What bitrate do you use? (MP3, AAC, Vorbis, Opus etc.), music, speech, streaming. Options

[IgorC]

Hi, Everybody,

This poll (as some other) is created to collect some data of general tendency in use of audio codecs for a different purposes and contents.


Basicly it contains 3 following questions:

1º - What bitrate do You encode a music to MP3 at?
2º - What bitrate do You encode a music to post-MP3 codecs ([HE-]AAC, Vorbis, Opus and other) at?
3º - What bitrate do You use for a such purposes like encoding a speech, streaming (radio,podcasting) with a post-MP3 codecs like (HE-)AAC, Vorbis, Opus and other.


Feel free to comment your particular preferences.

Thank You.

This post has been edited by db1989: Feb 4 2013, 01:34

Reason for edit: as per post #5

[eahm]

AAC: -V73 (~150) so the vote goes to ~130 and ~160
Speech: HE-AAC 32

Actually I would like to change my MP3 vote to: I don't encode a music to MP3. Thanks.

This post has been edited by eahm: Feb 3 2013, 22:36

[db1989]

Actually I would like to change my MP3 vote to: I don't encode a music to MP3. Thanks.

From what?

[garym]

I reported mp3 at V2 and no use of other codecs/bitrates in rest of the survey. But there was no way to indicate that I'm only using mp3 V2 for portable devices and where for home use I use FLAC format. Just noting that the meaning of "what bitrate used" could be quite different if asking for use in portables or automobile vs use in general.

This post has been edited by garym: Feb 3 2013, 22:50

[eahm]

Actually I would like to change my MP3 vote to: I don't encode a music to MP3. Thanks.

From what?

From V2 sorry forgot to say it.

[yourlord]

I preface this by noting that at home on the LAN everything is stored in and played as FLAC.


When I'm forced to use mp3 for music I usually encode at V2, maybe V3 or V4 if space is tight.. I voted for V2.

My lossy preference for music is generally Vorbis at -q2 (~96kbps) or q3 if space is plentiful. I never encode music in vorbis higher than q3 for personal or family use. I distribute some of my old band's music at higher quality levels just to reduce the whining from people who don't know any better. I voted for ~100 kbps or less. Once Opus support starts appearing as supported on the devices I use I'll likely convert to Opus at the ~96kps level to attain the same file size and just ever so slightly improve quality even though Vorbis already satisfies me in this space. Can't complain about a little more quality margin for free.

For speech (for me, not a ton of use for this yet) I aim to use Opus at ~32kbps.

[db1989]

Actually I would like to change my MP3 vote to: I don't encode a music to MP3. Thanks.

From what?

From V2 sorry forgot to say it.

Thanks and done.

[IgorC]

But there was no way to indicate that I'm only using mp3 V2 for portable devices and where for home use I use FLAC format.

Most of us have a lossless storage home with today HDD capacities. See 2013 codec poll
I think there is no need to figure out that.


Quite surprised that, yet, 32 kbps audio is on demand. People wouldn't mind about a decent video+audio streaming on a mobile devices. As for me, youtube videos (low quality) aren't playable on mobile bandwidth here.

This post has been edited by IgorC: Feb 4 2013, 17:27

[Nessuno]

Quite surprised that, yet, 32 kbps audio is on demand. People wouldn't mind about a decent video+audio streaming on a mobile devices. As for me, youtube videos (low quality) aren't playable on mobile bandwidth here.

Aren't playable because of not enough bandwidth or high traffic billing?
Here for example, in good field conditions, I have enough bandwidth to play even 320kbps streams on my mobile with no problems at all (or YouTube videos FWIW), but I have a plan with only 1Gb/month of data included, so high bitrates are still not an option for me, not on long terms at least.

And speaking about "fidelity", there is a local radio station that streams the matches of my town's football club on 32 Kbps WMA...

[BFG]

Frankly, I've found MP3 and FLAC to be sufficient for all my encoding purposes. Sure, MP3 has a lot of technical problems but my ears can't hear most of them at higher bitrates. And you still can't beat its portability.
I couldn't choose my MP3 setting (-V0+ or ~290kbps in halb27's implementation) so just went with 260.

[IgorC]

Aren't playable because of not enough bandwidth or high traffic billing?
Here for example, in good field conditions, I have enough bandwidth to play even 320kbps streams on my mobile with no problems at all (or YouTube videos FWIW), but I have a plan with only 1Gb/month of data included, so high bitrates are still not an option for me, not on long terms at least.

