Ogg Vorbis And Xiphophorus 166
mental666 writes: "Ogg Vorbis is a fully open, non-proprietary, patent-and-royalty-free general purpose compressed audio format for high
quality (44.1-48.0kHz, 16+ bit, polyphonic) audio and music at fixed and variable bitrates from 16 to 128 kbps/channel. This
places Vorbis in the same class as audio representations including MPEG-1 audio layer 3, MPEG-4 audio (AAC and
TwinVQ), and PAC. It sounds great; I've tried it and while the file size is slightly larger than mp3, the quality is there. There's also an xmms plugin in the cvs module. For details check out The Xiph Web site."
( Read More... | 0 of 100 comments ) (Score:1)
Re:But will (Score:1)
Why not wait for release before announcement? (Score:1)
I don't think the CVS code is the latest and greatest.
As for:
"And while the file size is slightly larger than mp3, the quality is there.",
I don't quite know what that means. 128kbs the same size as 128kbs,
except for header.
Re:is it worth it?! (Score:1)
> bitrates of up to at least 256kbps vs. this format's 128kbps limit
The format does not have a 128kbps limit. They are initially trying to get good output at that data rate so that's what they're mostly testing.
> can anyone give some insight as to the advantage of this format?
You won't get sued for using the encoder.
Re:Codecs, codecs everywhere! (Score:1)
But most (all?) of them were closed, and therefore dead ends. If Product X is the only program that will ever use Codec X, then Codec X is useless. Openness matters. That why I don't have any way to playback Windows Media format, QuickTime, or RealAudio on my computer. I have treated MP3 as open and have many tools for making/playing MP3s, but all along, I have lied to myself and known that I was living in denial: some day, Fraunhofer could, conceivably, take MP3 away.
Re:Oh cool! (Score:1)
Excellent (Score:1)
I hope you do not get discouraged by all the weenies on slashdot who complain about the name, its lack of market share and things they don't comprehend. As if GNU or YACC or bash are normal names. Unencumbered multimedia stuff is vitally important.
Sigh - slashdot seems to be deteriorating by the day. The real Linux crowd seems to have disappeared long ago and has been replaced by BSD weenies with personality disorders (I am soo l33t@freebsd.org), BeOS wannabees on LSD (who do not know the difference between latency and bandwidth even if an aircraft carrier would mug them), rag mag journalists (that means you ZDNET), industry analysists (spit) and microsoft PR staff. Time to leave.
Re:What a cool logo! (Score:1)
Re:The grim reality of it all... (Score:1)
Why? (Score:2)
A format that produces larger files than MP3 doesn't really sound attractive to me.
Good idea, but what does it need? (Score:2)
Will it be used? Probably. Will it be the big thing mp3 is? Odds are not.
David
bash: ispell: command not found
Re:Appropriate role of standards bodies (Score:2)
So standards that incorporate privately-held IP can function to get a big system (as cellular needs) accepted. Maybe they are not appropriate in all situations, but they can be useful.
The mechanism that you described has a name -- corruption.
Re:Appropriate role of standards bodies (Score:2)
Would you have the government act alone to devise a cellular standard? Or perhaps there should be a popular vote? Or perhaps government should stay out of it completely, and we should allow Microsoft to "invent" it?
Goverment should support an independent standards body that oversees the standardization process and ensures that no secret and patent-encumbered standards are acceped.
It worked just fine for the Internet.
Re:BladeEnc vs MP3, MP3 loses (Score:2)
Oh phoo, just give me Ogg ;)
Re:BladeEnc vs MP3, MP3 loses (Score:2)
Wow. (Score:5)
Then, reading the inventor's interview, I was blown away by how good his attitude was. He GPLs: I GPL. He _specifically_ and eloquently objects to the notion of 'security features'. He's clearly coming from an audiophile sort of place- I'd given up hope of finding that in compressed digital music at _all_- I currently like mp3s because they distort pretty smoothly and unaggressively, the attempt to deliver 'bright clear spectacular highs' will inevitably produce horrid distortions and breakup, just as it does in hardware and analog audio, only much worse. Now here's somebody with an actual clue concerning himself with issues that mean a great deal to me! Wow. I kinda like that.
My take on the matter as an active and increasingly prolific net musician is this: I'm happily using mp3 128bit from BladeEnc, partly because I dislike the notion that I have to shell out big bucks to Xing or somebody (no laughing in the back there! I hear Xing is actually pretty unmusical, 'flashy' sonically) just in order to produce my work- also I know mp3 is well established, and again it degrades kind of euphonically compared to some stuff I've heard.
CD audio is _already_ severely severely compromised. It is. I can't get over how people get into these arguments over what sounds better or worse and miss how degraded CD sound already is... I would say with my recent work, it is about the same degradation in quality going to 44.1/16 as it is going to 128k BladeEnc. I'm not fooling- this is due to my use of a customised 48/20 ADAT with custom coupling caps throughout the analog board, combined with the removing of all the (wave soldered!) anal hiss control caps which are only there to change the op-amp noise levels from -104db to -73252346 db for crazed silence freaks ;) oh, and it feeds a custom analog board through custom cabling into the computer's A/D converters through more custom cabling. (To hear all this working, listen to songs off "anima" [mp3.com], which uses the whole setup- expect the beginnings of a techno album soon. The album "Hard Vacuum" [mp3.com], which is pure Noise, is actually even harder on an encoder, recorded direct to 44.1/16 and I kept the masters...)
