Public Multiformat Listening Test @ ~64 kbps [March/April 2011], Nero & Apple HE-AAC, aoTuV Vorbis, CELT Options

[IgorC]

There has been significant advancement since the last 64kbps test. The Nero HE-AAC and Aoyumi Vorbis encoders improved, Apple added HE-AAC capability, and we have a new low delay codec claiming high quality: CELT.

The following codecs are presented in this test:
Nero 1.5.4 HE-AAC
Apple QuickTime 7.6.9 HE-AAC
Ogg Vorbis AoTuV 6.02 Beta
CELT 0.11.2

Public Multiformat Listening Test @ ~64 kbps [March 2011]

Every single result is helpful.

This post has been edited by Garf: Mar 31 2011, 15:48

[hödyr]

Hahaha. Very interesting. Looking forward to take the challenge .

[romor]

I hope to see interesting results, too

Yesterday, I was processing large amount of recorded speech in 128K CBR stereo (L=R) MP3s to AAC through iZotope Nectar, for use on portable device
I run couple of tests and settled at "neroAacEnc -hev2" as most desirable. Using "-br 48000" or 56000, produced unwanted "smearing" artifacts on some accented words, while forcing "-hev2" (although unrecommended) went fine. Reason may be in processing transcoding chain, but I thought to mention it

Also, I was wondering what's going on with Speex? Is there relation with CELT developement, as is with CELP? And 1.2rc1 is dated in 2008

[Nothbeve]

can i report my listening test of those samples?

[Garf]

can i report my listening test of those samples?

That's the idea, see "How do I take the test?" on the webpage.

If it's about discussing the kind of artifacts you heard and so on: it's usually better to postpone that after the test completes, to prevent biasing people who still want to take the test.

[Canar]

Horrible timing for me, it's semester-end at school. IDK how many other HAers are still in the academic world, but I'll bet there are a few.

[DonP]

Also it's almost tradition to open discussion about future public test but this time there weren't too much time for it and I sincerely hope that you, people, will understand.

Something inherent in the test that there isn't time?

[IgorC]

Note: Important workaround was made. It is not uncommon to see that some soundcards have isues with not 48 kHz sample rates. Aslo until moment CELT is optimized for 48 kHz while other codecs are well tested at 44.1 kHz. To avoid these limitations all decoded files (Vorbis and Nero, Apple HE-AAC) were resampled with very highly transparent resampler SOX VHQ while CELT files were directly encoded from the resampled source. The resampling hadn't impact on final results.

Also it's almost tradition to open discussion about future public test but this time there weren't too much time for it and I sincerely hope that you, people, will understand.
The most part of samples come from previous public tests to avoid any kind of bias but also some new samples have been included.


Donp,
I have very limited spare time now. It's like two-three weeks. There is no chance to discuss all conditions and perform the test itself during such short time.
I will be glad if anyone else will organize tests in future

This post has been edited by Garf: Mar 30 2011, 21:10

[jmvalin]

Donp,
I have very limited spare time now. It's like two-three weeks. There is no chance to discuss all conditions and perform the test itself during such short time.
I will be glad if anyone else will organize tests in future

Thanks very much IgorC and Garf for organizing this.

[misuzu]

Nobody use the lower bit to store music

I think 112k or 128k (not 140k) is useable

This post has been edited by misuzu: Mar 21 2011, 18:34

[markanini]

Donp,
I have very limited spare time now. It's like two-three weeks. There is no chance to discuss all conditions and perform the test itself during such short time.
I will be glad if anyone else will organize tests in future

Thanks very much IgorC and Garf for organizing this.

+1

I've done samples 1-7 so far. Looking forward to completing all tests during the week.

[markanini]

Nobody use the lower bit to store music

I think 112k or 128k (not 140k) is useable

Streaming audio would perhaps be the one of the more common uses. With mp3 codecs at such bit rates quality is quite atrocious but with modern codecs like AAC-HE it can be perfectly acceptable. 64kbps is the new 128kbps!

This post has been edited by markanini: Mar 21 2011, 18:43

[Garf]

Nobody use the lower bit to store music

I think 112k or 128k (not 140k) is useable

Streaming audio would perhaps be the one of the more common uses.

Yes. Also, testing at 128kbps doesn't make sense anymore - just look at the result of the last mp3 test...

