Podcast Bitrate Problem Solved

As people that regularly read my blog I mentioned that I was having some major issues in regards to the encoding of the .mp3 file for the Global Geek Podcast. I was unable to encode the file at a bit-rate of 64 and then a sample rate of 44100khz. Audacity refused to allow this combination even though the “project” file was in a sample rate of 44100khz. Rather Audacity encoded the .mp3 at 64bps but then adjusted the sample rate to 24khz. This sample rate as you would be aware is not compatible with web based flash players. So not very useful.

It would appear that the problem that I was having was not an isolated one, other podcasters have come across this problem as well. It would appear that the problem lies not with Audacity but with LAME. LAME is the piece of software that actually does the encoding not Audacity. The limitation lies in that software. I have however sourced a solution with the help of my mate Adam – code monkey and general good guy.

The solution was not to ditch LAME as such. Rather we got hold of some software called RazorLame. RazorLame adds a powerful GUI (Graphical User Interface) to the LAME engine. I am fairly sure that it also includes some other software that meshes with LAME and the result is a top piece of software. It is open source as well which is great. As usual the interface is not that pretty but very functional and who cares about what it looks like as long as it does the job and this does more than that.

RazorLame will not only encode file but can decode files and then re-encode. Not recommended though, as I have said before .mp3 files are a lossy format and the quality deteriorates on repeated writing. But this remains a handy feature, it might get you out of a tight spot if you have lost the original file and you need to encode it again for some reason.

The big feature for me was the fact that you can mix and match bit rates and sample rates however you wish to. Makes for some interesting possibilities. But the feature that I was wanting to take advantage of was that I can now encode a file at a bit-rate of 64kbps, and a sample rate of 44100khz (or 44khz – for short). This is great because this means that we can keep the quality of the show but make the file size a bit smaller. As an estimate this means that our show will average 20MB to 22MB for 45 minutes to 55 minutes in length.

To take advantage of RazorLame you have to export the file from your audio editing software of choice as a .wav, it is this file that you select in RazorLame to encode to an .mp3. Remember to make sure you have enough disk space for this file as an hour show the file will be over 500MB. You can ten select the bit rate and the sample rate and other features that you may want to utilize. Then hit encode, that simple.

This is just another step in your editing process and one that should not be that hard to do. With the big payoff, a small price to pay.

I hope that this helps out all those podcasters out there who have had the same problem. For some reason the answer was hard to find. I dropped the problem here and in The Global Geek Podcast Blog and no-one responded with an answer. When I Googled the problem, I got my own blog entry stating the problem! So I decided to give the answer here as well!

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Trillian 4: Developers Blog

As people may or may not know. I use Trillian as my instant messenger client. I even payed for the Pro version. The developers have been very, very quiet the last 6 months but now they are offering “tit-bits” on their blog for the faithful.

For people that have never heard of Trillian, it is an IM client that works across all networks. I don’t have all the separate programs running like MSN, Yahoo or ICQ (it also covers Jabba and AOL). I just have one that accesses these networks. So what I do have is an identity for each network and Trillian pulls all these together into one client. The good thing about this is that I do not have to run these separate applications and I am not locked into one network or the other. It has a small footprint and it works well. There are also plug-ins that you can get as well. There is a free version if you want to check it out.

The latest version is version three. For ages now the development team have been very quiet about any further development. The rumblings in the Trillian community have been everything ranging from they are not developing Trillian and they have abandoned the users. To whatever they are working on is going to be so good that we will be blown away. I am not sure what the developers have been doing or what their intentions are. I however do not think that they have abandoned their users. That said one criticism of Cerulean Studios is the fact that they offer very little to reassure the user base that they are working hard in development. They offer a blog entry every couple of months.

The latest is a screen shot of the new version of Trillian. But it is a very lame log in window screen shot. I would have loved to have seen the main screen of Trillian rather than the log in screen! I think this is a bit of a cop out and I think that they could have given users a bit more of a preview.

That said it looks like we might see a new version of Trillian before the end of the year. I know that is a wide projection but Trillian have refused to say when the new version will be out… period. I guess given other companies’ (“Vista”) ability to keep to promised time-lines, you can not disappoint people if you don’t give one!

But hey Trillian dudes give us a bit more than a log in screen!

The other minor thing that they have announced is a name change for version four. That being “Trillian Astra”. Sounds like an Aussie car to me… very funny. That announcement is accompanied by another lame web page… [update: this page now relates to Trillian Astra with previews and Beta testers login – changed from the original time this was posted] …please. I really hope we get more than this “…in the coming weeks”.

Update: Removed dead links and reviewed relevance of links. The reason being is the same links have been used for newer content related to Astra.