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Topic: A MP4 Audio Call To Arms (Read 22531 times) previous topic - next topic
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A MP4 Audio Call To Arms

Reply #25 –
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With Rjamorim's ABX 128kbps test, MPC was found superior to all other formats, so this is not true 

I sincerely don't consider 128kbps a low bitrate. IMO, it's a mid-bitrate.

Low bitrates, for me, are 80kbps and under. And, at that bitrate range, there's no test evaluating how MPC behaves.

Roberto if you're interested MPC quality 2 is ~64kbps.

A MP4 Audio Call To Arms

Reply #26 –
Hello,

just want to add my HO on this. I can't see any sense in promoting a format like aac. It's proprietary and covered with software patents. Well, one might argue that there's faac and faad2 but I can't imagine how these apps will be spreaded legally as binarys to the masses. And then there's the question how patent owners and license sellers would react to a more widespread usage of faad/faac. But that's a question rather related to the Free Software thought.

AAC already has it's promoters and  supporters on the industry side. It's already used by Apple in iTunes and it's music store. It's already supported in Ahead's new software lineup. AFAIK it's used in some asian country for telephony. It's already supported in some portable hardware players. There are Plugins for Winamp, Foobar2000, XMMS, LAMIP and other Players. It will get even more support and marketing in the near future. Definetly! There's money behind. There's  ISO standards behind. There are software patents on it. No fear, it will be THE_LOSSY_AUDIO_FORMAT_OF_THE_FUTURE_! ™


What really needs support and "lobbying" are the basics of audio compression. The topic still ist VBR vs. CBR. Imagine the same bullshit happening for AAC or Ogg Vorbis or MPC as it happened with MP3 -> 128 Kbps CBR encoded files all of the time. Hhmm, with AAC it could be 96 or 80 or even 64 Kbps CBR that's promoted as CD qualitiy.


Well, I for one will support and tell people about Ogg Vorbis and the holy grail of VBR encoding. And as long as WMA (be it good or not) won't be the format of the future I will sleep tide at night.


Regards, David.

A MP4 Audio Call To Arms

Reply #27 –
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What really needs support and "lobbying" are the basics of audio compression. The topic still ist VBR vs. CBR. Imagine the same bullshit happening for AAC or Ogg Vorbis or MPC as it happened with MP3 -> 128 Kbps CBR encoded files all of the time. Hhmm, with AAC it could be 96 or 80 or even 64 Kbps CBR that's promoted as CD qualitiy.

Actually, Apple made a minor contribution to the latter by having only one AAC preset in iTunes: 128kbps AAC, labelled as "High Quality" (so is 192kbps MP3, btw). Personally, I wouldn't call 128kbps AAC high quality, but I realise that it's good enough for most people, and I think it's a wise decision; below 128, quality will surely suffer, and above will be a waste of bits to most people. And anyone can hear the difference between MP3 and AAC at 128kbps. As for VBR/CBR; well, CBR will always have it's justification when used for streaming. They haven't written a VBR codec yet, though. And I doubt that more than a few will claim the VBR isn't significantly better than CBR for storage, anyway.

The little influence HA has on normal people would be wasted on AAC. HA is completely dwarfed by the main supporters for AAC such as Real, Apple, phone companies, MPEG and M4IF. IMO any influence HA has is better spent somewhere where it makes a difference.

And about MPEG-4 & AAC being patented; even though this is true, it is also an open standard. It is guaranteed that what is an AAC today will still be an AAC ten years from now, and it is also guaranteed that anyone can buy rights to AAC on equal terms. AFAIK Ogg Vorbis isn't an really open standard, although this is more a formality than anything else. I wish some standardisation organisation would back it...
 

A MP4 Audio Call To Arms

Reply #28 –
I agree with your statement below David. My thoughts exactly:

And as long as WMA (be it good or not) won't be the format of the future I will sleep tide at night.

I also thought it interesting what danchr said in his previous post in this thread:

And about MPEG-4 & AAC being patented; even though this is true, it is also an open standard. It is guaranteed that what is an AAC today will still be an AAC ten years from now, and it is also guaranteed that anyone can buy rights to AAC on equal terms. AFAIK Ogg Vorbis isn't an really open standard, although this is more a formality than anything else. I wish some standardisation organisation would back it...

