Urban Ranger, you keep citing me and posting comments which make it sound like I posted something wrong and you are correcting me. I believe everything I have posted is correct. If you believe anything I have posted is wrong please say so clearly. Identify what I said and explain why it is wrong so I can understand your point because so far I am not quite clear on whether you are trying to correct something I said or something else I am missing.
>> The extension .MP3 indicates the contents of the file is compressed with MPEG1 Layer 3
What’s your point? That hardly contradicts or even corrects or adds to what I said earlier: “Note that MPEG Layer 3 is the same codec used to compress WAV and MP3” I had further said MP3 is streaming while WAV is not and I asked if anyone could tell me whether .MP3 files could use any of the compression levels or were limited to certain specific ones.
The MP3 file type simply means MPEG Audio, not necessarily any specific MPEG version or layer. MPEG 1 Layer 3 is most commonly used, but Winamp won’t complain if “Freezepop - Science Genius Girl.mp3” actually contains MPEG 2 Layer 1.
Get Flash 5.0
Import the .wav file into a scene. Make the .fla into a .swf. Rename the .swf to .mp3
The mp3 will be much smaller than a regular mp3, only a few hundred kilobytes rather than two or three megabytes.
heptapod, if that is so it just means the default bitrate for swf is lower and you are getting lower quality but the compression is the same as if you used any other program in the same bitrate. By just using another program you gain nothing.
True in this case - going through Flash will just use a lower bit rate, add overhead, and dirty your file format - but not every case. Using a different MP3 encoder can give you better quality at the same bitrate, or the same quality at a lower bit rate. (I’ve heard that LAME is the best encoder in those terms.)
You can also use VBR encoding, which may not be supported by every encoder (though I think it works with all players). Variable bit rate is usually more efficient than constant bit rate (CBR), and the choice of encoder can make a big difference in quality. I suspect that choosing better VBR options in the same encoder will make more of a difference than switching encoders, though.
I have some questions:
Besides MPEG could .MP3 files be compressed using other codecs (such as DivX) just like .WAV can use many different codecs?
Is DivX the same as some MPEG something or other?
The mpeg standard in question is MPEG4, a method of compression, but there are several different methods to acheive that compression, all of them claiming to be more efficient/faster than the others. DivX is just one variety. Do a casual search for “Mpeg4 codec” and you’ll find about one billion websites (well, 2528). It’s the beta/VHS wars writ large. If you download TV episodes through Morpheus or KaZaa, you’ll have to collect Mpeg4 codecs by the dozen, since the people who make these recordings are notoriously inconsistent. Inconsiderate bastards.
And getting back to original question “How do I make a wav file smaller?”, I offer this smart-ass remark, since the MP3 issue has been addressed to death: