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Topic: Monkey's Audio 4.02 final (Read 39591 times) previous topic - next topic
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Monkey's Audio 4.02 final

Reply #25
the best the alternatives can offer is a few percent compression, hardly a reason to try and jump ship.
Many people are not jumping ship: they boarded a different ship at the dock.

I do see your point about fragmentation.
I'm on a horse.

 

Monkey's Audio 4.02 final

Reply #26
I still use MAC for several reasons:

1) None of my primary software/devices support FLAC natively, but their features outweigh that deficiency IMO

makes sense

2) Given 1 above, I use lossless for archive purposes and not for playback. MAC wins the compression contest hands down

does not follow... there are codecs that compress more, codecs that compress faster, codecs that compress more at the same speed, and codecs much better at recovering from errors (very important for archival).  we've all seen the comparisons and there is no "hands down" winner.

3) Unlike the FLAC developer, MAC's developer actually took the time to build a usable GUI to go with the codec. I like being able to set the priority of the encoding process and to pause it if I want

usable windows GUI.  and you can use his gui to create flac files.  and I'm not sure I could make a better gui than all these already existing ones.


If tomorrow a new lossless codec shows up with similar features as FLAC, Wavpack or TAK but for example with a compression of more than 50% and easy to implement in hardware then the market share distribution can change very fast.

if you mean 2x the compression of the current state of the art, no such codec is possible, and even then it would not be a fast transition.  mp3 was around many years before it became ubiquitous in devices.

Yes, I meant the compressed result is less than half the original wav size. Though I only meant it just as a possible motive to switch codec, I wonder why such isn't possible.

white noise cannot be compressed at all losslessly.  you can make an audio file that cannot be compressed to even half size by any compressor simply by mixing a loud track with half-scale noise.  what you describe is not a usable metric for evaluating compression because it is too dependent on the input.

state of the art lossless compression is close enough to the noise level of the input already.  a theoretically perfect compressor is not going to deliver enough of a compression advantage to make people abandon a perfectly good, widespread format.  for proof of that look at competitors to mp3 which can deliver a greater such compression advantage but have not become dominant.

It's about as proprietary as you can get.

I wouldn't call ape proprietary... from the source code we can completely figure out the format even though it is not documented any other way.  what would make it proprietary is if Matt patented aspects of it and/or required licensing the format and I doubt he would ever do that.

contrast that with alac... parts have been reversed engineer, parts have not, it has changed a few times and almost certain that parts are patented, otherwise they would have just used flac instead of starting with flac and tweaking it into something proprietary.

Monkey's Audio 4.02 final

Reply #27
...codecs much better at recovering from errors (very important for archival).

A corrupt flac is no more useful to me than a corrupt ape.  If you're afraid of archival corruption, include redundancy.

Monkey's Audio 4.02 final

Reply #28
white noise cannot be compressed at all losslessly.  you can make an audio file that cannot be compressed to even half size by any compressor simply by mixing a loud track with half-scale noise.  what you describe is not a usable metric for evaluating compression because it is too dependent on the input.

state of the art lossless compression is close enough to the noise level of the input already.  a theoretically perfect compressor is not going to deliver enough of a compression advantage to make people abandon a perfectly good, widespread format.  for proof of that look at competitors to mp3 which can deliver a greater such compression advantage but have not become dominant.

Compressing white noise is an extreme, as is compressing a Sine tone I suppose (flac is 80% smaller than wav). Obviously I was referring to averages.

But this was not my point, compression level was just an example of an argument that could make somebody to switch codec. Personally I have a strong wish: play lossless in my car through USB or some SDHC mem (just drag&drop and go). I can't play FLAC in my car this way, and judging from the FLAC website or the absence of positive answers at this post or this one there won't be FLAC support in car equipment any time soon (or even maybe never). Now I have my rips in FLAC but if for example Wavpack will be the first lossless codec to be implemented in some major car stereo brand I won't hesitate to convert my complete collection. The point is: everyone has their arguments or motives to use one or an other.

Widespreadness is no garantee to being ever dominant. If I remember well years ago Shorten was dominant in lossless audio compression, then APE and now FLAC. Nobody knows which will be next, maybe mp4 als or even mp4 sls, or maybe lossless compression formats just dissapear as source material won't be wav/pcm anymore but a format without redundant information.

This post got too long and is not really ape4.02 related, maybe this part should be split.

Monkey's Audio 4.02 final

Reply #29
Version 4.03 (January 21, 2009)

1. Changed: Added a help link to the help menu to show the included help file.

 

However.

audiophile // flac & wavpack, mostly // using too many audio players

Monkey's Audio 4.02 final

Reply #30
Four major factors:
- Extremely slow seek (very very painful).
...


Isn't it possible to be implemented a similar approach as in the new Musepack decoder for searching in old files without seek tables? Or the problem is not related to (missing) seek tables?

Monkey's Audio 4.02 final

Reply #31
what about native decoding support in foobar2000 now?
FB2K,APE&LAME

Monkey's Audio 4.02 final

Reply #32
The source has been available for a few years now, just not in a way that complies with general public licensing.  Matt wants his code to be completely free.


I think the problem is slightly different.
Quote
several Linux distribution maintainers have found the license to be contradictory. It does not permit redistribution or modification, and thus is not considered open source or free software.
Your comment would have made sense if Monkey Audio used the BSD license, assuming you don't like the "viral" nature of the GPL, but a BSD style license, (which won't stop anyone in using the code in closed projects) is still considered GPL compatible and falls into the Free Software category as defined by the FSF.