I feel the same way. I want an international standardized audio format that won't change (i.e. my files will play back correctly in the years to come), not a whimsical Microsoft WMA codec that they can change (or that they can drop from being supported in their player) in years to come. And what if MPC or Vorbis are attacked by a patent or copyright suit 5 years from now and a judge somewhere rules that format to be pulled?

As far as MP3 goes, the base MPEG 1 Level 3 format is an international standard, but the proprietary format (by Fraunhoffer and Coding Technologies) called MP3Pro is not an international standard. I would not like to see MP3Pro be accepted by the masses in place of the superior (according to international listening tests) HE AAC (when tested at low bitrates, which both HE AAC and MP3Pro are designed for).

I can sleep better once we have MP4 Audio (both AAC and HE AAC) established as a popular international standard that works in all our portable players and software apps. The day I can go down to Wal-Mart and see 50% of the DVD and CD players/boom boxes they sell supporting MP4 Audio playback out of the box and see MP4 emblazened on the "features" listed on the box I will be happy and know that MP4 Audio "has arrived".

I am not an MPC or Vorbis basher, but rather am an MP3 basher. I want quick adoption of MP4 Audio by major hardware and software developers, so that MP3 will go away and be replaced by the better sounding MP4 Audio format.

When both WMA and MP3Pro are dwarfed in popularity by MP4 Audio the world will indeed be a better place. And Vorbis and MPC are welcome to join the "stomping out inferior and proprietary audio formats" party also

A MP4 Audio Call To Arms

Reply #29 –
What is the reason for this passionate "MP4 paladin, MP3 vanquisher" attitude?
Alright, MP3 is pretty much obsolete compared to more advanced codecs and MP4 is certainly better than MP3... but why the zeal to see it become the international standard and see Wal-mart filled with MP4-supporting devices? It's not like I'm going to buy all of them. For all I care, as long as I can use MPC/Vorbis/MP4 myself on my computer and there is at least one decent portable/hardware device that supports my format of choice (what is already a reality with the iPod/eXpanium), I don't care what the popular format is. Sorry if I seem cynical, but I don't understand this "quality altruism", and it smells to me more like a desire for people to have better quality files to download for free on p2p networks. My apologies if that suspicion is wrong. As for the security that my files will be compatible in the years to come, I wouldn't worry about it at all. Even if MPC/Vorbis were attacked by a law suit in the future and outlawed forever, who can oblige me to delete my MPC encoder and Foobar from my computer even supposing that all 'underground' sites were erradicated (an unlikely thing)? As for hardware support for the years to come, worrying about it seems absurd to me, too. With technology advancing as it is, I would expect players that support software decoders (read support for _any_ format) to arise in a few years; even if AAC's growing hardware support for some reason died out.

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Low bitrates, for me, are 80kbps and under. And, at that bitrate range, there's no test evaluating how MPC behaves.


Yes, by low bitrates I meant <80 kbps, not 128 kbps.   
True, there isn't any reliable data about MPC's behaviour at these bitrates and personally I haven't even tried them; so I have no empirical basis to support my assertion; however, considering that AFAIK virtually no tuning has been done for MPC for such low bitrates and that Vorbis and AAC have received much more development in this regard; I think it is safe to say that MPC isn't likely to fare as good as these other two codecs.

A MP4 Audio Call To Arms

Reply #30 –
Well dologan, as to your suspicion you put in your words:

Sorry if I seem cynical, but I don't understand this "quality altruism", and it smells to me more like a desire for people to have better quality files to download for free on p2p networks. My apologies if that suspicion is wrong.

I happen to be an independent Christian minister and Internet evangelist, and I don't copy copyrighted files nor do I plan to start a P2P network to publish anything illegal. I would like to put some Christian audios (worship music, vocals and sermons) up on the Net as I have done in the past, and am looking for a good quality international standard to use that will be around for many years to come. Also it must have low bitrate (48k or under) quality sound mode in addition to having higher quality bitrate settings for making better quality audios. That is why I am leery of Speex, WMA, ASF, RealAudio, MP3, etc. Vorbis is OK, but does not IMO have wide enough general user support currently. MPC is not designed for low bitrates nor is it in general use with end users who would visit my web site(s) to download audios.

I have used both RealAudio and ASF/WMA in the past and was disappointed by the quality, especially at modem download speeds. I would like to use HE AAC to put my audios and music. MP3 is OK, but I would have to use a large bitrate to sound good enough, and that is why I think HE AAC is great for me and other like me.

