Ogg Vorbis RC3 Released 321
xercist writes: "Let's start 2002 off with some good news! The long awaited RC3 release of the Ogg project's Vorbis codec is now out. Major changes include much improvement in the quality to bitrate ratio, ability to specify a hard bitrate min/max to the encoder (good for streaming), and an entirely new bitrate management engine which can emulate CBR, do constrained bitrates, and will accept quality settings via the -q flag from 0 through 10 in .00000001 increments (currently only tuned for 44.1 KHz modes). Vorbis has kicked MP3's, WMA's, and Real's asses for a long time now, hopefully this release will change the minds of anyone yet undecided. Download RC3, then show your appreciation for all their hard work and dedication by making a donation to support the project."
A quality release (Score:1)
Hardware Support... (Score:3, Insightful)
Cryptnotic
Re:Hardware Support... (Score:2)
Double Blind Listening Tests... Where ??? (Score:5, Interesting)
So where are these tests for Vorbis?
That is what it will take to convince me. A long laundry list of impressive sounding (in techno-speak) features does not necessarily make for an impressive sounding codec. True double blind listening tests with a statistically valid sample size, both in terms on the number of musical selections and listeners (who can even reliably tell the difference at all) are the only way to really know.
Of course, it's all a moot point for the majority of people who can't really tell the differences... but it makes for better conversation eg, my codec can beat up your codec.....
Re:Double Blind Listening Tests... Where ??? (Score:2, Interesting)
ff123 is planning more tests at such bitrates - it's difficult to organise a test, gather results and publish findings on the same day as an RC.
Re:Double Blind Listening Tests... Here! (Score:5, Informative)
If you want to take the listening test yourself, read the instructions and jump in. [ff123.net] For now, there's also a page of interim results [ff123.net], but to quote ff123, "Major conclusion: I need more listeners!"
Monty
Re:Double Blind Listening Tests... Here! (Score:4, Informative)
As for ABX: Oops, you're right. The results ff123 asks for are not ABX, they're the traditional 1-5 scale that MPEG has always used. ff123 *does* suggest using ABX to certify the results, but that's not the same thing, and you're right to point that out.
Last, parts of the tests are automated, parts aren't; if you go the ABX route, there are automated testing packages to use (linked from ff123's page). I've not added my results to this test only because it's a little too easy for me to cheat. So, I didn't go through the test process myself, I've only been watching the results.
Monty
Re:Double Blind Listening Tests... Here! (Score:2)
Wrong.
One of the samples is known both by the tester and the testee to be the original - therefore it's not 100% blind.
Re:Double Blind Listening Tests... Where ??? (Score:5, Informative)
The best tests we have at the moment were conducted by
ff123 [ff123.net] at 128kpbs. There have been two so far (the second is technically still underway, although it's now based on outdated encoders, so I imagine a third will start fairly soon). The
first listening test [ff123.net] compared RC2 Ogg Vorbis, LAME MP3, Xing MP3, Liquifier AAC, MPC, and WMA8. The formal analysis showed that, on the file compared, the encoders could be divided with 95% confidence into three groups (from best to worst):
The second test [ff123.net] used a CVS version of OGG from about a month and a half ago. This time there are three test samples which participants can choose to evaluate. While technically still underway,
the interim results can be found here [ff123.net]. Of the three test samples, the first can't discriminate between the encoders, the second looks like it will but needs more listeners (and the results so far look interesting), and the third discriminates well, to the extent that it shows that Xing and WMA8 are statistically much worse on that clip than all the others.
Now all we need is a third test with the latest updates of all the encoders - since we now have a new stable version both of Ogg Vorbis (RC3) and LAME (3.91).
Re:Double Blind Listening Tests... Where ??? (Score:2)
1. He shouldn't decode MP3s with a decoder known for its inaccuracy. If he insists on Winamp, I recomend the mpg123 plugin.
2. Results at 128 kpbs are of absolutely no interest to me. I know everything will sound crappy at this bitrate. I guess it's easier to for ordinary listeners to hear defects at this bitrate, and one can guess that the best sounding codec at 128 will have a leg up for the higher bitrates--so it's not entirely beside the point... . Still, I would never consider encoding at anything below 160, and try to get VBR to average about 190.
256 Kbps MP3 can be CD quality, not 128 Kbps. (Score:3, Informative)
It's not 128 Kbps MP3, it's 256 Kbps MP3. I can consistently tell 128 Kbps MP3 from the original rip, even on cheap $15 multimedia speakers (although I have to hold them right up to my ears). And I'm no audiophile.
Go to http://www.r3mix.net/ [r3mix.net] and click on the "Quality" link for some links to the MP3 tests.
Re:256 Kbps MP3 can be CD quality, not 128 Kbps. (Score:2)
I did my tests by forming a single command that would play either the original .wav rip or the encoded MP3, with equal probability, based on a read from /dev/random. Then I put my ears to the cheap speaker, closed my eyes, and hit enter. Once I had made my determination I looked at the screen to see what was played.
