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MP3 or MP4 for ipod
Insaneperson
27-12-2006
I have several MP3s on my PC and all the ones you download through Bittorrent etc. are mostly encoded in that format. I know that the ipod can play MP3s but the ones they sell on itunes are MP4. The amount of songs they say it can play (eg. they advertise the 80gb can play 20, 000 4 min. songs) are in MP4. So I was wondering whether you think it is worth converting my MP3s into MP4 using Nero7 to fit more onto the ipod. Or is the amount extra you can fit on their not worth it? Thanks.
moisie
27-12-2006
It's probably not worth converting them since you'll lose some quality. If you're ripping stuff fresh from cd then an mp4 at the same bitrate as mp3 is going to sound better, or you could encode it lower quality and have it sound the same as a higher rate mp3. Of course, all this is subjective, but in general converting one lossy format to another, any other, is not a good idea.
Insaneperson
27-12-2006
Thanks, so how many songs in MP3 format could I hope to get onto an 80gb ipod?
Kargo
27-12-2006
this is slighly off topic but ive got an Itunes Music Voucher and purchased some tracks from Itunes. any ideas on how to get them to mp3 as i know longer use my iPod and have a Zen
TheBigM
27-12-2006
Originally Posted by Kargo:
“this is slighly off topic but ive got an Itunes Music Voucher and purchased some tracks from Itunes. any ideas on how to get them to mp3 as i know longer use my iPod and have a Zen”

there is no legal way of doing so - they have DRM. (software protection to allow them to only be played on Ipods).

ref other posts - Itunes uses AAC format which uses mpeg4 compression standard. MP3 is a decent enough format. With wma too one can fit more songs but many people prefer sound quality of mp3 over wma/aac.
moisie
27-12-2006
Originally Posted by Insaneperson:
“Thanks, so how many songs in MP3 format could I hope to get onto an 80gb ipod?”

You'll get the same number of songs as you would a similar file in mp4 (aac) at the same bitrate. If you encoded all yours songs at 128kbps (for example) you would get the same number regardless of whether you use mp3 or mp4. Using mp4, 128kbps is supposed to be equivalent to CD quality, whereas with mp3 you would need to use something higher since mp3 is of lower overall quality.

If you use different encoders you'll get differing quality at the same bitrate within the same formats but that's getting way more technical.
moisie
27-12-2006
Originally Posted by Kargo:
“this is slighly off topic but ive got an Itunes Music Voucher and purchased some tracks from Itunes. any ideas on how to get them to mp3 as i know longer use my iPod and have a Zen”

Burn them to a CD then rip them back to mp3. Of course, on the basis that a lossy digital format only gives you a percentage f the original quality, a copy of that will be of lower overall quality.
Mark in Essex
28-12-2006
I would not even bother with MP3, as you need at least 192Kb/sec to sound any good.

I made the mistake of loading all my CD's into iTunes before I knew better at 192Kb/sec to then find out I should have stuck to the AAC format.

I've got all my tracks on my iPod now at 128Kb/sec and to be honest I could not realy tell the diffrence between that and then next bitrate down.

Also converting tracks within iTunes makes them sound crap (I tried it from MP3 to AAC and decided not to in the end). Although I'm not sure how good it is with other conversion software.
Last edited by Mark in Essex : 28-12-2006 at 13:14
TheBigM
29-12-2006
the point being that with more efficient codecs e.g. those using mpeg4 based compression you can use a much lower bitrate (and thus a smaller file size) and end up with similar sound quality.
Insaneperson
29-12-2006
The MP3s I have are encoded in 192Kb/s. If each song was 4 min. long as they way apple calculates it, approximitely how many songs could I fit onto an 80gb ipod?
Mark in Essex
31-12-2006
Originally Posted by Insaneperson:
“The MP3s I have are encoded in 192Kb/s. If each song was 4 min. long as they way apple calculates it, approximitely how many songs could I fit onto an 80gb ipod?”

Hi there,

I've worked out the average size of the song files on my iPod and then calculated how many songs you can fit on the 80gb one.

On a 80gb iPod you would get around 11,200 songs on it with 192Kb/s MP3.

With MP4 (AAC) files at 128Kb/s you would get about 16,800 songs on there and they would sound a hell of a lot better than the MP3 files.

AAC is usually the defauly on iTunes and it's a lot better format than MP3's (not sure why anybody would use MP3 if they have the option of AAC (MP4's).

It's prob not worth converting the old MP3's into MP4 format, but def worth having MP4's if you get any more tunes.

You have a lot of songs if you can fill half of a 80gb iPod up, let alone all of it.

Mark.
Last edited by Mark in Essex : 31-12-2006 at 17:21
Insaneperson
31-12-2006
OK thanks Mark, I didn't think I would be filling up my ipod with music anytime soon. I am putting some video on as well though, which still takes up a remarkable small amount of space.
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