Audio formats
The following is a list of audio formats supported by CDBurnerXP.
| Extension | Full name | Type | |
|---|---|---|---|
| MP3 | MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 | lossy | |
| MP2 | MPEG-1 Audio Layer 2 | lossy | |
| WAV | Waveform Audio Format | lossless | |
| BWF | Broadcast Wave Format | lossless | |
| OGG | Ogg Vorbis | lossy | |
| FLAC | Free Lossless Audio Codec | lossless | |
| WMA | Windows Media Audio | lossy / lossless | |
| AIFF | Audio Interchange File Format | lossless | |
| WV | WavPack | lossless | |
| APE | Monkey's Audio | lossless | |
| MPC | Musepack | lossy | |
| MP4, M4A 1) | MP4 / AAC | lossy | |
| Opus | Opus | lossy | |
Variable and constant bit rates
The bit rate of an audio file determines how many bits (1 byte = 8 bit) are used to encode data per unit of time. The higher the value, the higher is the quality. The bitrate is not the only factor deciding on the quality of a file, it also depends on the actual format and encoder being used.
If, for example, an audio file has the bitrate 192Kbit/s = 192.000Bit/s = 24.000Byte/s, it will require approx. 4.12MiB for 3 minutes of audio.
A constant bit rate means that the disc space distribution is the same throughout the file. This makes it easy to determine the disc space required for an encoded file with given bit rate, or to decide which bit rate to use for a given target size.
A variable bit rate, however, yields a higher audio quality, because it allows the encoder to increase or decrease the bit rate dynamically to match the complexity of the music.
The formats MP3, OGG and WMA allow you to use either constant or variable bitrates. FLAC uses the lowest bitrate possible without losing any quality and WAV is not capable of any compression.
MP4/AAC support
Because of patent issues, MP4 cannot be supported by CDBurnerXP by default. In order to enable MP4 support, you need to download the bass_aac.dll (32-bit) or bass_aac.dll (64-bit) and put it into the CDBurnerXP program directory. You will need the 64-bit bass_aac.dll only if CDBurnerXP is running on a 64-bit (x64) operating system and is not installed in “Program files (x86)”. Unless you explicitly chose the 64-bit setup of CDBurnerXP, you will need the 32-bit version.
Bit rates
MP3 encoded with a CBR has one of the following bit rates (all in KBit/s): 32, 40, 48, 56, 64, 80, 96, 112, 128, 160, 192, 224, 256, 320. 192 is recommended. If a file does not use any of these bit rates, it's using a variable bit rate.
OGG is usually encoded with VBR, using one of the following nominal bit rates (along with the correspdonding quality setting): 64 (0), 80 (1), 96 (2), 112 (3), 128 (4), 160 (5), 192 (6), 224 (7), 256 (8), 320 (9), 500 (10). Using higher bit rates than 224 (7) is not recommended.
