wma vs. MP3

[Steven]

Hi. I have a friend who is redo-ing his audio cds to wma instead of mp3, saying
that they are smaller and better quality.
Firstly, Is this true?
Secondly, Do any of you know of a free downloadable program I could use to convert multiple directories of mp3s into wmas automatically,
maintaining the directory structure? (my ,mp3's are sorted into artist
directories and this took me quite a while. )

[Dinges]

I use both, can I vote that instead?

[Steven]

I use both, can I vote that instead?

You can now

[orudge]

Ogg Vorbis! Much better than MP3 and WMA, plus it's open source and patent-free. You can download Ogg Vorbis filters for DirectShow (ie, Windows Media Player), and support is built into Winamp and many other players.

Listen to these attachment comparison files. Both were based on an original CD track, and
I've tried to match the settings as closely as possible:

Vorbis 1.0, 44,100Hz mono, 40kbps (0.0q) VBR
MPEG Layer 3, 44,100Hz mono, 40kbps

(WMA version may follow later)

[SGWebmaster]

MP3 - it's much more widely supported and it doesn't bow to the idea of Microsoft's all conquering ideals. Also, file sharing stuff tends to come in MP3 and there's not much point in subsequently converting it to WMA.

[Alan]

I use any type compatible with Atomix, PCDJ, OtsJuke, Tractor and all the other mixers etc.

[rob14]

I use MP3 - I find it a lot easier to convert to this than WMA - mainly due to http://www.dbpoweramp.com and it's popup right-click function which converts waves/mp3s/etc. I'm sure it used to do wmas as well, but I might be wrong as I haven't found it in the 'Music Converter' version I downloaded the other night.

[orudge]

You lot really should try Ogg Vorbis though, it's very good.

[SGWebmaster]

So you keep telling us. I just don't think I've ever seen an OGG Vorbis file in my life!

[lynsey]

All my music files are OGG Vorbis, I like it that they're nice and small, plus, WinMX does give you the option to search for OGG files so it's becoming more widespread by the looks of things. I don't use it cos the files are better quality though, seeing as I mostly just convert MP3s to OGG files, it won't increase the quality of them.

[Steven]

All my music files are OGG Vorbis, I like it that they're nice and small, plus, WinMX does give you the option to search for OGG files so it's becoming more widespread by the looks of things. I don't use it cos the files are better quality though, seeing as I mostly just convert MP3s to OGG files, it won't increase the quality of them.

Do you know approximatly, off the top of your head, how much smaller?
half the size three quarters or even 95% of the size on average?

[lynsey]

I don't know, it's a fair bit when you've got a lot of files, but not loads, in 3.57gig of OGG files I can fit more than 7 CDs full of MP3s (I had 7 CDs of MP3s on my old PC, OGGed them and put them on my new PC, but then that's not counting all those I've downloaded since I had this PC sometime last summer)

[Steven]

thanks. thats the sort of info I was after.

[orudge]

C:\MP3s contains 194 Oggs taking 1.02GB, and 193 MP3s taking 798MB. I encode all my Oggs at 0.7q (~224kbps) though, while my MP3s can be anything from 64 to 320kbps, depending where I got them from. The Oggs are much higher quality than the equivalent bitrate MP3.

BTW, C:\MP3s is so called for historical reasons.