MP3 file size for a full Bible and variable bit rate

Two questions: In previous versions of SAB builder we exported as “variable bit rate.” The new version is only accepting “constant bit rate.” Can this be changed back to variable bit rate? My research on the internet says that variable bit rate files can be smaller than constant bit rate.

Also on the MP3 files… what size should we export the 1189 Bible chapters? At 192KB and constant bit rate we are at 9.5Gigs!! We are going to spend 3 days re-exporting at 112kb which should drop our total size by about 40%. What is the preferred file type and size for full Bibles?
Thank you,
Rich

Hello,

On variable bit rate (VBR) vs constant bit rate (CBR), VBR is fine for music. However, with spoken audio, it is common to seek to different position in the audio especially with scripture audio. VBR completely breaks being able to seek to different positions. Allowing people to use VBR caused too many support issues so we disabled allowing it to be added.

Here is a previous post about VBR with more detail:

On the size of audio to use, Faith Comes By Hearing uses 64Kbps audio. I think 192Kbps or even 112Kbps is too large. We have added support for WebM (however there are current bugs that should be fixed in the next release, 9.1). With WebM, you get great quality at about 1/3 the size.

Hi Chris, Bless you for your help and full reply! Since Richard introduced SAB, this is my third time building the app. The builds have been because we have completed more Scripture and because of newer Android versions. Constant bit rate requires more file space. God made some languages more like music… music that we all agree needs to stay variable bit rate. I’d like to see future versions of the SAB allow for variable bit rate with perhaps a warning that Aeneas will not work as well with VBR. With our second build in 2018 our team applied Areneas and had zero issues with Aeneas with VBR. This time, we are seeing a few issues so far with CBR. Sorry about my experience being so different. If you are going to require CBR, I’d encourage you add “Export MP3 files to CRB” to the pdf directions and suggest that FCBH exports at 64kb. We have just today tried exporting at 64 and the sound quality is so low with this more tonal language that we are going with 112KB. Just an FYI, when I started building this time, I was quite surprised and lost 4 days of work because of needing to reexport an entire Bible as CBR. Also, the yellow highlighting used to have the option of highlighting the entire verse or the phrase. My national team wants me to move it back to the yellow highlighting the entire verse like the 2018 SAB allowed… because it helps them read better. How do I set it to yellow highlight the entire verse rather than phrase? I still have another day while a team member finishes exporting the entire Bible to 112 in Audacity. Bless you for your work on this amazing SAB tool!
Serving with you,
Rich