Which lossy format are you using? Options

[rjamorim]

Originally posted by silver_cpu
I too am amazed at just how competitive MPC is with the other formats, coming out on top over even OGG, which seems to really be picking up some steam of it's own.

Heh. But keep in mind that this is an audiophile forum. MPC is competitive only here, 99% of the people out there haven't ever heard about this format.

Same goes to AAC.

That's the typical kind of misleading poll - I.E: The universe of people consulted is too small and involves people with similar interests in the same field. It can't be taken seriously as "format usage" or "format acceptation" at all, except for the universe consulted. I.E: It's not representative.

[AgentMil]

Would I be correct to say "99% of the people out there, use MP3"?

Which is not a terribly bad codec for its age.

I use MPC --xtreme, the nicest and fastest audio format

Cheers
AgentMil

[rjamorim]

Originally posted by AgentMil
Would I be correct to say "99% of the people out there, use MP3"?

Nope, because there are lots of $%$#! out there using WMA.

[CiTay]

Originally posted by rjamorim

Nope, because there are lots of $%$#! out there using WMA.

Yeah.

But it fills me with pride to see that this board is WMA-free as yet! :love3:

[silver_cpu]

It will likely stay WMA-free for a while, anyway. I'm very, very curious about the new Windows Media Pro that Microsoft is releasing. It's actually been accepted by some major names in the pro audio business, names that I trust for quality, and is designed to stream compressed 96khz/24bit 6-channel audio...should be *very* interesting to see if they can pull this off. If so, it would still be highly proprietary, but might have it's uses, such as video CDs (their video format is supposed to be able to far surpass DVD video quality at the same data rate) that you want to keep the 6-channel audio on, or maybe the compression of DVD-A discs. Don't think I have a link, but I'm sure there's a press release or two around, Hi-Fi+ magazine released an article on it in their June issue, if I'm not mistaken.

Off-topic: Hi-Fi+ also wrote an entry about the sudden resurgence of vinyl, and the wide range of music available on the format long live analog!!

[Emmett_v2]

Hmm. I guess it all depends on the application.

When I have a CD, I'll typically just play a CD. When I want to have music from that CD on my computer, I'll rip the CD into ogg. When that CD contains information I want to sample and use in an original composition, I'll just rip it to .wav for audio editing purposes.

When I have music that I've composed myself, I'll render it and publish it online as an ogg file.

When I'm sharing music with friends, I'll give them ogg's unless they specifically request mp3 files (for their portable music players, etc). When people share music with me, they'll usually give me mp3 files because that's what they use. If they're good friends, they'll usually just bring a CD for me to rip.

So, which lossy format am I using? Depends on the application, time of day, phase of the moon and whether or not peaches are in season.

Emmett Plant
CEO, Xiph.org Foundation

[Cygnus X1]

Re: WMA pro. It will be highly amusing (and interesting) to see if MS can really pull that off. From what I read they are claiming that a 6-channel 24/96 stream will compress down to 128kbps. I don't think so MS is also claiming that a 48kbps file will sound like a 128kbps mp3. But then again, when using a Blade encoder from 1997 in regular-stereo mode to generate your mp3 samples, anything sounds good in comparison . We've all heard this before. . . let's wait and see (or hear) how outrageous MS's claims are on this version of the WMA codec.

As far as format choice, I use MPC and Ogg. Lossless would be nice, but until they come out with 1TB HDD's, it is impossible considering the amount of records/CD's I own. For portable use, I have to use --alt-preset standard due to the fact that mp3 is still the king of portability. I am anxiously awaiting Ogg hardware support!

[iwod]

I use either MPC or Ogg. And since frank has decided to work on Ogg.... i am a bit stuck..... but hopefully time will tell what the hell is going on behind the sence.

[CiTay]

Originally posted by iwod
I use either MPC or Ogg. And since frank has decided to work on Ogg.... i am a bit stuck..... but hopefully time will tell what the hell is going on behind the sence.

Didn't you read the other thread? He merely took a look at it for now. Not even the Ogg folks know what's gonna happen on this issue.

[B]

I switched from MP3 to MPC a while back, and i'm very pleased with it so far. Probably the biggest reason i switched is the true gapless encoding and very nice winamp plugin to go with it. Most of my cd's are mixed/seamless tracks/live albums so it is pretty important to me. As i don't care for portable playback MPC has only advantages for me.

