compressing wav files

[shelly storey]

instead of using the videographer's tapes to give to the scopist, I'm getting the audio portion and sending that - I've sent my own digital compressed wav files but they take forever to send over the net. Anyone know of a good compression program for audio? Thanks

[Dennis Zambataro]

Shelly,

Using an online program called Switch (one of many; there may be better ones) I convert my WAV to an MP3. Then upload your MP3s to a service like yousendit.com (pay a small fee for their commercial service; it's worth it). Send yourself a copy of the output as well as one to your scopist. Yousendit then sends you and your scopist a link. Your scopist then hits the link and downloads your MP3 and reconverts it to WAV format. It will automatically sychronize with your transcript.

This system is much faster than trying to send a huge or even a compressed WAV. The mp3s are much smaller.

DZ

[shelly storey]

THANKS - I'll retry but I believe I did it both ways - I have a conversion program and did convert it to MP3 thinking it would go faster - and yes, I do use both YouSendIt and SendThisFile - I'll keep working on it - thanks much for the input

[Kyung]

You probably have, but just in case.

I use Winzip and zip up the wav file before sending it.

[Dennis Zambataro]

Yousendit.com works great if you use their pay-for service. They have an Express format that allows you to upload multiple files at the same time. MP3s are much faster than just uploading compressed WAVs.

DZ

[Jennie Ann]

EDITED: I didn't realize others responded before I did about the same program.
__________________________________________________

Here is my reply, before I realized others said the EXACT same thing. How embarrassing!


Absolutely. There are several programs out there, but some of them are so difficult to understand, at least for me.

I use a program called Express Scribe to transcribe digital audio files, and on the Express Scribe website, they have a "free" download for a program called "Switch Sound File Conversion." You can use the program for "free" for one month. Then you have to buy it, if you would like to continue using it. I think it costs something like 35 bucks or thereabouts.

A while back, I used it for free. It is very easy to understand, which I like. Thereafter, I came across some ".CDA" files which are digital files that cannot be copied or shared with others. In other words, I could not send the .CDA digital files to another. Every time I copied it to send it, I would only get 44 bytes. .CDA files are encrypted somehow, but that's a topic for another thread.

I used this program, "Switch Sound File Conversion," and converted the .CDA files to .MP3 files. Piece of cake. I couldn't believe it.

Here is the link: http://www.nch.com.au/switch/

You can place your .WAV files in this program and convert them to .MP3 files, as .MP3 files are always smaller in size.

HTH! ;>)

[shelly storey]

thanks for all the detailed info - I really appreciate it - everyone has been so engaging - nice to know - I had bought a conversion program called Smart Audio Converter Pro so I can convert wav to MP3 - I did that - I'm thinking the videographer's file was possibly corrupted by zipping it when he sent it to me - nothing seemed to work out - he was to have sent me unzipped files but never did - I'll try sending scoper my own MP3 file from my digital recorder and see what happens there - she does use Express Scribe and that's how all this started (I have it too and love it)

Anyway, thanks a bunch -

[Judy]

If you're on Eclipse, according to their manual:

"Audio files are, by definition, very large. Zipping them will not make them smaller; they are already compresed."

[Dennis Zambataro]

In case you are wondering, converting from WAV to MP3 vastly diminishes the size of the sound file.
One example I found amongst my files: A 237 meg WAV after conversion to MP3 was reduced to 86 megs. Definitely worth the effort.

DZ

[shelly storey]

thanks - appreciate it