Re: Why bother with lossy encoding?

It would be less confusing if you start a new topic. The topic title
in this email thread is "Why bother with lossy encoding?"

Steve

On 7 March 2017 at 09:57, Clyde Lyman <[email protected]> wrote:
> Any way to use Audacity as my defalt music player? I've looked but have not
> found one and it would be a great one. I'd like Shuffle
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: J.B. Nicholson <[email protected]>
> To: [email protected]
> Sent: Monday, March 6, 2017 7:24 PM
> Subject: Re: [Audacity-users] Why bother with lossy encoding?
>
> Clyde Lyman wrote:
>> By "Continuity with the rest of the collection" I meant something like
>> the following. I have 15\00+ mp3's, having started my collection in the
>> days when an 8GB card was huge. It could make no sense to now put WAV's
>> in that group. There are those who say that the difference between mp3
>> and loosless files is noticeable. so anything I add to that group will
>> be an mp3
>
> There's no need to continue to use MP3 just because you used MP3 in the
> past. You can use any format your players can play. Whether one can hear
> the artifacts introduced with lossy encoding has nothing to do with what
> else is on the same volume, it has to do with the settings chosen at the
> time of encoding. So it's entirely possible that one can hear artifacts in
> an MP3 file compressed with low-quality settings.
>
> I store my audio collection in formats that favor free software (free as in
> freedom, not price) so I have FLAC (primarily), Opus, and older Vorbis
> files all in the same collection organized into folders corresponding to my
> organizational needs.
>
> I don't re-encode from a lossy source to a lossy destination as that's
> generally a good way to introduce audible distortions. Re-encoding either
> from lossless to lossy, or from lossless to lossless both have practical
> use (and the latter can be done losslessly).
>
> Instead of WAV files I suggest using FLAC. WAV file metadata gets spotty
> support but Ogg tags in native FLAC files are widely read correctly.
>
>> Are there actually players that won't play at least FLAC (which is a
>> compressed file if I understand correctly)
>
> FLAC is losslessly compressed at multiple levels of compression -- the more
> time one allows the encoder to compress the smaller the output file, but
> all FLAC encoding levels are lossless.
>
> There are audio players that won't play FLAC: Apple's portable players
> (such as their iThings) won't play FLAC using the proprietary Apple
> firmware. One could install Rockbox on some Apple iThings to gain FLAC
> playback. But I don't see the point in acquiring an Apple iThing in the
> first place as there are so many other devices which play FLAC files (and
> have for years) that any device that doesn't play FLAC comes off to me as
> uncompetitive and obsolete. And I have other reasons for not wanting to do
> business with Apple which aren't related to audio file format support.
>
> This is getting away from any issue dealing with Audacity per se so I'll
> stop replying on this thread here.
>
>
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> *********** ASKING FOR HELP *************
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> When asking for help on this list, please include the following information,
> so we can
> help you properly:
>
> * What operating system you are using (for example, Windows XP or Mac OS X
> 10.5.1)
>
> * Exactly what three digit version number of Audacity you are using (Help >
> About
>   Audacity, or Audacity >  About Audacity on a Mac computer)
>
> * If this is a recording problem, what equipment you are recording with, and
> how is it
>   connected to the computer?
>
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>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Announcing the Oxford Dictionaries API! The API offers world-renowned
> dictionary content that is easy and intuitive to access. Sign up for an
> account today to start using our lexical data to power your apps and
> projects. Get started today and enter our developer competition.
> http://sdm.link/oxford
> *********** ASKING FOR HELP *************
>
> When asking for help on this list, please include the following information,
> so we can
> help you properly:
>
> * What operating system you are using (for example, Windows XP or Mac OS X
> 10.5.1)
>
> * Exactly what three digit version number of Audacity you are using (Help >
> About
>    Audacity, or Audacity >  About Audacity on a Mac computer)
>
> * If this is a recording problem, what equipment you are recording with, and
> how is it
>    connected to the computer?
>
> Mailing list: [email protected]
> To UNSUBSCRIBE, use the form at the bottom of this web page:
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/audacity-users

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Announcing the Oxford Dictionaries API! The API offers world-renowned
dictionary content that is easy and intuitive to access. Sign up for an
account today to start using our lexical data to power your apps and
projects. Get started today and enter our developer competition.
http://sdm.link/oxford
*********** ASKING FOR HELP *************

When asking for help on this list, please include the following information, so we can 
help you properly: 

* What operating system you are using (for example, Windows XP or Mac OS X 10.5.1)   

* Exactly what three digit version number of Audacity you are using (Help > About 
   Audacity, or Audacity >  About Audacity on a Mac computer)   

* If this is a recording problem, what equipment you are recording with, and how is it 
   connected to the computer?

Mailing list: [email protected]
To UNSUBSCRIBE, use the form at the bottom of this web page:
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/audacity-users