How do I encode VBR to CBR without losing quality?

[rocky12]

If I have VBR in a video and I want to encode it to CBR, how do I go about it without losing sound quality? What tool can I use? Would Lame be a good idea?

Second, let's say I encode it to CBR and the original VBR was set at 128 or 192, do I encode it using those same bitrates?

[jagabo]

I'm assuming you mean MP3 audio...

The only way you can re-encode audio without losing any quality is to use a lossless codec like flac or no compression at at all.

When going from VBR to CBR you need to use a higher bitrate to keep from losing too much quality.

[rocky12]

The only way you can re-encode audio without losing any quality is to use a lossless codec.




When going from VBR to CBR you need to use a higher bitrate to keep from losing too much quality.

Will you make a recommendation on a lossless codec? I don't know of any. I don't know how to use any.

Yes, MP3 VBR to MP3 CBR.

[stantheman1976]

He already mentioned one: FLAC

What you're trying to do is pointless though. You're not going to improve the quality a bit by encoding a VBR file into CBR. If you encode it as 320kbps CBR for personal use you'll likely not notice any quality loss.

[jagabo]

Will you make a recommendation on a lossless codec? I don't know of any. I don't know how to use any.

I added one to my earlier post, flac. There's also monkey audio. They don't compress by huge amounts. Uncompressed PCM too. Most set-top Divx/DVD players will not play any of those.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_compression_(data)#Formats

[rocky12]

Will you make a recommendation on a lossless codec? I don't know of any. I don't know how to use any.

I added one to my earlier post, flac. There's also monkey audio. They don't compress by huge amounts. Uncompressed PCM too. Most set-top Divx/DVD players will not play any of those.

So, if I use FLAC to re-encode from VBR to CBR at 320, it won't playback on standalone, only PC?

[jagabo]

Will you make a recommendation on a lossless codec? I don't know of any. I don't know how to use any.

I added one to my earlier post, flac. There's also monkey audio. They don't compress by huge amounts. Uncompressed PCM too. Most set-top Divx/DVD players will not play any of those.

So, if I use FLAC to re-encode from VBR to CBR at 320, it won't playback on standalone, only PC?

Very few players will play flac. Flac isn't CBR.

For practical purposes, if you recompress to CBR MP3 at 192 kbps or higher with a decent encoder (try LAME) you won't notice any significant degredation in normal music or movie soundtracks.

[stantheman1976]

FLAC does not function the same as MP3. FLAC compresses a PCM WAV file to about 1/2 its original size without losing quality. PCM WAV is about 10MB per minute of audio. FLAC can be played on a PC with a separate program or plug in for Winamp. To encode to FLAC you'd have to decompress the MP3 to WAV and then encode to FLAC.

It doesn't change the fact that what you're doing accomplishes nothing. Why do you need CBR in teh first place? Do you have an MP3 player that only accepts CBR? If so just encode it to a 320kbps CBR file, but only use it for yourself. You shouldn't notice any quality loss.