[wuzup101]

Hey is there any simple way that I can convert a bunch of cds worth of songs from 160kbps to 128kbps? I origionally ripped a bunch of my CDs to 160kbps until I realized that they were taking up too much space. Now that I got a 20gb iPod I'd really like to know if there's an easy way to convert my whole library to 128kbps files?

[Krusty]

In short ... DON'T DO IT !!!

Well ... yes, you can convert them easily from 160->128 but you don't want to do this. 160 is already a compressed and "lossy" version of the original CD. Re-compressing music that has already been compressed once will result in a sh!tty sounding file. Best thing to do is to:
Re-rip directly from CD to 128
If that's not a possibility, I'd say pick some songs to leave off your iPod and keep it at 160.

If you absolutely MUST convert to 128. Just go into ITunes-->Preferences-->Importing and change the settings to 128. Select all songs in your library (Command + A when in the browse window with all songs listed OR Edit -> Select All), then go to Advanced --> Convert Selection to <format you chose>. Badda-bing badda-boom. Sort your music by bitrate and then delete all 160kbps files .. leave all the 128s. Done (well, it'll take a while depending on how much music you have). I cannot stress enough what a lousy idea this is in your situation though. Leave some tracks off you iPod if you must ... double conversion is a BAD idea.

[Peabo]

A better idea would be to re-rip the CDs in AAC at 128kbps. Same size as a 128kbps mp3 but infinitely better quality (even better than the 160kbps version too!)

[wataru]

1. Wrong forum.
2. Do a search.
3. Don't do it.

[Millennium]

Unless you've got them in OGG format, don't do it this way. Just re-rip them. Ogg Vorbis supports a technology which its creator call bandwidth peeling. This allows you to lower the bitrate of a file without re-encoding it. You still lose quality, of course, because more data is thrown away, but you lose less than if you had re-encoded the file.

Ogg is the only format which supports anything like this, however. For all other formats, you have to actually re-encode the file if you want to lower the bandwidth. That means that the audio is decompressed and then re-compressed, and more data is thrown out. The problem is, there is no way to tell if 160kbps and 128kbps might throw away different sets of data, so you might (and in fact, chances are you will) lose some data in the process which didn't need to be lost. The result will be much worse quality than if you simply re-ripped.

[Appleman]

Originally posted by wataru:
1. Wrong forum.
2. Do a search.
3. Don't do it.