Which is to say, I _know_ mp3 is quite flawed. I can mix and master to make this as unintrusive as possible, but it's still on a level with very good cassette tape (say, Nakamichi Dragon decks) at its best. That can be quite listenable. It can also be useful- when you start dealing with very high transparency equipment like I use, the performances have to be at a higher level, and it's easy to fake yourself out by mixing so that the slightest mistakes become obvious. If you record pretty dry it can be very unforgiving, though real punchy and involving- there's no room for error at all. I do this and then mix to 44.1/16 and then mp3 and by the time that's done, it's much harder to find flaws because the transparency just isn't there anymore :)
However, I will still be among the first to go with Nanny Ogg (gotta love the pterry references! Didn't even clue to this right away) and will even do special high-resolution mixes tailored to stress the new format to the limit- given two things.
- tools that run on a PowerMac, or which can be easily built in MPW, which I'd be willing to struggle with for the cause- I'm _no_ C programmer. I'm a drummer
;) (well, and bassist and guitar player etc etc etc) - somewhere to PUT the damned music. I have 177.1 megs of _compressed_ music on the Web at mp3.com, _all_ freely downloadable. That is orders of magnitude beyond what I can get for my own website, which I'm quite happy with for what it is, but it charges $1 a meg, roughly, and I'm paying $45 a month all things considered.
I like to think I am the poster child for audiophile geeknessI _like_ hearing about this stuff. I hope this works out. I hope this sees Slashdot again and somebody comes up with a Mac version of the programs, no matter how klugey, so I can work with the format and see what I can get out of it.
Count me in- just so happens that the contract with mp3.com is NONEXCLUSIVE rights to my recordings. If anyone sets up an Ogg Music site, I can right now throw five albums of original material on it, producing custom mixes (which I needed to do anyway for a private 'audiophile CD' project I was working on) and at least some material (Extended Play, Hard Vacuum, and anima) of very demanding audiophile quality to show off the format. All I need is the web space and the software...
(*g* dare I say it, wouldn't it be cool if I was some kinda bigshot on mp3.com by the time this happens? I'd _loooove_ to be on some sort of Successful MP3.com Musician soapbox when I start saying these things like 'use GPLed codecs' and 'no secure format bullshit' and 'there's this format called Ogg' ;) Therefore, I would be thrilled if people went and downloaded music from http://www.mp3.com/ChrisJ [mp3.com] which is all free as in beer and speech (meaning, if you want a sample from it I'll actually let you sample individual instruments off my master tapes with my total blessing and cooperation, instead of being a dick and forbidding it), and which is fine music and great for showing off stereos and much of it makes for a nifty Bass Test, especially "Koala" which has huge warm fretless bass and a nearly subsonic string pedal tone to freak people out with... end parenthesis)
How long... (Score:3)
Here's your answer: (Score:1)
mental666 writes: "Ogg Vorbis is a fully open, non-proprietary, patent-and-royalty-free general purpose compressed
audio format for high quality (44.1-48.0kHz, 16+ bit, polyphonic) audio and music at fixed and variable bitrates from 16
to 128 kbps/channel. This places Vorbis in the same class as audio representations including MPEG-1 audio layer 3,
MPEG-4 audio (AAC and TwinVQ), and PAC. It sounds great; I've tried it and while the file size is slightly larger than
mp3, the quality is there. There's also an xmms plugin in the cvs module. For details check out The Xiph Web site."
Re:Here's your answer: (Score:1)
I'm assuming you already knew about Ogg Vorbis. Good for you. You get a cookie.
WARNING: USA-centric illustration ahead WARNING: I will ignore "I'm not from the US so why'd ya say it" flames.
Let's say I turn on the CBS Evening News after I get home from work, and say, there's a terrible rash of tornadoes in Texas laying the entire state to waste. A terrible tragedy.
But wait a minute. I work for a newspaper, so this has come over the AP "wire" already. Not only that, but I checked weatherchannel.com to see what the weather will be like over the next couple of days, mostly because it was a slow news day, and *they* covered it as well, and I read it already.
Oh boy, I'm hopping mad. I call up CBS. I manage to get through to The Man, Mr. News Director AND Head Anchor, Dan Rather.
"You miserable cur!" I bellow. "You reported on the rash of tornadoes in Texas, and not only did I see it on the AP wire, I saw it on weatherchannel.com! How could you be so stupid? Not only that, but you reported about the financial problems of small-time farmers. I'm not a farmer! I don't care! So why'd ya do it! Huh?" I take a deep breath, since I've been bellowing a bit too much.
Silence. Then, a deep breath. "What exactly is wrong with you?" Dan replies. "Do you think we report the news for YOU? What about all those folks who WEREN'T wasting time at the office? What about those whose first glimpse at this tragedy was my report, MY glorious report, that you so brazenly ridiculed?"
Again, silence, this time my own. "I suppose you're right. It WAS kinda stupid of me to think that the news was for me and only me. I'm such a moron." I hang up the phone, a bit embarrassed that I made such a complete ass of myself.
Re:WTF? (Score:1)
Oh wait...come to think of it, this was the first time I'd ever read about it...and I'm interested. Suppose it wasn't that irrelevant or redundant after all.