At first I got it wrong, every time. I thought the 128k sounded better than the .wav. It sounded slightly louder, which to my non-audiophile ears sounded more crisp. In any event, it proved to me that there was a discernable difference. :) I concluded that the loundness was from noise introduced by the lossy encoding, and from there I was able to consistently and correctly tell 128k from the original.
At 192k I could not tell the difference. At least, not on my cheap speakers. I now have a non-sucky pair of headphones but have not yet re-run those tests.
Re:Double Blind Listening Tests... Where ??? (Score:2, Funny)
Don't you mean double deaf listening tests...?
Re:Double Blind Listening Tests... Where ??? (Score:2, Interesting)
When I did that, I also tried some of his tests to see what kind of listener I was. I can barely hear background noise at all, but was able to pick out the original from 256K mp3 encoding 11 out of 14 times, which is proof to ABXers. This was Arny's 'articulation' test at 'probably impossible' level... I am a mastering engineer who writes DSP software and I was using my studio reference system. He tells me there was one other person once who was able to ace that test, and he's considering toning down the language and not calling it 'impossible' anymore if people can get it 11 out of 14 and so on- but to most people it is impossible. Again, that's 256K mp3, and not Xing either.
I'm sure I could tell Ogg Vorbis too, but you have to know what to listen for when the bit rate gets luxurious. There was no real tonal change to listen for, it's just that the 256K file was recognizably characterless, sort of like 'pod people' of audio. Hardly surprising as this is just what I work to avoid in full-resolution CD audio- that too can be rather bland and characterless if you're not careful!
(My own audio work is at www.airwindows.com/dithering/ [airwindows.com], GPLed, recently added some mid/side stereo features and a GUI Knob class that worked out quite well)
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Convert or die! (Score:2)
Soon they will also know how to feed them to an MP3-to-Ogg converter so the thought-police don't ding them a royalty for every audio file on their disks.
Re:Convert or die! (Score:3, Informative)
1. NEVER EVER CONVERT BETWEEN LOSSY FORMATS, it will add unnesessary artifacts and ruin the audio quality.
2. I wasn't aware that the thought police would be any more able to charge money for posession of MP3's than Ogg's .
not charging for posession (Score:3, Insightful)
so if you want to listen to mp3's on a commercial player these costs get transferred to you the user. also people who have developed free encoders (like bladeenc) have been threatened by the mp3 thought police for giving away the encoder without paying the mp3 hordes.
Not so! (Score:2)
AFAICT it doesn't actually get decoded and re-encoded, but transcoded. The implication is that there will be no bonus glitches.
Re:This won't change much... (Score:5, Funny)
Depends on how badly Microsoft and other major players fumble the ball, and forget who's actually buying their software. If they keep going in the current direction, I can see Ogg Vorbis becoming a standard almost overnight.
A few months ago a friend of mine, a staunch Microsoft supporter, converted his entire collection of MP3's (about 150 CD's—he'd ripped his whole library) to WMA format. The quality was fine, the files were smaller, and off he toddled. A few weeks later he upgraded his operating system, and WMA's Rights Management kicked in and told him he couldn't play any of those files anymore. Ouch! Weeks later, he'd re-ripped his collection to MP3—and ripped a friend's as well. Needless to say, he's not as staunch a supporter as he once was.
If WMA continues apace, and MP3 becomes co-opted, Ogg Vorbis may well step in. The name is odd, but who cares? The MP in MP3 stands for "Motion Picture" after all! I can see it getting abbreviated to "OVA" for "Ogg Vorbis Audio" and spawning a multitude of egg-shaped players [riohome.com]. I can even see the slogans: In the interim, and in the grand tradition of hacker jargon [tuxedo.org], I'd like to propose the following terms:
Re:This won't change much... (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:This won't change much... (Score:3, Informative)
That would explain why I turn of Digital Rights Management in Windows Media Player.
I believe Microsoft also now provides a backup system for the DRM stuff. Haven't tried that, again because none of my music uses DRM.
Re:This won't change much... (Score:2, Interesting)
What Ogg Vorbis really needs is some hardware supported devices. Soon. If I can buy a CD player that also plays mp3s, that is a clear win for the mp3 format-- those players are quite a bit cheaper than the no-disc players, and offer me some versatility. And as far as I know, there isn't any device (CD-based or Flash based) that runs even a beta Ogg Vorbis codec.
Re:This won't change much... (Score:2)
I guess some slashdotters will convert their mp3s to ogg and put it on opennap.
Now imagine the average Windows-user finding a file he's been searching for weeks. Yes I guess he will download ogg.
Wonderful (Score:3, Insightful)
This is wonderful. The ability to operate at specific bitrates, especially low bitrates, is critical for streaming.
Having a flexible range, with definable minimum and maximum bounds, is a very good way to go. You get the bandwidth efficency during silence and other easily compressible sounds, without the unpredictable bitrate spiking of unbounded VBR.
