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Music Compression and Quality
IceDigger - Jan 30, 2005

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  Curtis Jan 31, 2005
I'm a Vorbis fan, so I'd suggest OGG as the best compromise between sound quality and compatibility. Using a slightly non-standard codec might actually help the server load a little. Maybe less people will attempt to leech the server dry if it's not all in MP3...

 FunkyPoopMonkey Jan 31, 2005
Very good point curtis.

 Curtis Jan 31, 2005

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by FunkyPoopMonkey@Mon, 2005-01-31 @ 07:41 PM



Very good point curtis.




[post=128760]Quoted post[/post]


But of course.

 Borisz Jan 31, 2005

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by FunkyPoopMonkey@Sun, 2005-01-30 @ 08:31 PM



Anyone who complains about ogg needs to just grow up and get winamp. It comes with the ogg codec, and its still the best music player on the planet, and will probably never be beaten. OGG beats MP3 in all aspects by a clear margin according to tests.




[post=128672]Quoted post[/post]


lol, which planet are you on? LAME alt preset standard (or preset standard for later versions) are clearly as good or better then Vorbis files on the same bitrate, while Musepack is miles better then both.

And Winamp is pretty much dead, its only a matter of time before people will move on to a more advanced player like Foobar. I mean look at it: the default installer for Winamp can't handle half of the modern filetypes, and all the updates it gets are security fixes. None of the original programmers are on the team anymore, and its owned by AOL.

Whileas Foobar has an insane amout of costumizing options, it can play TONS of formats with the default setup (winamp needs additional plugins to do so), has native support for replaygain, and to top that it also uses less cpu time and memory. And it is developed by one of the former Winamp coders.


  
	
	

		
		

			Using a slightly non-standard codec might actually help the server load a little. Maybe less people will attempt to leech the server dry if it's not all in MP3...


Ogg is almost as known as MP3, so it would help only a little much. AAC is less known, so its either that, or Musepack, or some other, more obscure format.

 CrazyGoon Jan 31, 2005
Not an audiophile, nor trying to be. But I will ask whether OGG achieves a more accurate bit-rate sample than MP3 (thus can achieve audio 'quality' on par with MP3's, except with a lower bit-rate). That is what I'm lead to believe...

Not that I can tell the difference anyway

 Drenholm Jan 31, 2005
160kbps stereo Fraunhofer 3.3.2 Professional codec MP3? Sounds good and is a nice ratio of file size,

Or Vorbis quality 6 - that's good too, but not mainstream, as was said earlier.

But it's really up to you guys - I can't really make any solid recommendations.

Oh yeah - my SX webmail won't let me change my password..! :/

 SkankinMonkey Jan 31, 2005
Low bitrate ogg streams with awesome quality. BBC ran a test run of streaming ogg about 2 years ago, and it was much much much better than any mp3 stream i've heard, in fact it sounded better than radio quality too, and it was only 64kbps too

 Drenholm Jan 31, 2005
Surely people would rather be able to download SX's tracks than stream them?

Pardon me if you were referring to something else.

 SkankinMonkey Jan 31, 2005

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by Drenholm@Mon, 2005-01-31 @ 12:21 PM



Surely people would rather be able to download SX's tracks than stream them?



Pardon me if you were referring to something else. 




[post=128784]Quoted post[/post]


You can stream or download mp3's or ogg, but I was just pointing out that ogg is an awesome low bitrate codec as well as high bitrate. mp3 really chokes at lower bitrates.

 Drenholm Jan 31, 2005
Oh yeah; I know what you mean about Ogg Vorbis - I was actually amazed at its performance at low bitrates.

But for any purpose aside from convenient access on my PC or a portable player, I wouldn't use a lossy format.

 SkankinMonkey Jan 31, 2005

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by Drenholm@Mon, 2005-01-31 @ 12:39 PM



Oh yeah; I know what you mean about Ogg Vorbis - I was actually amazed at its performance at low bitrates.



But for any purpose aside from convenient access on my PC or a portable player, I wouldn't use a lossy format. 




