MP3 to OGG converters

[Ben Steeves]

On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 15:41:17 +0000, Ian Malone <ibm21 at cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> Matthew Miller <mattdm at mattdm.org> wrote:

> > The problem comes when you take something that was compressed with one lossy
> > algorithm, and convert it to a totally different one. Odds are good you'll
> > end up with the worst effects of both.
> 
> Further info at <http://www.vorbis.com/faq.psp#lossy>.  The original
> question of converting is dealt with also --- three questions further
> down.

When I got my iPod, I was faced with a bit of a quandry: I've ripped
over 200 CDs into OGG format, and really didn't want to re-rip them
all to MP3.  I tried converting them from OGG to MP3 and by and large
was pleased with the results (at least for listening on a portable
device like the iPod).  Going from MP3 to OGG produced noticably worse
results, but I think if I had been working with MP3s with a
sufficiently high bit rate I'd have been OK.

So, in theory, you're going to lose quality -- in practice, depending
on how you plan to listen to the resultant files, you might not notice
a big difference.  I wouldn't recommend re-encoding from MP3 to OGG,
though.

Since I got the iPod, I've been ripping to FLAC then transcoding those
to MP3 and OGG.  I get much better results doing that.
-- 
Ben Steeves                     _                    bcs at metacon.ca
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