Ogg Vorbis is a step well taken in resurrecting online music and radio streaming. After the losses in 2001 (RIAA fees, AFTRA fees, MP3 patent fees, increasing bandwidth costs, copyright concerns), we need all the help we can get....
I listen to Dr. Demento online and keep track of what stations remain: http://krellan.com/demento/ [krellan.com]
ogg and portable devices, a badly need marriage (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Lets do a Linux port for the iPod ! (Score:2)
Um, what SDMI crap? The iPod doesn't pay attention to the SDMI stuff, it never lets you copy files via iTunes, and treats the iTune loaded sound files as hidden through the filesystem (which means standard file tools can see them if you click "show hidden", or use, you know, "ls").
I think that is just as much to keep the drooling idiot users (and Apple has more then it's fair share) from deleting and moving the files around as to let them claim the iPod can't promote piracy since it won't let the files back out. I'm sure they knew it would take about no time for people to figure out how to take the files out. If they had really wanted to keep people from them they would have stored them in one big file, and XORed it with 0xdeadbeef.
It would be cool for it to play ogg files though. If iTunes and the iPod did I would start re-ripping my CDs...
Re:ogg and portable devices, a badly need marriage (Score:2, Informative)
Now THAT's an open standards site! (Score:3, Insightful)
I only hope that Ogg Vorbis will work on my CPRM-enabled [theregister.co.uk] ATA drive...
Re:Now THAT's an open standards site! (Score:3, Offtopic)
LEXX
Re:Now THAT's an open standards site! (Score:2)
Re:Now THAT's an open standards site! (Score:2)
PNGs have tons of neato features, like gamma settings and so on. When used properly, it can ensure that the colour you see on your monitor is exactly the same as the colour displayed on another monitor - the image is adjusted so that the output remains the same, even on different hardware.
This is a problem when you consider the following:
Either I can use a closed-source app (Photoshop) on a closed-source OS (MacOS or Windows) and maybe have my graphics work out, I can use an open-sourced app (GIMP) on an open- or closed-source OS and have my site look like wang to anyone who isn't using the same hardware and software that I'm using, or I can make GIFs on any OS with any software and have my site look the way I want it to.
The choice, for me, is a simple one.
--Dan
Re:Now THAT's an open standards site! (Score:2)
You must be blind. When you Save As PNG in the GIMP, you get a dialog box that, among other options, has a checkbox labeled "Save gamma" . If you don't save gamma, you don't have to worry about gamma correction.
Also, almost every browser that supports PNG supports PNG transparency. It's just that some browsers don't support the full 256 bits of transparency, they just support 1 bit (off/on) just like GIFs.
Re:Now THAT's an open standards site! (Score:2)
Also, almost every browser that supports PNG supports PNG transparency.
Some version of IE (I think it was 4.x), supported transparency, but always used gray as the background color. I suspect they released it half-finished.
Re:Now THAT's an open standards site! (Score:2)
vorbis does rock..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, I know the Ogg team wants to release a good quality codec, but the longer Ogg Vorbis sits in pre-1.0, the harder a time it will face in a market flooded by codecs. I can go out right now and grab a stereo for my car that will play MP3s, but not Ogg Vorbis
more and more products are shipping, and they are not smart enough to have upgradeable hardware
Re:vorbis does rock..... (Score:4, Informative)
The Ogg Vorbis *decoder* has been stable since RC1, and will be able to play any Vorbis stream produced by RC2, RC3, 1.0, or whatever. There are slight problems in that the reference decoder is floating point, which doesn't fit well with the ARM chips a lot of hardware players use, but that'll be sorted eventually.
Re:vorbis does rock..... (Score:2, Informative)
This is not a slight problem, this is the problem for ogg on hardware players. You will never see ogg on anything other than your pc until this gets done.
Re:vorbis does rock..... (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes.. thats the reasoning that keeps me from running RedHat or Windows9x/Me.
Re:vorbis does rock..... (Score:3, Informative)
Now, having said that, there's two things I'll point out. First, I can't find anywhere where they actually spell out "Release Candidate" so maybe RC actually stands for something else. Second, this post (mine, not the one I'm responding to) boils down pointless nitpicking over semantics. They can call it whatever makes 'em happy. But following the same conventions as the rest of the world makes it easier to figure out what they really mean. In the meantime, I will just mentally replace "RC" with "Beta" when reading about Ogg Vorbis.
just my $.01 worth (depreciated accordingly) (Score:5, Insightful)
people changed from wav to mp3 because wav was unusable due to its massive size, while mp3 was not noticably different in quality (to save the flames yes some people with studio quality gear can hear a difference) while resulting in a 10 fold plus savings in space. entire albums could now be stored in less space than one wav file. this in a time where pressure on any audio/video content was high due to shortages in storage capability was a breakthrough, bringing media to the people, and they embraced it. several years later the industry realized that since it was so widespread, they might as well latch on, and so beginning roughly two years ago, we saw the emergence of mp3 players for all uses, personal, car, home. this all based on two factors, compatability, and acceptance. once people accept something, they stick with it until it is blindingly obvious that the rewards of change are greater than the inherient risks.
