My tuned Vorbis: QKTune beta 1 :), Improved pre-echo at q 2, 3, 4, 5 Options

[QuantumKnot]

I've uploaded the partial source code of QKTune beta 3.2 so people can see what I've done and hopefully improve on it. It includes only the files that need to be replaced which are psy.c, info.c, and psych_44.h.

http://steve8988.homestead.com/files/vorbis/qkt32.tar.gz

[john33]

Thanks Steve.

I've merged this with GT3b2 and you can d/l a version of oggdropXPd compiled from this merged code at: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jfe1205/OggVo...9GT3b2QKT32.zip. Please remember that this is experimental code only, at this time. The Vendor String is somewhat lengthy and includes the word 'EXPERIMENTAL'!!

[QuantumKnot]

Thanks Steve.

I've merged this with GT3b2 and you can d/l a version of oggdropXPd compiled from this merged code at: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jfe1205/OggVo...9GT3b2QKT32.zip. Please remember that this is experimental code only, at this time. The Vendor String is somewhat lengthy and includes the word 'EXPERIMENTAL'!!

Awesome. Less typing for moi. But just a minor point. Time to update the about box too

This post has been edited by QuantumKnot: Feb 29 2004, 01:19

[indybrett]

Just to make sure I understand. This version has:

Garfs GT3B2 tuning
QuantumKnot's HF tuning

It does not have:

QuantumKnot's low bitrate pre-echo tuning

Is that correct?

[QuantumKnot]

Just to make sure I understand. This version has:

Garfs GT3B2 tuning
QuantumKnot's HF tuning

It does not have:

QuantumKnot's low bitrate pre-echo tuning

Is that correct?

From my understanding, it has everything! pre-echo improvement from 2 to 10. HF tuning for all q's

[indybrett]

Awesome

[indybrett]

Please remember that this is experimental code only, at this time. The Vendor String is somewhat lengthy and includes the word 'EXPERIMENTAL'!!

So what needs to happen next so that the experimental tag is no longer needed? More testing, or just more time to see if there are any bad reports from the field?

Just curious. I know it's still early in the process

[QuantumKnot]

More testing, or just more time to see if there are any bad reports from the field?

I guess both. I've already encoded a few albums using this encoder and haven't been struck with spurious tones (like in the first version of beta 3.2 ) so it should be safe in terms of detrimental breakage.

[harashin]

The oggdropXPdV1.7.9GT3b2QKT32 seems to produce different files from QuantumKnot's oggenchfr.exe.　Does the difference of compiler settings cause this behaviour? And is this nothing worth worrying about?

gt3b2qk32.png

Thank you guys for your work anyway.

[QuantumKnot]

The oggdropXPdV1.7.9GT3b2QKT32 seems to produce different files from QuantumKnot's oggenchfr.exe.　Does the difference of compiler settings cause this behaviour? And is this nothing worth worrying about?

gt3b2qk32.png

Thank you guys for your work anyway.

I'm not sure what compiler John used. I used VC.NET while he probably used VC6 with the Intel compiler. If that is the case, then it is not unusual for the files produced to be different. Or you could try ABXing the files.

[harashin]

I'm not sure what compiler John used.  I used VC.NET while he probably used VC6 with the Intel compiler.  If that is the case, then it is not unusual for the files produced to be different.  Or you could try ABXing the files.

Thanks for the clarification.

[QuantumKnot]

For those who are comparing q 3 and 4 with my oggencqk32.exe binary, the files will be different, mainly because I did some more pre-echo tuning before I uploaded the source code. I used castanets to get the perfect clack at q 4.

[mmortal03]

I just encoded my entire collection for testing with the experimental build of OggDropXPd, and interestingly enough, it became smaller by about 3 percent. I saved about 300 megabytes on a 10 GB collection encoded with gt3b2. Interesting that your tunings would have a positive gain of lower average bitrates as well as hypothetically better sound.

