[mdlug] DRM

[Ingles, Raymond]

> From: Mike

> You don't want to convert from lossy format to another lossy format,
> things will get dirty.  Even my non-nazi (anti-audiophile) ears can't
> handle lossy to lossy formatting.

 Well, I'm not an audiophile either, but I've had good success using LAME
to convert various formats to VBR mp3s. Use LAME with "--preset standard"
and it allocates as many bits as it needs to get good sound out of it.
If it really matters, you might try "--preset extreme", or even "--preset
insane", but in my limited testing I really haven't heard a difference.

 The resultant files are larger than the originals, true, and sometimes
substantially. For example, from the game "Darwinia", we can see:

$ du -k dma_sc-visitors_from_dreams.ogg darwinia-dreams.mp3 
2286    dma_sc-visitors_from_dreams.ogg
5088    darwinia-dreams.mp3

 So, over twice the original size. But I have a 2GB card for my Treo
(which only plays mp3s) so space isn't *that* critical. And it sounds,
to me at least, as good as the source material.

 Sincerely,

 Ray Ingles                                        (313) 227-2317

  "Sure, it's OK for Ashcroft to interrogate everyone who's ever
  glanced toward Mecca - *his* profiling was A-okay. In fact, if
  you whined about it and brought up civil rights you were just
 'aiding the terrorists'. But at the airports, where we face the
 most obvious and imminent danger, we have become dangerously and
    inexplicably committed to placing pretense over results."
   - Bill Maher, "When You Ride Alone You Ride With bin Laden"
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