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Poster: The_Monkey_Master Date: Nov 26, 2010 7:10pm
Forum: oldtimeradio Subject: Why MP3? Why not WAV or OGG?

Why is MP3 the file type of Old Time Radio people of the world? If you have them, why not upload WAV or even OGG? They sound better. If you are transribing the records your self (you have orgianls) wouldn't you want people to hear them how they realy sound at their best? I guess there are two thing about all OTR sites that realy bother me. (1) MP3 sound bad and make OTR hard to understand. (2) Most have had the "noise" removed by the computer but now they sound muffled and hard to understand. I end up turning the treble why up so I can understand it and this puts the noise back in. I know MP3 are small and upload/download fast but why does no one upload in better formats? And why do people kill them with "noise removing"? Can we start and internet rebellion aginst MP3 and nosie removale on OTR?
This post was modified by The_Monkey_Master on 2010-11-27 03:10:35

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Poster: Superlee Date: Jan 1, 2011 3:03am
Forum: oldtimeradio Subject: Re: Why MP3? Why not WAV or OGG?

Concerning Wave files, they are just not practical. They are much to large in file size and require a much higher upstream connection ($$$ expensive) most people do not have and most services, as well as the server, would "Time-out" before the operation was completed (uploading).

For example, a mid quality 11Mb mp3 would turn out to be about a 245Mb wav. About 1/4 of a Gig!

Another side is Downloading those files. Many users connections are not super-fast and would take days to weeks to download what now takes minutes to hours.

Yet another side is Archive.org servers. They'd have to invest major $$$ so they could increase their storage 50-100 times just to handle .wav only files.

Then there's the user who would have to have about 5-10 Terabytes for OTR's, alone. Yeow!!

-Superlee

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Poster: cosmico Date: Nov 26, 2010 7:54pm
Forum: oldtimeradio Subject: Re: Why MP3? Why not WAV or OGG?

I'm guessing because MP3 is more familiar and perhaps easier to play and/or manage for more people? I am running Linux Mint 10, but I prefer the familiarity of MP3 files, even though I can also play WAV and OGG. If I'm not mistaken, isn't a WAV file usually much larger than other formats?

Just a guess! ;)

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Poster: drspark61 Date: Nov 27, 2010 6:49pm
Forum: oldtimeradio Subject: Re: Why MP3? Why not WAV or OGG?

With music, I'm for lossless all the way, but the lo-fi nature of many OTR recordings doesn't justify WAV format, in my opinion. I think 64 kbps MP3 is perfectly fine for these and most other spoken word recordings. I can settle for 32 kbps (and usually have to), especially if there's been no noise reduction applied. The only recordings I've heard that benefit from higher bitrate are the high-quality 1950s shows, like Dragnet and X-Minus 1 from the OTRR collections.

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Poster: The_Monkey_Master Date: Nov 28, 2010 9:39am
Forum: oldtimeradio Subject: Re: Why MP3? Why not WAV or OGG?

64 kbps MP3 sound fine but most of the programs I like to liston to (comedy) are (or sound like) somthing lower

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Poster: Poe1809 Date: Nov 28, 2010 12:59pm
Forum: oldtimeradio Subject: Re: Why MP3? Why not WAV or OGG?

So, to recap, file size, speed of download, and also the difficulty in playing WAV or OGG formats on existing portable players. You take a standard Ipod or MP3 player and you have to convert those files to MP3 before you can listen to them, anyway, so why download in formats that are going to have you doing more work just to listen?

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Poster: otrfan99 Date: Dec 1, 2010 6:23pm
Forum: oldtimeradio Subject: Re: Why MP3? Why not WAV or OGG?

some mp3 files on this site suffer from over compression. I prefer 64kbps but some are as low as 16kbps

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Poster: Superlee Date: Jan 1, 2011 10:01pm
Forum: oldtimeradio Subject: Re: Why MP3? Why not WAV or OGG?

Mp3's can easily be made in "High quality" and to sound great. It just seems that quantity is simpler to produce than quality. I have my programs (itunes, etc.) set to convert mp3's at 320kb but I have to do custom settings for that. 256kb mp3's are ideal and reproduce very high quality (sound) files. I think a bit-rate of 128kb is pretty much the lowest anyone should go and still maintain high quality. At 64kb and under, the files are so compressed that the audio quality breaks down too much (at least for me) and starts to become hard to listen to as things, areas of the reproduction, will get a bit gurgley. Oh, yes... Poo on 32. Remove your spleen at 16. (is what I say) LOL -Superlee
This post was modified by Superlee on 2011-01-02 06:01:33

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Poster: The_Monkey_Master Date: Nov 27, 2010 6:01am
Forum: oldtimeradio Subject: Re: Why MP3? Why not WAV or OGG?

WAV is alot bigger but sounds better. 11Mb WAV file can be 3Mb MP3.

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Poster: Tiggeroo Date: Nov 27, 2010 4:00pm
Forum: oldtimeradio Subject: Re: Why MP3? Why not WAV or OGG?

4 wav episodes of Lux Theater and you're at around a gig right there. Given the typical sources to work with, that kind of file size isn't justifiable. I don't think the quality difference is enough for that.

I do agree with noise removal though. Especially when you get all the artificial artifacting, and mechanical sound. That's not good. The sweet spot for me is a reasonably clear sound, with that nice dusty crackle. The exception are the likes of those awesome sounding files of Screen Director's Playhouse found here on the archive. Those are outstanding.

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Poster: Mr Filow Date: Nov 27, 2010 5:58pm
Forum: oldtimeradio Subject: Re: Why MP3? Why not WAV or OGG?

There is the Flac (Free Lossless Audio format) file format also...

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Poster: jonfrum Date: Dec 8, 2010 2:11pm
Forum: oldtimeradio Subject: Re: Why MP3? Why not WAV or OGG?

FLAC files are massive. Good for keeping quality in music, but a waste of time here.

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Poster: OTRJunkie Date: Dec 26, 2010 4:57pm
Forum: oldtimeradio Subject: Re: Why MP3? Why not WAV or OGG?

Hi
I would be very happy to upload wav or ogg files!
So...how do I do that? Do I need a "converter?" as most of my audio files are in mp3 format!and that is why I uploaded mp3 files..
I didn't know that wav and ogg files were better-I apologize
dee