Is MPC better than mp3? Options

[Grand Dizzy]

I just noticed in the polls that more people use mpc than mp3!

Bearing in mind that I know nothing about mpc, could anyone explain the benefits over mp3?

I use alt-preset extreme... does anyone recommend I upgrade to mpc?

[Mono]

Please search. Some great threads have already covered this.
So MPC at it Greatest Sound Quality..., ...sounds better than .OGG at it's Best?
320 kps MP3 or --quality 7 --xlevel MPC ?, Chosing betw. MP3 & MPC
Why is MPC perceived to be the best?

[rjamorim]

That poll only applies to Hydrogenaudio. It makes no sense outside this forum (where most people, by far, use MP3, and in second place comes WMA)

The summary is: MPC is better than MP3 in quality, but worse in support.

[Grand Dizzy]

Thanks, guys.

[hybridfan]

It sounds amazing and what really surprises me is the speed of compression, really fast. Not supported very well though but hey I only use Winamp and there is a plugin for that, so it's fine for me.

[Sebastian Mares]

And you had to bump a two years old topic just to say that... OK...

[guruboolez]

I guess that creating a new thread was not enough
EDIT: remove last sentence.

EDIT2: for memory, this test may be useful...

This post has been edited by guruboolez: Apr 1 2006, 13:50

[NeoRenegade]

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. It's hard being a newbie to the whole "forum" thing.

I've seen newbies crucified for making a new thread when a two year old thread already covered the topic.…

[flipik]

I just noticed in the polls that more people use mpc than mp3!

Bearing in mind that I know nothing about mpc, could anyone explain the benefits over mp3?

I use alt-preset extreme... does anyone recommend I upgrade to mpc?

1) I don't recommend it too much work, very tiny benefit
2) yes, at the given bitrate mpc reach better quality than mp3
3) if you need better quality than mp3, stick with ogg instead, I can't tell if it's better than mpc, but at least much more supported and there is develompent still going into it

[AtaqueEG]

That poll only applies to Hydrogenaudio. It makes no sense outside this forum (where most people, by far, use MP3, and in second place comes WMA)

The summary is: MPC is better than MP3 in quality, but worse in support.

Not even in this forum anymore, I would say.

Too bad for MPC

[dreamliner77]

I still have everything in mpc and continue to encode to it.

[kwanbis]

it could be argued that diferent samples were used ... even diferent people probably submited results ... anyway ....

[DickxLaurent]

Maybe it's time for a new lossy encoder poll. Can this be arranged?

EDIT: Scratch that. The one from Feb 2005 is still at the top of the polls list and apparently being added to.

This post has been edited by DickxLaurent: Apr 2 2006, 03:08

[vinnie97]

Yea, but it's over a year old...with much more development across several formats since that time. I don't know how one gets permission to create new polls.

Re: hybridfan being a newb, check his registration date: Joined: 11-July 03

I still have everything in mpc and continue to encode to it.

Why are you still encoding to it? What perceptual benefit can there possibly still be? I guess some people are just set in their ways. I had some MPC backups from 2003/4 but reencoded what I still have lossless/original copies of to Vorbis this year.

Finally, has anyone compared compression times with the latest Lancer release versus the latest MPC? Which is faster...it'd be nice to put this Hybridfan hype to rest.

This post has been edited by vinnie97: Apr 2 2006, 04:08

[atici]

Yea, but it's over a year old...with much more development across several formats since that time.  I don't know how one gets permission to create new polls.
Why are you still encoding to it? What perceptual benefit can there possibly still be? I guess some people are just set in their ways. I

What a load of BS Do you actually know what you are talking about? If MPC was transparent back then, it is still now. There's not so much quality improvement in other lossy encoders really. MPC has already been very well tuned and there is not much room for improvement. Most of what SV8 was planned to bring is not related to quality.

There're many benefits to MPC, one of them is that it is a subband codec therefore transcoding to MP3/Vorbis results in less audible loss.

IMO only Vorbis now could come close to the level of excellence MPC has been. And if Vorbis is doing so well recently, it's because of Aoyumi. I don't remember xiph really contributing to the development much otherwise for a while. Similarly if MPC was doing very well in the past, it was because of Klemm. Now that there's no bigshot, MPC development seems to be stalled. But it already does an amazing job and I personally do not care & heavily use MPC. I trust MPC at high bitrates more and I have plenty of space (though not as much as lossless) on my dedicated music system. When I need portability I simply transcode and transfer, my DAP does not play Vorbis either. It all depends on what your personal requirements are. Otherwise the future is lossless anyway.