Slashdot compiles info and links that folks submit and puts them in the news section. Heh, what's CNN supposed to do--fabricate news, due to the fear that YOU already saw a similar story on some other network that might be similar? No. They go ahead and report it, knowing that a vast majority of folks will see/read it and say "Ooh, really? I hadn't heard that yet."
Re:What a fucking tighter. (Score:1)
Oh, and to reply in kind, in the same sort of language you used:
I am going to bed.
That is what I am going to do.
I am going to work at 4:30 in the morning.
4:30 is between 4:00 and 5:00.
My daddy told me so.
It is dark at 4:30.
I get real scared.
I wet myself.
But I am at work at 4:30 for a reason.
I have a life.
I have to work.
I just read Slashdot when I am not at work.
My boss does not like Slashdot.
I do not get work done when I read Slashdot.
I do not have fun at work.
But I get laid when I go home.
I am married.
I have fun at home.
I have sex!
Sex is fun.
Sex makes babies.
Daddy told me so.
My wife takes little pills so we don't make babies.
She does this because we have sex!
Sex is fun.
Changing diapers is not fun.
Mommy and daddy told me so.
Re:Why... (Score:1)
Re:Jesus. (Score:1)
Why do we need telephnes? We have telegraphs!
Why do we need telegraphs? We have trains!
Why do we need trains? We have buggies!
Why do we need buggies? We have saddles for horses?
Why do we need saddles? We have horses' backs!
Why do we need horses' backs? We have our legs to walk!
Why do we need to walk? We can crawl!
Shame on you, Slashdot... (Score:3)
At least five, possibly six, avid Slashdot readers already knew about Ogg Vorbis. Who cares that there were countless other readers who actually saw this as new news--I being among the countless others--those five, possibly six, were far more important.
Also, at least four readers found this story to be completely irrelevant. I mean, Good Lord, you're writing about open technology and technological innovation! How dare you put stories about open-source technolog innovation on a technology news site! I for one found it very informative and relevant, but, my God, you so inconsiderately posted something that four or five folks found totally irrelevant.
Don't think that my optimism or enthusiasm for the content of this post fool you--I'm shocked, appalled, and dismayed that you failed to realize that the whole of the universe revolves around five, possibly six, individuals with nothing better to do than sit at their computer, surfing the Web instead of innovating.
Methinks emmet needs to start reading advogato (Score:1)
The Advogato interview was brilliant, representing hours of effort, while the slashdot post was just a link to the project homepage.
Again, I know it's a lot to ask, but remember-- the slashdot editors are getting paid now, so I think it's reasonable to ask them to behave professionally-- and a professional news editor is expected to keep a very close eye on the competition (not just to give credit where credit is due, but to stay on top of the breaking stories that his or her reporters inevitably miss).
Re:News that's late, for those who can wait (Score:1)
Re: The quality depends on the MP3 Encoder (Score:1)
-MoOsEb0y
Nope. (Score:2)
Encoders are another matter entirely. Thanks to one particularly gluttonous company by the name of Fraunhoefer (did I spell that right?) you cannot make any encoder without paying them truly obscene amounts of money.
LAME is NOT an encoder, and for a very good reason. It would have to pay these royalties to Fraunhoefer if it were. It gets by because it's a patch to the ISO reference code.
Frankly, this is a major problem with ISO. It shouldn't be accepting patent-encumbered stuff as standards. If it's to be an international standard, it shouldn't be something that can be controlled by any one entity, as MP3 is due to our scumbag racketeer friends. Something really ought to be done about that. The whole point of ISO is that these standards are supposed to be open, when corporations would love to make them anything but.
Re:File size larger than MP3? (Score:1)
Since this apparently dosen't compress the audio as much as mp3 does, it requires a larger filesize in order to maintain the same quality level of the audio.
Re:File size larger than MP3? (Score:1)
Hm.
News that's late, for those who can wait (Score:3)
I sent an email to Roblimo immediately after posting the interview. I have no idea what's going on inside Slashdot these days, but from the outside, it looks pretty fucked. A typical story makes it to
Incidentally, I generally check Slashdot, Lwn, and Kuro5hin at least once a day, and post links when appropriate.
ObOnTopic: I tried the CVS Vorbis encoder two weeks ago on a set of files, including some music that MP3 did a relatively poor job on, and was very impressed by the overall quality at 128kbps (64kbps/channel). I'm looking forward to the release of the new psychoacoustic model, as that promises to make Vorbis dramatically better than MP3 for comparable bitrates.
That said, a great many people either can't hear the difference or don't care. How else can you explain the fact that so many people use BladeEnc or one of the barely-modified ISO coders when LAME is so much better?
BladeEnc vs MP3, MP3 loses (Score:3)
I'm surprised that you are so manaical about your analog equipment, but are basically satisfied with BladeEnc. To me, BladeEnc at 128k distorts the music enough to detract from my listening enjoyment, and I can even hear the artifacts at 256k.
If you're going to be doing MP3 encoding at 128kbps, use LAME [sulaco.org]. LAME is without a doubt the best free MP3 coder in existence. The differences between LAME and BladeEnc at 128kbps are striking, and it's pretty close to Fraunhofer's quality.
I can hear distortion in 128kbps MP3's generated by LAME (and Fraunhofer, too, for that matter), but only if I listen. It's perfectly adequate for everyday listening. So I usually encode at 160kbps, at which point I cannot hear the difference. 160kbps also gets past the >16kHz cutoff of 128kbps MP3. (and here you are bitching about the loss of sound quality from the CD's 44.1kHz sampling rate!)
