Bitrate conversion

[stan92]

I just downloaded a song off of youtube and the video's audio bitrate was 192kbps and i converted it using wondershare video converter and i made it 320kbps, it sounds the same, i was expecting something bad to happen..., quesiton is, is it now 320kbps or truly only 192kbps still?

[Godlygamer23]

It's 320kbps, but the quality is no different than 192kbps.

[megadarkwood]

There will be no difference if you convert up. Only if you convert down.

Its set to 320 but only playing at 192

[Godlygamer23]

Its set to 320 but only playing at 192

That isn't true. The file now takes up more space by being converted to a higher bitrate.

[stan92]

ok so it just wasted disk space? also why are all youtube videos 191kbps?

[Godlygamer23]

Yes. It is wasted space. And because that's what Google chose to set it at.

[stan92]

google own and run youtube?

[Godlygamer23]

Yes. Google owns and runs Youtube.

[stan92]

ok thanks all

[LAwLz]

is it now 320kbps or truly only 192kbps still?

Yes, it truly is 320Kbps. It's just that the quality won't get better just because you increase the bitrate. If anything, the quality got worse because you transcoded a lossy format to another lossy format (each time you convert to a lossy format some quality is lost). You can't magically restore sound that was lost when encoded. If you encode something to 192Kbps, then no matter what you do to the file, it will always sound like a 192Kbps file, or worse (if you transcode it again).

 

Will post a bit later about what audio bitrate and codec YouTube uses because I am fairly sure it can go higher than 192Kbps. Need to download some videos to check it out.

 

Edit: Never mind, YouTube do seem to top out at 192Kbps AAC, which is what's used for 720p or higher.

[stan92]

@LAwLz ok please do it for me, also what does lossy mean? and what does lossless mean? also what are the lossy and lossless formats?

[t0wer]

lossy means data is lost, lossless means there's no data lost in the compression.

 

here's a list of audio codecs

the lossless column is 3rd from the right

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_audio_codecs

[MrSuperb]

upconverting from 192kbit/s to 320kbit/s can also result in a loss of quality ...

[stan92]

ok thanks, 

@t0wer what about for video codecs

[t0wer]

not much of a video guy but I think it goes back to what audio codec was used for the video.