I have a few CDs lying around that I'd like to rip and encode in MP3 format using Rhythmbox. After installing the ubuntu-restricted-extras package, one of the options that shows up in Rhythmbox's preferences under "preferred format" is "CD Quality MP3," but from the encoder options it appears that it uses a constant bitrate.
I'd like to set up an Audio Profile to encode at a variable bitrate (VBR) at a reasonably high quality. What options do I need to use under "gstreamer pipeline?" Or alternatively, is there a more discoverable way to enter encoding options than entering command-line options into Rhythmbox?
Best Answer
Just so we're talking on the same page, the pipeline used by this encoding target looks like the following on my system:
You can learn about each of the elements in the pipeline with the
gst-inspect-0.10
tool. For example, to learn about the MP3 encoder used here, you could run:Among other things, this will tell you about the various properties supported by the element and their defaults. This tells me:
cbr=false
from defaults)target=0
)quality=6
)encoding-engine-quality=standard
from defaults)So you should already be getting VBR output from that pipeline. If you want higher quality, lower the 'quality=' number (0-10, 0 is the highest quality) and perhaps add
encoding-engine-quality=high
.