That is why I would like to see broad support by both software and hardware manufacturers for MP4 audio. I publish CD-ROMs with many (soon to be hundreds) of my audio files on them and would like to switch to MP4 also.

Yes, I own the copyright to all material I publish... so its not a thing about pirated music. And yes I accept your apology dologan about your suspicions.

I think MP4 audio (both AAC and HE AAC) will be a blessing to many people. It is a tool, and like any tool it is up to the people who use it that determine if it is used for good or bad.

A MP4 Audio Call To Arms

Reply #31 –
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True, there isn't any reliable data about MPC's behaviour at these bitrates and personally I haven't even tried them; so I have no empirical basis to support my assertion; however, considering that AFAIK virtually no tuning has been done for MPC for such low bitrates and that Vorbis and AAC have received much more development in this regard; I think it is safe to say that MPC isn't likely to fare as good as these other two codecs.

Anyone interested can "extend" the 64kbps test adding MPC at whatever --quality setting that outputs average 64kbps, specially if I go with my intention of using 7 codecs (ABC/HR has 8 sliders)

If that is feasible, I will post instructions at the test announcement thread.

There will be no official results out of it, but at least people would be able to have an idea on how it compares to others.

A MP4 Audio Call To Arms

Reply #32 –
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If there's any format (other than MP3), which doesn't need a "Call to Arms", it's MP4/AAC (MP$ ). I don't want to get into the whole patent/propietary discussion again, but fact is that there are many companies supporting MP4 on many levels and we should concentrate on promoting the lesser known alternatives (MPC/Vorbis) to gain more industry support.

How about, instead of having any kind of "Call to Arms", each of us with a little extra time help out a company that manufactures/integrates audio players perfect their implementation of one of these formats in real need of promotion.

Something like this.  I've taken up the flag for Vorbis, as I've come to prefer this format for my lossy encoding for many reasons.  If we could each help just one hardware company in this way, each with whatever our favorite format is, then we could make a real difference in promoting support for these encoding formats.

And like many others here, I don't have an interest in seeing just one format become dominant.  That's actually been the problem with the world of digital audio until now.  Too many people using too few formats.  Not to mention companies getting rich for the wrong reasons (mainly via licensing an encoding format...don't get me started).  Companies should get rich making reliable, usable, multi-format players.

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I wish a hardware manufacturer would give broad support for different formats so each of us can choose for his or her self. MP4 may (or most likely will) exceed MPC in sound quality/size some time in the future. But until that time, why go “hell bent” on pushing for anything, more development needs to be done across the board.

There is at least one such company.  PhatNoise car audio players can play MP3, Vorbis, WMA, FLAC, WAV (and hopefully that list will be growing).  Ongoing discussions can be found in their forum.

A MP4 Audio Call To Arms

Reply #33 –
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Ogg Vorbis isn't an really open standard, although this is more a formality than anything else. I wish some standardisation organisation would back it...

If a standardisation organisation were to back it, it would cease to be free. (Hmm, not really, if Xiph.org were to rise to that level)
Maybe your definition of 'open' is different from its intended meaning, because to be open means that you do not have to pay for a license to use the codec, and yet not worry about patents.
The slow rate of adoption of mpc and vorbis can be a blessing, because it would give any possible patents time to expire, before these 2 codecs become a bit better known by the masses, and the commercial companies will not be able to stake a claim in these 2.

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I happen to be an independent Christian minister and Internet evangelist...

As a Christian, you'd have been taught very early in your religious life that you are not to judge anyone, no, not at all. The same thing applies to audio codecs; of course you don't have codecs as your neighbours, friends, family...I digress. But to make a good codec choice you'd have to read up on their histories, their workings, their encoding strengths and weaknesses, and your target audience.

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I... am looking for a good quality international standard to use that will be around for many years to come.

mp3, mp4, ogg vorbis, mpc... (for the last 2, they will be 'international' in the years to come, and they are standards in their own right).

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Also it must have low bitrate (48k or under) quality sound mode in addition to having higher quality bitrate settings for making better quality audios.

AAC HE (mp4), ogg vorbis...

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Vorbis is OK, but does not IMO have wide enough general user support currently.

