[heatmizer]

I'm using audacity to convert a bunch of "books on tape" for an aunt. She does not have a pc. She does have a dvd player that can do mp3 and wma. I'm applying noise filters to the waves right now. What would be a better export to export them as mp3 or wma and what bit rate I was thinking mp3 96lb vbr. any other thoughts?
thanks

 

[Salt Peanuts]

I'm an audible.com member, and their audiobooks are encoded at 32kbs. They sound fine for the purpose.

 

[Redo]

mono mp3 @ 48kbps setting sounds fine for speech, though you can still hear compression. I'd probably opt for 64kbps or 72kbps mp3

 

[terrymx]

i think 32kbs is very bad, because you get the sibilance and that's not enjoyable for long term listening, or a voice that you don't like (i probably have to tune the pitch for it to become a women voice.)

i recommend a bitrates when you no longer or rarely hear hisses. 64kbs.

 

[heatmizer]

ok 64 kb it is.

Using the batch function in audacity to apply a noise filter from silent section of audio, high pass filter at 120 hz, then normalize to -10 db. Anyone know of a good filter or external app to detect the silence between chapter so i can export individual chapters?

 

[vagarach]

In most cases, 32kbps is plenty! I downloaded some files from www.audiobooksforfree.com (there was a time when the cost of downloading matched their url) at 16kbps (very little left in paypal

), and after liberal eq'ing, you could get used to it!

You can still get almost all the Sherlock Holmes books in audiobook form at www.gutenberg.org at 32kbps, 22khz, and the recording is very good, it sounds splendid on my E4Cs.

If you have the source files (as you do), you can go even to 16kbps, and as long as you keep the sampling rate high (22khz is fine), you will get very nice sound.

Furthermore, although I haven't done extensive testing, wma does better at these low bitrates than mp3 does.

Remember, though, that at these low bitrates, it will be easy detect the metallic sound that mp3 can have, but I'm sure your aunt could care less

.

 

[heatmizer]

Yeah I don't think she's going to hear it

 

[Redo]

It's too bad OGG has practically no hardware support. It's free and easy to implement, and it sounds so damned good at low bitrates.

 

[blessingx]

Quote:

Originally Posted by heatmizer /img/forum/go_quote.gif Anyone know of a good filter or external app to detect the silence between chapter so i can export individual chapters?

Are you sure you want to do this? I actually combine chapters as bookmarking is more important to me than chapters. All depends on your situation and your aunts DVD player.

 

[heatmizer]

The filtering is now done still waves. Can you explain to me please what you mean by "combine chapters as bookmarking". I don't understand.
thanks

 

[Lowfront]

64kbps for me.

 

[heatmizer]

Started exporting at 64k constant mp3. Am going to join them and split at the chapter marks.

 

[McFortner]

For just voice, the lower bitrates are fine. I have TextAloud by NextUp.com for converting text files to ebooks. The voices I use are 16khz, so I encode at 40kbs at 16khz with no problems. Anything I d/l from the net I convert down to about 40 to 64 mono at 22khz to save space and notice no problems.

Michael

 

[blessingx]

Quote:

Originally Posted by heatmizer /img/forum/go_quote.gif The filtering is now done still waves. Can you explain to me please what you mean by "combine chapters as bookmarking". I don't understand. thanks

Well keeping them separate may be better for your aunts DVD player, I don't know, but if I'm putting an audiobook on an iPod, I'll rip the entire CD as a single track, then combine the tracks so I have a single 10 hour, etc. track so that when I stop and go back it will remember were I last listened anywhere in the book. If the book is broken up in segments this would only be possible inside the chapter, etc. You'd have to remember which chapter you were listening to and then restart from that bookmark. This is probably why Audible.com books are a single track, etc. Again I'm not sure what her DVD is capable of.

 

[riceboy]

For me 32 k is good but 64 k does sound a little better. Either way you'll be good.