Hi Humberto & Richard,
Thank you very much both for the explanation of the WAV &
FLAC differences.
Take Care. Mike. Sent from my
iBarstool.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, February 09, 2019 4:55 AM
Subject: Re: [jaws-users] switch - was Convert files with a right
click from Windows Explorer
i believe
HUMBERTO is correct. You would need the source to have wav or FLAC to give you
the sound quality you are looking for. If they are high quality MP3, just leave
them be and you will save a lot of disc space.
MP3 files
are roughly one tenth the size of WAV files and according to the below
information FLAC is about half the size of WAV.
FLAC vs WAV
Size
FLAC format has compression built-in,
so FLAC files are usually half
the sizethe WAV files with the same content, but
this compression does not affect the quality of the
sound. WAV is better, because it supports 32 bit and up to 4.3
Mhz sampling as well as multi-channel audio.
HTH,
Richard
The
most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any."
-- Alice Walker
On Feb 9, 2019, at 4:21 AM, Humberto Rodriguez < sub@...>
wrote:
Hello
Takis:
Once
the audio file was compressed as MP3, converting it to .wav or any other
format will not improve its quality, it cannot ever go back to what it was
prior to converting to mp3, all the subsequent conversion does is increase the
size of the file without improving the sound.
Humberto
This is very useful Mike and
very comprehensive. It explains all my issues. Just one thing. I will usually
wish to convert from .mp3 to .wav or .flac, so, how can I find recommended
encoder settings for these choices? Also, which is better quality, .wav, or
.flac?
Thank you very much,
Takis
Below
are steps that I just typed up. What i do first is put any files that
I want to convert into the My Documents folder to make them easier to find
/
navigate to. You can convert several files at the same time.
after
pressing enter on each of the files you want to convert, steps 4
& 5, you
would select all the files. I haven't done this in a
very long time so, you
may be able to select all the files with the,
control + A, keystroke or you
might have to arrow down through the list to
select them all.
1.
When you first open Switch press Alt + A, to open the locate audio files
dialogue.
2. Tab to the Look in combobox list.
3. Arrow down the
list until you find the folder or drive you have the files
you want to
convert saved. Now with the folder or drive highlighted, tab 3
times
to get into the list of files in this folder / drive.
4. Arrow or use first
letter navigation to the file you want to convert &
press enter on it
to put it into the Switch program. Pressing enter on the
file will
put you back into Switch & you will hear, not slected & the name
of the file.
5. Arrow down to the file to select it.
6. Tab 1 time
to the Output format combobox& arrow up or down to the file
format you
want the file converted into.
7. Tab 1 time to the Incoder options button
& press the spacebar to open.
These are the settings that seem to work
best when converting to .MP3 files.
Constant Bitrate (CBR) should be
checked. Tab 1 time to Incoder bit rate
combobox, arrow to 320, it's
17 of 17. Tab 1 time to,High quality encoding
(slower)
checkbox,
this box should be checked. Tab 1 time to, Other channel incoding
mode combobox & choose stereo. Tab 1 time to, Include CRC to
Detect Errors,
this box should be checked. Now tab to the Okay
button & press the spacebar
to close Incoder options. Now tab 2
times to, Output to same folder as
source files, this box should be
checked to make it easier to find your
files.
8. Shift + tab 1 time to
the convert button & press the spacebar to start
the
conversion.
Take
Care. Mike. Sent from my iBarstool.
-----
Original Message -----
Sent:
Friday, February 08, 2019 9:18 AM
Subject:
Re: [jaws-users] switch - was Convert files with a right click from Windows
Explorer
Hi
Tom-all,
In my experience, I just could
not find how to associate an input file with the program. I found no place
where I could select an input file and then proceed. If I opened a folder or
browsed, I would be led to my usual windows explorer panel, with no
association with the actual program. That was my chief
difficulty.
Take care and thanks, Takis
When you open
Switch, you will be on a button called Open Output Folder.It is 1 of five
tabs. To the right are Output format, Encoder Option, a checkbox giving you
the option of sending your files to the same folder. If you uncheck this box.