I thought as an evangelist, you should know better. Congregations are created, not ready-made. You can help Vorbis start in a new niche; just put additional links to Winamp, QCD, or Foobar2000 as players with excellent playback.

But in the end, it is up to you if you want to choose aac or vorbis. Both are readily available and are competent at 48 kbps, just that I think you pay to use the former and not the latter.

A MP4 Audio Call To Arms

Reply #34 –
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How about, instead of having any kind of "Call to Arms", each of us with a little extra time help out a company that manufactures/integrates audio players perfect their implementation of one of these formats in real need of promotion.

No hardware manufacturer would ever spend the time and money implementating Musepack decoding. Maybe none but that Chinese manufacturer. Well, if they can extend their distribution lines to southeast Asia, I'll definitely buy their product even if only just as a form of support.

A MP4 Audio Call To Arms

Reply #35 –
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And about MPEG-4 & AAC being patented; even though this is true, it is also an open standard. It is guaranteed that what is an AAC today will still be an AAC ten years from now, and it is also guaranteed that anyone can buy rights to AAC on equal terms. AFAIK Ogg Vorbis isn't an really open standard, although this is more a formality than anything else. I wish some standardisation organisation would back it...


And Ogg Vorbis 1.0 will still be Ogg Vorbis 1.0 tomorrow or in 15 years. The source-codes are available for everyone, for a lot of  operating systems and processor architectures (way more than AAC will ever be officially supported on). Ogg Vorbis has a far more better support on the software side than AAC/MP4 has. On GNU/Linux and the *BSDs it is the defacto standard. It's supported in Winamp, Foobar2000, Coolplayer, there's a plugin for Nero Burning Rom 5.5, it can already be used in a lot of cdda rippers and some freeware video conversion tools, and there are even more audioplayers for Windows that support Ogg Vorbis those names I don't even know.

The Specs for Ogg and Vorbis are available to everyone. The Spec for Vorbis has been designed in a way that allows much improvements to Vorbis. Ogg Vorbis is well suited for streaming, voice compression, compression of your music etc. It has support for multichannel audio and the vorbiscomments are pure heaven compared to things like id3 tags in MP3. Furthermore Ogg Vorbis supports replaygain, AFAIK that isn't the case for AAC/MP4.

I'm sure Vorbis will receive a lot of tuning (well it _already_ receives it) even if it is considered to be good enough ™ for John Doe. I don't think this will be the case for most commercial encoders for AAC/MP4. Sure, Aheads encoder/decoder is getting tuned but I don't believe this will be the case as long as with Vorbis. And then there are other implementations of AAC, for example that from FHG IIS - I assume it will be as with their MP3 codecs, they get developed to some good enough ™ stage and then only bugs get fixed.

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And what if MPC or Vorbis are attacked by a patent or copyright suit 5 years from now and a judge somewhere rules that format to be pulled?


Xiph.org had patent lawyers look into Ogg Vorbis and there's no problem.

Ogg Vorbis is way more free to it's users than AAC will ever be. I really don't get why you believe people could have problems playing your files in 10 years. Ogg Vorbis has been made for it's users freedom, not for the purpose of making a lot of money through licensing and patent fees. Amen

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Vorbis is OK, but does not IMO have wide enough general user support currently.


I'm very sure it currently has way more users than AAC/MP4.


For example you could deliver the vorbis tools with your cds. Maybe there's some GUI-Player that you could put on the disc too. So people could easily play your files without searching for software!

Regards, David.

A MP4 Audio Call To Arms

Reply #36 –
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If a standardisation organisation were to back it, it would cease to be free. (Hmm, not really, if Xiph.org were to rise to that level)
Maybe your definition of 'open' is different from its intended meaning, because to be open means that you do not have to pay for a license to use the codec, and yet not worry about patents.
The slow rate of adoption of mpc and vorbis can be a blessing, because it would give any possible patents time to expire, before these 2 codecs become a bit better known by the masses, and the commercial companies will not be able to stake a claim in these 2.

First of all, standardisation would not be an impediment on the freedom of Ogg Vorbis. Assuming that it isn't patented - which is a fair assumption, to say the least - nothing can restrict it's freedom. IIRC the Ogg Vorbis bitstream format has been frozen for quite some time anyway, so standardisation would simply be someone like ISO or ANSI publishing a paper describing what this bitstream would look like and how to handle it.

