How to re-code my MP3ses without paying!

Stormwatcher

So I wanna re-encode my bigger MP3 files in order to put them in the PSP and save some mega-octets.

But googling it gives me a mess of shareware and nagware with locked features, and it would take a loooong time to find out a free one that doesn't annoy me.

do you fine and intelligent fellows know of any quick, free re-enconder that could help me?

thanks!

Janin

Audacity can re-encode MP3s using LAME, but I don't know if it does batch mode. Anything you find is likely to be based on LAME, so take a look at their links.

Sky Demon

CDex and dBpoweramp can do what you're asking and they're both free.

Stormwatcher

Alright, great! thanks a lot!

EDIT: Argh, no, dBpoweramp will convert to WAVE only, without paying for LAME.
God I hate LAME.

corcorigan

Stormwatcher wrote: »

Alright, great! thanks a lot!

EDIT: Argh, no, dBpoweramp will convert to WAVE only, without paying for LAME.
God I hate LAME.

I thought LAME, being open-source, etc, was supposed to be free?

:?:

Epyon9283

Stormwatcher wrote: »

Alright, great! thanks a lot!

EDIT: Argh, no, dBpoweramp will convert to WAVE only, without paying for LAME.
God I hate LAME.

Why would you pay for something thats free?
http://lame.sourceforge.net/index.php

DrFrylock

dbPoweramp is stupid and won't encode to MP3 unless you buy the full version, even though it probably uses LAME or some other free library to do so.

Stormwatcher

DrFrylock wrote: »

dbPoweramp is stupid and won't encode to MP3 unless you buy the full version, even though it probably uses LAME or some other free library to do so.

Yeah, that's it, sorry.

RandomEngy

No, dbPoweramp is complying with the law. The mp3 patent holders require that you charge money for any program that will encode mp3s, so they cannot legally have mp3 encoding built in.

Recoil42

Yeah, basically they got too popular, Fraunhofer noticed them, and threatened legal action, so all new versions of dbPowerAMP only have a trial period for the MP3 encoding.

HOWEVER, old versions, of course, don't have that restriction, so they're still kosher. Search Google for "dbPowerAMP 10" (the last release to have free encoding enabled) and you'll find it. I have a copy around here too on one of my backup DVDs, (i thought I had it on the hard drive, but I just looked, no dice..) I'll try and dig it up.

Janin

RandomEngy wrote: »

No, dbPoweramp is complying with the law. The mp3 patent holders require that you charge money for any program that will encode mp3s, so they cannot legally have mp3 encoding built in.

It's possible to support MP3 encoding without paying a license fee. Audacity gets away with it by requiring the user to download LAME separately.

Sky Demon

Huh. My bad. I didn't know that dBpoweramp wasn't freeware anymore. The last version I used was 10 and it was still free. Heck, I thought part of what LAME turned into was to get around the Fraunhofer patents. If it helps any, I still have version 10 handy if anyone wants it.