Based on listening to the CVS version a couple of weeks ago, I fully expect that the production version of Vorbis at 128k will be indistinguishable from CD's, perhaps with a few minor exceptions of difficult-to-compress passages.
And to address the main point of your posting, by all means get out there and push for Vorbis to be supported in all the cool places where MP3 is now. There are no compelling reasons not to, except for inertia. And the reasons to are, to me anyway, compelling. It simply sounds better, and it's totally free. If people are going to go around buying gold-plated speaker cables, you'd think being given a significantly better codec would be even more effective
Listening tests (Score:4)
I listened to some regular music, plus the samples at the LAME website [sulaco.org] designed to stress MP3 coders to the max.
Basically, Vorbis blew the pants off MP3, with one exception - there are occasional artifacts audible in only one channel (Vorbis, at present, simply encodes each channel separately). Since these artifacts are way off center in the stereo field, they are particularly annoying. Monty claims that these artifacts are fixed in the new psychoacoustic module, and you know what? I believe him.
Keep in mind also that today's MP3 coders have years of tuning and tweaking behind them (Fraunhofer's coder of a few years ago did not sound that great, actually pretty far behind where LAME is now).
I encourage people not to just accept information that's spoon-fed them. It only takes a few hours to set up a simple listening test. Check out the code from CVS, put on your 'phones, and put it through its paces.
Advogato carried the interview with Monty a full week ago. I sent mail to roblimo, with whom I had been in correspondence. What's happened to Slashdot's speed lately?
This guy is way cool (Score:4)
Bruce
Re:Isn't the real issue stream control, not codec (Score:1)
The problem is that there are soooo many people out there with money, but without the time or inclination or brains to understand what the rights are that they're giving away. By giving the companies their rights, they increase the power of the companies, who thus become more capable of making life really hard for those who did understand what they were giving up.
All that's really needed is for everyone to understand everything. In the meantime, we're pretty much screwed. Perhaps stupidity could be treated like drunkenness: lock people up for a day every time they do something dumb (as defined by, um, me!).
bitstream metainfo? (Score:4)
Is there any allowance for metainfo in your bitstream specs? The webpage didn't indicate it to me but I might not have been looking hard enough.. IIRC Icecast/Shoutcast file metainfo (artist, titles, genre, etc) on streams is kludgey and unreliable, where it exists. Is this involved in the bitstream or is it meta/wrapping around the bitstream?
Easier to fix this and get it right while the standards are still in flux (then again, this is OSS, aren't the standards always flexible?
Your Working Boy,
Will Ogg Vorbis be better than VQF and MP3 ? (Score:1)
Here is a summary of VQF vs. MP3 I gleaned from http://perun.elfak.ni.ac.yu/~milko/vqf/VQFvsMP3.h
1. MP3 psychoacoustic model excludes
completely some high frequencies when
it decides that they are irrelevant.
2. MP3 preserves power spectra peaks, and
VQF does not preserve the peaks at the
highest frequencies that good.
3. VQF has problems with the Pre-Echoes,
which is solved in MP3 by a technique
called "window switching".
**To know what's the "pre-echoes", go here:
http://perun.elfak.ni.ac.yu/~milko/vqf/more.htm
And from the conclusion of that page:
Conclusion?
It seems that MP3 has a better
psychoacoustic model. VQF sounds
(and looks) more natural.
Certainly, both formats need more
development...
So... come back to our topic at hand...
How will Ogg Vorbis fair against both VQF
and MP3 ?
Re:yet another.. (Score:4)
Re:What kind of names are those? (Score:1)
Of course they're silly, they're from Terry Pratchett novels.
Ogg is the name of a witch and Vorbis a priest.
Re:2 things needed (Score:1)
The same group has written a good ripper, it's called "cdparanoia" and is available from the same place as Vorbis.
I'm fairly sure that if they can come up with "Ogg Vorbis" and Xiphorous (sp?) that they'll have a sufficiently nifty extension also. Why three characters though?
Re:Why... (Score:2)
That wouldn't be worth the effort of switching over. The reason is that there are currently no completely open formats - bits of them always require some sort of licensing or other snags like that. These types of things contribute to the likelyhood of a format being unreadable in 70 years. MP3 is sufficiently open that I don't see a problem with playing those, but there are still some sort of licensing fees involved to do stuff commercially with it, and something else involved with encoding them. It presents legal hurdles at the very least.
This format seems to have aspirations of being better quality than MP3, perhaps placing it up with formats like VQF for which encoders/decoders tend to only exist in binary form. It's good to have this because if people go looking for an alternative, one would prefer that the alternative be at least as portable, right?
Re:BladeEnc vs MP3, MP3 loses (Score:1)
Hamish
Re:Isn't the real issue stream control, not codec (Score:5)
'Stream control' is a red herring. If you can
listen to it, you can record it. There are sound
drivers for Windows and for Linux that let you
save the output stream to disk, so you can make
perfect digital recordings of anything coming
from RealPlayer and other 'secure' players.
Re:To UNDERquote the author: (Score:1)
Better than MP3 is not everywhere already.
Re:is it worth it?! (Score:2)
Sigh. Per channel. 128 kbps per channel.
--
Ian Peters
Voog? (Score:2)
Anyone else find the title of that article alittle bit like vogon poetry?
