| Author |
 Topic  |
Beef Stew
Location: USA
Posts: 34
|
 Posted - Thu Jun 05, 2003 7:10 am |
|
|
is there such a thing as a 'best overall, one size fits all' format to use for sound on a web site? i've been using mp3's , rm's and wav's. question is, can i just pick one and go with it.
two immediate needs are:
1 - for station listeners to hear show snippets, phoners and bits.
2 - for clients and producers to audition station voice over artists.
thanks in advance.
|
|
mantisxf
Location: USA
Posts: 25
|
| Posted - Thu Jun 05, 2003 8:12 am |
|
|
well, i like ogg vorbis(which recently got RFC approval). it's free(unlike MP3, which charges a licensing fee to the software manufacturer) and sounds great. it appears to be catching on more and more. you can get the CE/CEP vorbis file filter here. it is, ideally, encoded using the quality setting(which you can set from -1 to 10. -1 being ~45kbps and 0 being ~64kbps. so it, theoretically, can be used for dialup) but you can also encode it by specifying bitrates.
this new version of the CE/CEP file filter encodes and decodes to 32 bit floats so there is no clipping.
there are players for windows, macOS/X, and linux. my player of choice is foobar2000. :D
you may have to update the MIME settings on the webserver to send the files to the player. worst case scenario is that it tries to display the file, as text, in the browser. the MIME type is: application/ogg or application/x-ogg (which is the experimental MIME type).
BUT, if it's between those three, i'd go with MP3.
|
|
Edit Thingy
Posts: 1
|
| Posted - Thu Jun 26, 2003 6:00 pm |
|
|
Why does everyone overlook the Windows .WMA format? . I tried a 1 hour stream recently with a 50MB .WMA and the sound quality was amazing, not to mention the file-size! How big would a 1 hour MP3 be?[ , all reports confirmed that the file streamed almost instantaneously for everyone. A simple link to the file launched everyones Windows Media Player and streamed it.
Try it, you won't be disappointed.
Edit Thingy.
|
|
Graeme
Member
Location: Spain
Posts: 4663
|
| Posted - Thu Jun 26, 2003 6:15 pm |
|
|
| Edit Thingy wrote: | | Why does everyone overlook the Windows .WMA format?. |
I would imagine because it's only available to those running the newer OS's. A lot of people - especially around here - are very conservative when it comes to changing their OS, particularly when they hear a lot of horror stories about the new ones. By restricting yourself to WDM, you'd likely be cutting of a large percentage of your potential market.
As things are at this moment, I'd say MP3 was the most universal of the formats currtly available. There must be very few computer owners who couldn't play an MP3 file.
|
|
Craig Jackman
Location: Canada
Posts: 909
|
| Posted - Fri Jun 27, 2003 5:13 am |
|
|
| Graeme wrote: | | Edit Thingy wrote: | | Why does everyone overlook the Windows .WMA format?. |
I would imagine because it's only available to those running the newer OS's. A lot of people - especially around here - are very conservative when it comes to changing their OS, particularly when they hear a lot of horror stories about the new ones. By restricting yourself to WDM, you'd likely be cutting of a large percentage of your potential market.
As things are at this moment, I'd say MP3 was the most universal of the formats currtly available. There must be very few computer owners who couldn't play an MP3 file. |
Agreed. The one thing you really have to do is make it as easy as possible for your clients to hear what they want. Client want to hear their spots, listeners want to hear excerpts from the station. Neither wants to go through hoops to do so. If they have to click here and download this ... why should they when there are billions of other entertainment options on the net? MP3 is not the best format in the world, but the files are acceptably small with acceptable audio (for this purpose), and just about every computer can play them. No brainer. Just pick 128kbs MP3 and use that as your reference standard ... if you are sending the spot to another station to air I'd use a higher bit rate, but for casual reference that'll do.
_________________
Craig Jackman
Production Supervisor
CHEZ/CKBY/CIOX/CJET/CIWW
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
|
|
|
|
Beef Stew
Location: USA
Posts: 34
|
| Posted - Fri Jun 27, 2003 8:16 am |
|
|
yes, the mp3 does seem to be the most universal.
most people recognize the name anyway.
i'm using CEP 1.2a with the mp3 add-on.
i've been taking my wav file and saving it as an mp3. before the save, CEP asks me if i want to convert the file to 48000K. i've been saying yes, and saving.
am i doing this properly?
|
|
mantisxf
Location: USA
Posts: 25
|
|
Craig Jackman
Location: Canada
Posts: 909
|
| Posted - Fri Jun 27, 2003 11:48 am |
|
|
| Beef Stew wrote: | i've been taking my wav file and saving it as an mp3. before the save, CEP asks me if i want to convert the file to 48000K. i've been saying yes, and saving.
am i doing this properly? |
I don't know what was the original sample rate?
