Should i start using AAC? Can you notice a better quality? Options

[Bahamut2]

I have read everywhere that it is better than MP3, but will i be able to notice the difference?
I encode all my files to VBR -V0 and i don't know anything about AAC, what would be the equivalent encoding settings for AAC?

Can you people really notice that theyre is a reall difference in quality? I want to test it by myself (encoding always it max quality off course) but first i want to ask here.

[adlai]

the answer is yes.

I moved years ago and I haven't regretted it.

Also, the AAC codec is under active development by apple, while LAME is pretty much glacial in its development.

[saratoga]

Also, the AAC codec is under active development by apple, while LAME is pretty much glacial in its development.

Latest LAME release: v3.99 (October 2011)

Not sure why you think that. Lame is quite active:

http://lame.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/lam...ml/history.html

This post has been edited by saratoga: Jan 29 2012, 23:21

[adlai]

most of it is for stupid stuff like tagging files or minor bug fixes. Not many quality improvements.

This post has been edited by db1989: Jan 29 2012, 23:44

Reason for edit: removing unnecessary full quote

[Defsac]

most of it is for stupid stuff like tagging files or minor bug fixes. Not many quality improvements.

Quicktime 7.7 was security fixes only. Quicktime 7.6.6 has been around since March 2010, and that release was to address H264 and iMovie issues. The last version that affected AAC encoding was 7.6.0 I believe (Jan 2009)

[nu774]

most of it is for stupid stuff like tagging files or minor bug fixes. Not many quality improvements.

Quicktime 7.7 was security fixes only. Quicktime 7.6.6 has been around since March 2010, and that release was to address H264 and iMovie issues. The last version that affected AAC encoding was 7.6.0 I believe (Jan 2009)

Actually, they often update AAC encoder without any announce.
As far as I know, the most recent update was on QuickTime 7.7.1, CoreAudioToolbox 7.9.7.8.

[Defsac]

most of it is for stupid stuff like tagging files or minor bug fixes. Not many quality improvements.

Quicktime 7.7 was security fixes only. Quicktime 7.6.6 has been around since March 2010, and that release was to address H264 and iMovie issues. The last version that affected AAC encoding was 7.6.0 I believe (Jan 2009)

Actually, they often update AAC encoder without any announce.
As far as I know, the most recent update was on QuickTime 7.7.1, CoreAudioToolbox 7.9.7.8.

I very much doubt 7.7.1 affected the AAC encoder given it wasn't even released on OS X (correct me if I'm wrong, it wasn't released for 10.6 at least) and was released on Windows to address a specific buffer overflow exploit that was fixed with a system update on OS X. The latest version for OS X 10.6 is 7.6.6. They do occasionally make undocumented changes to QuickTime but given they don't even bother to mention them in the version announcement I think these are usually very minor. I've been using QT AAC for years and the last major change I noticed was from 7.5.5 to 7.6.0 (significantly increased bit rates at -q 127) which was documented in the 7.6.0 release notes as 'AAC encoder improvements' or something like that. But the QT release notes are very vague at the best of times. In any case I don't think there's any reason to suggest that QT is any more actively developed than LAME (and the LAME changelog is much more explicit).

This post has been edited by Defsac: Feb 27 2012, 12:38