Question on managing and launchign podcasts

[Stu]

I have recorded a series of podcasts in MP3 with a software program called Polderbits. I am going to post them on our Web site. My question is, should I zip this so people won't have to spend so much time downloading them? I am going to keep them to about 5 minutes or so so they won't be huge files. At that size will it not be a big deal?

Thanks.

 

[DMcG]

I'd try zipping a file to see if there is much space savings. I highly doubt there will be as (if I remember correctly) the nature of of the mp3 format doesn't leave a whole lot of room to be gained through external compression. If there isn't much decrease in file size then zipping it is more of an inconvenience for the end user than anything else. Plus most podcasts don't need to be the greatest quality since they're just spoken word so you can go mono, low sampling rate, and low bit rate. If they're only 5 minutes long the files should be pretty small anyways.

 

[Stu]

Originally Posted by DMcG

I'd try zipping a file to see if there is much space savings. I highly doubt there will be as (if I remember correctly) the nature of of the mp3 format doesn't leave a whole lot of room to be gained through external compression. If there isn't much decrease in file size then zipping it is more of an inconvenience for the end user than anything else. Plus most podcasts don't need to be the greatest quality since they're just spoken word so you can go mono, low sampling rate, and low bit rate. If they're only 5 minutes long the files should be pretty small anyways.

Thanks. The part about zipping is true. I had a town hall meeting I had recorded and zipped it and it only went from 96MB to like 80 -- not even a reduction of 20 percent.

 

[Kent Wang]

There are many MP3 compressors. LAME using the VBR settings are the most efficient. Do not bother with zip compression. You can read more about it on Hydrogen Audio.