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friend
Posts: 2
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 Posted - Wed Sep 19, 2001 2:58 am
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I need help desperately.I've started using cooledit 2000 & am an amateur. Pls help me as i desperately need to complete my project.
My problem is as follow:
I've recorded an audio file(voice only) from a cassette tape.When I listen to the .wav file, the audio sounds loud & clear. But after having compressed it to .rm file via real producer G2, when I listen to it, the audio has been distorted..high pitched,soft& the voice is so distorted that it doesn't sound like English anymore. Why? How can I rectify it? Need help asap. Appreciate if some experts can just give me a clear instruction, step by step as I'm still an amateur & pls speak "English", no techie terms pls. Thanks a lot!
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SteveG
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 6695
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Posted - Wed Sep 19, 2001 5:54 am
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.rm audio does sound bad. It's noted for it! You will have to answer a few more questions before any of us can help you, though.
Firstly, why are you using real audio? Do you need to? Secondly, tell us what settings you used when you encoded (compressed) it. You should note that if you optimise it for download on a 28.8k modem, it will sound particularly bad.
The other thing, of course, is that if you do an immediate comparison between your wav file and the realaudio, you will notice the contrast far more than anybody who hasn't heard the original.
But really, I suspect that you can improve things as much as they can be by optimising the levels of your original file, and perhaps a little compression, as realaudio doesn't work too well with material that has a wide dynamic range, in other words loud bits and very quiet bits. There are plenty of help files in CE to get you started, and you should have a look at the tutorials on the website. You can find these at
http://school.syntrillium.com/tutor/index.html
If you do both of these things, then you will begin to understand some of the 'techie terms' as well, which means that we will be able to answer your questions more succinctly.
I hope that's English enough for you. I am English!
Steve
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Syntrillium M.D.
Location: USA
Posts: 5124
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Posted - Wed Sep 19, 2001 8:52 am
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Very nicely done, SteveG!
---Syntrillium, M.D.
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friend
Posts: 2
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Posted - Wed Sep 19, 2001 11:53 pm
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Thanks Steve for yr prompt reply...very English indeed. Well, to answer your questions, I use real audio b'cos I don't know of any other option. I tried saving to .rm file via cool edit 2000 but the file appeared to be still large. Infact, a compressed version via real audio is much smaller compared to the one I did via cool edit. Well, maybe i could have done something wrong...perhaps wrong setting,etc. If i really did, pls correct me accrodingly. Am willing to learn!
And to yr second qtn, my settings are :
1) Single-rate for web servers
2)28k modem
3)voice only
The above is what I've been instructed to do. Is it wrong?
Well, all I want to do is to record "audio only"(60 mins lectures/messages) frm a cassette tape, compress it to .rm file so that the file wd not be too large & takes up disk space & lastly upload it on a web site.
Is there an easier way? I do have quite a number of files to record.
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jonrose
Location: USA
Posts: 2901
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Posted - Thu Sep 20, 2001 12:30 am
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If it's just for voice recordings, and Real is being a real pain....have you perhaps considered using the mp3 encoder, instead? Try it at a low bit rate, in mono, and you should save a lot of disk space - but voice is usually still quite intelligible.
Best... -Jon
:-)
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SteveG
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 6695
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Posted - Thu Sep 20, 2001 1:44 am
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| Quote: |
1) Single-rate for web servers
2)28k modem
3)voice only
The above is what I've been instructed to do. Is it wrong?-friend |
It's not actually wrong, but it will give you just about the worst possible quality you can get from a realaudio file!
Leaving aside for one moment the web aspects of this, it's important to understand that the more you compress a file, the more you are removing from the original. The realaudio coder knows just what it can remove to leave intelligible speech, but this will inevitably result in additional artefacts being generated when the resulting file is decoded, because it has to make some massive guesses about what was originally present. The less data it has, the more distortion you get.
As far as the web is concerned, you should also remember that realaudio is primarily intended to be a 'streaming' process, in other words people can listen to it whilst it downloads in real time. As far as lectures are concerned, you might be a lot better off doing what jonrose has suggested, as users will be able to download the files at the fastest rate available to them, assuming that your server can stand it, and they will be able to study them at their leisure, rather than just online. And the quality will be better, undoubtably. It is perfectly possible to download and save realaudio files, but it's usually slightly more hassle.
Personally, I can't hear a lot of difference between 16kHz MP3 compressed about 44 times and a 28k realaudio file, and the realaudio file will still be a lot smaller, so you'll have to decide for yourself. But as I said before, optimising the wav files for the best possible quality before encoding them is the first thing you should do in any case.
Steve
Edited by - SteveG on 09/20/2001 01:46:23 AM
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cooledit2000-pls help!