Audio formats for download

[petmar]

Hi!
I'm soon going to put up some music for download on my site.
I want to have several formats depending on where you should use it.
I guess phones use a specific format, or...?
Wich formats would you recommend?
Is there a good lossless format more than wav/aif?
Any good format converter for the task?

Thank you!

Peter

[Alan Z]

For lossy compression, a higher rate mp3 is good, such as 192 kbps (most mp3s I see are compressed at 128 Kbps). Another good format is m4a, which iPods can play. The default standard bit rate for those is 128 Kbps but at that rate they sound like a higher rate mp3. A third format can be "Ogg Vorbis" which is a Linux nerd format.

Lossless audio formats; wma is ubiquitous due to Windows domination but AIFF can be played by anything. FLAC is another lossless format.

Mobile phones/handsets pretty much all play mp3 so there's not need to have a "phone specific" format.

[petmar]

Good info Alan Z! Thanks!

What would be the best software to do this?
From what I understand there is differences in how well the encoding
is done.

Peter

[Alan Z]

What is your OS of choice, please.

[petmar]

It's Vista Home premium.

Peter

[Alan Z]

Then I can't help you, I'm a Mac OS X user and am not familiar with Windows audio apps.

[audiogeekzine]

Foobar 2000 can batch convert just about any format with lots of options.
http://www.foobar2000.org/

You may need to install an extension or codec for the format you want.


I don't know much about phone encoding if you're talking about ringtones, but otherwise mp3s work on almost everything.

Personally I won't pay for music unless its in lossless, flac preferred.

[petmar]

Thank's!

Foobar seem to be the choise, it's free too.
The music I will put up will be for free so I just want to have
a couple of options for downloaders.

Will this be enough for most of us?

Flac
Mp3 highest bitrate possible
m4a

Peter

[petmar]

Like to know wich format I shall do the flac format in?
There are 24 bit 48 khz options. Don't know anything about this format.
Maybe 16 bit 44 khz as a the CD format?

Is it overkill to make 320 kbps mp3's if anyone will use it in there phone?
It become a quite big file.

Peter

[Alan Z]

320 Kbps is overkill for an mp3. 192 Kbps is probably all you really need. For FLAC I'd assume 16 bit 44.1 KHz is "normal" since that's the CD format.