If this box is not checked, you will need to open an output folder. Staying in
the tab order, the last will show 0 items because none have been selected yet.
As was mentioned in another E-mail. when the Alt key is pressed, you will see
a traditional menu structure and land on the File menu. You can easily arrow
across or down, and each item will be read. Oddly enough, I haven’t used this,
but there is a help menu item. I haven’t explored the numerous options
available. Staying on the file tab, however, and arrowing down you will see
Add Files, and then Add Folders. Those of us who use Switch find it easy to
work using Windows navigation. I am using Windows 7. I actually purchased the
Plus version for $29 because a file I wanted to convert wouldn’t do so. This
is a one-time payment, not a subscription. I hope this gets you
started.
Sent:
Friday, February 08, 2019 4:53 AM
Subject:
Re: [jaws-users] switch - was Convert files with a right click from Windows
Explorer
Hi
Richard/all,
I downloaded switch this
morning, but I have to admit that I did not succeed in converting. Alkthough
it seems I understand what I should do with its structure, I always came up
with a message that I have to select files to convert. Since I do not want to
bother others, I wonder if there is a quick guide as what to do, or someone
could give me some simple steps. When I open output folder, there seems to be
an irrelevant window opening and I have to do contrl-tab to get back to the
program. I don’t know what I am missing there, but some simple steps would be
appreciated. With file convert I had none of these
issues.
Cheers,
Takis
Hi,
I just tried out the free
version of Switch.
It is very easy to
use.
If you have an iPhone and want
to make ringtones, it can convert to .m4r format, along with a bunch of
others.
It can convert different file
types to the one you want at the same time. I just did a quick test with
a .wav file and an .m4r file and converted them to mp3 in one step. I do
not know what the maximum number of files might be, but it is pretty fast and
retains the information you want.
Richard
Hi
Mike/all,
Is switch better than convert
file and in what way?
Take care, Takis
There's
a sound file converter called, Switch, that works great and is Jaws
accessible.
Take
care. Sent from my iBarstool.
The probability of someone watching you
is proportional to the stupidity of your action.
-----
Original Message -----
Sent:
Thursday, February 07, 2019 2:16 AM
Subject:
Re: [jaws-users] Convert files with a right click from Windows
Explorer
Hi all,
I am not an expert on audio
programs, but did some research on this. I have a folder with archival
material from the Smithsonian collection from the former Yugoslavia, Italy and
Mexico. I copied it on a different part of the pc. Then I took off three files
related to album icons, and asked file converter to convert the mp3. It
refused to do so in .wav, because I simply had one file converted to .wav
before. So I did this in .ogg. There was no progress bar with the program, but
when I hit escape, all files were there, it seems it’s done very quickly,
there were about 61 files to convert. The unfortunate thing is that it places
the .wav file next to its .mp3 counterpart, so you have to manually delete all
.mp3s thereafter. Then I went to the folder and tried groove which is a
program I like, despite its mishaps. No play, whereas vlc and windows media
player would play the .ogg. So, I removed the one .wav file existing,
otherwise file converter would not permit me do a conversion. Once it was
taken away, it did convert all files from .ogg into .wav and groove is playing
fine, except that it cannot derive the info on artists and song titles.
Needless to say, I had again, to manually, delete the .ogg files from the
folder. I hope I have not tired you with this, and that it may be useful to
others. However, might I ask the more knowledgeable among us, which format is
the better quality one, ogg or wav?
Cheers, Takis
There are other tools you could
use for batch conversion if you wanted to.
BTW, this seems like a neat
utility; maybe I’ll give ita shot.
You
cannot use File Converter to select a folder in order to convert all of its
files. This makes sense as File Converter is smart enough not to appear when
you've highlighted a file it can't convert and the possibility of this
happening is much greater in a folder. I tested this by copying 3 mp3 songs to
a folder I created and then bringing up that new folder's context menu where
File Converter did not appear. On the other hand, if you know all the files in
a particular folder are of the same type and convertible by File Converter,
you can move to the list of files by pressing the F6 key and then highlighting
them all by pressing ctrl + a. Shift F10 will bring up the context menu where
File Converter will appear in order to convert multiple files. I would not
suggest highlighting files of different types even if they are convertible by
File Converter in order to do a multi-conversion since this seems like it
might have unintended consequences.
