What bitrate to use for encoding the audio?

[1loser]

What bitrate to use for encoding the audio?

I use ATI's AIW 7500 to capture and I save the audio as uncompressed but I'm never sure what bitrate I should use since I don't know what the source is. I'm encoding as a MPEG-2 so I need it to be a mp2.

Does it depend on my sound card? Are cable TV broadcasts usually the same quality. What is the easiest/best way to determine the source bitrate? There's no sense in me using 192 if the highest quality I'm getting is 160, right?

[Airw0lf]

Hmm, well I think this is a difficult question to answer. The source bitrate (in my opinion) is practically impossible to determine. What is more important is the quality of the source. If you are recording an old show from the 70s, you would be wasting your time setting a very high audio bitrate as the original quality is likely to be very poor. But if you're recording a show broadcast in dolby surround or similar, you might want to use a higher bitrate in order to be more faithful to the higher audio fidelity you're getting.

In my case, I capture in virtualdub (ATI All-in-wonder 128 pro) using HuffYUV and 0 audio compression. When I make a VCD, my choice of audio bitrate to compress to is a non-issue: the standard demands 224 kbit/sec. When I make a SVCD, I have more freedom to choose. But I usually end up choosing 112 kbit stereo. (This is because it allows me to maximise the video bitrate at ~2600 kbit/sec, which is close to the specification limit.) In the end, it all depends on the individual's priorities. I, for one, am clearly not an audiophile, so I reduce my audio bitrate.