I'm new here. If I've got the wrong forum - I apologise. I'm making MP3's from VOB files. My program gives me all sorts of options to set: Bit Rate: 128 kBits to 320 kBits? Sample rate: from Auto to 44100 or to 48000? Channels: Auto to stereo Stereo Mode: joint stereo or dual channel and then even Use Variable Bit Rate! Would someone please tell me their opinion as to what settings I should use? Thanks in advance... Bob

My opinion, but yours might differ. Bit Rate: 128 kBits to 320 kBits? 128K is good enough for me. 320K makes the quality somehat better, but the files significatnly larger. Sample rate: from Auto to 44100 or to 48000? 44100 is good enough for me. 48000 makes the files a bit larger. Channels: Auto to stereo Auto Stereo Mode: joint stereo or dual channel Dual Channel, it's more common. VBR uses slightly less disk space, but I usually use FBR (Fixed Bit Rate), but that's just me. In fact all of the above is 'just me' :-) FWIW to XP users: When you click on the 'Command Prompt' you are just causing the 'Command prompt' to be displayed. This prompt gives you access to NTVDM.EXE, the 'NT Virtual DOS Manager'.

Bitrate^ Even if you don't use high-quality speakers, imho, 128 kbps is not enough. I would go for 192 at least, or better 256. Sample rate^ 44100 and 48000 are no more than two different standarts, the 41000 is far more widespread. No difference in audio quality. Channels^ Dual channel is encoding left and right independant, jointstereo is a kind encoding difference between channels, so the file would be smaller in most cases, though dualchannel seems more "secure" to me, regarding posiible quality loss