Art Alexion on 5 Feb 2007 20:57:58 -0000


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Re: [PLUG] Best solution for Audio files


On Monday 05 February 2007 12:42, Jeff Watson wrote:
> Hello List! I have many many (dont we all) .m4a encoded sound files. They
> play fine in amarok, and I can put them on my iPod no problem. The issue is
> that i cannot burn a CD in graveman with m4a files. It will let me burn
> mp3's. What would you say is the best format to keep my audio in that will
> let me burn to disc, use with my ipod, and retain sound quality? I don't
> think ogg will play on an iPod. :-| And also, is it really wise to put my
> entire music collection through some horrible conversion process?
> (m4a->mp3...) wouldn't there be significant data loss, etc?
>
> Synopsis!
> I need an audio format that is "standard", works on ipod, and wont be
> horrible.
> Don't know if mp3 is a format i should stick with (legality/format issues
> perhaps pending in the future)

Why don't you decode the m4a files to wav before burning, delete the wav files 
when done and keep the m4a files for amarok and ipod?  That way there is no 
additional loss.

The only format that works in the iPod, amarok and k3b (never tried gravaman 
as I don't use gnome) is mp3.  The format is so ubiquitous that I don't think 
it is going anywhere in the near future.

One of the things you are going to find if you convert m4a -> wav -> mp3 is 
that, even low quality lossless mp3s are going to be much larger than the 
original m4a.  I recently had to convert an .rm file to mp3 &  for a friend 
and that was my experience.

So my suggestion, new stuff, store in mp3; old m4as, keep them that way and 
only decode to wav for burning.

-- 

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