MPC to MP3?

[Sakuya]

Does anyone know a free program that can convert MPC to MP3?

[steve2713]

dbpowerAMP. works awesome as well. Are you transcoding to MP3 to play on a portable device?

[Sakuya]

Nope, only to play on the computer. Since all the other music I have are in MP3, I thought they should be consistent. The dbPowerAMP I have does not support MPC. Is there a plugin somewhere?

[steve2713]

No offense, but that would be stupid to recompress MPC again into MP3s just to keep them all the same format. MPC is MUCH higher quality than MP3 at an equivalent bitrate, plus transcoding lossy media a second time for no valid reason is just dumb. You'll just be degrading the sound. That said, yes there are plugins for basically any audio format existing on their website.

[Sakuya]

Oh okay then. I always thought MP3 was the highest quality.

[steve2713]

No, MPC is definitely superior to MP3. Even if MP3 WAS BETTER, it would still be very stupid to convert anything from one lossy format to another, whether it be video, still image, or audio, unless absolutely necessary. Lossy means that there is data lost when it is compressed, and reconverting it to another lossy format means that you will lose even more of the original information and alter the quality even more, not to mention that different types of lossy compression all leave their own distinct artifacts that lessen the quality compared to the unaltered original. So compressing again is going to give you even more artifacts, and the resulting files will be even less similar to the original data. And add to that the fact that, as I said before, MP3 is an inferior compression compared to MPC.

Just take my word on this one, don't transcode, or 'convert', your audio files into another format unless you truly have a valid reason, such as needing to convert them to be compatible with a portable device (and even then, retain your original MPC files). :P

[gastorgrab]

Have a look;
http://rarewares.org/mpc.html

Rarewares has both a MPC to MP3 transcoder, as well as a MPC DirectShow filter - so you can play the MPC files through Windows Media Player.

[pogo_the_clown]

Is there any way to convert a .MPC into AAC or Apple Lossless format for my iPod??

[celtic_druid]

Well for apple lossless you would I guess need to decode first since iTunes is still the only encoder isn't it?

For m4a you could use dbPowerAMP, foobar2k, etc. to encode via faac or Nero or once again, decode first then encode with iTunes.

Probably eventually ipods will support MPC playback via ipod linux.

[pogo_the_clown]

thanks Druid, DB worked perfectly