64kbps public listening test, FINISHED Options

[Mac]

CODE

7R File: .\Sample09\Polonaise_8.wav
7R Rating: 3.0
7R Comment: It all sounds subtly different.  Couldn't tell on a casual listen through.

I noticed on a couple of samples that if you listened through the whole 20 seconds, Vorbis sounded just fine to me, but if you start listening to short 1 second chunks and concentrated, you noticed a staggering difference between it and the original?

Would it be over-optimistic to suggest this was the intention, make a codec that sounds better in every-day use than on short bursts of concentration?

ps. Roberto - 1) Awesome test, badbwoy! 2) Thankyou for 4 mentions on the funnies list

This post has been edited by Mac: Sep 24 2003, 10:05

[ScorLibran]

I noticed on a couple of samples that if you listened through the whole 20 seconds, Vorbis sounded just fine to me, but if you start listening to short 1 second chunks and concentrated, you noticed a staggering difference between it and the original?

Interesting concept...Subliminal Transparency. You only *think* it's transparent if you hear it enough.

Wait...my whole collection is in Vorbis....-q 4.25..............Those Vorbis programmers fooled me!!!.......:fingers in ears:.....LALALALALALALALA.....not listening....not thinking about this.....it really IS transparent....all of it!!!......it's not just subliminal....

Especially worrisome considering I rated Vorbis below the low-anchor overall (8th out of 8).

But seriously, I'm going to train myself to hear artifacts better before I pull out all my CDs and the FLAC encoder. This test was a *big* wake up call for me. But it's actually a big difference between 64kbps nominal and 136kbps nominal, so I'm not losing sleep either.

[webwonk]

Which CODEC was used for the Real test. Cook or ATRC0? Thanks.

webwonk

[ErikS]

Which CODEC was used for the Real test. Cook or ATRC0? Thanks.

webwonk

AFAIK Cook.

see http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=13127

[rjamorim]

AFAIK Cook.

see http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=13127

Yes, Cook.

AKA Real Audio Gecko.

[Garf]

Split Vorbis discussion/flamewar

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....=ST&f=1&t=13531

[c_haese]

Split Vorbis discussion/flamewar

I'd like to point out, for the record, that it was not I who started the flaming.

Thanks.

[Garf]

Split Vorbis discussion/flamewar

I'd like to point out, for the record, that it was not I who started the flaming.

Thanks.

Nobody ever claimed so.

[JohnV]

Split Vorbis discussion/flamewar

I'd like to point out, for the record, that it was not I who started the flaming.

Thanks.

Well.. I don't think there was/is any flamewar, we are strictly discussing in non-personal level. However, I'm expecting the promised clarification to the patent search issue (meaning documents or such online):
Please continue this discussion here (thread split):
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=13531

[phong]

...I've produced a spreadsheet of the results.  You can download it in OpenOffice (yay!) format here.  You can also get it in Excell (boo!) format here....

I've updated the spreadsheet - it now has a section on the far right that lets you get a summary of all the results of any one listener and compare to the averages. Just enter a listener's handle (where it says "garf" in blue right now) and it will show all their scores and the difference between their scores and the averages. It even highlights lows/highs for each codec in different colors.

ps: I don't mean to pick on Garf. :-) His scores were quite average so they produce a nice "typical" chart.

This post has been edited by phong: Sep 25 2003, 06:55

[tigre]

...I've produced a spreadsheet of the results.  You can download it in OpenOffice (yay!) format here.  You can also get it in Excell (boo!) format here....

I've updated the spreadsheet - it now has a section on the far right that lets you get a summary of all the results of any one listener and compare to the averages. Just enter a listener's handle (where it says "garf" in blue right now) and it will show all their scores and the difference between their scores and the averages. It even highlights lows/highs for each codec in different colors.

ps: I don't mean to pick on Garf. :-) His scores were quite average so they produce a nice "typical" chart.

Cool thing to play with - thanks!

[saratoga]

Any reason the link doesn't work?

I'd really like to take a look at the site.

http://audio.ciara.us/test/64test/results.html

[verloren]

Any reason the link doesn't work?

I'd really like to take a look at the site.

No reason at all - I just tried it and it came up fine. Perhaps you could post what happens and I'll try to sort it out.

Cheers, Paul
audio.ciara.us sponsor

[Garf]

ps: I don't mean to pick on Garf.  :-)  His scores were quite average so they produce a nice "typical" chart.

If I interpret the results correctly, for me HE-AAC is a clear winner with MP3Pro second, followed at some distance by WMA and only then Vorbis, which did only marginally better than RealAudio.

There's a goofy result in that I rated the low anchor up to 5.0 in one test, while giving the high anchor a 3.8.

[ScorLibran]

ps: I don't mean to pick on Garf.  :-)  His scores were quite average so they produce a nice "typical" chart.

If I interpret the results correctly, for me HE-AAC is a clear winner with MP3Pro second, followed at some distance by WMA and only then Vorbis, which did only marginally better than RealAudio.

There's a goofy result in that I rated the low anchor up to 5.0 in one test, while giving the high anchor a 3.8.

I had something similar, rating the low anchor at 5.0 on one sample, though the lowest rating I gave the high anchor was a 4.3.

Ironic it seems to me is that I rated Vorbis at this bitrate the lowest overall, slightly under the low anchor. Ironic, since my entire collection is encoded in Vorbis, although at a bitrate that I tested on many tracks and found to be generally transparent to my ears. Someone proposed that it may be that since I have listened to more Vorbis than any other codec recently, I may be more "tuned" to pick out artifacts with Vorbis. I would have thought it would be the other way around...automatically tuning out Vorbis artifacts more than those of other codecs since I listen to Vorbis encodings every day.

Interesting psychoacoustic phenomena either way...

[webwonk]

Thanks to Both ErikS & rjamorim for their replies to my query (Was the Real CODEC cook or atrc0 - it was Cook), now the follow-up. Was there a reason for not including ATRC0 (Real's 66kbs ATRAC3 implementation) - besides, of course, the obvious difference of 66 and 64kbs. As they are so close, It would be interesting to see how ATRC0 compares to HE-AAC. Has anyone tried this? Any insight would be most appreciated. Thanks again for a very interesting test and subsequent discussion.

Sincerely,

Webwonk.

[tigre]

Was there a reason for not including ATRC0 (Real's 66kbs ATRAC3 implementation) - besides, of course, the obvious difference of 66 and 64kbs. As they are so close, It would be interesting to see how ATRC0 compares to HE-AAC. Has anyone tried this? Any insight would be most appreciated.

There is a pre-test thread with discussion about what codecs to include etc, you might find some answers there.