List of AAC encoders Options

[IgorC]

Could you elaborate, please? Which bitrates do you mean by low/middle?

Thanks,

I give a try at 96/128 kbit/s for some samples and find that quality is not on par with Nero and Apple. But it is not the reason to discard right now this encoder. More detailed test is needed.

[muaddib]

I believe that encoders from Microsoft and DivX still need lot of work and improvement in quality.
It would be good if someone could do a listening test on them.

[Sebastian Mares]

Microsoft Expression Encoder 2 SP 1 and higher support H.264 and LC-AAC encoding. Don't know what encoder is behind that, though.

which is not free iirc...the only free way is to use the libraries from win7 but the AAC encoder is very limited (LC only - 128/160/192kbps as target bitrates).

I didn't say it's free. The only options are CBR 96 kbps to 192 kbps, 44.1 and 48 KHz, stereo and mono. The produced CBR files don't seem to be CBR though - more like ABR.
As for the libraries in Windows 7, I didn't find a way to use them yet. When I try to use the auto-encoding feature Windows 7 offers I only get MP3 files and in own programs I cannot seem to be able to access the library without initializing it with some special stuff I don't know.

[kurtnoise]

As for the libraries in Windows 7, I didn't find a way to use them yet.

I can provide you a cli tool for testing...

[potato]

First post here...Hi!. For 2.1 music PsyTel works very well at high bitrates. It was a favorite at one time and I'm not sure human ears have evolved much since. It has (severe) limitations for portable use but for the home or office workstation its as flawless a reproduction as I have found at/near the highest settings (bitrates>250) for any lossy encoder One aspect of testing that I do is how robust an encode is when its result is further processed by EQ plugins and other enhancements that most of us have played with at one time or another. I have found PsyTel's 2 highest settings (Archive and Ultra) to be the most robust (meaning less instrument clipping, etc) of any encoder at any setting to user tweaking after the fact. I don't have a clue why, perhaps some here with more technical knowlege could chime in. Its worth trying and ABXing if you're bored. I don't use nor have tested Nero but I suspect its very similar.

potato

This post has been edited by Frank Bicking: Dec 18 2009, 19:41

Reason for edit: Removed fullquote of first post.

[Sebastian Mares]

As for the libraries in Windows 7, I didn't find a way to use them yet.

I can provide you a cli tool for testing...

That'd be sweet. mail@sebastian-mares.de

[kurtnoise]

Sorry for the delay...it's available here.

[IgorC]

I believe that encoders from Microsoft and DivX still need lot of work and improvement in quality.
It would be good if someone could do a listening test on them.

Thank you for your time. What settings did you try with Divx AAC encoder?
I tried beta 1 http://labs.divx.com/node/11682 VBR mode -V 3 ~100 kbit/s and found that Divx has good quality actually.


IIRC MS AAC encoder is only available in Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2.

[Sebastian Mares]

IIRC MS AAC encoder is only available in Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2.

http://www.microsoft.com/Expression/produc...r_Overview.aspx

[loophole]

A lot of those converters online just seem to be shells for ffmpeg, which uses FAAC.

[stereotype]

There's also Matteo Croce's "aacplusenc"

http://teknoraver.net/software/mp4tools/

http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Aacplusenc

[IgorC]

IIRC MS AAC encoder is only available in Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2.

http://www.microsoft.com/Expression/produc...r_Overview.aspx

What are your findings? Has it any near reasonable quality?

[capma]

I encoded several audio tracks with MainConcept DirectShow AAC Encoder (comes with MainConcept AAC Encoder Plug-in for Adobe Flash Media Live Encoder) using GraphEdit and MONOGRAM MP4 Mux and got results similar to DivX Plus HD AAC Encoder (CLI version downloaded from DivX site), bitrate was slightly higher (122 for MC compared to 119 for DivX). Filter version is 7.6.0.35746 2008/08/07 (7.6.0 is the SDK version, I think), latest MainConcept SDK is 8.2.0 (but I have some filters that states 8.5.0). Looking at the spectrogram, frequency cutoff are the same (looks typical, different from other encoders). Also, options that is showed in help of CLI encoder are the same options that DS filter have. Maybe DivX AAC Encoder CLI comes from a newer version of SDK? But definitely these two encoders are, more or less, the same.

This post has been edited by capma: Jan 13 2010, 00:05

[Sylph]

Is DivX Plus still in beta 2 stage?

[Larson]

Is DivX Plus still in beta 2 stage?

if you're referring to DivX AAC encoder it's still in beta 1 stage actually.
http://labs.divx.com/node/11682

[Sylph]

Is DivX Plus still in beta 2 stage?

if you're referring to DivX AAC encoder it's still in beta 1 stage actually.
http://labs.divx.com/node/11682

Yes, beta 1! That's what I meant!

Thank you, Larson!

[Sylph]

And I see MAGIX released v16 of their MP3 Deluxe so perhaps they have a new AAC encoder version?

Its maximum is still 256 kbps, though.

[Sylph]

AVS Audio Converter 6.2 has some settings which I think are new. 256 kbps is still the highest bitrate, but they offer something called Quality 500 and various channel settings: mono, stereo, 3/0 — front, 3/1 — surround, 3/2 — surround, 3/2 + LFE 5.1 surround:



Someone said this was Liquid Audio AAC once.

[aconverse]

There's also Matteo Croce's "aacplusenc"

According to the wiki it's just a faster version of the 3GPP reference encoder.

[ruud170]

with all the ABX'ing going on here, can I asume this* is a top 4? (meaning #1 is the best etc.)

*

Competitive AAC encoders:
1. Apple
2. Nero
3. Coding Technologies (now Dolby)
4. Fraunhofer. Sorenson Squeeze and Magix application(?). Have they the updated and full functionality version of Fraunhofer encoder?

I'm asking because I'm a Mac user. I chose Apple's AAC to rip my CDs (for iPod, iPhone etc.), but only 'cause I had no clue there were other AAC types at the time.

EDIT: Actually, I'm using what ever AAC is in XLD... and just assume it's Apple's?

This post has been edited by ruud170: May 26 2010, 00:51

[String Theory]

At the moment Nero gives me the best results, but seeing DivX work on a decent codec is great for the development of AAC. And speaking of encoders, does anyone yet know which codec Sony is using in it's Media Go software? Is it the MainConcept codec?

That said.. things are going well for AAC en Mpeg-4..... the only things that still pisses me off are:

1. The PS3 only handling .3gp-AAC's fine
2. Apple for pushing it's .m4a-extention... Mpeg-4 should be .MP4!

[wkmax]

EDIT: Actually, I'm using what ever AAC is in XLD... and just assume it's Apple's?

Yes, it's Apple: QuickTime/CoreAudio AAC encoding

This post has been edited by wkmax: May 26 2010, 15:39

[benski]

1. The PS3 only handling .3gp-AAC's fine
2. Apple for pushing it's .m4a-extention... Mpeg-4 should be .MP4!

This is a common misconception. The MP4 spec (MPEG-4 Part 14) only states that "[t]he preferred file extension is '.mp4'". It does not require or even recommend that .mp4 be used.

[ruud170]

Yes, it's Apple: QuickTime/CoreAudio AAC encoding

thanks

btw., I know the rules, but my English lacks sometimes. I wasn't asking for the best sound, just wanted to know what's the "best" known version of AAC. I guess 'reference' or 'benchmark' is the word I was looking for

[Sylph]

Sony Audio Studio 10 has Fraunhofer's AAC. Again the highest setting is 256 kbps.