fast forward to current times. storage capability has exploded. right now i have 100 gigs at my disposal on this box alone, and this quantity is not anything special anymore. do 5 600 meg wav files bother me anymore? no, in fact i don't even notice them except when i realize i should really archive them because that project is done. do mp3's bother me? not at all, in fact storage is so cheap that i can't even be bothered going through my collection to eliminate duplicates or outdated material. what i'm trying to say with this, is that space is no longer a limiting factor, nor is size of the file, therefore the savings accorded by any new format including ogg is not a selling point especially in the face of change.
so the only real selling points are quality or features. features are great, who wouldn't like to beable to pull up realtime lyrics, band info, pics, links, etc. all from within the music file, or spread throughout the files of a album. however, dvd has the video equivalent of these features and they have failed to be implemented to a major degree because of the time problems which accompany putting so much content into a basic product. so just to put features to the side temporarily, lets just say that features could be a selling point that would bring about a new format if the changed required to mp3 would be impractical or impossible to equal such support.
this leaves us with quality. therefore quality alone will be required to convince consumers and companys to abandon mp3 and change to something else like ogg. now quality is subjective to a great degree, but anyone i know can distinguish the difference in video quality from mpeg-1 to mpeg-2 (dvd), they can distinguish the difference between 800x600 and 1600x1200 screen res, but very few on a blind test can distinguish the difference between mp3 at 128 and 192, none, unless i pull out my dj headphones in wich case a very few, can tell the difference between a cd burned from a original, and from mp3s (which is a more accurate comparison because the hardware used to produce the sound is the same). ogg has nothing better to grab than the cd stream, and while a few hardcore fans will tell you that the audio quality is better, the filesize is smaller, and support will eventually come. right now i can not see how these arguments justify the switch from the widely compatable mp3 format, with my collection which can be expanded easily from an uncomprehensiably large supply, is supported wherever i go, and is having money thrown at it by manufacturers to deliver better and better products.
there are far too few pressures to make the change in the area that counts the most, the mind and wallet of the consumer.
-john
Re:just my $.01 worth (depreciated accordingly) (Score:2, Funny)
Re:just my $.01 worth (depreciated accordingly) (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree that storage is cheap and pretty irrelevant.
However, bandwidth is not. While harddisk-sizes exploded, most people are still hooked up the net with a modem.
If .ogg means you get your file off opennap one minute earlier, I think a lot people will go for it.
Just the company's .01$ (Score:4, Interesting)
How many more of these conditions do you see surviving the next two years? Let's be realistic. MP3's eventually won't be free. Period. There will come a time once it has become an entrenched standard in the commercial world that group behind the MPEG codec start behaving in the way best fitting their stockholders. We've seen it with CDDB, we've seen it with GIF, we'll see it with MP3s. Ogg Vorbis, on the other hand, is a freely available alternative for streaming or downloading audio. While the idea of a non-recordable Ogg Vorbis stream may be as palatable to most slashdotters as having to pay Microsoft every time someone wants to print from word (don't get any ideas now), such a proposition could serve as a very appealing alternative to many broadcasters. If the end-to-end solution is in place, who cares what format it comes over? It can find a home there, especially if it can reduce both software and bandwidth costs.
Let's not forget that if you can reduce file size by 30% for the same audio quality, you can reduce your data costs by 30%. This will be a non-negligable issue to most large providers, and may become a non-negligable one to the average user as broadband companys start enforcing bandwidth caps.
There is no reason to go through your music collection and delete all of the WMA files you may find. There is no reason to convert all the GIF's on your website into JPG's. There is no reason that OVA's have to entirely supplant MP3's. There's no reason it has to happen right away.
Being open-source *should* also make it easier to build audio applications around it, though we all know how that can go.
The mind and wallet of the consumer is *not* the most important place to make changes. The mind and wallet of providers is (In the case of Gnutella, that is also the consumer. Que sera.) We don't need everyone to come on board for Ogg to survive, we just need some forward-thinking companies that realize the bottom line they should care about is theirs.
P.S. the majority of people on Gnutella are still dialup. Tell them that 30% faster transfers are unimportant.
Re:just my $.01 worth (depreciated accordingly) (Score:3, Insightful)
Licensing costs (Score:3, Informative)
MP3 isn't this.
Vorbis is.
Re:just my $.01 worth (depreciated accordingly) (Score:2, Informative)
Consumers are not a factor in format acceptance. (Score:2)
Ogg Vorbis doesn't excite the consumer, in general. I've compared it to MP3 and prefer OV, but most consumers just want to "suck their music into the computer" and don't understand or much care how that happens. Even most of my slashdotter-type friends don't give a damn and say that mp3 is good enough. However, I reiterate that it's not consumers who will make this decision, it's industry.