I'd say that you wouldn't have to convert to 48 MILLION (48000k is 48,000,000) sampling rate as it's overkill! 48k (48000) is ample for radio use. 44.1k or 32k will suffice nicely as well.
_________________
Craig Jackman
Production Supervisor
CHEZ/CKBY/CIOX/CJET/CIWW
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
|
|
|
|
luigi
Posts: 15
|
| Posted - Fri Jun 27, 2003 3:04 pm |
|
|
Beef Stew, I visited your site and played two mp3 clips the "phoner_mix02" and the "theseventhsons(3)mixdown" and I was impressed with the voice over quality. Can you please let me know what sw & hw components that you are used when you made these two audio clips.
Thanks.
|
|
Bernie
Posts: 15
|
| Posted - Fri Jun 27, 2003 3:11 pm |
|
|
Horror stories about Windows XP and Windows 2000? Are you serious? They are the most stable OSs that Bill has produced. I am stunned that I have just read that.
But I do agree with you guys about the global saturation of the MP3 (just have a listen to WMA will you ).
Bernie.
|
|
Graeme
Member
Location: Spain
Posts: 4663
|
| Posted - Fri Jun 27, 2003 3:55 pm |
|
|
| Bernie wrote: | | Horror stories about Windows XP and Windows 2000? Are you serious? |
Of course I'm serious - you think I make a habit of making statements which aren't?
You only have to check the archive of these forums to discover just how much grief some users have had when 'upgrading' their OS's. There are many who reverted back to their original OS out of sheer frustration. When you do this sort of thing, it can open a whole can of worms.
| Bernie wrote: | | They are the most stable OSs that Bill has produced. I am stunned that I have just read that. |
There was nothing wrong with the stability of earlier OS releases either. There are quite a few here who would claim that 98SE was and, arguably, still is the best platform of all to run CEP on.
I'm not saying that XP (or any other version) cannot be made to work, but the default baggage 'handholding', as deemed necessary by MS when installing, does not help for audio work - as many have found to their cost. The multitude of TSR's do nothing to make XP 'audio friendly' and very careful optimisation is necessary to run decent audio on XP.
Of course, new OS's also means hardare upgrades - just to make them run - and the driver situation for legacy hardware (particularly audio cards, in which we here are, quite naturally, very interested) was nothing shot of abysmal for some considerable time following the release of XP. Things are better, but it has take a while to get to the current stage.
Believe me - horror stories abounded!
|
|
Beef Stew
Location: USA
Posts: 34
|
| Posted - Mon Jun 30, 2003 5:00 am |
|
|
| Craig Jackman wrote: | | Beef Stew wrote: | i've been taking my wav file and saving it as an mp3. before the save, CEP asks me if i want to convert the file to 48000K. i've been saying yes, and saving.
am i doing this properly? |
I don't know what was the original sample rate?
I'd say that you wouldn't have to convert to 48 MILLION (48000k is 48,000,000) sampling rate as it's overkill! 48k (48000) is ample for radio use. 44.1k or 32k will suffice nicely as well. |
original sample rate = 44.1.
|
|
Beef Stew
Location: USA
Posts: 34
|
| Posted - Thu Jul 03, 2003 11:59 am |
|
|
| luigi wrote: | Beef Stew, I visited your site and played two mp3 clips the "phoner_mix02" and the "theseventhsons(3)mixdown" and I was impressed with the voice over quality. Can you please let me know what sw & hw components that you are used when you made these two audio clips.
Thanks. |
the 'phoner_mix02' was recorded live on a machine called 'shortcut' when the listener called in. i then produced the bit 'on the fly'
as i aired it. what your hearing on the mp3, is same way the actual phoner went out over the airwavs. we always capture my program on DATs (recorded in program mode). the DAT hears the same signal the listeners hear. later the phoner was pulled down off the DAT to my hard drive and converted to mp3 (using CEP 1.2).
the 'theseventhsons(3)mixdown' was also recorded live on the fly. the artists played live on the air, it was mixed in the studio on a yamaha mixer, run through the stations board. at the same time, the on air signal was being recorded in 'program' mode to DAT.
i then dumped the signal from the DAT to my hard drive, and we tweaked/mastered the recording (using CEP 1.2). very little was done to the signal in post. what you hear is basically what the audience heard the night it aired live.
all mics used are EV RE20's both for myself and all performers.
where the post work was done, i have two pcs, a gateway and a dell, DATs are Sony, DAT machine is Sony, two sound cards (SB Live and Echo Darla). i have a nice array of 'regular' studio equipment, but most of it wasn't used at all in the recordings.
the two bits you ask about are really just live radio stuff, tweaked slightly.
hope this helps.
|
|
| |
Topic
|
All Forums
Best (?) format for audio on the web