Second, I believe you're taking the "open" as in open source and "open" in open standard to mean the same thing. They don't. An open standard is a standard which guarantees everyone equal rights - possibly for a fee - to buy the standard specification and implement it. A good example of something not standardised is WMA. For Ogg Vorbis, it's mainly a formality, but I doubt major corporations would sponsor it without standardisation.

Third, if indeed the slow adoption is an advantage, it is also a disadvantage. In the mean time, new revolutionary technologies will be developed which neither of them can use. Plus, they get outdated too, and the competition will be about as good and much more popular in the mean time. People will use Ogg Vorbis over MP3 because it's better, but why would they use it over MP4? Remember, to most people, free software doesn't matter all that much; they wouldn't be using Windows if it did

A MP4 Audio Call To Arms

Reply #37 –
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I'm sure Vorbis will receive a lot of tuning (well it _already_ receives it) even if it is considered to be good enough ™ for John Doe. I don't think this will be the case for most commercial encoders for AAC/MP4. Sure, Aheads encoder/decoder is getting tuned but I don't believe this will be the case as long as with Vorbis. And then there are other implementations of AAC, for example that from FHG IIS - I assume it will be as with their MP3 codecs, they get developed to some good enough ™ stage and then only bugs get fixed.

I look at the state of development today and see the opposite of what you do. Ogg Vorbis is tuned to Good Enough, and then left by itself for almost a year even without any bugfixes. AAC on the other hand has leaped forward during the same time with both Ahead adopting it and Apple opening its music store and using it in their iPod along with constant finetuning of the encoders and adding of new features (AAC-HE). Howcome we se things so differently?

A MP4 Audio Call To Arms

Reply #38 –
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I look at the state of development today and see the opposite of what you do. Ogg Vorbis is tuned to Good Enough, and then left by itself for almost a year even without any bugfixes.


Well it depends on how you see it. For example there's Garf working on his GTx encoders. I don't know the actual state of development being done currently by all the official Vorbis devs but there's work going on. Further just because there's not always stunning development progress doesn't mean there's nothing happening. And just because there hasn't been a new release of the vorbis tools for over a year now doesn't mean Ogg Vorbis will be left in it's current stage or that there won't be fine tuning applied to Vorbis in the future.

OK, when lookig at the fact that there wasn't a new release for over a year now, it looks like there's nothing happening with Ogg Vorbis anymore! But the developers are also working on other things aside from the encoder. Imagine the collaboration with Neuros...

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AAC on the other hand has leaped forward during the same time [...] with constant finetuning of the encoders and adding of new features (AAC-HE). Howcome we se things so differently?


Yes, that's the _current_ state of work being done but I was writing about how I think it will be in the future when AAC/MP4 has been widely adopted. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying AAC is "bad" or crappy. I just think it is very likely that in a later stage the codecs will be left in a state that's good enough for most uses (music compression, for soundtracks in videos, streaming and what else) but won't be developed to an optimum, think of the varoius crappy MP3 encoders still being sold today. At the other hand I don't really believe there will be commercial AAC codecs that will be left in a state similar as FHG did it with it's MP3 encoders (don't even think of Xing). Time will show how my assumptions turn out 


Regards, David

A MP4 Audio Call To Arms

Reply #39 –
Well I have a change of heart toward Ogg Vorbis after reading some of your comments you recently posted in this thread. I will consider providing Vorbis format on my web site and CDs.

I wrote the message that started this thread to help get companies to support MP4 audio, as I saw it as a good audio format that needed "a push" to get out into the mainstream. The specs and international standards process were done, but the products available out there (especially WinAmp and Cool Edit Pro) were natively lacking in MP4 audio (both AAC and HE AAC) support out of the box.

It is my hope that people will ask these software and hardware developers for both AAC and HE AAC support in all the major audio products to get quick adoption of the MP4 audio format.

I have also learned from this thread that there are other worthy competitors out there (Vorbis, MPC, etc.) that I can use, and I encourage the software companies to support them as well.

But I still like HE AAC's audio quality at 64k or less for dial up modem quality, plus I prefer AAC's quality at 128k or better for my general listening/use. I use Nero 6 and am quite happy with it (once they get the bugs out which should be soon).

I plan to convert all my audios to MP4 audio format once the encoders (like Nero) are cleaned of bugs a bit better. I hate to have to leave my audio editor app (Cool Edit Pro/Adobe Audition) to encode MP4 audio files, but hopefully they will support a quality encoder soon that will encode both HE AAC and AAC MP4 Audio files.

