Gavin Hyde's Journal: The best media codec for general use

As a general rule I rip all cd's into the FLAC format for archiving. However, that takes up too much space on my computer's disk when my collection grows (I currently have 12,000+ tracks I've ripped from my cd's) so I store those on an external hard drive and re-encode them into a more compact format for usage on my machine. For now I've been using the OGG format but my question is with the sheer number of portable music players that play mp3 and the popularity of the iPod should I be using a different format like MP3 or AAC (M4A) so I don't have to transcode songs to get it on my ipod? As a corollary should I be bumping up the bpm of mp3's from the standard 128 to something higher to equal the standard ogg or aac file or can people really tell the difference?

codecs

[jacquesm]

MP3 is the standard, no matter what the big corps want you to believe.
this mp3 file sharing system [mxchg.com] will merge two collections seamlessly
and remove doubles, you can tag your files and if you have a band you can
use this system to spread your music to your fans. It's just another CDN,
but one that is based off KNOPPIX, so it comes with all the power of a
full Linux distro, and gives you a single dedicated box to play and share
your music on.

It's open source, and if you feel like hacking around with it be my guest
(most of it is PHP, there is a little bit of C in there).

Ditto

[Captain Splendid]

If you're going lossless, might as well go with mp3 for maximum compatibility. As for bitrate, 128 can be perfectly fine, depending on the type of music and the encoder you're using. Try different rates/combos on a small variety of songs, and see how it stacks up.

Last but not least, when I need expert audio advice, I usually head to the Hydrogen Audio [hydrogenaudio.org] forums. Lots of good info there.