[Jillian]

I want to ask everyone. Before the test finish, which codec will win? Of course you may have to take a guess/bet or based on your experience/personal preference.

[vinnie97]

Great! I was just thinking, with all the development happening with the codecs, it was past due for another such test. ;-) So Apple is now in the race, eh? Ugh.

This post has been edited by vinnie97: Mar 21 2011, 19:36

[Sebastian Mares]

Yay, new listening test! Thanks for organizing guys!. Hope Nero wins.

[/mnt]

Cool, a new public test, shame that the AAC test did not take off.

Hopefully I should find some free time to try out some samples this weekend.

Horrible timing for me, it's semester-end at school. IDK how many other HAers are still in the academic world, but I'll bet there are a few.

Same proplem with me aswell, am doing my first year of Computer Science at Uni and gotta get assigments completed before easter holidays. Also doing a group with students does not help at all esp that they decided to start last minute for our Problem Solving presentation.

[IgorC]

Yay, new listening test! Thanks for organizing guys!. Hope Nero wins.

Thanks to you for previous tests that help us a lot to prepare this test.

Cool, a new public test, shame that the AAC test did not take off.

Same proplem with me aswell, am doing my first year of Computer Science at Uni and gotta get assigments completed before easter holidays. Also doing a group with students does not help at all esp that they decided to start last minute for our Problem Solving presentation.

I understand you, guys. I was in the same situation during last public MP3 128 test. I couldn't participate. It's not easy study and later do some blind test activity. Too much activity for brain. But hopefully it's not that hard at ~64 kbps.

/mnt, personally your results will be very interesting for me.

This post has been edited by IgorC: Mar 22 2011, 02:21

[IgorC]

The list of the samples:

1.poets of the fall
2. bachpsichord
3.spmg54_1 (german speech)
4. tomsdiner
5. kraftwerk
6.macabre
7. bibilolo
8.Stravinskii Capriccio
9. fly_to_fly
10. fatboy
11. les voleurs
12. eig
13. enter sandman
14. big yellow
15. davinci
16. Castanets
17. Linchpin
18. waiting
19. Bittersweet
20. Dimmu borgir orchestra
21. bleed
22. Sangue de bairro
23. Against
24. stars
25. worlds apart
26. take your finger frin my head
27. i want to break free
28. atrain
29. bonhemian rhapsody
30. on the roof with Quasimodo

The most part of the samples are from previous public tests.

This post has been edited by IgorC: Mar 22 2011, 12:17

[lessthanjoey]

I've been lurking awhile but this is my first post - it might seem like a strange thread to post in but I would like to participate in this and I'm having some trouble.

Specifically, ABC/HR doesn't run correctly on my HTPC where I do most of my listening. I've tried a few variants of Java (including one which runs ABC/HR just fine on my laptop) and all hang with a not responding on startup (it creates the small window but the interior never gets rendered). Both machines (laptop and HTPC) are Win 7 Pro, laptop works fine with Java 6 Update 24, HTPC doesn't. I've tried 32-bit, 64-bit, no difference.

Any suggestions?

EDIT: Turns out it was an issue with remote desktop. No problems running with a keyboard attached to the machine directly. Strange.

This post has been edited by lessthanjoey: Mar 23 2011, 07:24

[Fool_on_the_hill]

Hello! Can't run abchr.jar:
Could not find the main class:
c:\Users\1\Downloads\ABC-HR\abchr.jar. Program will exit now.

[Garf]

Hello! Can't run abchr.jar:
Could not find the main class:
c:\Users\1\Downloads\ABC-HR\abchr.jar. Program will exit now.

Possible issues I can think of:

1. Old version of Java (which one?)
2. Attempting to start it without unzipping the entire zip first

[IgorC]

Hello! Can't run abchr.jar:
Could not find the main class:
c:\Users\1\Downloads\ABC-HR\abchr.jar. Program will exit now.

More probably old version of Java.
You can update Java or replace .jar files from this package http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....st&p=701994

This post has been edited by IgorC: Mar 23 2011, 14:02

[Fool_on_the_hill]

Java 6 update 24
Windows 7 64-bit with latest updates

The archive is unzipped.

This post has been edited by Fool_on_the_hill: Mar 23 2011, 17:40

[IgorC]

Have you tried to replace abchr.jar by the same file from here http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....st&p=701994?
You should also add two other .jar files as well. (jdom.jar, looks-1.3.1.jar)

Hope that fix it.