Subject:Best format to save in?

Posted by: brucecampbell

Date:4/6/2010 4:18:11 PM

Howdy,
Forgive me for my newbie'ness, I'm still learning my way around the terminology and concepts behind audio editing software.

OK here's the deal: I have a series of audio files (from a voice mail service saved as wma/8Kbps) that I'll be doing some editing to (EG- delete sections of audio and/or re-arange sections of audio) then saving them to be inserted into Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 9 to be added to some video.

Now I know there is only so much you can do in terms of improving audio quality if the source/original file is low grade - but can anyone provide me with some pointers or guidance for at least maintaining audio quality? Currently, when I save the edited file (as a 128k 24bit wma) the audio quality degrades.

Any help or pointers would be greatly appreciated! Thanks
-BC

Subject:RE: Best format to save in?

Reply by: musicvid10

Date:4/6/2010 8:49:41 PM

WMA sucks.
8Kbs sucks worse.
64Kbs is the bare minimum for the original speech recording. You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear.

Just save as WAV at the same sample rate. At least you won't lose any more quality.

Subject:RE: Best format to save in?

Reply by: rraud

Date:4/7/2010 9:42:27 AM

Re-saving a WMA, MP3 or other data-compressed file to a non-compressed format will not make the quality any better due to the file type. It can only maintain the quality though multiple edit saves.
Additionally after editing, if the final delivery format is MP3 or WMA, you can achieve higher quality at a given bit-rate by using a mono format, if stereo is not needed... speech for instance.

Subject:RE: Best format to save in?

Reply by: Larry Clifford

Date:4/8/2010 12:58:01 PM

I don't know if this will help, but information about saving in mp3. Ignore my comments (bad procedure), but look at the information other users gave me. I am an amateur with this, but I always try to remember their help.

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?Forum=3&MessageID=544200

Subject:RE: Best format to save in?

Reply by: brucecampbell

Date:4/20/2010 2:33:42 PM

Thanks musicvid and rraud! I'm going to save them as wav in mono to see if that helps.

-BC

Subject:RE: Best format to save in?

Reply by: Geoff_Wood

Date:4/20/2010 3:31:32 PM

I'd say keep saving in WAV if possible. Each subsequent re-save in WMA or MP3 involves a re-encoding which further compromises the audio quality.

geoff

Subject:RE: Best format to save in?

Reply by: rraud

Date:4/20/2010 4:25:22 PM

If my previous response I may not have been clear. Geoff is absolutely correct. Use a Wave format for the initial save and subsequent editing saves and only then, encode the MP3 for your final delivery format if needed.
To clarify, and for instructional purposes, *I am referring to spoken word material, and where there is no spacial information, such as with stereo music.
In the WAVE format, Mono/Stereo affects only the file size.. A one minute spoken word 44.1KHz, 16 bit 'stereo' .wav file, would be approx.10MB, whereas the same wave file in 'mono', would be approx. 5 MB. There would be no gain or loss in quality.*
However the MP3 format is quite different. A 64kbps 44.1 CBR MP3 encoded in 'mono' would have the file size of approximately 450KB, but would have the equivalent quality of a 128kbps MP3 encoded in 'stereo', which has the file size of about 975KB. To put it another way, a 128kbp/s CBR MP3 encoded in EITHER stereo OR mono, would be the same file size. BUT, the mono version would have superior quality.
The source file size, format, sample rate, mono/stereo would make little difference.