Re:Wow. (Score:1)
So, you basically want two things. Something like mp3.com for vorbis. I suspect that, should the format become popular - and I think it will, mp3.com and so on will branch out and have seperate sections for other audio formats. I don't think that this will be a problem, really. Once the format is established, this will happen.
Secondly, you want mac tools. THIS is easy. The vorbis source is really well written.
I 'ported' the code to win32. It took about half an hour, most of which was struggling with MSVC. The code is VERY portable. Once it was compiling, decoding worked perfectly. Encoding was somewhat more difficult, due to a small obscure bug - but that now works perfectly too. Porting to a mac should be comparable - I doubt it'd take more than a day for someone with any knowledge about mac programming.
Mac tools are waiting only for a developer with a few hours of time on his/her hands. If you know one - get him/her to contact the vorbis-dev list. We DO want vorbis encoders and players on every platform we can.
Michael
Re:Here's your answer: (Score:1)
"PHP is a server-side, cross-platform, HTML embedded scripting language. If you are completely new to PHP and want to get some idea of how it works, have a look at the Introductory Tutorial. Once you get beyond that have a look at the example archive sites and some of the other resources available in the Links section."
Is this news, now, too?
File size larger than MP3? (Score:1)
Re:File size larger than MP3? (Score:3)
Hmmm, I'm afraid you are off-track here. Encoding bitrate, usually in kilobits per second, actually describes how many bits you need to encode a second of audio. Therefore, it does indicate the amount of compression that you are achieving (over the original sample bitrate). For example, CD-quality uncompressed audio is 44.1Khz 16 bit stereo sampling, therefore approximately 1411 kilobits per second. If the encoding outputs a stream with a bitrate of 128 kilobits per second, you've achieved a compression ratio of a bit more than 10 to 1.
Re:Codecs, codecs everywhere! (Score:1)
-David T. C.
What a cool logo! (Score:3)
As near as I can tell, it's Jesus spanking a snake with a lit sparkler. Ogg, the symbolism!!
Re:Codecs, codecs everywhere! (Score:2)
Re:Codecs, codecs everywhere! (Score:1)
Oh cool! (Score:3)
this can run from 16 to 128k PER CHANNEL -
in other words, 32 to 256k stereo.
Remember, a 128k MP3 stream is actually two 64k channels.
--Kevin
=-=-=-=-=-=
"Just take another hit 'cause you don't give a f*ck-
You're a junkie and you're proud!"
I bet they wished they'd never mentioned MP3... (Score:3)
As I see it, the "free" (as beer) feature doesn't offer enough advantage to sell it in the marketplace of ideas, however, I don't read that they meant to go head-to-head against MP3. They simply felt proud of the job they'd done in that arena.
Regrettably, while Ogg Vorbis was specifically designed to do well at low bandwidth, they haven't implemented that code yet. The modem is going to be with us for a long time, and a streaming solution that let you listen as you surf could have fair appeal. It would also have some real commercial potential.
Overall, it's a testbed, and I applaud the notion, though I do not know if other similar initiatives exist. Years ago, I was grumbling that no one supported wavelet and freq/time domain components simultaneously in the same audio file, and last I checked, the major formats still don't. Vorbis at least supports this, though (again) they haven't implemented it.
Still... I can help but think their project name was just the first audible output from pre-alpha code (Who knows what the input was?)
__________
Re:bitstream metainfo? (Score:2)
From: Monty
Subject: Re: [vorbis-dev] Metadata, file signatures, and extentions
I need to get this one into the FAQ.
> I've been working writing some tools that deal with id3v2 tags on
mp3
> files. id3v2 is this really, really long specification with places for
> all kinds of metadata for media.
> I've looking at the sample vorbis encoder and a file I made from it
I
> noted that you have some a comment field, and I was wondering if you had
> any plans to support more metadata, and if you would consider adding
> id3v2 as your metadata format.
id3v2 will not be a part of Vorbis. Ogg bistreams allow mixing streams of
any
type, and there will be an XML stream type defined for metadata. This is a
better solution than id3 in just about every technical sense. The Ogg
bitstream code to support this already exists.
The comment fields in the Vorbis header are only for text comments, not
arbitrary metadata.
--
The point... (Score:4)
(A) "We have mp3 - why do we need Ogg?"
(B) "Mp3 is too entrenched for any competitor to
ever succeed."
(C) "Ogg is not as good as mp3, or requires
higher bandwidth."
Bah! Don't you people *think*?!?
The mp3 format is not going to get better. Vorbis is being actively developed. Just because it may not be better than mp3 at this moment (And I make no such claims here - check the advogato interview for more info, or better yet download the software and play with it.) does not mean that it will not become so in the forseeable future.
Beta never caught on because (A) it was very expensive and (B) Sony had the licensing locked up tight. If Sony had been *giving away* VCR's the home movie industry might have developed differently.
So what does Vorbis have going for it?
FREE
FREE and powerful
FREE and powerful and open source.
What attracted you to linux in the first place?
This is a major boon to anyone who wants to legally stream audio but can't afford to pay for an mp3 encoder. If all you want to do is listen to music on your computer, then maybe you don't care what format it is. Do consider this: A free encoder will allow a whole lot more people to provide content online. Heck, with this, any band that wanted to and could afford a bit of bandwidth could put up their own songs online w/o suffering through mp3.com or running the legal risk of using an mp3 encoder w/o paying for it.
