Fitting 1 hour onto a CDr

[Larbo]

I will be recording a 1 hour long stereo radio broadcast and I need to fit it onto one CD-r. My newbie calcs tell me that I would have to record it at MP3/80 for it to fit. I would, however, like to maintain as high of a sound quality as possible. 80 bit sounds pretty low-fi. Any ideas? Are there after-recording programs that compress without sacrificing audio quality?

BTW, if I am way off the mark here, please straighten me out.

Thanks.

[waxcylinder]

No, you neither need nor want MP3 for this application.

Simply export the project as a WAV file and then use some CD burning software (e.g. Nero, RecordNow!, iTunes or whatever) to burn a music CD - do NOT create a data CD they are different.

Your CD-R s will take either 74 or 80 minutes of WAV recording (depending on which you bought).

WC

[Larbo]

Isn't a 1 hour WAV going to be in the multiple Gb range? (especially if an MP3/80 is 700mb?)

[waxcylinder]

I'm full of head/chest cold, so not up to the math at the moment - but trust me it will fit.

Go ahead and try it what have you got to lose - a 40c coaster.

The other issue BTW is that most CD player hardware (apart from PC's - and some DVD players) will not play a CD made with MP3s.

WC

[Larbo]

A test it will be!!

BTW, are there progs that compress without losing quality? I remember when I used to do video editing, there were progs like DVD Shrink that would reduce file sizes without sacrificing quality.

Hope you feel better, thanks for your insights.

[waxcylinder]

Yes, IIRC Audacity (but only the 1.3 Beta I think) can export to FLAC which is a lossless compression. Also in iTunes there is the Apple Lossless format. Both of these produce files which are smaller than the equivalent WAVs. There may well be others.

BTW when you export you WAV from Audacity - make sure that you have you export settings as 44.1kHz, 16-bit PCM stereo (i.e the Red Book standard for CDs).

WC

[Larbo]

Without intending to parade my ignorance, what would I do with a FLAC file after I have it? Since it is a codec, will the file still be a WAV so it has universal playability?

Also, FLAC is not listed as an Export option. Do I have to download, install and make Audiacity aware of it? Lar

[waxcylinder]

I kind of assume that you play it on any h/w s/w combinqation that supports FLAC - but I have no experience of this, so can't really advise.

In 1.2 there is no Export to FLAC - but in the Beta version of Audacity v1.3.x there is an option to Export to FLAC - so I assume this will reamain in the next major release 1.4 when it ships later this year.

For info on FLAC see http://flac.sourceforge.net/documentation_tasks.html

WC

[steve]

16 bit stereo at 44.1 kHz (CD quality) is about 10 Megabytes per minute. Since most CD's have a capacity of over 650 Megabytes, you can easily record in excess of 65 minutes onto a CD without any compression.

(especially if an MP3/80 is 700mb?)

What? - a one hour MP3 at 80kbps should be less that 40 MB - even at 128kbps you are only looking at about 1 Megabyte per minute.

[Larbo]

I just recorded 5 minutes and exported that as a WAV... 50Mb! If it is a fair test... that would exptrapolate to 600Mb for 1 hour! What about those other settings in the WAV Quality window like dithering settings and rate converters?

Regarding FLAC, it looks like you have to have the codec installed in the player, too. So, a FLAC file is not universally recognized.

Thanks, Larry