dts into mp3's, is it done?

[newbyquad]

Are there places where I can get info on dts/quad transfers in mp3 format?

I wondered if people do them, and how it works. Please PM me if you like.

Thanks,

- terry

 

[john e. bogus]

"Are there places where I can get info on dts/quad transfers in mp3 format?"

Why would you even want to? MP3 is a "lossy" compression format....the musical information is digitized, then a portion of that data thrown away to make the file size smaller....not recommended for any type of high fidelity audio use. What's your application? There's probably a much better way to accomplish your goal....

Yours Truly,
john e. bogus

 

[Bob Romano]

"Are there places where I can get info on dts/quad transfers in mp3 format?"

Why would you even want to? MP3 is a "lossy" compression format....the musical information is digitized, then a portion of that data thrown away to make the file size smaller....not recommended for any type of high fidelity audio use. What's your application? There's probably a much better way to accomplish your goal....

Yours Truly,
john e. bogus

I don't think that mp3, even at the highest rate of 320kb, would be able to keep all of the compressed information of a DTS wave straight. I go all over the web and several newsgroups and have never seen DTS in mp3. The mp3 file would be too much of a loss in file quality.

 

[newbyquad]

i was interested in it only as a means to send to someone and have them open it up and convert it back to a wav file.

a mp3 at 320 converted back to .wav is almost exactly the same as before it was compressed. the only way anyone can tell is with sophisticated instruments. the grateful dead community does it all the time and those guys are picky.

 

[john e. bogus]

"i was interested in it only as a means to send to someone and have them open it up and convert it back to a wav file."

For this application, you'll want to use SHN (Shorten).....this is a non-lossy compression format used for high-quality online music exchange.

"the grateful dead community does it all the time and those guys are picky."

WRONG. Virtually all traders of live music (I've been doing this for almost 20 years now) will absolutely refuse to accept material that is MP3-sourced in any way......

Yours Truly,
john e. bogus

 

[Cai Campbell]

MP3 and DTS are totally separate and incompatible technologies (although in the case of MP3, I use the term "technology" very liberally).

MP3 is the tool of the devil. :flame

 

[ssully]

DTS is also a lossy compression format, btw.

MP3 is not the tool of the devil, so long as 1) care is taken in selecting encoders and encoding options and 2) MP3-sourced material is labelled as such. MP3 encoded material *can* be audibly transparent with respect to the source, depending on material encoded and encoders used, as extensive ABX testing over on the hydrogenaudio.org forums has shown. An enormous amount of thoughtful consideration and testing has gone into MP3 technology.

Personally all my data compression encoding is done in FLAC these days, because only lossless formats can be seamlessly reconsitituted to original , and then transcoded to another format if desired.

 

[Cai Campbell]

The reason that MP3 is a tool of the devil (or more accurately, the reason I personally think that MP3 is a tool of the devil) is because it CAN and OFTEN DOES sound like crap. Sure, if EVERYBODY ON THE PLANET took the care to encode their MP3 files as carefully as you do, then we could all celebrate and have big party!

:banana:

Unfortunately, the fact remains that most MP3 users focus solely on file size. Period. End of story. The smallest file wins. Whee!

 

[blackbirdr]

CD's were the work of the devil. The MP3 is the work of the devil times 3. Analog is king. Suround sound is the only reason to listen to digital.

 

[dauQula]

CD's were the work of the devil. The MP3 is the work of the devil times 3. Analog is king. Suround sound is the only reason to listen to digital.

The introduction of CD's gave finacial vialbility to the restoration and reissue of millions of songs that undoubtedly would have been forever forgotten or lost on analog masters. CD audio technology led to DVD's; to say all this is "the work of the devil" (if serious) is a rather nearsighted opinion I would expect from a goat farmer in Afghanistan. MP3 encoding is like any other tool; can be used right, or misused. MP3 is OK for those who aren't exacting audiophiles which, whether you agree or not, is most people.
As far as your "Analog is King" contention, I would remind you that there are very few true Kings left in the world, and that title might, in today's terms, might just be judged to be another way of saying "Analog is all but extinct" I might also suggest that if you really think "Analog is King" then I could easily accuse you of "treason" for using a computer to post your messages on this forum.
Surround sound is obviously not the only reason to listen to digital. I was born in the 50's and remember when the only thing that was "digital" were those flip calanders that look light a zippo lighter. Technology marches on. I still listen to 8 tracks, but I also have 9.000 songs on my computer's hard drive. I can't imagine how many Win-Gibs I'd need to try and restore 9000 songs on that "regal" format, not that I could even find them all. Nostalgia has its place, but it's hardly the "King" of anything.