I don't think mp3 is as entrenched as some of you seem to believe. How many of you have both a Realaudio player and a separate mp3 player on your computer? What would it take to get you to download another? How about if it were just an XMMS plugin?
Does anybody really sweat a free download?
zeke
Re:File size larger than MP3? (Score:2)
I can sometimes hear the MP3 artefacts so I would not mind a larger format.
Re:Isn't the real issue stream control, not codec (Score:2)
Why? Why shouldn't companies have rights to control their content? If you were producting something of value, you probably wouldn't like it if I were to steal/hijack/pirate it.
Re:Isn't the real issue stream control, not codec (Score:2)
Unsupportable statement. Just becuase the average person doesn't care about the lunatic fringle's holy war(s) against the MPAA and RIAA doesn't mean that they don't care about their rights.
And we either have to kiss our rights goodbye or have no content.
What rights are you talking about? The "rights" people are using to pirate music and videos?
Also, I have as much a right to break CSS (and not get sued for it) as they do to implement it, or even more.
Well, aparently the courts disagree with you, and its their opinion that counts, not yours.
Re:Isn't the real issue stream control, not codec (Score:3)
Good, glad we see eye to eye
They should make you buy one DVD that can only be listened to during the day at home, one for at night at home, and one for in the car.
Companies should have the right to place whatever license they want on their product. No one is putting a gun to your head and focing you to buy the product.
So a company (or a bunch of companies) can spend their time and money developing a spec, such as DVD, but they don't have the right to place licenses on it in your world?
Basically we should let them require you to sell yourself into slavery to them in order to access their wonderful content
Like everything in the world, you have a choice. There is a cost to the content (both in money and rights you may give up). You perform a simple equation in your head... do I value the content enough to give up the required money and combination of rights? If so, you pay, otherwise, you don't use the content. How hard is that to understand?????
It works really well, and has its own built in negative feedback mechanism, as if the cost of the content is too high (in either rights or $$$$), no one will view the content.
Where is the psychoacoustics model? (Score:2)
Re:Codecs, codecs everywhere! (Score:2)
Yes it does matter. The difference is that we finally have a truly free and open standard for digitally compressed audio. The difference is that we finally have a choice, should Fraunhofer come tumbling down on us with more of their patent hassles.
It's almost like Linux. At some point a few years ago, we thought the world would end, and everyone would be using Windows. Somewhere, an open-source kernel was maturing and emerging to be a tour de force. Microsoft thought it didn't matter, becaus e they had 90% of the market, and all the other Unices were dying in their own little corner. But Linux provided a choice for us. Ogg will be similar in many aspects. It will continue to improve, unlike mp3, and there will be no commercial entities withholding us with watermarks and encryption.
Re:Why? (Score:2)
There's a big difference there...
I can hear weird artifacts in MP's up to 192K,
they give me a headache, something due to phasing of the audio at different frequencies. If I'm not betweeen the speakers, or it's mono, no problem.
Only some music causes this. It's like a fatigue in my audio processing area.
If it's only 10-20% bigger than a 128K/s MP3, and it doesnt arifact like MP3, I'll go for it. Too bad my Apex isnt upgradable to the new standard.
Thats the real problem... Closed Hardware.
Re: The quality depends on the MP3 Encoder (Score:3)
- BladeEnc: BladeEnc I have found produces the very worst audio, even worse than Xing. I can make out artifacts on every type of music, even at bitrates up to 256kbps. The highs get all slushy, and you can usually hear strange electronic noises when listening through a good pair of headphones. Avoid BladeEnc.
- Xing Encoder: Xing is very common, and yet it is horrible. I can tell if an mp3 was made with Xing right away upon hearing it. Generally Xing has the same sort of problems as BladeEnc, but not quite as pronounced. I must say it is 2 or 3 times faster than the other codecs, but it is definately 4 or 5 times worse. Stay away.
- LAME: When I first tried LAME under Linux, I thought it was just as good as the modern Fraunhofer codec found in products such as MP3 Producer. But, after using it for a while and ABing it against the same music made with the more modern Fraunhofer codecs, I have found that it is not quite perfect. But the quality is acceptable, and if the bitrate is reasonably high (192-256kbps), I have no problems listening to MP3s encoded with LAME. For pop music, it is even listenable at 128 kbps.
- Modern Fraunhofer (MP3 Producer, etc): This is definately the best encoding algorythms. Fraunhofer has perfected their psychoacoustic encoder over the years, taking advantage of their extended knowledge of the codec. 50% of all music sounds find at 128kbps, 95% at 192kbps, at 256kbps, it is impossible for me to hear the difference between the mp3 and cd, even with the most demanding recordings.
I have found that many open-source zealots will try out BladeEnc, being free, and after encoding a few songs make the blanket statement that all MP3s sound like crap. This is simply not true. Please try listening to some properly encoded mp3s before you make rash generalizations.Re:The Corollary Slashdot Effect (Score:2)
Something else that occurred to me on this point is that those of us who are members of the IEEE [ieee.org] and other standards-establishing organizations should be lobbying for all future official standards to be free of patents. That includes things like Firewire, etc. It might have a chilling effect on submissions for standards for awhile, but the current system of "submit it as a standard then ambush everyone with patent demands after the fact" would be defeated.
