User manual

Click on the 'Enable mp3PRO' button again if
mp3PRO is activated and if you want to encode files
in the MP3 format.
Encoding audio files as MP3 files is always bound
up with losses. When encoding, psychoacoustic
models are used to remove "inaudible" acoustic
elements from the audio file. Most test listeners can
hardly (or not at all) distinguish between the sound
from MP3 files that have been stored with a
sufficiently high bitrate from the original files.
Nevertheless, a certain loss of acoustic information
is unavoidable. The size of the loss depends very
much on two factors. These are first, the quality of
the psychoacoustic model used for data reduction
and second, the bitrate of the MP3 file.
Encoding quality: The quality of the psycho-
acoustic model with Nero is excellent. Naturally, a
compromise needs to be found between the
complexity of the model and the computing time
needed. Depending on the intended application of
the MP3 file, the quality of the encoding (i.e. of the
acoustic model) can be set at 'fast', 'medium' and
'highest'. With the highest quality, encoding takes
place at approx. normal speed on a PII350, i.e. three
minutes of music will be encoded in three minutes.
At the 'fast' setting (and with the same hardware),
encoding can take place at up to eight times the
normal speed. The sound quality is already very
good with the 'fast' setting and completely
satisfactory for most applications.
Bitrate: 'Bitrate' means the number of bits stored
per second in the MP3 file. The higher this is, the
smaller the amount of information that has to be
removed from the original sound file. Therefore the
higher the bitrate, the better the sound quality. Of
course, the price paid for this sound quality is a
larger file. The MP3 file format lets you encode at
either a constant or a variable bitrate (VBR). Select
the option you prefer and specify the bitrate.