And speaking about "fidelity", there is a local radio station that streams the matches of my town's football club on 32 Kbps WMA...

Here local carrier have opted for unlimited mobile internet at cost of speed. The speed is 256 kbps during first 10 MB per day and then 64 kbps. The good thing it's very cheap and have a massive character. 1 AR$/day. (0.2u$). Everybody's messaging, whatsuping, sharing a fotos and so on. Good stuff.

This post has been edited by IgorC: Feb 5 2013, 03:52

[DonP]

Here local carrier have opted for unlimited mobile internet at cost of speed. The speed is 256 kbps during first 10 MB per day and then 64 kbps. The good thing it's very cheap and have a massive character. 1 AR$/day. (0.2u$). Everybody's messaging, whatsuping, sharing a fotos and so on. Good stuff.

I'd go for that over the typical $40US/month for 2 GB we get around here. As it is I opted for a tab with no mobile plan. I may go for a mobile hotspot if I can find a good plan that just charges for days used.

[Nessuno]

I'd go for that over the typical $40US/month for 2 GB we get around here. As it is I opted for a tab with no mobile plan. I may go for a mobile hotspot if I can find a good plan that just charges for days used.

By the by, just heard on the news of a president Obama's plan to cover all of US territory with free wi-fi, as a measure to speed up economic growth...

[Andavari]

My settings haven't changed in years and likely won't.

Still use these all via Speeks frontends (you all still remember those don't you):
* FLAC
* LAME: ~ 200 kbps (V2)
* Vorbis: ~ 192 kbps

cover all of US territory with free wi-fi

Would be nice but the U.S. was promised dirt cheap broadband a long time ago back with President Bush junior was in office. It's surprising how many people still don't have an Internet connection let alone a computer.

[Dynamic]

I ticked more than one

MP3
~130 lame -V5 (or helix -X2 -U2 -V60 where gaplessness isn't supported and encoding speed helps)
~180 lame -V3
~200 lame -V2

Opus, Vorbis, AAC
~100 kbps or less (Opus ~64, ~80, ~96, Vorbis ~80-96, plus AAC ~72-96 when I need simple Apple compatibility but smallish files)
~Think I also ticked 160kbps as a rough estimate for occasional HQ Vorbis and AAC use, including using an Android or iPhone as a backup to the iPad for live performance backing tracks (never needed the backup so far).

Speech, Radio (not MP3 - I use Vorbis and AAC often on my phone, plus outside the scope of this question, LAME -V7 MP3 for some language tapes at @70-80 kbps stereo partly played in my car):
I think I ticked
~32
~48
and maybe ~64

though I consume more podcast speech than I encode or transcode, and mostly in MP3 on my phone, plus on my PC I listen to some streams in Opus, Vorbis or some codec used in Flash Player for radio, sometimes loopback capturing and transcoding for my phone where a podcast isn't available.

Although I didn't include it, when squeezing down video I sometime transcode MPEG-2 DVB-T TV capture into H.264 sometime at smaller resolution with faac at 80-96 kbps stereo (mostly speech) or 128-160 kbps stereo for music shows. (FAAC is poor, but it's easy to use within Handbrake, which has decent CQ/VBR video encoding)

Beyond these I use lossyFLAC (standard) as near-lossless transcodable, and FLAC for my main lossless except ALAC for backing tracks on an iPad.

This post has been edited by Dynamic: Feb 6 2013, 17:19

[ethan234098]

I'm not quite so savvy about audio as many in the forum -- I'm a digital media student -- but I thought I might as well throw in my two cents here. Polls are my favorite.

For the MP3 category, I marked 320kbps and "I don't encode music to MP3". I prefer not to encode to MP3 when I can use something else, but I will use 320 when MP3 is a must, simply because storage capacity isn't a huge concern and it is the standard used by Amazon Music and Google Play.

For other codecs, I like to use Opus unconstrained VBR encoding at around 256kbps, or in the ~260 range. I find the quality is more than enough for my needs. I do this mainly to match "The iTunes Standard ™" of 256kbps CVBR AAC audio to please others who work with my audio and feel insulted when I send them something of a lower rate (some of my professors, sadly). Personally, I begin to lose differentiation around 144kbps or so with Opus codec anyway.

In the speech and streaming section, I would use around ~64kbps VBR mono for music and around ~48kbps VBR mono for raw speech like audiobooks. I don't really have any numbers or studies to backup these rates, just that they sound decent to me and produce acceptable filesizes.

This post has been edited by ethan234098: Feb 11 2013, 23:17