Best OGG Converter

[Andrew Farris]

On Thu, 2009-08-06 at 13:10 -0400, Allen Prunty wrote:
> There are two different ones a Sound Converter and a Sound Konverter... 
> which of the two is the better of them?

Sound Konverter is the KDE version of Sound Converter. It's designed to
aesthetically blend better with a KDE desktop, where as Sound Converter
blends better with gnome. Underneath though, I believe it's the same
program.

> Also I have an iPod ... love it, and am converting mostly to .mp3 which 
> does not sound as good as my .m4a files.  I've not been able to convert 
> to a good .mp3... I am using the Sound Konverter and it makes files that 
> won't even play.

I usually convert everything to .flac (since flac is a lossless 
compression format), then convert it back if necessary. But, to edit the 
quality of your mp3s in sound converter(in sound Converter at least... I 
don't know about the KDE-style menus), you go to "Edit > Preferences > 
Type of result?" and select mp3, then from there you can fiddle with the 
quality level/bitrate, and if you've got some time on your hands and 
really want to fine-tune the result, you can mess with the resampling.

One thing to note about that though, is that you won't be able to convert 
a lower quality input to a higher quality output, and expect awesome 
results. Particularly for .m4a files, they are typically at a lower 
bitrate than .mp3s, so for instance if you try to force an .m4a file w/
a bitrate of 128kbps into mp3 format of 256kbps, that extra 128 has to go
somewhere. Usually it just gets dropped, but sometimes it can actually 
result in a lower quality end product. If I'm wrong i'm sure somebody will
correct me, but I believe thats how it works. 

About the files that wont play: its possible they are DRM-locked. If thats
the case, then you won't be able to convert them over... or it could just 
be a bug. I've never actually had it try to convert a DRM-ed file before, 
so I'm just guessing.  Usually, if it's DRM-locked, it just makes sound 
converter freeze.

> I would love to know if there is a .mp3 player out there that plays OGG 
> files natively.

If its a portable mp3 player you're wanting, you'd be suprised. I've had
this little 2GB no-name brand one forever that actually natively
plays .ogg and .flac, as well as .mp3, .m4a, etc... its a little small
and inflexible for me though, so I've recently upgraded.

As for native support on bigger-name brands, I'd look into products by
Cowon (http://www.jetaudio.com/ ). Their players natively support .ogg
and .flac (including .ogv for their video players), and they advertise
linux support right on their site. I actually just bought their S9 model
mp3 player, as it appears to work well with linux, as far as I've been
able to tell from others' experiences. I can better relay tomorrow when
I get it in the mail :).

> Thanks for your kindess in the matter... and for answering my question.  
> Others could lean from you.  We are all new once.  And yes I'm a 
> reformed windows user!

No problem. I try to avoid being rude as much as possible, since its
entirely counterproductive, IMHO. Otherwise, what motivation would there
be for people to reform their ways, and maybe become productive
contributors one day? None I say, if their first experiences are
negative.

Hope that helps!


-- 
Andrew
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