Electronics manufacturers may start getting interested in making portable music devices that use the Ogg Vorbis format because they may find it easy enough to add, and free. It lets them claim their product supports one more format than the competition or that it's "new and improved". Software companies may decide that it's a good format that they can use for free and just go with it... look at Apple, which tends to use whatever codec seems best to them. If the right people at Apple decided that Ogg Vorbis is best, I can easily imagine it becoming the default audio codec for Quicktime.
Look at WMA. It's not really that great, and consumers don't really care about it, but it's so widely supported (because the monopoly operating system manufacturer ships it in every system and because they've either convinced or bullied hardware manufacturers into supporting it) that it's just becoming used anyway. Ogg Vorbis could easily achieve success through the same processes.
Re:just my $.01 worth (depreciated accordingly) (Score:2)
Hell, It even decodes MP2s, even though no-one uses them anymore.
And save your flames, audiophiles. I'm nearly tonedeaf, and I don't give a flying fuck about your quality rants. This thing works for me just fine.
more! more! (Score:3, Flamebait)
What do 100% of net types use, every single day? 1) base OS, 2) web browser, 3) music. Whoever makes 1-3 a better thing deserves my hard-earned cash. Today, it's $25 to Ogg Vorbis, and it's money well spent!
Re:more! more! (Score:2)
you know, if more people had that kind of attitude, i think OSS would be WAY farther along than it is now
Here's to getting all those guys drunk and happy!!!
Re:more! more! (Score:3, Funny)
I just donated $300 to Microsoft for helping to improve all three.
:-)
Re:more! more! (Score:3, Insightful)
So support of 96/24 will be important.
--jeff
Re:more! more! (Score:3)
There already is a standard for 96 KHz, 24 bit DVD audio. Problem is, hardly anybody uses it for distribution. And unfortunately I suspect that no one ever will - Any new audio distribution standard will focus on digital rights limitation crap above audio quality.
All the D/A converters in use now are 1 bit with many times oversampling. The filters used with them are very good too. What really matters at this point are their effective bits - even though a converter may be labelled as a 24 bit converter, it does not mean you will actually get 144 db dynamic range!
Take a look at my old sample alias viewer program for win32 here [jdkoftinoff.com] (beware of ugly gui colours though!)
The results are deceiving because the program doesn't display what really happens when you have a proper filter on the output.
When all is said and done, what really matters is how it sounds. I personally can tell the difference between 16 bits and 24 bits. I can not tell the difference between 48 khz and 96 khz. I suspect that anyone who says that they can tell the difference is actually hearing the artifacts due to a crappy resonant filter at 22 khz or whatever.
Also, beware of some gear that says it supports 96 khz - Some devices may receive or send it via AES/EBU or SPDIF, but are actually discarding incoming samples or interpolating outgoing samples. Seriously, some companies are scamming the customers with regard to 96 khz.
--jeff
Fuckup Protection? (Score:2)
Re:Fuckup Protection? (Score:2)
Sure it does
Re:Fuckup Protection? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, but here's a great way to avoid that - stop thieving the music. I never get these problems because the only reason I ever get mp3s is to find old songs where I'm not sure which song I'm thinking of. I then find a CD with the song on it and buy it. I rip all my own mp3s. It's anecdotal evidence for sure, but the only effect Napster had on my CD buying habits was that I bought more (I realise I may be in the minority though).
Of course, you may just download the mp3s to avoid the hassle of ripping your CD collection, but having done my own CDs, I have to say it's easier than downloading the mp3s.
Yes, the RIAA are a bunch of tossers, and I hate what they are doing to the flexibility of digital music, but people who download a load of mp3s for free and then bitch about the poor quality of the stuff they just got for free are kind of making the RIAA's point for them.
Interestingly, the two internet services that made me buy more CDs simply by letting me work out what music I wanted to buy (the lyrics.ch server and Napster) were both shut down by the RIAA or similar entities for fear that it would lose them money. Of course, as I mentioned, I realise I may be in the minority (buying CDs rather than just stealing music) so maybe the RIAA have a point after all. Which doesn't justify all the crap they're trying to pull, but hey ho.
In my humble opinion :-)
Tim
Re:Fuckup Protection? (Score:2)
If it's theft, then why am I paying a surtax on every CD I purchase? I'm up in Canada, where some artists' representation organization gets something like a quarter for every data CDR/RW and a couple bucks for every audio CDR that is sold.
Seems to me, then, that I'm paying for the right to share music.
Re:Fuckup Protection? (Score:2)
Heh heh (Score:3, Funny)
By Slashdotting them! Bwuahahaha!!
[Yes, I am hung over.]
Debian packages available (Score:2)
I've just compiled for woody/sid i386.
Of course you should never install random binaries you got from a slashdot poster. Who knows, they could be trojaned.