The Freedom in Free software means the freedom to Run (any purpose), to Study (access to code), to Redistribute (to anyone), and to Improve (modify and redistribute modified). This does not necessarily imply the GPL, even though it is the recommended license to maintain freedom.

In the case of Monkey Audio, restrictions to Redistribution and Modification are unacceptable and this renders the software Non-free. It has nothing to do with not using the GPL, and there are various licenses which allow complete Freedom.

Here Monkey Audio stands at the right, on top of Shareware.
Here is a list of licenses which are free: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html
She is waiting in the air

Monkey's Audio 4.02 final

Reply #33
This is the offending statement as Matt put it (from http://www.monkeysaudio.com/license.html):
Quote
2. Monkey's Audio source can be included in GPL and open-source software, although Monkey's Audio itself will not be subjected to external licensing requirements or other viral source restrictions.

Make of it what you will.

Monkey's Audio 4.02 final

Reply #34
Version 4.05 now available

History:
Version 4.05 (February 3, 2009)
1. Fixed: Directshow filter would fail to register on some systems.
2. Changed: Added CompressFileW2, DecompressFileW2, etc. functions that take a C++ interface as a callback for easier usage in multi-threaded environments. (as opposed to the old static function callback)

Version 4.04 (February 2, 2009)
1. Fixed: Directshow filter had an unnecessary dependence on a MSVC system dll.

Monkey's Audio 4.02 final

Reply #35
Still no comments 

apparently there is not much interest in ape

Yes, the interest for Monkey's Audio has been very high at the beginning of the decade, but since then it has done nothing but epically plummet. (The graphs are from that very same poll.)

I recall that I, myself, have been very interested in Monkey's Audio around 2002/2003, but ended up using FLAC and almost completely forgot about Monkey's Audio, because FLAC doesn't suffer from awfully slow seek times and is supported by a far greater amount of hardware. What is a couple of megabytes more compared to that, especially when, to bring out the best of the codec, you need to wait a dozen seconds to seek through the song?



Monkey's Audio 4.02 final

Reply #38
What's with the word "share" in the title of your graphs?  Those polls have nothing to do with sharing.

As the total of all entries adds up quite close to 100, I always assumed it was the "market share" of each format.
Creature of habit.

Monkey's Audio 4.02 final

Reply #39
So it wasn't a conspiracy? 

EDIT: Though I would call it a hydrogenaudio share of each format.  In other parts, things might be very different, though I'm inclined to agree with everyone else, MAC is dying.  That said, I've never had a problem seeking with the format except possibly when using the insane preset, but even then I don't think I've ever had to wait for a dozen seconds.

Monkey's Audio 4.02 final

Reply #40
That said, I've never had a problem seeking with the format except possibly when using the insane preset, but even then I don't think I've ever had to wait for a dozen seconds.

Yes, I exaggerated a bit, I apologise.

But still, I want it to seek nearly instantly, I don't want to be able to measure the time it takes it to seek in seconds, which you can do with Monkey's Audio on highest compression settings.

Monkey's Audio 4.02 final

Reply #41
Agreed, but there's a reason the highest compression setting has the name that it does.  Seek time with Extra High is a fraction of a second.

It's really a silly argument when you realize that you still get excellent compression without having to use extreme settings.

Monkey's Audio 4.02 final

Reply #42
Agreed, but there's a reason the highest compression setting has the name that it does.  Seek time with Extra High is a fraction of a second.

It's really a silly argument when you realize that you still get excellent compression without having to use extreme settings.

Well still, it's certainly a bad design when the seek/decode time depends on the level of compression. I like using the very highest compression setting that I can and FLAC's seek/decode time doesn't at all depend on the level of compression.

Even if you don't think that's important, there's still the fact that FLAC is supported by much greater amount of hardware.

And also, on a less important note, Monkey's Audio doesn't achieve as good results combined with lossyWAV as FLAC does.

Monkey's Audio 4.02 final

Reply #43
Before YALAC/TAK there was no asynchronous lossless codec that could deliver comparable compression levels, nor encode as quickly at similar compression levels.  This was without having to make the dumb choice of choosing the insane preset.

Things are clearly different now and as I said I agree that MAC is not the greatest choice for a myriad of reasons, none of which really require any exaggeration.  There's no reason to rehash them, IMO; they've been done to death.  I really don't see the point in resurrecting this topic after four months just to put forth stale arguments.  IOW, been there, done that. 

Monkey's Audio 4.02 final

Reply #44
I really don't see the point in resurrecting this topic after four months just to put forth stale arguments.  IOW, been there, done that. 

Actually I Googled for Monkey's Audio to see if anything revolutionary has happened to it and the search returned, among other things, this topic. I read through it and decided to point to that interesting graph I've found without realising I'm resurrecting the thread.  I apologise for that.

Monkey's Audio 4.02 final

Reply #45
Actually, I didn't know MAC was bad with lossyWAV.  I'll make a note of that, thanks.

My apologies for being a complete idiot about Guru's image and for giving you such a hard time in general.

Monkey's Audio 4.02 final

Reply #46
My apologies for being a complete idiot about Guru's image and for giving you such a hard time in general.

No problem, that's what we all love to hate about the lack of facial contact in the on-line conversations.