Filer Merger - which format?

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Coriolanus
Posts: 181
Joined: Tue Apr 29, 2008 3:50 pm

Filer Merger - which format?

Post by Coriolanus »

I am doing a file merger of a lot file some cassettes. Currently they are stereo files. Would I be better converting the files to Mono so I can merge more files and then convert to stereo after I break them up to sizes for a CD or should I keep the original stereo? These are cassettes from an audio book that I want to put on to CD.
DougDbug
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Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2005 3:33 pm
Location: Silicon Valley

Re: Filer Merger - which format?

Post by DougDbug »

There is a 2GB limit for WAV files, and saving-as mono will make your file half the size. But if the original files are stereo, I assume you want to keep the stereo? If you save in a compressed format, you won't run into size limitations. FLAC is a good format if you want lossless compression.

If you want an MP3 or other lossy format as your final format, it's best to do all of your editing in a lossless format (WAV or FLAC) for the highest audio quality and then compress to MP3 (or AAC) once as the last step. When you edit a lossy file with a normal audio editor (like GoldWave), it has to be decompressed first. Then if you re-save in the same format, it goes through an additional lossy compression step. (There are some special MP3 editors that can do simple limited editing without de-compressing/re-compressing.)

If you are making a regular audio CD, this isn't an issue. All audio CDs are stereo, so you won't save space by using mono ("Mono" CDs have duplicate data in both channels.) And, an audio CD holds less than 1 Gb (about 800MB or 80 minutes max), so the 2GB limit shouldn't be an issue either.

If you want to put MP3 files onto a CD, the file size is determined by your quality/bitrate settting, so a stereo MP3 file isn't necessarily larger than a mono MP3. This type of CD will play on a computer, but it won't play on a standard audio CD player. I've copied a couple of audio books to MP3 and the whole book fits onto one CD.
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