The Corollary Slashdot Effect (Score:5)
The fatalist attitude of so many on Slashdot amazes me sometimes. Here we are, a community numbering in the six figures (maybe even seven by now), and we sit here and go, "Too bad it won't make a difference." Hundreds of thousands of users could make a huge difference, if we just agreed to do something together! Heck, just going and looking at the web sites in most stories on Slashdot is enough to bring mortal servers to their knees!
We don't have to overwhelm MP3 to make Vorbis work - we just have to create a niche market. Especially if clever programmers write converters (tricky without compunding artifacts), Vorbis can stand on its own.
If we're serious about supporting Open Source, then we should support it right down the line - no patent-encumbered formats like MP3 and GIF. If we all live by that, then new standards like Vorbis and PNG will win in the end.
Re:Isn't the real issue stream control, not codec (Score:2)
MPEG 4 AAC (Score:2)
Re:MPEG 4 AAC (Score:2)
Re:Isn't the real issue stream control, not codec (Score:3)
The issue isn't that the company doesn't have control over their own content, it's that they prevent other companies' content from being available because they have a monopoly on the interface.
Imagine this: some company (rhymes with "Noel") writes new networking software that's initially compatible with TCP/IP, but is so successful on its own that they later remove support for TCP from the product. They kill off all competitors by restrictive liscencing since they have 95% of the market. Since nearly everyone accesses the 'net through them, other companies pay tons of money to advertise on their network. They can also become market leader in any market they want by advertising their product and preventing others from advertising competing products on their network. If done subtley enough, they can also silence opposing opinions (let a few of the slightly-negative things through so people think you're "objective", but filter the really bad stuff out). Open source is no longer viable... in order to write applications for the new network, an organization has to sign a contract that prevents disclosure of source code.
The above scenario is a big stretch (and pretty cynical, especially for me), but I suspect that it's what the "dot com" and media CEOs secretly dream about at night. Fortunately, the government is wary of losing its control and would try to stop something like this at all costs.
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Vorbis *does* support >128kbps streams (Score:4)
This is what OSS community should do with video (Score:4)
One of the things most often complained about at Slashdot is the lack of Quicktime players for Linux, and more specifically, lack of a player capable of playing movies compressed with Quicktime 4's Sorenson codec. Many sites, especially those of the movie industry, have adopted Sorenson because it has genuine advantages over industry-standard MPEG video: Sorenson produces significantly better video quality at the bitrates preferred on the Internet today. While Sorenson and Microsoft's proprietary offerings are gaining ground, the use of free video standards like MPEG is becoming more and more scarce.
The only feasible way of reversing this trend is to come up with a superior video codec and distribute it freely. Until now, many people have argued that developing a good media codec involves such high-end mathematics that developing one under traditional Open Source development model is not possible.
It is high time that someone proved them wrong.
Not just DVD-Audio... (Score:2)
Spyky
Free Speech, not free beer, naysayers! (Score:3)
A good, free CODEC really IS vital for free/open online multimedia. Remember that the uses for compressed/streaming audio go beyond Shoutcast stations or packing a million songs on your harddrive. Vorbis will end up in free versions of online music collaboration software, I'm sure, as well as conferencing, telephony perhaps
Look at something like Rocket Network's online studios [www.http]. Sounds cool, huh? But who would pay for the technology license to develop and deploy a free (in both senses) Rocket Network server? Nobody, I'm guessing. You can get a 'free' online studio now - as in beer - but what if you wanted to make that your business? Lotsa money, no control of the technology.
For these systems to develop in the free/open software community, we need control of all segments of the technology. Think of this in terms of GIF vs. PNG, with a lower practical barrier since the entire world of online mutlimedia is still emerging and CODECs are inherently pluggable in multimedia apps.
Or maybe my head's up my butt.
Re:File size larger than MP3? (Score:2)
The vorbis library supports a wide range of encoding options, includeing constant bit rate. The fully featured command line front end to the library is not finished yet.
Re:File size larger than MP3? (Score:2)
The current implementation is for the purpose of getting it all working. Optimization to follow.
Some apply logic and crawl before they attempt to run.
See the FAQ [xiph.org]
-Peter
Re:Where is the psychoacoustics model? (Score:3)
Also, for references, see the most recent mail archive article on that subject [xiph.org].
Monty
Some questions answered (Score:5)
I'm taking time to answer a few questions as it seems a number of vocal folks have started posting without looking at the Vorbis web pages first. Practically every question and musing here is addressed there [xiph.org]...
First off, I wasn't ready for this. Vorbis is not at release, although I hope that will be soon. I'm not releasing before it's ready.... and it isn't quite ready. Most of the fun stuff has been going on on a CVS branch; the mainline is only a functional, stable, dull, unimpressive version for starting application work. That way when Vorbis *is* released, all the Sonique, XMMS, Winamp, kmpg and Freeamp folks will have to do is recompile.
Second, the name 'Xiphophorus'; the organization is a democracy and I was outvoted. I personally like to emphasize 'xiph.org'. I rather Like 'Ogg' and 'Vorbis' though. Oh, and it's not Jesus spanking a snake. It's Thor, Mjollnir and Jörmungandr. I have a page about the names/logos; go read it [xiph.org].