Alan
Lemly
Greetings,
This is the first line of the
description from the File converter page:
File
Converter is a very simple tool
which allows you to convert and compress one or several file(s) using the
context menu in windows explorer.
So, doing “several” files seems
standard. How one accomplishes that exactly is likely in the
documentation.
HTH,
Richard
I
have only tried with single files. So it could be interesting and I may do a
little experimenting with the possibility of converting an entire folder.
Thanks for the idea.
From:
Panagiotis Antonopoulos
Sent:
Wednesday, February 6, 2019 12:06 AM
Subject:
Re: [jaws-users] Convert files with a right click from Windows
Explorer
Hi
Marie-all,
I just downloaded the utilitz,
but wonder, can zou do a folder conversion as well, or just simple
files?
Takis
I have
been using this little utility for several months and it is indeed very simple
and very useful.
Sent:
Tuesday, February 5, 2019 8:38 AM
Subject:
[jaws-users] Convert files with a right click from Windows
Explorer
Hi
List,
I
received an email today from Gizmo's Freeware discussing a handy program that
will add context menus to Windows Explorer enabling you to convert farious
file formats to other formats when focus is on a file in an Explorer window.
I'm pasting the text of the article discussing this free program after my
signature. I installed it on my Windows 7 computer running Fusion 2019 and it
worked very well to convert an m4a song to mp3 format. I'll admit that I'm a
big user of Windows Explorer for file management and if you are too, I think
you'll like this utility.
The
download link to get it is here:
https://file-converter.org/
Alan
Lemly
The
below article is from this website:
http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/convert-files-right-click-windows-explorer.htm
Convert
Files With A Right Click In Windows Explorer
Last
updated by rhiannon on 05. February 2019 - 03:59
File
Converter screen shot
There
are many file converters available both online and offline, but how about one
that works from Windows File Explorer right click (context) menu? File
Converter does just that.
File
Converter is a free open source Windows program that converts and compresses a
variety of file formats from the right click menu in Windows File Explorer.
Once installed, it appears in the context (right click)
menu.
It's
very easy to use; right click on a file (or several files) in Windows File
Explorer, choose File Converter, and select the file format. A window opens
showing the progress of the conversion and closes when it's complete.
Converted files are stored in the same folder as the source file and have the
same name with a different extension.
File
Converter won't appear in the context menu if you right click on a file that
isn't supported, a nice touch that keeps the context menu less
cluttered.
File
Converter works with audio, video, image and document files and supports these
formats:
Audio
Output
formats: flac, aac, ogg, mp3, wav
Input
formats: 3gp, aiff, ape, avi, bik, cda, flac, flv, m4a, mkv, mov, mp3, mp4,
oga, ogg, wav, webm, wma, wmv
Video
Output
formats: webm, mkv, mp4, ogv, avi, gif
Input
formats: 3gp, avi, bik, flv, gif, m4v, mkv, mp4, mpeg, mov, ogv, webm,
wmv
Image
Output
formats: png, jpg, ico, webp
Input
formats: bmp, exr, ico, jpg, jpeg, png, psd, svg, tiff, tga, webp, pdf, doc*,
docx*, odt*, odp*, ods*, ppt*, pptx*, xls*, xlsx*
(Microsoft
Office will have to be installed for the Office formats to
work)
Document
Output
format: pdf
Input
formats: doc*, docx*, odt*, odp*, ods*, ppt*, pptx*, xls*, xlsx*, bmp, exr,
ico, jpg, jpeg, png, psd, svg, tiff, tga
File
Converter can be customized using the Windows program menu, though the
defaults should work well for most people. It's lightweight, fast and quite
useful.
It
runs on Windows Vista / 7 / 8 and 10, and the 32 bit and 64 bit installers
(.msi) are clean according to VirusTotal.
The
source code can be viewed on GitHub
.
Download
File Converter
|
