Here’s my problem. A while ago I spent far too much time digitizing speeches I and other friends had made. I digitized them at 16kps, and play them back on an MP3 player.
So far so good.
I try to play them on a CD MP3 player and they don’t play. When I try speeches sampled “higher”, they play fine.
I don’t care about the sound quality, I care about being able to play them.
What’s the easiest, fastest way to re-digitize these files at a higher bit rate without having to re-record the originals, or worse, burning a CD for each file and then Re-Ripping it?
-P
Simple. Just un-compress the MP3’s back to .wav format (or whatever), then re-encode them to the new bitrate (like 128 kbps). Use whatever software you used the first time around.
Unfortunately, be prepared for them to sound like crap. By compressing them at a low bitrate like 16 kbps, you’ve squeezed out nearly all the usuable data. The result will probably sound like you’re talking through a tin can in the Holland Tunnel. But since it’s speech and not music, you may not lose all that much.
For the record, they shouldn’t actually sound WORSE if you recompress them at a higher rate. They’ll be exactly as crappy as they are now.
No, in theory they’ll be slightly worse. The recompression phase will throw away information that wasn’t thrown away the first time. Will the extra deterioration be noticeable? Very probably not.
Usram, you’re a purist, and you’re right; the recompression will degrade the signal further. SmackFu, you’re a practicalist, and you’re right; the added degradation is unlikely to be noticeable.