CBR), average bitrate (ABR) and variable bitrate (VBR).
Constant Bitrate (CBR)
This is the default encoding mode, and also the most basic. In this mode, the bitrate will be the same for the whole file. It means that each part of your mp3 file will be using the same number of bits. The musical passage beeing a difficult one to encode or an easy one, the encoder will use the same bitrate, so the quality of your mp3 is variable. Complex parts will be of a lower quality than the easiest ones. The main advantage is that the final files size won't change and can be accurately predicted.
Average Bitrate (ABR)
In this mode, you choose the encoder will maintain an average bitrate while using higher bitrates for the parts of your music that need more bits. The result will be of higher quality than CBR encoding but the average file size will remain predictible, so this mode is highly recommended over CBR. This encoding mode is similar to what is reffered as vbr in AAC or Liquid Audio (2 other compression technologies).
Variable bitrate (VBR)
In this mode, you choose the desired quality on a sqale from 9 (lowest quality/biggest distortion) to 0 (highest quality/lowest distortion). Then encoder tries to maintain the given quality in the whole file by choosing the optimal number of bits to spend for each part of your music. The main advantage is that you are able to specify the quality level that you want to reach, but the inconvenient is that the final file size is totally unpredictible.
