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Topic: Two stupid(?) questions about LAME (Read 16383 times) previous topic - next topic
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Two stupid(?) questions about LAME

Reply #25
VBR aims at maximizing quality at whatever the average bitrate output becomes

I thought it aimed at achieving consistent quality.

somebody recently wrote that CBR and VBR mode share the same psychoacoustic model in 3.99, and IIRC he referred to the change log. I just looked up the change log but could not find a corresponding entry.

From the changelog:
Quote
LAME 3.99 beta 0  not officially released
[...]
All encoding modes use the PSY model from new VBR code

 

Two stupid(?) questions about LAME

Reply #26
They are compatible with ALAC today, now, but AAC has patent issues just like MP3 does, and I believe they will last even farther into future than MP3 patents, which restricts devices and software that support the format to those who either ignore the patents, are sold in countries where there aren't patents, or ignore the patents (like happened with MP3 during it's initial decade).


That still doesn't help FLACs case and its current compatibility rate which is far, far less than that of mp3.  Like I said, every single digital media device out there works with mp3 files as-is yet only a very, very, very small percentage work natively with FLAC.  Given the amount of iPods, iPhones, and iPads floating around, I would also venture to say that native ALAC support is also beyond that of FLAC.  That's just an educated guess on my part and native FLAC support is growing as it has been included in Android 3.1 and above.  However, the sheer volume of previously sold iDevices (and the combination of all three along with the continued lack of Android tablet sales) are much higher than Android smartphones, particularly ones running Android 3.1 and above (which would limit smartphones to Android 4.0 and above as 3.1 is a tablet only OS).

Either way, mp3 is still the "universal" audio format in terms of compatibility and FLAC has a long way before that changes.  Given Apple's reluctance to adopt the format on their mobile devices (they aren't the only ones, just look at Microsoft), along with many other contributing factors (support from manufacturers of various devices such as Blu-ray players, car stereos, etc.), I doubt FLAC will ever be as common as mp3.  FLAC may have all sorts of benefits over mp3 and again, I am not knocking the format itself.  However, those technical and patent benefits still haven't catapulted it to the same compatibility level as mp3 (or even AAC).

Two stupid(?) questions about LAME

Reply #27
somebody recently wrote that CBR and VBR mode share the same psychoacoustic model in 3.99, and IIRC he referred to the change log. I just looked up the change log but could not find a corresponding entry.

From the changelog:
Quote
LAME 3.99 beta 0  not officially released
[...]
All encoding modes use the PSY model from new VBR code


OK, Thanks for the hint. The audio data created by the VBR and the CBR processes are significantly different nonetheless.
lame3995o -Q1.7 --lowpass 17

Two stupid(?) questions about LAME

Reply #28
Either way, mp3 is still the "universal" audio format in terms of compatibility and FLAC has a long way before that changes.  Given Apple's reluctance to adopt the format on their mobile devices (they aren't the only ones, just look at Microsoft), along with many other contributing factors (support from manufacturers of various devices such as Blu-ray players, car stereos, etc.), I doubt FLAC will ever be as common as mp3.


I doubt that any lossless format will take over the portable market until storage is so dirt cheap that nobody would care about size, or many years after that. And should lossless become really popular, then it is not unlikely that it would be due to Apple succeeding in convincing consumers that they really want 192/24 ALAC, and not FLAC.

Two stupid(?) questions about LAME

Reply #29
Personally I'm into -V0 (resp. my 3.99.5 -V0+ variant which is a bit more demanding than -V0).

I'd be interested in knowing more about this.  While I'll likely switch to FLAC, ALAC, or another lossless for archiving in the near future, in the meantime I'm interested in the highest possible quality VBR.  As far as I knew, that was -V0 -q0 -ms VBR in LAME.

...
But now that I've done more reading, I'm wondering if LAME CBR320 -q0 -ms with MP3Packer would have produced a better VBR.


Two stupid(?) questions about LAME

Reply #31
Personally I'm into -V0 (resp. my 3.99.5 -V0+ variant which is a bit more demanding than -V0).

I'd be interested in knowing more about this.  ...
I'm wondering if LAME CBR320 -q0 -ms with MP3Packer would have produced a better VBR.

As for my variant you can read this.
As for CBR320 followed by mp3packer it's better to consider this just a space saving method of using CBR320 because it uses exactly the audio data produced by CBR320. Formally it's VBR because mp3packer repackages the audio data with variable frame bitrate, but as long as you're only about quality just consider it CBR320 in a more efficient framework.
Lame's VBR method as invoked by -Vx is another story, and there should be no confusion.
lame3995o -Q1.7 --lowpass 17

Two stupid(?) questions about LAME

Reply #32
I'd be interested in knowing more about this.  While I'll likely switch to FLAC, ALAC, or another lossless for archiving in the near future, in the meantime I'm interested in the highest possible quality VBR.  As far as I knew, that was -V0 -q0 -ms VBR in LAME.

...
But now that I've done more reading, I'm wondering if LAME CBR320 -q0 -ms with MP3Packer would have produced a better VBR.



Except for the geekiness of it: if you are going lossless very soon anyway, why bother to tweak mp3 settings? If you are going lossless, why delete the losslesses you already have? And if you keep them ... then re-encode when it sounds necessary. Shouldn't be too often ...

As for the geeky sport of sqeezing the least-likely-to-be-detected settings out of the application: what about --abr 320 ?