The Encoders |
by Gnomie Matt Gruett
So now that you have ripped some tracks from a CD and saved them as WAV files on your computer, it's time to turn them into MP3s. This is what is known as encoding. Audio CDs store data at 16 bits using a 44.1 kHz sampling rate. In simple terms this means that each snapshot or sample of audio is made up of 16 ones and zeros (bits). Line up 44,100 samples of 16 bits and you have one second of CD quality audio. (CD quality is simply another way of referring to 16 bits @ 44.1 kHz). With a little math we can see that these files are pretty big: 16 bits * 44,100 (samples per second) / 8 (8 bits = 1 byte) = 88,200 bytes per second * 60 (seconds) * 5 (minutes) = 26,460,000 or roughly 25.23 megabytes * 2 (in stereo we have two separate channels) = 50.46 megabytes for a 5 minute song in stereo. Our encoder is going to take that audio file and shrink it down about 10 times to make our MP3. That's some serious compression!
Not only will our encoder have to turn the WAV file into the correct format that an MP3 file should have, but it will also have to roll off the high and low frequencies and compress it to give us our MP3 file. The encoder is probably the key piece in determining the quality of your MP3 files. The old adage says you can have it fast or have it good but you can't have both, and the same goes for encoding. A fast encoding process will mean less time spent waiting for your computer to crunch your WAV file into an MP3, but the quality will suffer.
Encoding speeds can either be faster or slower than real-time (e.g., encoding one minute of audio faster than real-time means it takes less than a minute to process). Slower settings allow for higher quality encoding. Varying the bit rate will also affect the speed and quality of your encoding (e.g., 128, 192 or 256 kbps). OK, I know I probably lost you there but for now just remember that higher bit rates result in better quality or higher resolution because you're using more bits. But of course that means you're taking up more space on your hard drive too.
Most rippers and encoders are actually just one program with two distinct functions. Some combine the ripper with a specific encoder. Other ripping programs allow you to select from different encoders installed on your computer. Audiograbber and Easy CD-DA Extractor are two popular programs for general ripping and encoding. Both allow you to select from various codecs for the encoding process. And don't forget that MP3 all-in-one programs like Siren, MusicMatch and RealJukebox already have rippers and encoders built in which may suit your needs just fine.
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