[Gllug] MP3/Ogg to AAC

[Richard Turner]

On Fri, 2005-03-18 at 11:38 +0000, Pete Ryland wrote:
> Back in November 2002, I corresponded with a few people in Sony UK and Sony
> Japan about either helping with a binary-only port or releasing
> specifications for the NetMD USB protocol and the ATRAC3 format.  They
> declined so I informed them that I would proceed to reverse engineer it, to
> which they showed no objection.  Unfortunately, I just haven't had the time
> to persue this (nor a Windows machine to reverse engineer on).
> 
> Anyway, AFAIK there are no native linux encoders for ATRAC3, but if you are
> running x86 hardware you can probably use the Windows codec.  However, IMHO
> for the same bitrate, ogg vorbis seems to be a bit better quality in general
> - not a big difference, but with good headphones and an otherwise quiet
> environment, you can tell the difference.  Also, if you re-encode from one
> lossy format to another, you will definitely get a noticable reduction in
> sound quality.
> 

Now this is a great shame; I'd really like to be able to transfer music
to my NetMD without having to use a Windows box or Sony's highly
irritating UIs for SonicStage or Simple MD Burner. Probably by the time
this is possible my MD will be dead and I'll have bought an HDD DAP*.

However, my original question was about encoding to AAC: Advanced Audio
Codec, aka (rather cheekily) MP4. Playing the files from my phone I have
to use the Nokia supplied earbuds or the loudspeaker so there's no
escaping the poor quality; therefore I'm more interested in convenience
and small file sizes than quality. Besides, it's quite cool to be able
to rip an audio track from a CD and use it as a ringtone; better than
any of the ones for sale from various sources and free too ;)

Thanks for the post Pete, and if you ever find the time to reverse
engineer an ATRAC3 encoder please let me know!

Cheers,

Richard.

* iAudio's M3 looks pretty good, and supports Ogg Vorbis, but I'd worry
about having to rely on the robustness of the remote control:
http://eng.iaudio.com/zeroboard/product_M3_over.php (Flash warning!)

-- 
"Racing turtles, the grapefruit is winning..."

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