[post=128786]Quoted post[/post]


Unfortunately storage and bandwith aren't cheap, and if Ice really wants to encode stuff at lower bitrate and retain quality to save bandwith, Ogg is his best choice

 Drenholm Jan 31, 2005
Good point!

I already think that there is a fantastic amount of music online - especially once the Dreamcast, Saturn and Misc soundtrack sections go back up!

IceMan2k has done really well... I couldn't manage a tiny little site, let alone a massive one like this.

 kokoman Jan 31, 2005
Hello.

I prefer MP3 format (160-192 bitrate), because I like burning the songs/albums in a CD and hearing them in my CD player.

Two questions:

How would I be able to convert Mp3 PRO files to Mp3 standard files? What program and plugins do I need?

Do you think there is any driver/firmware/plugin to update my Sony DNE-300 CD/Mp3 player for playing Mp3 PRO at full quality (id est, playing Mp3 PRO at 44 KHz instead of 22KHz)?

Thanks for your answers.

Bye.

 Borisz Jan 31, 2005

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by CrazyGoon@Mon, 2005-01-31 @ 09:48 AM



Not an audiophile, nor trying to be. But I will ask whether OGG achieves a more accurate bit-rate sample than MP3 (thus can achieve audio 'quality' on par with MP3's, except with a lower bit-rate). That is what I'm lead to believe...



Not that I can tell the difference anyway 




[post=128777]Quoted post[/post]


at low bitrates it beats every other codec, yes.

at around 128k, it just slightly beats other nextgen codecs (which is not mp3).

at around 192k, mp3s encoded with Lame are juuuuuust slightly better then Ogg. (there are codecs which are lightyears ahead in quality at this point)

as you go higher with the bitrate, the shittier ogg gets when compared to other codecs.

I'm only writing this down like the 3rd time.

 Parn Feb 1, 2005

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by Borisz@Sun, 2005-01-30 @ 01:16 PM



for best compatibility/quality/size ratio (~200k):



LAME 3.90.3 --alt-preset standard


I'm going to toot my own horn and note that I'm a huge game music nut. It's almost all I own as far as CDs go, a few anime and movie soundtracks here and there aside.

The above as Borisz mentioned, is precisely the MP3 format I use, basically ripping them with Exact Audio Copy and then spitting the results through LAME 3.90.3 to give me exceptionally accurate results. As far as MP3s go, there is no competition at all. If you want a standard format that will work on anyone's computer and portable MP3 players and want the best quality/size ratio of any MP3, this is the route to take. Constant bitrate MP3s are just silly to use at this point, and I've seen one format after another try to replace MP3 (VQF, anyone?), but MP3 continues to persist.

 Nadius Feb 1, 2005
i personally encode everything i rip with musepack, further applying replaygain and stuff, but as for sharing and distribuiting purposes, I agree with most everyone here to use a more popular format such as .ogg or .mp3.

But then I'm not that anal about video game music.

 SkankinMonkey Feb 1, 2005

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by Borisz@Mon, 2005-01-31 @ 05:07 PM



at around 192k, mp3s encoded with Lame are juuuuuust slightly better then Ogg. (there are codecs which are lightyears ahead in quality at this point)



as you go higher with the bitrate, the shittier ogg gets when compared to other codecs.




[post=128808]Quoted post[/post]


This is not true and you have not based this on any tests. I have seen tests comparing, and I have done tests myself with 300 dollar sennheiser headphones. Ogg retains its higher fidelity at higher bitrates, until the point that you can't tell the difference between the compressed and uncompressed audio.

 Pearl Jammzz Feb 1, 2005
hmmmm I rip all my shit in 192k CBR mp3. VBR that much better? why?

 SkankinMonkey Feb 1, 2005

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by Pearl Jammzz@Mon, 2005-01-31 @ 10:05 PM



hmmmm I rip all my shit in 192k CBR mp3. VBR that much better? why?




[post=128826]Quoted post[/post]


VBR is better for all codecs in general because it raises the bitrate on the more 'complex' portions of a song where the compression would be noticed more, and lowers it in silent/less complex areas

 Pearl Jammzz Feb 1, 2005
So no loss/gain in quality? Just lower file size?

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