Just started using X-Tractor - fantastic piece of software and everything that freeware should be, small, effective, efficient!
I have a couple of queries that I hope the devs or regular users can answer, that Google has not been able to help with:
What is the 'nice threads' check box for in the MP3 options box?
What action/interaction do the two quality settings have (VBR quality;MPEG quality)?
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Anonymous
-
2003-07-16
"Nice threads" sets the priority of the ripping/encoding threads a little lower. This helps particularly on older computers running NT4 when the program appears to stop responding. If you're not having that type of problem, you can leave it unchecked.
The VBR quality is a parameter that tells it how to handle VBR -- the lower the value, the higher the quality (and the larger the file produced). VBR stands for "variable bit rate" encoding. You can specify that the track should be encoded using a range of bitrates - when VBR is set to a low value, the track will be encoded towards the high end of the range, and so on.
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OK, thanks for your time answering the threads query, I should be able to uncheck this now :)
Still a bit confused by the quality one: I know about what VBR is, and I looked at the LAME project pages and ascertained that the MPEG quality option uses different algorithms, but I am still uncertain what their interaction is; i.e., which has the greater effect?
ATM, I have MPEG at max quality and adjust quality vs filesize on variable bitrate, but I have no idea whether this aproach is a good one!
Hope you can enlighten me, or at least point me in the direction of perhaps a forum where I can find these answers.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Just started using X-Tractor - fantastic piece of software and everything that freeware should be, small, effective, efficient!
I have a couple of queries that I hope the devs or regular users can answer, that Google has not been able to help with:
What is the 'nice threads' check box for in the MP3 options box?
What action/interaction do the two quality settings have (VBR quality;MPEG quality)?
"Nice threads" sets the priority of the ripping/encoding threads a little lower. This helps particularly on older computers running NT4 when the program appears to stop responding. If you're not having that type of problem, you can leave it unchecked.
The VBR quality is a parameter that tells it how to handle VBR -- the lower the value, the higher the quality (and the larger the file produced). VBR stands for "variable bit rate" encoding. You can specify that the track should be encoded using a range of bitrates - when VBR is set to a low value, the track will be encoded towards the high end of the range, and so on.
OK, thanks for your time answering the threads query, I should be able to uncheck this now :)
Still a bit confused by the quality one: I know about what VBR is, and I looked at the LAME project pages and ascertained that the MPEG quality option uses different algorithms, but I am still uncertain what their interaction is; i.e., which has the greater effect?
ATM, I have MPEG at max quality and adjust quality vs filesize on variable bitrate, but I have no idea whether this aproach is a good one!
Hope you can enlighten me, or at least point me in the direction of perhaps a forum where I can find these answers.