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jjack
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Quote jjack Replybullet Topic: Bitrates
    Posted: 04 September 2006 at 3:50pm
I don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but when the audio files are encoded, the bitrate really shouldn't be set to 32kbps (on Vietnamese, for example).  I realize this makes for smaller files, but the audio quality would be a LOT better at 96kbps or higher.
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gdfellows
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Quote gdfellows Replybullet Posted: 04 September 2006 at 4:45pm
These sound files are from 30 and 40 year old cassette tape recordings with hiss and sub-par audio to start with, not digital technology.  At higher bit rates, the files would be much larger, the bandwidth requirements much higher, but the audio quality will still be poor.  

Edited by gdfellows - 05 September 2006 at 6:27am
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jjack
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Quote jjack Replybullet Posted: 04 September 2006 at 6:31pm
>sound files are from 30 and 40 year old cassette
 
yeah, I know.
 
>the files would be much larger, the bandwidth requirements much higher
 
yeah, I said that.
 
>but the audio quality will still be poor
 
Not as poor, which is all I was saying.  You'd probably hear more hiss, but there would be less distortion and it wouldn't sound as muffled.
 
 
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Malcolm
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Quote Malcolm Replybullet Posted: 04 September 2006 at 11:43pm
Unless it's music, 96kbps would provide little if any noticeable difference over 64kbps or 56kbps. When you factor in the poor quality of the original recordings themselves, it really doesn't make much difference if you compress FSI audio to 32kbps.

As a test I just converted one the the 64kbps Standard Chinese Module 9 files to 32kbps. I listened to both files and honestly couldn't perceive a difference. I would definitely fail a blindfold test with these two files, and I have pretty good hearing. Of course, with music or CD quality audio files, the difference is obvious.
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gdfellows
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Quote gdfellows Replybullet Posted: 05 September 2006 at 6:16am
Originally posted by Malcolm

When you factor in the poor quality of the original recordings themselves, it really doesn't make much difference if you compress FSI audio to 32kbps.
 
You are correct, Malcolm.  In fact, I started converting all files to 32k last week.  I could discern no difference between 64k and 32k.  I did notice some slight degradation at 24k.


Edited by gdfellows - 05 September 2006 at 6:26am
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Eurolerner
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Quote Eurolerner Replybullet Posted: 08 October 2006 at 11:50pm
Bitrate is not such a big issue, I think.
 
Perhaps is also possible to reconvert the files after download into a higher bitrate, that could probably increase the sound quality.
 
Just an opinion.
 
 
Best Regards,
 
 
Eurolerner.
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Sir Nigel
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Quote Sir Nigel Replybullet Posted: 11 October 2006 at 2:04pm
Originally posted by Eurolerner

Perhaps is also possible to reconvert the files after download into a higher bitrate, that could probably increase the sound quality.


No, that doesn't improve it as mp3 compression is lossy. A good rule of thumb is "rubbish in=rubbish out".
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jjack11
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Quote jjack11 Replybullet Posted: 13 October 2006 at 4:52pm
gdfellows, 
 
I noticed that you have edited some of your comments on this board -- weeks after the fact -- in order to make yourself sound more reasonable.  That is blatantly dishonest.  I also noticed that my account was mysteriously deleted from this forum and the new forum (before that went down).  Maybe that was due to a technical glitch (?) If not, did I say something unreasonable or uncalled for?  If so, please point it out.
 
Thanks,
 
Jack 
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gdfellows
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Quote gdfellows Replybullet Posted: 14 October 2006 at 7:46am
Jack, I reviewed every post I've made on this board, and I could find no post edited more than 24 hours after the post.  Edits were always made to ensure clarity and are clearly flagged as edited. 
 
The memberlist here (on the menu at the top of the screen) shows that you currently have two accounts on this forum:  jjack created on August 21, and jjack11 created yesterday.  I did not delete your account here. 
 
And yes, there have been problems at the new site.  I thought I had made it pretty clear that we were testing, and if something happened to your account there, it was not intentional. 
 
I would ask your support in helping us to end this discussion in the public forum.  If you would like to continue this conversation, please send me a private message.  I would like to keep forum conversations focused on learning languages.
 
Thank you!
 
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