using 320kbps mp3 vs 44.1khz wav for video projects

[davidpayne1981]

Hi guys, I create weddings with music and dialogue and create bluray, dvd, usb (h264) copies of the files. Soon, I'll create only a 5.1 h264 and host it online for playback on all devices including smart tvs

I have been using .wav files for my music in films because, well, I have them there ready to go built up over the years however they're taking up a lot of space now. I was wondering if you think there is any huge advantage of keeping these as .wav compared to converting them to 320kbps mp3 files? The dialogue would still be 24bit wav format but it's be the background (and often foreground) music that I'd be converting to mp3 instead of wav.

Would you advise doing this to save cricual space? There are reasons for the space saving that I won't go into. If I didn't need to do it I'd just keep them as wav.

Any advice welcome!

[neil wilkes]

Please, I beg you, do not do this.

Not only does mp3 data reduction throw away far too much original data, but a sample rate of 44.1 is so wrong it's not even close to funny. Also, you cannot use 44.1k for DVD-Video or Blu-ray - period. You can use the 44.1/88.2 sample rates in DVD-Audio, but that is a format that you require specialist software to create that will not run on any OS newer than Windows 7, plus you will still need to create a Video_TS for compatibility with non-DVD-A compliant players.

If space is an issue then buy a new powered external HDD - they are extremely cheap these days.

[davidpayne1981]

Would it be different if it were 48khz? I use encore to author discs and it encodes the audio just fine even though I do sometimes use 44.1hkz mp3 songs in tbe films, this isn't what I output in

[chrisw44157881]

deleting original wav audio is a bad idea imho. can you archive it? but besides the fact that adobe products don't like.mp3 very much with variable bitrate and all that. if you really wanted to save space, mp3 is very old tech, AAC would be psychoacoustically better for half the file size.

[davidpayne1981]

thanks so much for the aac tip! 

[Peru Bob]

mp3 can be problematic with Premiere Pro and can produce unpredictable and intermittent results.

I always convert mp3 to wav before importing into Premiere Pro.

[davidpayne1981]

I've used MP3's for 15 years and never had a single issue that I can remember. What problems do you experience?

[Peru Bob]

Project or file corruption, crashing, and timeline and export glitches are some issues experienced by some users.