 

[Cai Campbell]

Take it easy! I don't think you can take these comments literally... that's what I would expect from a goat farmer in Afghanistan... Heck, I don't even believe in the devil, so for me to say that something is the work of a mythological character is patently absurd, and to take a comment like "analog is king" and try and dissect the literal meaning of the words is even more absurd.

But more to the point, yes, MP3 is like any other tool. If you give someone a hammer and they hit themselves in the face with it, what can you do? It's all a matter of degree and to what extent the "tool" protects the user from causing harm, or to what extent procedures exist to restrict access to the tool or provide education on the proper use of the tool.

For example, digital audio tools historically were restricted to "professionals" because of price, availability, lack of an efficient distribution system, or whatever. The results of these tools, for the most part, were professional (although this is wide open for argument, but the point is the tools were not available to just anyone).

Also, the nature of digital tools has been restricted, for the most part, to PCM. Yes, you can abuse PCM, or analog, or whatever tools existed prior to MP3, but again, the realm (for the most part) was professionals, and PCM by its nature did not subject itself (easily) to the level of "harm" that has been made not only possible, but quite easily possible, by the proliferation of MP3 tools.

Even when PCM tools became available to the masses, they did not lend themselves (easily) to the level of audio mangling that MP3 allows. Gee, what could you do? Copy a CD... rip a CD to uncompressed format... burn a CD... pretty straightforward stuff. Somebody could convert to mono or down-convert to 8 bits or whatever, but I didn't see a lot of that going on. In my experience people pretty much stuck to 16-bit 44.1 kHz stereo files. Standard stuff. Pretty hard to mangle, as a matter of course, really.

Then along comes MP3. A cheap hammer with no protection available, for all to swing and smash about. No biggy. It's all well and good, and no, most people are not audiophiles and could care less if the music sounds like you're listening to it under water. Fine. We can only speak from our own personal perspectives, and for me, this killed music trading. Yeah, I know, I'm weird, I like quality and I liked the level of insurance (however tenuous) that good ol’ redbook PCM gave me. I don't want to waste time digging through mountains of MP3 files until I find one that "sounds good enough".

Alright, I'll end my rant, but that's where I'm coming from. I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade and I'm not so dense that I think I can hope to quell the monsoon that is MP3 proliferation. But I can complain, and I do, but that's just me. MP3 is the tool of the devil and analog is king. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some goats to attend to.

 

[ssully]

If poor implementation makes something the tool of the devil, then we'll all be hearing lots of those modern over-amped remastered CDs in hell. Not to mention lots of those 'fake stereo' LPs.

I almost never download music, and when I do it's usually from trading posts where lossless is the rule (and these are not hard to find -- so maybe you are trading at the wrong places, Cai?) so the 'sorting through crap' thing isn't an issue, for me. But computers and the Internet from which music can be downloaded are clearly tools of the devil, since they may drive hard media like CDs right off the market. I certainly wouldn't like it if 128 kbps mp3s were the *only* choice.

 

[sspsandy]

I think where mp3s got a bad rap is the ease with which people were able to use file sharing software to make virtually everything free and downloadable from the net. I never had an interest in it since I primarily collect lps, and my computer is separate from my audio setup. I can see how being able to listen to sample of a band on their website makes this format worthy, perhaps you will go out and buy their album. And while it can be made to sound decent, it is the transistor radio sound of modern digital media. It's big selling point originally was all the people who felt they could pirate all this music off the net for free before Napster became a pay to play deal. It's here, all the kids seem to love it, it certainly is portable and versatile, I am just too much of a whole album experience person to warm up to it. Having thousands of songs in an Ipod or whatever just doesn't do it for me. I prefer cassette tapes that I recorded of complete albums, although I plan to go over to recording cds eventually. But it will still be lp source material as first choice, 2 channel SACD, DVD-A, or music DVD-V as second choice, redbook cd as third choice, downloaded mp3s do not interest me. And if all music eventually ONLY becomes available in an mp3 format, then it will have definately been the work of the Devil, or at least his many minions in computer land. @:

 

[dauQula]

