Question / Help Audio Encoding: AAC vs. MP3

[PerrinOrdeith]

New to OBS. Started using it this weekend. When tweaking the settings for my system I started wanting to use the MP3 audio encoding. Everything seemed to be working fine; I could see that I was getting audio responses for the mic and speakers while it was recording. But when I played the .mp4 video file back (Windows Media Player) there was video but NO audio. Switched to AAC audio encoding and had no issue. Video playback has BOTH audio and video.

So my question....what's the difference between AAC and MP3? Why does one work and not the other? Is it a development thing (bug), or something to do with my system. Generally curious. I'm fine with using the AAC encoding if it's working.

Thanks

 

[Lain]

It's difficult to explain what's different about them without using math -- they're just different means of compressing sound.

Use AAC. MP3 is kind of deprecated at this point, and can also cause issues with the stream, and especially with recordings.

 

[Jack0r]

Its mainly Windows Media Player missing some codec or using a codec for mp4 files that does not support mp3 audio. Try the same file in VLC player and it will probably work just fine.