AudioPlayer format vs. 3rd party apps - the Podcast Conundrum

[Bionic Antboy]

Quick question re: audioplayer vs. 3rd party mp3 players.

I've been happy with Audioplayer, especially since Cliepet came out with Album Swap (Cliepet roxors, as the kiddies say ;) ) Ripping CDs is not problem, because I always select a CBR that's suitable.

Lately however, I've been getting into a few podcasts, and it's rare if they're in a CBR (or playable kbps) format (except the 1SRC Podcast of course, by request) ;) .

When I first started using iPodder, it wasn't a problem to convert the one or two podcasts I was getting, but as I want to try out a bunch more, the process is getting more cumbersome, and even with the extended battery, I notice it drains WAY faster than even viewing MQV/MP4s.

Does anyone know of a Windows batch converter, that could run daily, without user intervention on a specific directory (preferably with subdirs)?

Or is there a way to batch it with a script in WinXP Pro?

Any suggestions?

[Jeff Kirvin]

Maximum Geek also an excellent podcast that is Clie-friendly. Mostly because I convert it the same way I do the 1SRC podcast... ;)

http://www.solomedia.org/podcast/

[rcxAsh]

If you get the lame MP3 encoder, it will be really easy to set up a batch file to do it for you.

I can't remember off the top of my head, but I'm guessing that it will be something like this:


lame --decode %1
lame --cbr -b 128 --resample 44.1 %1.wav

You may want to confirm this with the lame manuals...

You could probably set this up as a daily task under your scheduler.. and some how, pipe a directory's contents to the batch script. Should be possible, but I"m just speaking off the top of my head now.

[lekeno]

I found something somewhere else and modify it a bit.


@echo off
set encoder="C:\Program Files\Lame\lame.exe"
for /r "." %%d in (.) do (cd %%d & for %%f in (*.mp3) do (
ren "%%f" temp.mp3
%encoder% --alt-preset cbr 96 --mp3input temp.mp3 "%%f"
del temp.mp3
)
)


It does recursive "mp3 to mp3" transcoding at a constant 96 kbps bitrate.
The original mp3 are overwritten in the process so beware (*) !
Also, Lame can't keep the ID3 tags. The transcoded files are tag-less.

You should save the code in a "convMP3.bat" file in the folder containing the mp3 files and subfolder that you want to convert.

You should change the path to Lame (set encoder="C:\pathtolame\lame.exe").

You might want to change this part : "--alt-preset cbr 96" (ConstantBitRate at 96 kpbs)



(*) if you want to keep the original files :



@echo off
set encoder="C:\Program Files\Lame\lame.exe"
for /r "." %%d in (.) do (cd %%d & for %%f in (*.mp3) do (
mkdir converted
%encoder% --alt-preset cbr 96 --mp3input "%%f" ./converted/"%%f"
)
)


A Sub directory will contain the converted mp3.

Hope it helps.

[Bionic Antboy]

Jeff, I just added Maximum Geek. I'll give it a listen. :)

rcx and lekeno, I'll have to test those methods out. Probably tonight.

[lekeno]

It does not always work.
Mp3 needs to be resampled at 44.1.
I guess that adding the following parameter will do it.
--resample 44.1


%encoder% --alt-preset cbr 64 --resample 44.1 --mp3input "%%f" ./converted/"%%f"