- Gapless
- Superb quality at --standard (which i use for personal playback)
- Relative small filesize
- Fast encoding
- Replaygain support
- Direct piping of my lossless files
- APE tags
- Good preset system

I would even pay for the sucker if it should become shareware (or something diferent) because of patented stuff used.

[fewtch]

Originally posted by silver_cpu
Off-topic: Hi-Fi+ also wrote an entry about the sudden resurgence of vinyl, and the wide range of music available on the format long live analog!!

Interesting article:

http://hometheater.about.com/library/weekly/aa041499.htm

It basically reflects my own experience: Vinyl records transferred to CD keeps the "analog vinyl sound" (whatever that is), thus probably consists of various types of distortion. Hate to say it, but I don't think vinyl is a "better" medium that CD for those who want closest to "live" sound quality (transparency) rather than "warmth."

Edit -- sorry I'm off-topic too...

[rocketsauce]

Why, will they be making hard drives that don't have a MTBF rating and won't occasionally die or get corrupted for some reason (resulting in loss of hundreds of "lossless" files)?

Of course, that's an issue no matter what format you're using. I guess the question might be, if my hard drive crashes, would I rather lose hundreds of lossless or thousands of compressed files.

[macdaddy]

With a RAID, the risk of file loss due to disk drive failure becomes a non-issue...

[Sachankara]

I use AAC for storing my music on the HD, MP3 for my Rio Volt SP100 and FLAC for backups stored on CDR discs... FLAC also makes re-ripping a whole lot easier, faster and more secure...

Originally posted by macdaddy
With a RAID, the risk of file loss due to disk drive failure becomes a non-issue...

Depends on what type of RAID and what brand and models of HD:s...

[gnoshi]

Seems I'm running as a bit of an exception. I answered OGG to the poll, and the files I have (38GB ogg, 2GB mp3) support that.

ogg -q 5 is my friend (that and a bottle of vodka).

gnoshi

[David Nordin]

I went from mp3 --ape some time back to MPC, and I'll never go back =)
Why? SoundQuality!!!
Maybe if I get a portable mp3 player, then I'd use --a-p f s -Y

[sam]

I chose MPC although I'm not a serious user as yet (only tried it a week or so ago). I've loads of MP3s that I have encoded with aps (and will continue to do so for my gf and sis). I picked MPC because its fast, pretty much mature and I like the gain support. For me MPC just feels right, every thing I need is included, and i's done very well. I really like AAC and the prospect of portables running it seems not too bad - but I didn't pick it because of no replay gain and no decent tagging. I just hope that MPC sticks around, and I can't wait to get me mitts on SV8 and build my Jukebox

[smok3]

Originally posted by fewtch
Vinyl records transferred to CD keeps the "analog vinyl sound" (whatever that is), thus probably consists of various types of distortion.

q: is there a plug for soundforge that will simulate the vinyl sound/scratches + speed changes one can do manualy on the turntable? (bit off topic ), iam trying to do an audio edit for some personal demo cd.

[rjamorim]

Yes.
iZotope Vinyl (It's a DirectX filter, BTW)

http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/vinyl/vinyl.html

[smok3]

Originally posted by rjamorim
Yes.
iZotope Vinyl (It's a DirectX filter, BTW)

nice, tnx

i guess that directx has some limits, there is no way to stop or start a record ? (i wanted that 'swissssscrach' starting sound as well - like when u hold a record and then let it go...)

[wtkwest]

I had been using .mp3 with a cbr of 192, until I started dumping some cassettes that I can't get on CD into the computer. Since everything about cassettes is so poor, I figured that I could use just about any encoder and get good results... I started by recording the cassette at 48KHz through my crummy soundcard.

I tried wma (96 and 160k [44.1]), mp3 (cbr 192, vbr High (192ish) vbr VH (256-ish)), mp3Pro (96), ogg (q6 and q8), and vqf (96)...

I expected ogg to win, from what I'd read, but ogg created some truly bizzare overtones that were not in my reference .wav file! I thought it might be "OggDrop" so I ran the test from command line vorbis tools 1.0rc3, with the same result.

The overwhelming winner in my little test was .vqf... Second place for my little test: wma (?!!!?)... Then vbr mp3.