Ogg and iPod... Can I dream? (Score:5, Insightful)
I ripped 150 CD's into Ogg format early in this year from my FreeBSD box, and threw myself into the Ogg format totally.. hacking up a nice multi-queue ripper/encoder, and going at it. I was unhappy with how slow the Ogg encoder was (it was 0.7 at the time I believe), and artifacts that came onto some albums (Junkie XL comes to mind). I still dealt with it happily. When it came time to move from FreeBSD to MacOS X as my desktop, I simply began to use Audion [panic.com] as my
Then, I get an iPod. This throws my world upside down. Suddenly, everything I had ripped is useless. So, I begin re-ripping with iTunes. I don't care for iTunes for a player, but it's a DAMNED nice ripper/encoder for my albums. It's simultaneous rip/encode process means I can take a CD from insert to rip to encode to eject in 4 minutes (if I'm lucky and I score a 15X encode/rip time).. With it's auto-encode-on-insert and auto-eject-when-done modes, it makes it a real factory process.
Apple is making a very big deal about moving everything it can to a standards based form. [usenix.org]. While Ogg is not really a standard, it'd be really nice if a future iPod firmware update would support Ogg's, being a first for a *publically available* portable audio device supporting Ogg.. it'd be keen, wouldn't it?
That and then I could theoretically store more albums on my little angel. I am worried about the extra firmware bloat on the iPod though. It's very saddening for me to say I won't ever go to Ogg's till my iPod has support for it now.. but we can keep on dreaming, can't we?
Re:Ogg and iPod... Can I dream? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Ogg and iPod... Can I dream? (Score:2)
iTunes IS a nice app, though the simultaneous rip/encode process is something I've done with grip [nostatic.org] for years. It may not be as fancy-shmancy as iTunes but it always gets the job done, plus lets me pick from a list of encoders.
mirror and comments (Score:3, Informative)
win32 binaries: vorbis-tools-1.0rc3-win32.zip [earthlink.net]
i386 RPM libao: libao-0.8.2-1.i386.rpm [earthlink.net]
i386 RPM libogg: libogg-1.0rc3-1.i386.rpm [earthlink.net]
i386 RPM libvorbis: libvorbis-1.0rc3-1.i386.rpm [earthlink.net]
i386 RPM vorbis-tools: vorbis-tools-1.0rc3-1.i386.rpm [earthlink.net]
To encode files, you need all the above RPMs.
There's little question that Vorbis is impressive. The question is, what is its competition? MP3 (created using LAME) is currently the most popular digital audio compression algorithm, but anyone will tell you Vorbis rocks its world. That can't be it, then... is RealAudio/WMA the true competition? How about Quicktime? Perhaps Vorbis is playing to different audience than the "big boys," mainly for the home enthusiast? Vorbis is not quite ready for streaming (e.g., not yet perfectly tuned for 22.1kHz like for 44.1kHz, not very low bitrates, etc.), so until then it seems Real will lead the pack in that arena.
When, however, Vorbis gets these features, I feel it will even be able to replace Real and WMA.
Thoughts on OGG (Score:2)
Will I convert my music collection to OGG? No. It provides no advantage for me, in fact, it's a disadvantage.
If I'm developing an audio app, or require audio compression for my own projects, will I use OGG? Absolutely. As far as I'm concerned, that's what it's all about. It's a codec, not encumbered by patents.. it's fantastic for OSS development.
But for playing music? Unfortunately, mp3 is just more portable. I can give it to my mom, use it in a portable, etcetera.
Also.. and I have no idea either way..
Does OGG have something akin to VBR? Can it compete with the size:quality of, say, lame's default VBR parameters?
Re:Thoughts on OGG (Score:2)
Seems kind of silly.
I'm trying out the dbPowerAMP mentioned a few posts up, and it's pretty nice, as far as ease-of-use and so on goes. Slow as wang, but that's probably because it's using RC2 (I think).
--Dan
"Read the documentation" (Score:3, Informative)
OK, I have to ask... why do people feel the overwhelming need to pontificate/ask profoud questions when they haven't even read the manpage? I'll summarize Ogg's VBR support. You'd have learned this from the FAQ, the READMEs, the manpage a trivial search of the mailing lists, or any of the previous Slashdot stories:
Ogg is natively VBR. It always has been. It's VBR is much better than LAME's because the format *itself* is natively VBR, not supporting it as an extra-spec hack that someone saw fit to kludge in later. Ogg's VBR output is and will likely always be higher quality than its bitrate managed (ie, ABR/BBR/CBR) modes. Don't use -b, -M, -m unless you actually have a *reason* to (eg, streaming). -q will always produce better results for the same output size.
