WMA files created from Win7 Sound Recorder

[ChrisGreaves]

(Correct Forum?)

Yipee! I just discovered that Win7 version of Sound recorder will record more than 60 seconds of sound.
Also that the file defaults to a WMA.

A 1m53s recording of my voice produces a WMA file reported in Explorer as 1,356KB

I am considering recording a few podcasts.
I note that podcasts from commercial organizations are delivered as MP3 files.

If I convert this WMA file to MP3, will I achieve much in the way of file space?
If I convert this WMA file to MP3, will I lose much in the way of quality (it is a spoken voice recording)?

Thanks.

[HansV]

Windows Media Audio (WMA) and MP3 are both "lossy" compressed formats. The actual file size depends on the compression factor - the higher the compression factor, the smaller the resulting file will be and the lower the audio quality will be.

I don't think you'll gain much, if anything, by converting from WMA to MP3 if you keep the quality roughly the same.

The reason that MP3 is more common is that it is a generic format while WMA is Windows-specific. Almost any player will playback MP3 files, but not all will play WMA.

[ChrisGreaves]

Almost any player will playback MP3 files, but not all will play WMA.

Thanks for all the elucidation Hans. It looks as if I am going to convert to MP3 (or use a better recorder!)

[stuckling1]

(or use a better recorder!)

I quite like Audacity - free, easy and not too useless!

:)

[ChrisGreaves]

I quite like Audacity - free, easy and not too useless!

Thanks Stuckling1; I have had a copy of v 1.2.6 installed about a month now and have been using it to make sound recordings.