This post has been edited by mmortal03: Feb 29 2004, 10:07

[QuantumKnot]

I just encoded my entire collection for testing with the experimental build of OggDropXPd, and interestingly enough, it became smaller by about 3 percent.  I saved about 300 megabytes on a 10 GB collection encoded with gt3b2.  Interesting that your tunings would have a positive gain of lower average bitrates as well as hypothetically better sound.

Yes, the HF reduction does produce smaller files since I'm applying a limiter to cut out the high frequency boost, hence there is some loss of information, and thus smaller size. Of course, we hope that we lose the undesirable information only which is why some more testing on everyday music is as much needed as listening tests based on small, special case samples.

This post has been edited by QuantumKnot: Feb 29 2004, 10:16

[john33]

Awesome.  Less typing for moi. But just a minor point.  Time to update the about box too  

You're right. I did change the heading in the 'About' box, but not the narrative about the tuning. Let's get some feedback and then, assuming all is well, we can release with a full narrative rewrite, where necessary.

Should I publish the merged libs? I guess, yes. Give me an hour, or two, and I'll upload.

[john33]

Uploaded the 3 files as QuantumKnot did. 'psy.c' is unchanged from Steve's upload, 'info.c' and 'psych_44.h' have changed.

Files are here: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jfe1205/OggVo...gt3b2_qkt32.zip

[maikmerten]

Hello,

I´ve merged Vorbis CVS and qkt32.tar.gz for a private linux-compile. I found a piece of "normal" music sounding strange. (However, vorbis 1.0.1 doesn´t seem better to me on this sample but I may have to check this again...)

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....ndpost&p=188853

Maik

[mmortal03]

Well, this knocked (-) ions down from 375 to 364 kbps . Now I'll have to see if I can ABX them. It doesn't seem like one would be able to ABX between that high of bitrates, but who knows.

What type of music should we be listening to to find problems here? Aphex Twin type stuff, some of which has the highest average bitrates, or for instance, The White Stripes album De Stijl, which has some of the lowest average bitrates in my collection, where losing bits might affect the sound more? In other words, should we be looking at the extremes here, or is there no particular pattern to look for?

This post has been edited by mmortal03: Feb 29 2004, 20:01

[phoolgobi]

Hi,
I was testing QK HF tuning of Vorbis, and may I say that it is without a doubt absolutely super work Well done Quantum Knot !!!

Okay, so I tested low bitrate performance with a music track that has a classical Indian instrument called the 'Tabla' in the beginning. I also tested other codecs at 64 kbps CBR and ~64 kbps VBR. The codecs were AAC HE and LC (Nero), and mp3PRO (Nero). For the vorbis encodes I used oggdropXPd encoder at q = 0.

The bitrates of various encoded files are as follows:

Ogg Vorbis
==========
V 1.0.1 67
QKTune beta 3.2 63

AAC
==========
AAC HE (VBR) 61
AAC HE (CBR) 64
AAC LC (CBR) 64

mp3PRO
==========
VBR 51
CBR 64

It comes as no surprise that all the codecs are easily ABXable, but it is surprising that both the SBR based codecs (AAC HE and PRO) perform badly. The encodes sound the worst from the lot. The AAC LC encode sounds better than HE for the tabla part, but when electronic music starts it looses out heavily.

On the other hand Vorbis 1.0.1 suffers from high freq noise but does reproduce the tabla better than SBR based codecs. QK Tune 3.2 does so much better than 1.0.1 and produces smaller files as well.

The ranking based on my testing:

Vorbis QK3.2 > Vorbis1.0.1 > AAC LC > AAC HE > mp3PRO

I want to upload this sample file. How do I go about that? I would appreciate it if some of you could do a little testing on this file and confirm the same.


EDIT: Uploaded the file

EDIT: The bitrates indicated here are for the complete file not for the 30 sec sample

This post has been edited by phoolgobi: Mar 1 2004, 07:24

[music_man_mpc]

It comes as no surprise that all the codecs are easily ABXable, but it is surprising that both the SBR based codecs (AAC HE and PRO) perform badly. The encodes sound the worst from the lot. The AAC LC encode sounds better than HE for the tabla part, but when electronic music starts it looses out heavily.