[for the record, the following bits don't apply to this gentle poster, but to other comments]
Also to those below who are complaining, "wah, I reencoded my mp3s to ogg and they got bigger and sound worse," well, think for a second about what you've done. You've taken a lossy format, full of artifacts, and full of characteristics/artifacts specific to mp3 encoding. You're then encoding them in *another* lossy format, with it's own characteristics and saying 'do a good job'. Ogg is going to waste bits trying to reproduce mp3 artifacts perfectly. And because both formats are lossy (even if Ogg is very good), you still lose a bit in the process, a bit like transferring a cassette tape to 1/4" reel-to-reel. The reel to reel is pretty sweet.... but it's still a generational loss.
It seems exceptionally important to nip a few myths here. Most of you will laugh, but there are folks out there who still take a few of these as gospel, because sombody on some website four years ago swore up and down it was true:
In Ogg, VBR is not a hack, it's native. We've been designing it that way for eight years. *VBR modes always sound better. Use them.*
I didn't discount it. (Score:2)
Again, my main reason for not using ogg to encode my music is the fact that mp3 is currently much more portable.
Re:I didn't discount it. (Score:2)
Matt
Side topic.... (Score:5, Informative)
We all know (I hope) that what you hear is also limited by your listening equipment.
I recently bought a pair of Sony MDR-V500 headphones
I was dissapointed when I actually had them side by side; the Sony headphones are basically, well, crap. Any listener could distinguish that they are severely lacking in several areas. The sennheisers sound oh so much better.. and that's on a computer, through a cheap desktop speaker headphone jack, listening to 160Kbps mp3.
So what's the point of arguing over compression formats, or whether something is *really* CD quality, or studio quality, when your equipment can't even come close to reproducing it?
Oh.. to the unitiated.. I highly recommend a good pair of $100 headphones (Sennheiser or Grado, and yes, that means towards the lower end of their product lineups..don't let that discourage you. A low-end Grado or Sennheiser sounds fantastic compared to anything else you'll find in the store.
And those $100 headphones will sound better than a $2000 stereo, anyday.
So what do you guys/gals use?
Re:Side topic.... (Score:3, Informative)
The V500 are meant for rap music, not studio work.
I have a pair of the V6 headphones I purchased about 12 years ago, and they still sound incredible. Yes, I agree that with a good pair of headphones you can hear much more detail in the music.
Re:Side topic.... (Score:2)
I really love them, but there are places when my HD580 really do preform better.
Hardware players (Score:2)
Ogg Vorbis rocks. But the reason MP3 is widely used is that nowadays, *hardware* support it : cd players, portable players, handhelds, and even sound mixers.
Making these work with Ogg Vorbis is probably very simple, moreover Ogg Vorbis source code is free. So why don't hardware manufacturers provide support for Ogg Vorbis? Should we start a petition?
Why Ogg Vorbis will not succeed. Yet (Score:2, Interesting)
Because of this, as well as the popularity of programs such as Morpheus/Kazaa, Napster, Gnutella, and so on, that help you find MP3s, the public equates "digital music" with "MP3," and so Ogg Vorbis is already a step behind, publicity wise.
The public opinion will be almost impossible to change, as normally, whichever company/standard/format grabs the opinion first, and is popular enough, is what stays. Regardless of quality. It's dismaying, but I don't think that we'll see, at least for another year or two, Ogg Vorbis having anywhere near the level of popularity as MP3s, as far as hardware devices.
Gawyn
Now we need free video streaming. (Score:2)
This really could be a killer ap for open source. A lot of companies spend a LOT of money to do commercial video streaming, and would jump at this in a heartbeat if it was even remotely similar in quality. They money they save would more than make up for any slight deficencies. And besides, it would give some serious competition to the very few companies that provide such services.
-Restil
Also, Ogg plugin for OS X QuickTime, finally. (Score:2)
vorbistools wants libcurl (Score:2)
Trouble configuring vorbistools on .. oh, say.. Slackware?
Get your libcurl [curl.haxx.se] here.
Other tools (Score:2)
Just testing RC3 right now (Score:2)
As to quality ... RC3 sounds better. I'm not a self-proclaimed audiophile but my speakers are not cheapie (Cambridge Soundworks FPS1000 FourPointSurround) and my sound card is an SbLive Value (which is good but by no means the pinnacle of perfection.) With the new encoder, percussion sounds more focused like on the CD, and instrumental parts that are supposed to sound smooth are more so than in RC2. Pianos sound more true to the stringed instruments they are. The music sounds more alive.
But don't ask me to quantify it. My ears simply tell me that RC3 sounds better than RC2.
My Verdict
RC3 is a bit faster than RC2.
RC3 sounds noticeably better than RC2.
Doomed without an integer decoder (Score:2)
Unless these guys do something more than say they'll "eventually get that sorted" they will never see the broad acceptance that will make Vorbis take off.
It really is that simple.
Re:changes (Score:2, Informative)
So reencode - and use '-q' switches this time instead of '-b' switches...
DirectShow filters exist! (Score:4, Informative)
Monty
Re:DirectShow Filters would be nice (Score:5, Informative)
Have a look at ww.hydrogenaudio.org for discussion of players that work properly.
