Is MP3 audio much better than WMA V2 audio ?

[Bansaw]

I captured some audio at 320 Kbps, 48000Hz, WMA V2 format.

How does this compare to MP3 quality? Is MP3 much better quality?

thanks,,

[jman98]

There is a general consensus that at the same bit rate, WMA is better than MP3. But at 320 Kbps, that's as high as MP3 goes and you probably wouldn't tell a difference if you compared the two. Some people might but I doubt that most people would.

MP3 was never designed with quality in mind. It was designed because what is commonly called MP2 didn't compress enough and MP3 was invented to improve on the compression, not to produce better sound. MP3 is ubiquitous, but it's not hard to find better codecs out there. In my opinion WMA and Ogg Vorbis are better than MP3. But at high enough bit rates MP3 is fine. My personal recommendation is nothing below 192 Kbps in MP3 and use a higher value if you can.

[yoda313]

It was designed because what is commonly called MP2 didn't compress enough and MP3 was invented to improve on the compression,

I thought mp2 was strictly for the dvd audio side of things? Mp2 is used for basic audio on capture cards that don't have ac3 licenses - ie cheaper.

Mp3 can't be used in dvd creation without conversion. I do understand that mp2 is larger but its for a different animal than mp3.

[MOVIEGEEK]

MP2 = MPEG 1 layer II
MP3 = MPEG 1 layer III

MP3 is slightly better than MP2 at lower bitrates, WMA is better than MP3 at lower bitrates. MP3 sounds best at bitrates over 192Kbps, under 192Kbps WMA and AAC are best.

[jman98]

It was designed because what is commonly called MP2 didn't compress enough and MP3 was invented to improve on the compression,

I thought mp2 was strictly for the dvd audio side of things? Mp2 is used for basic audio on capture cards that don't have ac3 licenses - ie cheaper.

No, MP2 predates DVD. It's from the old VCD days. MP3 was invented specifically because it was desired to have something that compressed better than MP2, not because MP2 wasn't good enough. Philips pushed through the use MP2 on PAL DVDs, but it's not technically part of the NTSC DVD spec. It was actually used on a few PAL DVDs in the past, but I haven't heard of a PAL DVD in maybe 4 or 5 years that has used it.

[yoda313]

@jman98 - ok thanks. Didn't know it was pre-dvd.

NTSC dvds can work with mp2 only but "technically" requires at least a ac3 track to be in spec. Though i've had many home made mp2 only dvds work just fine on ntsc players (settop no less)