Lastly, distributing hacked up encoders right now is fine, but keep in mind, that as soon as the new psychoacoustic engine is merged into the CVS main branch the bitstream format will change. The change is minor, but it will break existsing streams. That will happen this week, so you don't need to contain your enthusiasm too long :-)
Monty
xiph.org [xiph.org]
The name is 'Ogg'. That's harder than mp3? (Score:5)
The name of the format is 'Ogg'. Just 'Ogg'. It has less unique characters than 'mp3' and can be pronounced in one syllable. Where I come from, that counts as pretty easy. Try it.
- "Fish"
- "Cat"
- "Ogg"
Vorbis is the name of a CODEC that Ogg uses. Just like 'Sorensen' is one of 'Quicktime's' video codecs. 'Ogg' is much easier than 'Quicktime' too.But wait! There's More!
Monty xiph.org [xiph.org]
Re:Voog? (Score:3)
To quote the author: (Score:2)
(emphasis his)...Now I don't know enough about audio encryption (or rather, I don't know anything at all), but it sounds to me like the author himself thinks that the format is currently only on even ground with MP3. With the disadvantage that MP3 is everywhere already.
Missing the Point (Score:2)
Also, if you're a business (Rock band, whatever) and use MP3 files on your web site, you'd damn well better have a legal MP3 encoder when Frauhauf comes knocking. You wouldn't have to worry about THAT kind of legal exposure either, using this file format.
Now all we need is a high quality highly compressable unencumbered video format...
Missing the point (Score:4)
This is as pointless an argmuent as, "why develop linux. Windows already has 90% of the market share, it's reasonably good(it's useable), so why bother with Linux?" Some would say, "it's better!" But that's not the real point. The point is that Linux is FREE and OPEN. This is the true power and purpose behind Vorbis as well.
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"I will be as a fly on the wall... I shall slip amongst them like a great
yet another.. (Score:2)
Re:Some questions answered (Score:2)
====
Encoding Vorbis streams (Score:2)
There is an encoder available in the CVS checkout from the xiph.org site. However, it is extremely simplistic. I have already added to this encoder the ability to accept command line options via getopt(). My modifications seem reasonably stable and I will be releasing the modified encoder to Freshmeat probably within the day. Really this makes it much easier to encode things (the supplied encoder is stdin -> stdout). I plan on doing the same thing with the decoder so that it can play to the sound card, etc., like mpg123. I will link to my modified source as soon as I get it online.
The xmms plugin: in the cvs directory xmms, just type 'make' (after configuring and making the rest of the package from the main directory). Then copy the resulting lib*.so file to your XMMS Input plugins directory (/usr/lib/xmms/Input/ for global, ~/.xmms/plugins/Input ??? for local.)
The Modified Encoder (Score:2)
Re:bitstream metainfo? (Score:3)
this is all that happens...
telnet shoutcast.server:8000
GET / HTTP/1.0
Icy-Bla Bla bla
icy-My stream yada yada
icy-MetaInterval: 8192
[data]
and then every 8192 bytes it adds meta data on top of the mp3.
i haven't looked at the new tech yet. but if they haven't provided a inet streaming protocol, it and it's a frame based format you should be able to do that exact same thing that shoutcast does.
-Jon
Why Ogg Vorbis is better (Score:5)
http://www.advogato.org/article/56.html [advogato.org]
Arun
Re:is it worth it?! (Score:3)
No difference between MP3 and CD - only at 256Kbps (Score:2)
Re:Oh cool! (Score:2)
Isn't the real issue stream control, not codec (Score:3)
Yes, you can always capture the audio output, but that isn't considered the threat that capturing the digital stream is.
And I'll agree that you can capture the digital stream, as well, by hook or by crook. But it's a bit harder, and at the moment isn't mainstream. Heck, at the worst grab the RealAudio ipchains proxy and hack it to put the stream capture code there.
If surreptitious stream capture techniques were to rise to the general consciousness, I'm sure the RIAA (and MPAA, where relevant) would be after them.
Isn't the real issue stream control, not codec IP? (Score:4)
This is what prevents one from capturing a stream and saving it. Use an open codec, and the codec can be replaced/subverted to capture the stream, and then everyone in the world will immediately pirate the precious content.
IMHO, a free codec won't help. We've got to crack the nut of organizations who want to retain intimate and complete control over content delivery.
It's not really a software problem, it's a greed and political problem.
is it worth it?! (Score:2)
Re:Isn't the real issue stream control, not codec (Score:3)
The lawmakers would support it too, as long as they gave the government enough control. "Yeah, let us take over, don't stop us. Why do you have to listen to us? Well you are the gov't so you don't, but here is way you want to. We can make all the politically incorrect speech disappear. We can make any pro-drug info disappear. We can make all independant political speech disappear. With UCITA and the DMCA any people trying to use our net despite our wishes (which will include your wishes) will be breaking that law. But it won't be "censorship" or a violation of the First Amendment, since we will do the censoring for you. No one will sue you or stop you or hate you, since you'll just have us do your dirty work."
That is a risk you missed on your otherwise very good analysis. And you weren't being cynical, just realistic. It will and has been attempted. DVDCCA/MPAA is about control, not just piracy. Welcome to the 21st century. Please check your freedom at the door.
shorten, anyone? (Score:2)
and it can capture 100.0% of usual 44.1/16 audio as well as compressed lossy audio.
and I believe the enc/dec programs are free.
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Re:shorten, anyone? (Score:2)
shorten website [cam.ac.uk]
enjoy,
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