Ho-okay, folks!
Gotcha some files of last Thursday’s Catholic Answers Live to test and see what works best for y’all.
The first three are .mp3 files, and the last is a Windows Media (.wma) file. NOTE: We’re definitely planning on doing .mp3 for the show; the .wma file is just thrown in here to see what folks think of it.
Please use the combox to let us know which format you prefer (taking file size, audio quality, and other factors into account). Please also let us know if you find any of them simply unacceptable (and why).
To make referring to them easier, I’ve labelled them all "Link 1," "Link 2," etc., so you don’t have to remember the technical specs on each one, though I’ve printed those here too.
- LINK 1 (20 kbps, 12 kHz, MP3–8 meg)
- LINK 2 (32 kbps, 16 kHz, MP3–13 meg)
- LINK 3 (40 kbps, 16 kHz, MP3–16 meg)
- Link 4 deleted since I can’t get it to work.
Thanks for your feedback!
20k bitrate is not clean, and is too distorted. The 32 sample is livable, but 40 was best, as expected. However, don’t stick with fixed bit rates, and don’t record in stereo.
Use a variable bit rate for best compression with good quality.
See this:
http://members.tripod.com/Milaa/mp3Comparison/links.html
All I can tell is that link 1 sounded the worst. Sorry!
I can live with the 32 to save some time to the persons with low speed internet connections. The WMA is not important to me the industry is greatly depending on mp3 including digital players, and other devices.
I downloaded the mp3 files and listened to a little bit of each one. Here are my thoughts:
Link 1: This one won’t play in MusicMatch Jukebox on my computer. I’m not sure if the file is corrupt, or if perhaps MusicMatch doesn’t support 12 kHz.
Link 2: The sound quality here is not great. It’s an improvement over the RealAudio files that are currently available, but there are still very noticeable artifacts from the compression (i.e., your voice has a very metallic sound).
Link 3: This is better than Link 2, but it still doesn’t sound great — your voice still has that slightly metallic sound from the compression algorithm. I think that this one would be listenable, at home or in the car, but I still would prefer higher sound quality (maybe 64 kbps at 16 kHz or 22.05 kHz). Of course I realize that you are limited in terms of storage space and bandwidth, and thus higher quality might not be feasible. However, if you are concerned only about the user experience of downloading such a large file, I would say don’t worry about it. I think that people with a dial-up connection are going to have a hard time regardless of whether the file is 13 MB, 16 MB, or 26 MB, and it really doesn’t take long at all to download on a high-speed connection.
Link 4: This link points to the same mp3 file as Link 2.
Excellent.
I’ve been listening to the RealAudio version of the program each Friday on my way home from work. I usually just download it from the link that you post on your blog, stick the file onto my PowerBook (don’t have an ipod), and use my headphone-to-casette adapter for the trip home.
Unfortunately, I have noticed that the quality of the audio has been poor.
So, I’ll definitely try out the these new files on the way home today.
Link 1 was definitely the worst. I personally would download link 3 every time from those choices. Link 2 wasn’t bad either, though.
I think there’s a mistake in link 4. It’s the exact same file as link 2.
OK, I couldn’t resist checking them out immediately. Everything but the 20-kbps stream is a big improvement over the realaudio. Thanks!
I tried Link 1 again in another program (Winamp). I got it to play this time, and I have to say that it sounds horrible! 🙂 Very much over-compressed.
Quote:
“Use a variable bit rate for best compression with good quality.”
I’m not an mp3 expert, but neither am I a neophyte. I could be wrong about this, but I have always heard that it is best to stay away from variable bit rate, since some players may have trouble playing these files correctly.
Also, the file information on these files says that they are recorded in stereo. My understanding is that you should be able to encode in mono, and cut the file size in half. Of course, you need to make sure that it is still smart enough to send the same audio to both speakers, even though the audio is not encoded separately for the two channels.
It would be really cool if you would offer your content in a format that is not encumbered by patents (so that free software may be used to play the stream). In particular, you might investigate using Ogg Vorbis.
Quote: “It would be really cool if you would offer your content in a format that is not encumbered by patents (so that free software may be used to play the stream). In particular, you might investigate using Ogg Vorbis.”
Forgive me if I misunderstood your comment, but there are plenty of free software programs that will play mp3 — not to mention plenty of hardware that supports mp3 (e.g., iPods and other dedicated mp3 players, as well as CD players that will play mp3 discs). Or did you mean that Ogg Vorbis would be an alternative to Real/WMA?
Link 1 was unlistenable (is that a word?) 😉
Link 3 was best. As to file size, I think this may be much ado about nothing. If one has a high speed connection 8MB, 13MB what’s the difference? Either will download relatively quickly. For those who have low speed connection, again, what’s the difference? 8MB is as unrealistic to download as 13MB. Go with the higher quality for sure as I doubt anything real is being gained by reducing file size.
I’ve listened to each now twice (once with Quicktime, once with Media player). Has anyone else noticed that even on the higher quality versions, there is a seeming fade in, fade out effect on the audio? It’s pretty annoying
mp3 does have patents associated with it.
