Searching Lower Bitrate Files?

[spann3rs]

Hi All, I want to search my music collection for music files which i have ripped under a minimum of 320kbps. Can anyone think of an easy way to do it? As I want to re-rip anything thats under that.... If there is no easy way I end up doing the whole lot again, and that will take a long time.

I have the original Zune 30g and reading the spec it says it supports WMA Lossless. I just ripped a cd at WMA lossless and it still wanted to convert it on sync, Whats the highest bitrate my zune 30g will handle? And is it worth using Lossless. I play my music through a home stereo also so want the best quality possible.

Thanks in advance!

Spann3rs

[HipHopScribe]

Use a program like MediaMonkey, then you can sort your library by bitrate. As for lossless, I thought the Zune 30 supports it, I know the Zune 80 does. I don't think lossless is worth it anyway, unless you're using very high end equipment, it's very unlikely you can hear the difference, LAME at V2 is transparent to most people, if you really want to assure quality, I'd suggest LAME at V0, ripped with EAC, that'll save you some space compared to 320kbps, and again, you won't hear the difference.

[spann3rs]

Thanks for such a quick reply!

Does Zune 30g Support lame? Or again will that end up getting converted on sync?

Whats the best Lame v0 encoder? and whats its bitrate compared to WMA 320KBPS?

[HipHopScribe]

Originally Posted by spann3rs

Thanks for such a quick reply!

Does Zune 30g Support lame? Or again will that end up getting converted on sync?

Whats the best Lame v0 encoder? and whats its bitrate compared to WMA 320KBPS?

Yeah. thhe Zune 30 supports LAME, any MP3 player will support LAME, it's just an MP3 encoder, which is better than all of the rest. LAME is the encoder, I'm guessing you mean what's the best ripper, and that answer is definitely EAC, Exact Audio Copy, which will give you the most accurate ripping out there. It is a rather involved process to set it up, but if you want the absolute best, it's worth it, and you'll only have to set it up once. Here's a guide to setting EAC up correctly (the guide focuses on FLAC, but has info on LAME also, in the lossy set-up guide, so do the initial set-up for FLAC, so you get all the other settings right, then set up LAME before ripping):
http://xs.vc/eac/

-V 0 is a VBR setting for LAME, meaning that it will vary the bitrate depending on the complexity of the audio information, which is why I recommended it over the 320kbps settings, because it's more efficient, without sacrificing any audible quality. I recommend LAME MP3 over WMA because in terms of sound quality, there's essentially no difference at similar bitrates, especially at high bitrates like you want, and MP3 is just a more flexible format, with wider support, so I think it's better to use it than WMA.

[spann3rs]

Cool, will give it a go now. Thankyou! You have helped loads!

Spann3rs

[HipHopScribe]

Originally Posted by spann3rs

Aha, Found EAC, that sounds promising, will try a few cds and sync them, then ill see if the zune software converts them to anything... Lame V0 has a variable bit rate of 230kbps. Am i not better off ripping at 320kbps WMA? Or is there something special about the lame codec?

The essential difference is not between LAME & WMA, but better CBR (Constant Bitrate) and VBR (Variable Bitrate). When you encode to 320kbps, that's a CBR settings, which means that every part of the song is encoded at that bitrate. In reality, not all parts of a song require 320kbps to sound just like the CD to human ears, which is where VBR encoding comes in, with VBR encoding, the parts of the song that require 320kbps are encoded at that bitrate, but more simple parts of the song are encoded at a lower bitrate. So, it's basically a question of efficiency, a VBR encoded song will have a lower average bitrate, but will sound just as good as a higher bitrate CBR encode, because the distribution of bitrate throughout the music is more efficient.

[HipHopScribe]

sorry...accidental double post