Audio insertion for website

[shameeta]

Hi people

Has anybody any suggestions for making an audio file smaller so that downloading time when people open the website is short.

Basically, I do the audio to be inserted into some graphics and the put on a website for english learning. There is a lot of audio and files are large. We put them in as MP3 files.

Also, we lose flash to the graphics and stuff and this causes the audio to be compressed somewhat. Therefore, the quality of the audio is reduced. Is this inevitable or is there something we can do to increase the quality of the audio before/after insertion.

Thanks

Shameeta

[jimlongo]

Don't compress twice. Give the Flash people AIF or WAV files and let them compress it just once.

[Stage]

In Flash you can use the imported audio's compression settings so things don't get compressed twice.. also make sure they don't have the checkbox labeled "override sound settings" selected in the Publish Settings. Aiff and wave files tend to be too cumbersome when building with flash.. each time you want to test the movie it takes a few minutes to publish it..

[shameeta]

I give it to them in WAV format. They convert it to MP3 coz the file would be too big if we insert into the graphics as wav. This is to be put on a website. So the file size is important for shorter downloading time. Is there no way out of this compression thing. Or is there some other way to make the file size smaller. That way I will ask them to put it in as wav format instead of converting to MP3 first.

Thanks for the suggestion. It's a good one for CD based stuff. We don't convert to MP3 then.

Shameeta

[Stage]

in flash the only way to get the file size down is to compress it. mp3 is the best choice within flash.. you can change the bitrate from 8Kbps to 160.. find the one in the middle that you can live with and use it.. (you can also convert a stereo track to mono)..

petr

[corTools]

I believe in Flash MX you can import an .mp3 and when it does the conversion it uncompresses then recompresses, so there is no double compression. I am sure any of the older versions of Flash will double compress, though, so do some tests and see for yourself.
I develop audio content for an e-learning company and the grapic designers prefer .mp3 over .wav for the reason stated by an earlier post.

[jimlongo]

but lossy uncompression and lossy recompression is just about as bad as double compression, so either way only do it once.

[shameeta]

"imported audio's compression settings so things don't get compressed twice"..

Hi

Excuse my ignorane. Now would these be the settings when converting the wav file to MP3, coz that what we do to make the audio file smaller.

Or do you mean the settings at the instance we are importing/inserting the audio in to the flash file.

Right now we are compressing twice I guess. Once during the conversion and then during the insertion of the audio into flash.

Thanks you in advance for further tips.

Shameeta

[shameeta]

Thanks Stage. Sorry didn't read this message before answering to the first one. SO, disregard the further requests for details.

I will try out your suggestion and get back to you.
Thanks

Shameeta

[shameeta]

we would love to do the compression just once but unfortunately this is not condusive for fast downloading.

We will lose potential customers if they try to download our lessons online and have to wait forever for it. Right now we are doing mostly flash and part Html which helps a little. Any suggestions as to how to reduce the downloading time? Know any IT geniuses?

Shameeta