This post has been edited by atici: Apr 2 2006, 06:46

[vinnie97]

You know, I get the impression you've really got a chip on your shoulder. Here's some more BS for you in re: to MPC:

1.) You might as well go lossless if you're going to be doing transcoding, tho' I'll give you this.
2.) Sequencing is a sluggish pain.
3.) Hardware support has never been so hot for MPC, tho' Rockbox has gone a long ways in rectifying this.

Vorbis, in spite of whose done the tuning, is currently a smarter choice for lossy, especially if you want a combination of smaller file sizes and greater hardware support (personal DAPs being the key here).

[vinnie97]

PS. What you quoted was in regards to the POLL being a year old...maybe that's why you mistakenly called me on BS. I think that's long enough with enough development commited to have another lossy poll....and I think lossy is here to stay for some time, at least 9 years if we go by your year-old prediction.

Or maybe you just can't bear to see MPC lose the Hydrogenaudio popularity contest.

This post has been edited by vinnie97: Apr 2 2006, 06:38

[atici]

1.) You might as well go lossless if you're going to be doing transcoding, tho' I'll give you this.

How do you know that? Do you know that I have 400GB hard drive full 70% of which is MPC? Is it worth to invest in >1TB of space (>2TB with backups) for no audible difference? I'd rather invest in speakers.

2.) Sequencing is a sluggish pain.

What do you mean?

3.) Hardware support has never been so hot for MPC, tho' Rockbox has gone a long ways in rectifying this.

And for Vorbis it's too hot? Only Samsung and iAudio really supports it. iRiver has half baked support. It's very likely that you'd end up transcoding if your archive is in Vorbis unless you don't mind seriously limiting your DAP choices. I think if portability is important I'd rather use MP3, since it's supported everywhere and (guess what) LAME is doing a great job too.

I give you that Vorbis is also a good choice. But one can't just dismiss MPC so easily.

Anyway let's focus on what the original poster is asking. If you are interested in playback on a home audio system then MPC would probably be a better choice than MP3, as it'll be higher in quality per bitrate. Also Ape2 tags of MPC are more flexible. However for all purposes of portability you're better off with MP3.

This post has been edited by atici: Apr 2 2006, 07:54

[vinnie97]

Apologies, I meant "seeking" instead of "sequencing." That's what I get for posting in haste.

[guruboolez]

There're many benefits to MPC, one of them is that it is a subband codec therefore transcoding to MP3/Vorbis results in less audible loss.

Is there any evidence to backup this idea?
I tried once on a Short re-encoding blind listening test and MPC wasn't superior to Vorbis on the decoding side. Of course, I didn't tested enough samples to draw reliable conclusion, but I didn't discover any elaborated test proving that subband encoders are better for transcoding purpose. Do you have a link?

IMO only Vorbis now could come close to the level of excellence MPC has been.

That's your opinion, but what about real experience - a listening test?
Again, the last I did in the specific area of Musepack's excellency ended on aoTuV superiority. And again, the results are personal and limited to non-killer-and-classical music - but again for a last time I still have problems to find a more elaborate listening test showing MPC benefits over a modern encoder. Do you have a link to backup your claims?

This post has been edited by guruboolez: Apr 2 2006, 12:18

[ak]

You know what's funny, people keep talking lossless while operating 128k tets.

I think Doom9 boards has nice a feature, that's probably worth adopting: sending threads with 'better than' and 'best' in the title straight to hell

[hybridfan]

And you had to bump a two years old topic just to say that... OK...

Yes so what if I did, I have only started using it and impressed with the results, maybe because it isn't supported that well it should be bumped.

[The Link]

I think Doom9 boards has nice a feature, that's probably worth adopting: sending threads with 'better than' and 'best' in the title straight to hell

IMHO that's rather a limitation of doom9 not offering a proper valid method to backup such claims. What's the point of discussing different codecs in the view of an end user if no ranking in regard of previously defined aspects can be made?

[Sebastian Mares]

maybe because it isn't supported that well it should be bumped.

In my opinion, developers should focus on improving codecs like AAC, Ogg Vorbis or even MP3 (although MP3 is slowly reaching its maximum abilities).
Also, what's the point in receiving more support when its development almost ceased?

This post has been edited by Sebastian Mares: Apr 2 2006, 21:01

[guruboolez]

I think Doom9 boards has nice a feature, that's probably worth adopting: sending threads with 'better than' and 'best' in the title straight to hell

With such nice feature, MPC wouldn't be adopted by more than 3 guy on the world. It's precisely because MPC was said to be so better to all lossy formats that people started to use something with few software support (in 2001-2002), no hardware one, obscure patent situation, scrubby seeking... I'm one of these people who followed all mpc's gurus in the early days.

Moreover, HA was founded during the alt-preset maturation. It's a task which supposes that reliable opinions about audio quality is possible. As a consequence, it would be illogical to deny to members the right to ask about quality comparison. Don't forget that sticky were made to inform people what precisely the... best settings are!