“Fraunhofer Institute and THOMSON have done important work to develop MPEG Layer-3 audio compression (before and after it became part of the MPEG standards). This work has resulted in many inventions and several patents, covering the MPEG Layer-3 standard.”
Which has caused some people to go for the completely community owned Ogg audio format. You don’t have to pay for mp3 (the end user doesn’t have to pay for wma or real either for that matter), but many are simply opposed to the idea of mp3.
MP3 is definitely a must have since all digital audio players are able to play MP3s. Based on the quality of what I heard I could survive with the 32 KBps version.
Quote: “As to file size, I think this may be much ado about nothing. If one has a high speed connection 8MB, 13MB what’s the difference? Either will download relatively quickly. For those who have low speed connection, again, what’s the difference? 8MB is as unrealistic to download as 13MB. Go with the higher quality for sure as I doubt anything real is being gained by reducing file size.”
Amen! I agree with this 100%. I have a high-speed connection, and I was able to download all three of the mp3 files above in just a few minutes.
Hi everybody, fr. Roderick from the Catholic Insider Podcast here (www.catholicinsider.com). Great idea to make Catholic Answers Live available as mp3 files. I would encourage you to make the files available as a podcast also, there is a *huge* demand for catholic podcasts. I’ve been experimenting with podcasting since February, so if you need any help with the creation of the feed or anything else, just let me know. As far as encoding is concerned: I started of with Constant Bitrate encoding on 64kbps/22050Hz, but I recently switched to Variable Bitrate encoding which results in a much higher quality sound. Personally I find anything below 64kbps very hard to listen to over a headphone for more than a couple of minutes. So I’d recommend better encoding, even though that might mean larger files. Or since it’s a weekly show, why not make two podcast feeds available, one for low quality, small files, and one feed with higher quality files for those with broadband? Anyway, just let me know if I can help!
Link 3 is the only one I found tolerable, and 64kbps would be preferable. Even at 40kbps the voices were tinny. Offer two versions to make people with slower connections (or who just want smaller files) happy.
Thanks for your research on this! It’s a terrific idea.
‘thann
Using headphones on a computer instead of an Ipod.
Link 1: Seemed about the same as the Real Audio link you use. The music sounds washed out and the voice quality is poor but it is only 8 MB in size. Listenable but just barely. I’d leave this level to Real Audio if your going to continue using it as well as MP3
Link 2: Much better than link 1. Voices are clear and understandable but some distortion detected but not so bad as to make it unlistenable. Its a talk show, not a music show (I’m sure folks don’t want to hear Jimmy sing anyway). So in my opinion this your best combination of file size and voice quality for those with low bandwith or storage options.
Link 3: The best, of course, but you pay the price in file size.
If you are going to change the format to MP3…could you please, please (please!) zip the files for download since a lot of corporate firewalls and proxys (including our own 🙁 ) block the mp3 extension.
Miguel
Miguel – Zipping the files for download will just make them larger (and odd side effect of zipping compressed files). My guess is that you will just have to deal with your company’s silly policies.
How about offering a 20Kbps (for dialup users) and a 64Kbps (for broadband users) version? Personally, I would grab the 64Kbps file every time even though it may be ~20MB.
Ummmm…
Link 3, at a minimum. Can’t wait.
Miguel, my company doesn’t allow MP3 downloads, either, but yesterday I discovered that if I right click, do a Save As, and manually change the extension to mp3 from the extension that the firewall inserts, it works. Your firewall may not work the same way, but it’s worth a try.
‘thann
Link 1: Nahh. 🙂
Link 2: I heard skipping on one media player (XMMS; it’s like Winamp for Linux), but tried a different player (Gxine) and it sounded fine. I’ll let the people who listen to the show in their cars tell you whether the quality is good enough for them. I’m just listening to it at the computer.
Link 3: I didn’t listen to it; for me, Link 2 was good enough.
Stereo: If you can, try doing Mono instead. This will shrink down file size considerably.
Why I didn’t mention .Ogg files myself: The thing is, not all players can play .ogg files. Although I’d prefer that .ogg were the standard, we should give people time to catch up, as software for their player devices is upgraded so that everyone can play .ogg files. A search on iPods and OGG gives results that make me hopeful, but the time to consider switching to .ogg probably isn’t here yet, if your aim for now is making everybody happy.
Many Linux distributions stopped including MP3 capabilities out of the box, because it’s a proprietary format, but for now it’s possible to add that capability after the installation, so I won’t gripe about the MP3 format yet. 🙂 Someday, MP3 will be obsolete, but we’ll worry about that when the time comes.
I appreciate the consideration given to feedback, Thanks!
Stick with 40kbps! I run a MAC and eventually everyone will. Windows Media Player stinks!
God love ya and everything that you do.
Thanks for the mp3 efforts. All of these links are OK with me, but the larger and faster they are, the better for me. I will not use the windows media player, so I’m not upset about your inability to get it up on the website.
Perhaps you should think about offering a live stream in ITunes and Quicktime format. EWTN’s radio signal is available as a live feed in RealAudio format, but more choices are always good.
Thanks again for your good work.
Stick with mp3 so us Linux folks can listen. WMP kind of leaves me out in the cold. The quality of link 2 was adequate, link 1 wasn’t, and link 3 may be overkill.