Degraded sound quality after downloading and converting

S

shmu26

New member
There are some video clips on the web that lost a lot of sound quality after I downloaded them with winx-youtube-downloader and converted them to MP3 format with AVC free.

How to download vids and convert to sound files, and maintain sound quality?

Just to clarify, this question relates to the downloading of content in compliance with all relevant copyright laws.
 
I don't know about any of those programs, but bear in mind that only the HD versions of videos have the higher quality audio in them on most services and even the audio in those is compressed and won't be top quality. It's the nature of streaming. Good luck.
 
Thanks, but my point is that it sounds good on the web. It only sounds lousy after I download and convert it. :)
 
IANAL, but you might want to read Section 5.1 of YouTube's Terms of Service, because what you are doing is in violation of those, as I read them.

Terms of Service
- YouTube

If it's a commercial song, pay a buck and download the MP3 from Amazon or iTunes. I'm sure not going to spend my time on this planet grabbing a crap, pirate copy to save a buck. If not, contact the uploader and ask for a copy. Otherwise, play it and watch it all you want, is my suggestion. (I could suggest something other than using free, and poor by reviews, software, but then I'd be violating their Terms of Service, and I'll pass.)
 
keith.rogers said:
IANAL, but you might want to read Section 5.1 of YouTube's Terms of Service, because what you are doing is in violation of those, as I read them.

Terms of Service
- YouTube

If it's a commercial song, pay a buck and download the MP3 from Amazon or iTunes. I'm sure not going to spend my time on this planet grabbing a crap, pirate copy to save a buck. If not, contact the uploader and ask for a copy. Otherwise, play it and watch it all you want, is my suggestion. (I could suggest something other than using free, and poor by reviews, software, but then I'd be violating their Terms of Service, and I'll pass.)
Click to expand...

Good point. You don't need to be a lawyer to know that ripping content from YouTube is illegal. But my lousy, free software can download also from lots of other sites, where the content is not copyright protected.
Which brings me back to the Original Question: how to do the job right?
 
If the audio sounds good on your headphones/output, I'd just pipe it back in through the input of the interface and go through A/D conversion again, rather than trying to manipulate whatever/however the software is capturing a digital copy, and then munging that copy into another (lossy formats, all). I mean, it *should* be the same digital that is being converted to analog that sounds good to you, but maybe not. At least if you digitize at high quality what sounds good, then it should be a reasonable replica of what you hear.
 
Take a look at the settings in AVC free. It's probably preset for low quality mp3.
If you can get that set for 320 or something you shouldn't be aware of any quality difference.

Failing that, the same probably applies for the capture software.
Have a look through its options for capture settings.
 
Steenamaroo said:
Take a look at the settings in AVC free. It's probably preset for low quality mp3.
If you can get that set for 320 or something you shouldn't be aware of any quality difference.

Failing that, the same probably applies for the capture software.
Have a look through its options for capture settings.
Click to expand...

So I think you just nailed the problem. I dug into settings of AVC free, and it has audio bitrate at 128, with 160 as the highest possible level. Looks like I need different software. Suggestions?
 
This old HP lappy can just record any sound going through on Samplitude via "Stereo Mix" in the Windows sound system. Since it is just a copy of the incoming digital stream there is no quality loss. I understand the technique has been stopped or at least made much harder to do in W10? If you have even a basic AI you can send out the analogue signal and record that. A more sophisticted AI could go "up itself and record back to the PC.

Copyright? So long as you don't post the results or sell them, how they gonna know? I have lived through all the (vain!) attempts to stop people recording music and TV*. People will always do it.

*Has come full circle. Many "classic" programmes have been found on peeps VHS machines and cleaned up for re-broadcasting. The Big Boys are not going to release one tenth of their back catalogue of recordings and everything is of SOME artistic interest to someone!

Dave.
 
Are you on Windows? I think the default media player should have mp3 conversion options.
I don't use windows, though, so maybe someone else can guide if needed?
 
Windows 10.
There are apps I could download, if I knew what was good, but there is nothing native to Windows that can convert video to audio.

Do you run Linux, [MENTION=43272]Steenamaroo[/MENTION]? Sometimes I use Ubuntu, but never Mac.
 
Oh, of course..It's a video (duh).
I guess Reaper should be able to do it?
Maybe there are more specific solutions but it's free and easy to use.

The process would be import video > Bounce out audio, rather than 'click convert'.

Edit: MacOS here.
 
You can use VLC on Ubuntu. Media->Open Network Stream, then select the Audio output format (MP3, FLAC, CD).

P.S. Just tried this, and couldn't make it work - also tried the Convert/Save option, no go. Just got an empty file. Hmm. Well, it used to work, or maybe I'm forgetting something
 
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So I guess I will try out VLC, since Reaper is currently only offering a trial version.
My thanks to all, and if there are any more suggestions, go right ahead and suggest!
 
shmu26 said:
So I guess I will try out VLC, since Reaper is currently only offering a trial version.
My thanks to all, and if there are any more suggestions, go right ahead and suggest!
Click to expand...

Reaper's trial version isn't limited in any way. It just has a nag screen on launch.
VLC should work fine, though.
 
VLC should do the trick. Sometimes the audio codec is limited by which video codec is chosen. I think that Quicktime has an option for 24 bit PWM for a lossless conversion. Then you can use something like Reaper to convert to V0 or 320 kbps MP3.
 
I converted a few songs to mp3 in my studio. They sounded almost as good as the 16 bit versions thru my monitors. After loading them on my laptop from a thumb drive , they sounded like crap ! My laptop settings were the culprit.. (in my case) MS.
 
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