You didn't decode with FAAD2, did you?

[QuantumKnot]

Hi,
I was testing QK HF tuning of Vorbis, and may I say that it is without a doubt absolutely super work Well done Quantum Knot !!!

Okay, so I tested low bitrate performance with a music track that has a classical Indian instrument called the 'Tabla' in the beginning. I also tested other codecs at 64 kbps CBR and ~64 kbps VBR. The codecs were AAC HE and LC (Nero), and mp3PRO (Nero). For the vorbis encodes I used oggdropXPd encoder at q = 0.

The bitrates of various encoded files are as follows:

Ogg Vorbis
==========
V 1.0.1                  67
QKTune beta 3.2    63

AAC
==========
AAC HE (VBR)      61
AAC HE (CBR)      64
AAC LC (CBR)      64

mp3PRO
==========
VBR                      51
CBR                      64

It comes as no surprise that all the codecs are easily ABXable, but it is surprising that both the SBR based codecs (AAC HE and PRO) perform badly. The encodes sound the worst from the lot. The AAC LC encode sounds better than HE for the tabla part, but when electronic music starts it looses out heavily.

On the other hand Vorbis 1.0.1 suffers from high freq noise but does reproduce the tabla better than SBR based codecs. QK Tune 3.2 does so much better than 1.0.1 and produces smaller files as well.

The ranking based on my testing:

Vorbis QK3.2 > Vorbis1.0.1 > AAC LC > AAC HE > mp3PRO

I want to upload this sample file. How do I go about that? I would appreciate it if some of you could do a little testing on this file and confirm the same.

hmmm....It beat HE-AAC? That is most unusual since Vorbis is very mediocre at such low bitrate while SBR is absolute magic!! Definitely need some verification here. You can upload the sound file in the uploads section, in the thread called 'Vorbis samples'.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....ndpost&p=180700

[guruboolez]

HE-AAC (current encoder) isn't perfect. Some samples have problems with the Nero encoder, and sometimes, other solutions are better.
Maybe the sample could help Ivan, but in my opinion, this situation is not something exceptionnal.

[tigre]

hmmm....It beat HE-AAC?  That is most unusual since Vorbis is very mediocre at such low bitrate while SBR is absolute magic!!  Definitely need some verification here.  You can upload the sound file in the uploads section, in the thread called 'Vorbis samples'.

IMO it's no surprise that Vorbis can beat HE-AAC on a single sample. If you have a look at rjamorim's last 64kbps multiformat test, you'll see that there were some samples where (at least a big part of the) listeners prefered vorbis over HE-AAC or mp3pro.

[QuantumKnot]

Oh ok, I don't have much experience with AAC I guess, but from the few times I've tried HE-AAC and mp3pro, they just blew me away.

[QuantumKnot]

What type of music should we be listening to to find problems here?  Aphex Twin type stuff, some of which has the highest average bitrates, or for instance, The White Stripes album De Stijl, which has some of the lowest average bitrates in my collection, where losing bits might affect the sound more?  In other words, should we be looking at the extremes here, or is there no particular pattern to look for?

Hard to say. I guess the first thing is to test music which 1.0.1 has a tendency to boost sounds like cymbals and hi-hats.

Second problem that might surface with this hack is stereo imaging problems. Try to listen for stereo flipping, stereo collapse, or anything unusual about the stereo.

Pre-echo is not top priority since you can only get so much with q 4 and most people are annoyed by hiss/noise more than anything else.

Hello,

I´ve merged Vorbis CVS and qkt32.tar.gz for a private linux-compile. I found a piece of "normal" music sounding strange. (However, vorbis 1.0.1 doesn´t seem better to me on this sample but I may have to check this again...)

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....ndpost&p=188853

Maik

Oh I should have posted my linux binary too. I do all my Vorbis development in Linux.

This post has been edited by QuantumKnot: Mar 1 2004, 03:11