I think where mp3s got a bad rap is the ease with which people were able to use file sharing software to make virtually everything free and downloadable from the net. I never had an interest in it since I primarily collect lps, and my computer is separate from my audio setup. I can see how being able to listen to sample of a band on their website makes this format worthy, perhaps you will go out and buy their album. And while it can be made to sound decent, it is the transistor radio sound of modern digital media. It's big selling point originally was all the people who felt they could pirate all this music off the net for free before Napster became a pay to play deal. It's here, all the kids seem to love it, it certainly is portable and versatile, I am just too much of a whole album experience person to warm up to it. Having thousands of songs in an Ipod or whatever just doesn't do it for me. I prefer cassette tapes that I recorded of complete albums, although I plan to go over to recording cds eventually. But it will still be lp source material as first choice, 2 channel SACD, DVD-A, or music DVD-V as second choice, redbook cd as third choice, downloaded mp3s do not interest me. And if all music eventually ONLY becomes available in an mp3 format, then it will have definately been the work of the Devil, or at least his many minions in computer land. @:

I think you hit the nail on the head here. Most people don't realize the MPEG-III standard was fully developed and patented in '96, three years before Napster was launched. To condemn MP3 because of Napster is akin to blaming quadraphonic music for the 70's.

 

[Cai Campbell]

If poor implementation makes something the tool of the devil, then we'll all be hearing lots of those modern over-amped remastered CDs in hell. Not to mention lots of those 'fake stereo' LPs.

Well, I think it is a matter of degree. This is just pure conjecture, but I would guess that the ratio of bad-sounding CD's to good-sounding CD's is much lower than the ratio of bad-sounding MP3 files to good-sounding MP3 files. But then, it really boils down to how you define "bad-sounding" and "good-sounding". In any event, I do appreciate your point.

I almost never download music, and when I do it's usually from trading posts where lossless is the rule (and these are not hard to find -- so maybe you are trading at the wrong places, Cai?) so the 'sorting through crap' thing isn't an issue, for me.

You are probably right. I haven't really given online music access another shot for a few years. Maybe it's time to see what the scene is like these days? Ah, who am I kidding. I've got thousands of LPs to listen to. Downloading music is just another activity to whittle away at my already precious time.

 

[newbyquad]

All I was asking what if people took the DTS encoded versions of the Old Quad tapes and albums and made them into MP3's so they could be stored or for other reasons ;'>

A 320 Mp3 transferred back into a WAV file and then burned onto a CD or DVD should sound just fine. I mean we are not dealing with the best material here, 8-tracks mostly.

 

[kvsawilson]

All I was asking what if people took the DTS encoded versions of the Old Quad tapes and albums and made them into MP3's so they could be stored or for other reasons ;'>

A 320 Mp3 transferred back into a WAV file and then burned onto a CD or DVD should sound just fine. I mean we are not dealing with the best material here, 8-tracks mostly.

No, you will end up with static noise. DTS and MP3 are not compatible.

KW

 

[ssully]

? What's incompatible is MP3 and surround sound. AFAIK, mp3 can only encode mono or stereo sources. (but even that's not totally true any more -- see http://news.designtechnica.com/article3557.html)

 

[blackbirdr]

i was interested in it only as a means to send to someone and have them open it up and convert it back to a wav file.

a mp3 at 320 converted back to .wav is almost exactly the same as before it was compressed. the only way anyone can tell is with sophisticated instruments. the grateful dead community does it all the time and those guys are picky.

If they were picky they would be listing to The Allman Brothers ! :banana:

 

[Scottmoose]

If they were picky they would be listing to The Allman Brothers ! :banana:

I suppose you could try re-mixing the DTS tracks into SQ or some other style of format if you had the hardware & software. No reason why it's impossible -it's just manipulated stereo. I dare say it would be possible for some clever programmer to make a 5.1 MP3 code, but I haven't heard of one.
Frankly I wouldn't want to either. MP3 sound quality, even on its highest settings is a vile thing. Don't believe me? Try this. Get a good live recording of, say, an orchestra (not my thing, but a good example) or Led Zep at full tilt. Now do an MP3 copy of it at a high setting and compare. Not pretty is it. Soundstaging becomes mush, like it does with DAB radio (it's even worse with that -Musicam: the bane of the airwaves), and detail vanishes because the compression routine cracks up -in effect it runs out of space to describe the waveform (OK, I'm playing with science here, but lets not be pedantic!).
Don't forget that a decent tape (depends on the type) is actually of equal or superior resolution than ye olde 16 bit CD or vinyl too.
There will be a way, I'm sure. But I doubt it'd be worth the effort. Sorry.