On Saturday 29 Jan 2011, Victor Churchill wrote:
> Hi,
> I have got a 90 minute drama from the BBC via get_iplayer. It downloaded as
> a .flv file which I have converted to .mp3 using
> ffmpeg -i Drama_on_3_-_Living_with_Princes_b00xn9y1_default.flv -vn -acodec
> libmp3lame -ac 2 -ab 128k
> Drama_on_3_-_Living_with_Princes_b00xn9y1_default.mp3
> This gives me a 87MB .mp3 file which I can play on computers (and I guess
> on a MP3 player were I to have one.)
>
> I can burn this to a data CD as an MP3 /file/ and it will play on one of my
> domestic radio/CD players, which knows how to read data CDs containing MP3
> files. However, my car CD player does not have that ability.
You'll get either better compression and/or sound quality if you extract the
audio to Ogg Vorbis or AAC, however that isn't going to help with the CD...
> When I use Brasero to try to create an Audio CD it tells me that the CD
> does not have enough room for the 1h30min programme. This also happens if
> I generate a smaller MP3 file by re-running the ffmpeg command with 64kbps
> encoding using -ab 64k. Although the .mp3 file is half the size, Braser
> still says it represents 90 minutes and the CD ain't big enough.
You can compress the music file as much as you want but when you create an
audio CD it will expand it to a fixed sample rate, Phillips went out of their
way to fix the format to prevent people putting long or mono-recordings of CD
that would just work.
> Short of using Audacity to split the file into two sections, is there a way
> I can make an older-player-friendly audio CD of this programme? Or am I
> trying to get a quart into a pint pot ?
The best you'll get from a CD is about 80 minutes. Most CD/DVD burners should
do this these days but they may warn you that it may not work on every CD
player - which is true. However you slice it though 80 minuets isn't long
enough so you need to:
1) Cut the audio into pieces and put on 2 CDs.
2) Use a portable "media" player and hook it to your car with a tape adapter
or FM transmitter.
3) Skip the end or beginning....
Apparently the original CDs were going to be even smaller but some head
honcho's wife at Sony wanted a specific pieces of music without having to swap
a CD, so they added a few extra minutes to the standard (they could have added
more as it turns out).
HTH.
--
Adam Trickett
Overton, HANTS, UK
Stupidity maintained long enough is a form of malice.
-- Richard Bos's corollary