Now thanks to this site, I've a few more formats to try.

Now as for my ears, I would like to add that they hate JBL, Yamaha sound reinforcement, Roland, and other popular manufacturers gear. So I'd be interested to see if there is a trend between the "color of sound" that we prefer and encoders...

[rjamorim]

Originally posted by wtkwest
The overwhelming winner in my little test was .vqf...  Second place for my little test: wma (?!!!?)... Then vbr mp3.

Poor guy. He'll be flamed to death.

[rjamorim]

Originally posted by CiTay
But it fills me with pride to see that this board is WMA-free as yet! :love3:

Not anymore.

Just out of curiosity: Who voted for WMA?

[Dezibel]

i'm using mpc in general.

i switched to lossless [Flac] for a week or so... but most of my albums [metal, progressive rock etc.] are bigger than 400Mb. so backups on CDR are not such an good thing.

however... i decided to "live" with lossy quality for daily use and archive nothing but the original Audio CD's. On my 80Gb drive on home computer i can store 2 Operating Sytems, 10Gb videos and documents, and 50Gb music. so with 256kbs quality [~100Mb for each album] it's ~500 albums. that's enough for daily use and on a laptop with 20Gb hd i can store 2 Operating Systems +10Gig documents and music. thats ~80 ... 100 albums. 80 albums should be enough for one working day. no admin on this planet can hear 80 albums while working on unix machines without sleep or updating the music archive on laptop :insane:

most music encodet with --standard --ltq fil sounds "transparent" for my destroyed musician ears but the feeling goes away a little bit. remember to a point at mp3 256kbs [radium hacked Fhg codec] sounds very very "realistic" for me i decided to switch to --insane --minSMR0 witch brings bitrates ~250kbs.

looks like i go right with these settings since a few albums sounds "better" than the original cd.

Dezibel

--
Don't drink and Root!

[silver_cpu]

Well, not necessarily flamed, just mostly ignored. Those at this site know the technical background and limitations of vqf and wma, and therefore know why they're both (currently) inferior formats. wma shows some future, as it currently has a major development team backing it. vqf, however, has been totally discontinued (to my best knowledge), and so has no future. I would advise you, wtkwest, to get a different format. vqf has none of the advantages of a well-accepted format (such as mp3 and wma, which are widely used and supported on nearly every format), and all of the disadvantages of less-known and less-used formats (such as lack of hardware support, multi-platform support, and, in this case, continued development). Please save yourself a lot of future headache, and find yourself another format. If you simply must have minute files, then choose ogg or wma, maybe mp3pro if it turns out to have appeal to the masses in the end. I personally prefer mpc above all others, but each person here has his own taste and pair of ears, and it's likely that another format will satisfy you as well. It's not like mpc gives you huge files, though. At it's standard preset (which is designed to be high-quality, not some compromised "standard"), I normally get bitrates of 120-160 on average, give or take for less or more demanding music. ogg is highly capable of handling smaller bitrates, as is aac. aac, however, is very slow (encoding normally reaches a maximum of 2-3X for my AMD 850Mhz comp.). It looks like some portables will support aac and ogg in the future. I hope that maybe this will convince you to take another listen to your songs, and really listen hard. Try to find yourself a good pair of headphones with flat response (Sennheizer is a well-known and trusted brand for giving high-definition, uncolored and natural-sounding audio, especially they're higher-end headphones, such as the popular HD-580s pictured in the Hydrogen Audio logo up above), and really give things a listen. If you're uncertain what to listen for, go to www.pcabx.com, and check out some of their samples, so that you can get a better idea of exactly what problems some encoders have, and what you should listen for.

Dezibel, I think that the settings for mpc that you settled on are overkill. You might want to try out --xtreme. This setting was designed for people who were not quite totally satisfied with --standard. It is the setting that I use, and I'm totally happy with it. Basically, it's one step above --standard, but changes some of the presets, such as the ltq (or ath, whichever you prefer to call it) to give you slightly higher quality, and comparable bitrates. Try --xtreme some time, or one of the new number quality levels, and just keep going up until you figure out what's best for you. Note, however, that even though you can go up to 10, 6-7 is more than enough, and anything above 8 (and in most cases less) is truely overkill, and a waste of hdd space.