Monty
IRC or the developer mailing list (Score:4, Informative)
For chatting with developers real-time (but no guarantee when we'll be there), catch us on #vorbis at irc.openprojects.net.
Monty
Re:What we really need: (Score:4, Informative)
About once every... oh, 10 minutes... someone asks for a tool to convert MP3 to Ogg.
Do NOT convert MP3 to Ogg! Converting (transcoding) between lossy codecs only makes the quality horrible -- the artifacts interact in unpredictable ways. It's like faxing a photocopy of a fax.
Rip your CDs with Exact Audio Copy (win32) or cdparanoia (Linux, et al.). Encode them with oggenc (or LAME if you need MP3 for portable devices). Share them with your friends.
Re:What we really need: (Score:2)
Call me deaf, but I just converted an mp3 to wav to ogg and I couldn't hear any difference between the three formats. Of course the mp3 was 128kbps and ogg ended up being 131kbps average ;-)
On 128kbps mp3s, it's probably not worth it, but I think converting 196kbps or more to 128kbps-ogg should work well.
Re:What we really need: (Score:2)
I said I don't hear any difference. I know very well that the wav is not the same on the CD, but when I don't hear any difference, the artifacts can't be that bad, can they?
Re:wav to high bitrate to low bitrate (Score:2)
Point (2) there is the number one reason I would never put any transcoding app on freshmeat, even if I were to write one.
Silly audiophiles! mp3-ogg is still useful. (Score:3)
So an mp3->ogg converter would introduce additional quality loss. It might also mean someone converted to ogg who wouldn't otherwise want to put in the time to re-digitize their 400 zillion CD collection. (Let alone anybody who did LP->mp3 and doesn't want to muck around re-recording everything!)
I'm all for quality, but there is absolutely no reason to shout "NO CONVERSIONS ALLOWED" from the hilltops.
Fast? (Score:3)
Every decoder I've tried typically consumed at least 10% CPU utilization on my Windows K6-2 450, and 40-60% utilization on my Linux powered 200MHz Cyrix machine.
This is enough that I need either dedicated hardware, or I need to upgrade my machines to use Ogg properly.
MP3s on the same hardware is nearly imperceptable on Linux, and for some reason spikes to around 0.5% on my Windows machine.
The WORST/(most discerning?) MP3 players on Windows spike to 10% on me.
I just can't use Ogg. Find me a decoder which will run under at most 3% utilization on a 200MHz machine and I'll start encoding everything with it.
As for audio quality, I'm no audiophile, but there is this one opening rift which I've encoded in both Ogg and MP3, and on the worst pair of speakers I own, they're both pretty rough. I mean, playing the CD directly through the same speakers on an analog cable was noticably better, and to make sure it wasn't my soundcard, I tried the source WAV file, still sharp. I have to submit it to the Ogg guys as it might be a very good rift to test against.
My technical incentive to go Ogg is pretty weak, as an open spec, I've recommended many technical people I know to give it a try. They like it. I just don't have sharp enough ears to pick up the differences between Ogg and MP3, unless I load a webpage in Mozilla and watch the memory thrashing beat my CPU into submission causing Oggs to stutter where MP3's play fine.
Re:Fast? (Score:2)
Quite true about the FP. It was so long ago that people were talking about that issue I just forgot. What you're saying does explain quite a bit. IIRC, although the AMD K6-2 has better FPU than the Cyrix chip, even AMD addressed their poor FPU by introducing 3DNow! to scrape back some performance. I'll have to try it out on my work machines. They're PII and PIII's. I'll also have to give it a go on my girlfriend's Celeron.
If that is the case, swapping the chip for a slower one with a better FPU I have kicking around might very quickly solve the problem.
Re:My two cents (Score:2, Informative)
First - you say it's a drawback that Ogg at 117kpbs sounds better than MP3 at 128kpbs? I don't understand your point.
Second - LAME's legal status is unclear. The MP3 patents are not (only) in psychoacoustics, they affect the basic MP3 file format, together with natural (obvious) optimizations you would use in creating an MP3. LAME *does* infringe these patents.
Re:"Vorbis has kicked MP3's" (Score:2)
Re:ogg filesharing apps (Score:2)
Really folks: I have been listening to MP3's away from my computer for years....would really like to do the same with OGG's...Any word on portable device support? Or car stereo support.
P.S. -- I have karma to burn.
Re:ogg filesharing apps (Score:2, Funny)
"Away ... from ... computer"? What is this of which you speak? Your words fall strangely on my ears, good sir.
Re:Anyone know a quick way to convert an MP3 libra (Score:2, Informative)
Re:db Power AMP. (Score:2)
General rule of thumb is to never re-encode lossy-compressed music.
Is PowerAmp just transmogrifying the data, or is it decoding/re-encoding?
Re:MP3 vs. OGG (Score:2)
Admittedly, it would have been better if he'd been using a VBR-capable MP3 encoder -- though my experience with both indicates that ogg would still be quite superior.