As to WinAmp, I now use Menno's fine FAAD2 based plug-in. But I will have to wait until widespread players are available for people to play my audios before I switch to MP4 for general distribution of my files to users.

I appreciate all you feedback and comments in this thread. It has been a learning experience.

P.S. I just did my part and started a thread on Adobe's site (www.adobeforums.com) under the Abode Audition forum named "Audition Feature Requests" requesting MP4 Audio to be supported natively in Adobe Audition (formerly known as Cool Edit Pro). If you like, post a reply there voicing your support for MP4 Audio support to be added to Adobe Audition. Also there are existing threads in that forum for asking for native support in Adobe Audition for other audio formats such as Ogg Vorbis.

A MP4 Audio Call To Arms

Reply #40 –
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I just think it is very likely that in a later stage the codecs will be left in a state that's good enough for most uses (music compression, for soundtracks in videos, streaming and what else) but won't be developed to an optimum, think of the varoius crappy MP3 encoders still being sold today. At the other hand I don't really believe there will be commercial AAC codecs that will be left in a state similar as FHG did it with it's MP3 encoders (don't even think of Xing). Time will show how my assumptions turn out

IMO, time has already hinted you are wrong  The AAC encoders are already quite good, and there is nothing that indicates the development is stopping. Ivan is still tweaking Nero AAC based on the feedback from this forum, even though Apple always has been a very closed company, the few signs that surface indicate that they are improving the codec further.

It's true that development of proprietary software is more prone to coming to a complete halt sooner or later than open source development. However, I believe that the fact that the companies developing AAC codecs also are the ones selling them will keep the development going.

I don't see why Ogg Vorbis would suddenly be massively popular. It seems to be slowly gaining more popularity in it's niche as a good, free (in every possible meaning of the word) codec, but I haven't seen any indications that the average users see it as the successor to MP3. It seems that only two codecs have this reputation: WMA and MP4/AAC. Of the two, I prefer AAC - by far

A MP4 Audio Call To Arms

Reply #41 –
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IMO, time has already hinted you are wrong  The AAC encoders are already quite good, and there is nothing that indicates the development is stopping. Ivan is still tweaking Nero AAC based on the feedback from this forum, even though Apple always has been a very closed company, the few signs that surface indicate that they are improving the codec further.


OK, I shouldn't have talked so much about it without knowing the latest achievments of the available encoders. What I was worrying about was for example the "not so good" VBR encoding of FHG's MP3 encoders. I was wondering if such shit would happen with AAC but as it looks at least Aheads encoder is a fully functional thing and the guys at FHG IIS are unlikely to be so stupid and make the same mistake with AAC again.

Regards, David.

P.S. Not that anyone gets a wrong impression about my opinion how much Ogg Vorbis is currently spreaded: I just think that it's very likely that Ogg Vorbis currently has more users than AAC because it's available for already over a year and has good support in various audioplayers. I don't think it's widely used by average users. But as I wrote in my first reply to this thread, I'm sure that AAC will be the format of the future for the reasons I already stated.

A MP4 Audio Call To Arms

Reply #42 –
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I sincerely don't consider 128kbps a low bitrate. IMO, it's a mid-bitrate.

Low bitrates, for me, are 80kbps and under. And, at that bitrate range, there's no test evaluating how MPC behaves.

I guess things are relative. For me 128 kbps is very high bit-rate and low bit-rate is around 8 kbps.

A MP4 Audio Call To Arms

Reply #43 –
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IMO, time has already hinted you are wrong  The AAC encoders are already quite good, and there is nothing that indicates the development is stopping. Ivan is still tweaking Nero AAC based on the feedback from this forum, even though Apple always has been a very closed company, the few signs that surface indicate that they are improving the codec further.

I'm frequently contacting an Apple developer, through e-mail, with bug reports and suggestions. Some time ago I reported a bug related to QuickTime chopping samples at the end of AAC files on both encoding and decoding.

Recently, I suggested him to implement the same un-hackish way of doing gapless decode/playback of AAC inside MP4 files that Ivan/Menno implemented based on Stux's suggestion. (What's better, this method is backwards compatible with MP4 files already encoded)

A MP4 Audio Call To Arms

Reply #44 –
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I'm frequently contacting an Apple developer, through e-mail...

