Web design question re: large media files

[zxcvbob]

I've started recording the church services with a little Olympus voice recorder, then stripping out just the sermon using mp3splt software to post it on the church website.  The problem (I think it's a problem, I don't know for sure) is the files average 29MB and that seems kind of large.  Some people still actually use dialup around here.  Also the files are too large to email to the church secretary.  I assume finding cheap web hosting is the least of the problems (google drive, maybe?)

Should I need to break these up into 10MB or smaller files?  Or maybe resample them at a lower bitrate?  I think the Olympus records in stereo and there's no need for that here, I wonder if it has a mono setting...

Are there any rules-of-thumb about dealing with large files?

[never_retreat]

What is the run time of the audio?
Seems like a big file.

[lee n. field]

I'd say resample at a lower bit rate.

Or check out sermonaudio.com, as a site to host your audio.

[zxcvbob]

What is the run time of the audio?
Seems like a big file.

It varies from week to week about ±5 minutes, but average is a half hour.

Or check out sermonaudio.com, as a site to host your audio.

Okay, that looks awesome.  Thanks.

[Hawkmoon]

It varies from week to week about ±5 minutes, but average is a half hour.

Half an hour?

Your problem isn't with the software or the hardware or the file, your problem is with the minister. Half an hour is at least 15 minutes too long. (And, FWIW, my wife and I had our priest over for dinner just this evening and sermon length came into the after-dinner discussion. The good padre agreed that 15 minutes is as long as any sermon should last -- even though he has a very difficult time keeping his to that length.)

[Harold Tuttle]

Mp3 should compress it to a manageable size and you can deliver it as a stream

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Wait till you look at a 16 gig video file for a half hour recording

[zahc]

Speech should compress well to 64kbps. Possibly even lower. When I used to use my Minidisk, 64kpbs ATRAC was impeccable quality for voice. I'm sure the latest LAME codecs are at least as good.

Simple math means 30 minutes should be about 14MB at 64kbps. I would re-encode to a lower bitrate, if your Olympus device can't compress more on-the-fly.

[zxcvbob]

The Olympus only has two bit rate settings: 256kbps stereo and 128kbps stereo (44 kHz sample rate for both.)  I'm playing with Audacity and Lame encoder.  It still sounds good exported as 32kbps mono and reduces the file size tremendously.  Haven't tried going lower yet because I'll have to resample, but 44kHz is kind of ridiculous for plain speech, 11 kHz should be good enough.