See? More signs!

A MP4 Audio Call To Arms

Reply #45 –
Quote
I happen to be an independent Christian minister and Internet evangelist, and I don't copy copyrighted files nor do I plan to start a P2P network to publish anything illegal. I would like to put some Christian audios (worship music, vocals and sermons) up on the Net as I have done in the past, and am looking for a good quality international standard to use that will be around for many years to come. Also it must have low bitrate (48k or under) quality sound mode in addition to having higher quality bitrate settings for making better quality audios. That is why I am leery of Speex, WMA, ASF, RealAudio, MP3, etc. Vorbis is OK, but does not IMO have wide enough general user support currently. MPC is not designed for low bitrates nor is it in general use with end users who would visit my web site(s) to download audios.

Actually, if you want people to *always* be able to decode your files, the only codecs that can do it are Speex and Vorbis (MPC?). The reason is simple: because you can distribute source code. In 20 years, even if your MP3/ASF/AAC binary won't work, you'll always be able to compile the Speex/Vorbis source and decode the files. So all you need to do is distribute the source code on the same CD/web site and you'll never lose your content.

A MP4 Audio Call To Arms

Reply #46 –
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I happen to be an independent Christian minister and Internet evangelist, and I don't copy copyrighted files nor do I plan to start a P2P network to publish anything illegal. I would like to put some Christian audios (worship music, vocals and sermons) up on the Net as I have done in the past, and am looking for a good quality international standard to use that will be around for many years to come. Also it must have low bitrate (48k or under) quality sound mode in addition to having higher quality bitrate settings for making better quality audios. That is why I am leery of Speex, WMA, ASF, RealAudio, MP3, etc. Vorbis is OK, but does not IMO have wide enough general user support currently. MPC is not designed for low bitrates nor is it in general use with end users who would visit my web site(s) to download audios.

Actually, if you want people to *always* be able to decode your files, the only codecs that can do it are Speex and Vorbis (MPC?). The reason is simple: because you can distribute source code. In 20 years, even if your MP3/ASF/AAC binary won't work, you'll always be able to compile the Speex/Vorbis source and decode the files. So all you need to do is distribute the source code on the same CD/web site and you'll never lose your content.

Well, 20 years is a bit misleading, because even though you have the source it's not 100% sure you'll be able to compile it.

In 20 years, perhaps, 32-bit code will be as compilable as 8-bit code is now.
Also, the whole architecture of what we now know as PCs could be changed forever.

Take a look here, there are some computers from 1983, most of them have a BASIC interpreter in ROM or some early, and now incompatible version of MacOS or Lisa.

Exempli Gratia, if you found some Open Source code for a Windows 1.0 or 2.1 program, it wouldn't be very useful, would it?
"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be misquoted, then used against you."

A MP4 Audio Call To Arms

Reply #47 –
Damn, must all Xiph developers use the same flawed and misleading argument?

(See some old posts by Josh Coalson, and the folowing replies by Frank Klemm & co.)

A MP4 Audio Call To Arms

Reply #48 –
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Well, 20 years is a bit misleading, because even though you have the source it's not 100% sure you'll be able to compile it.

In 20 years, perhaps, 32-bit code will be as compilable as 8-bit code is now.
Also, the whole architecture of what we now know as PCs could be changed forever.

...

Exempli Gratia, if you found some Open Source code for a Windows 1.0 or 2.1 program, it wouldn't be very useful, would it?

OK, I'll answer for Speex since I (obviously) know the details. First, you can't compare the Speex source code to some Windows 1.0 source code. Speex is written in plain ANSI C and the only libraries it use are libc (and *only* for malloc/realloc/free) and libm (cos, sin, sqrt, log and exp). That's why I think even in 20 years, any C compiler (and they *will* still be around) will be able to compile it.

Now compare with other format, let's say MP3. Do you really think it'll be able to get Winamp to work on your machine in 20 years? There's no guaranty that there will still be MP3 decoders available by then.

A MP4 Audio Call To Arms

Reply #49 –
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Damn, must all Xiph developers use the same flawed and misleading argument?

(See some old posts by Josh Coalson, and the folowing replies by Frank Klemm & co.)

So what's so flawed in saying that source code will be more useful than binary in 20 years? (sorry, didn't find the thread you mention)