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tangent

Jun 9 2003, 21:06

damnit, where are my mod points when i need them...

Delirium

Jun 9 2003, 21:06

My favorite:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=67031&...ead&cid=6157145

"Whenever I rip a CD, I encode it into mathematically loseless MP3s" (emphasis his)

Hmm.

atici

Jun 9 2003, 21:21

I love Hydrogen Audio!

Had to say it. Probably the closest to "troll-free" environment in the net.

mmortal03

Jun 9 2003, 22:05

QUOTE(mpcfiend @ Jun 9 2003 - 08:09 PM)

QUOTE

I'd like to thank whoever posted about the test on slashdot.

On behalf of Dibrom, or the community?

Slashdottings are not fun.

Well, we might get a whole lot of new support now at this board, lol. This is some BIG exposure.

Daybreak

Jun 9 2003, 22:16

Oh well, what does one expect? Slashdot is/was never really well known for the depth of their comments... Too many uninformed people making too many dumb comments.

ff123

Jun 9 2003, 23:25

I just posted an announcement to the Usenet audio groups:

rec.audio.high-end
rec.audio.opinion
uk.rec.audio
rec.audio.pro
rec.audio.misc
rec.audio.pro

Hopefully, this will net a few more participants.

ff123

bond

Jun 10 2003, 00:14

i tried to make the test but uhh my ears seem to be too bad (or untrained), i cant really hear many differences

rjamorim

Jun 10 2003, 00:23

Thanks a lot, ff123.

Jamie Benchimol will come after you.

@bond: all results are welcome.

dev0

Jun 10 2003, 00:46

BTW. It was me (with a little helo of Garf

) submitting it to slashdot. You should have told me about that special page before though, Rjamorim.

dev0

rjamorim

Jun 10 2003, 01:14

QUOTE(dev0 @ Jun 10 2003 - 03:46 AM)

BTW. It was me (with a little helo of Garf

) submitting it to slashdot. You should have told me about that special page before though, Rjamorim.

Ah, that's OK

Thanks a lot to both of you.

Garf

Jun 10 2003, 04:56

Is it me or did not many people actually click through to the test? (Or to HA in general)

Tripwire

Jun 10 2003, 06:03

Trying to do a serious test, calling people from /. isn't a good idea. Even though it is a blind test, those folks will likely introduce (intentionally) false results.

Garf

Jun 10 2003, 06:25

It's pretty tough to break the test to favor your favorite result. You'd actually need some knowledge about ABC/HR and MP4 and some time, and I assume most people that have it wont be retarded enough to try to fuck up the test.

dev0

Jun 10 2003, 07:06

Hmm, obviously not many did. Disappointing... I expected more even if it is slashdot.

dev0

Tripwire

Jun 10 2003, 07:16

QUOTE(Garf @ Jun 10 2003 - 04:25 AM)

and I assume most people that have it wont be retarded enough to try to fuck up the test.

There are a small percentage of smart people at Slashdot, no doubt, but the majority there gives me a freakin' headache, so I have a rather uncomfortable feeling having them to evaluate something.

Garf

Jun 10 2003, 07:18

QUOTE(Tripwire @ Jun 10 2003 - 03:16 PM)

There are a small percentage of smart people at Slashdot, no doubt, but the majority there gives me a freakin' headache, so I have a rather uncomfortable feeling having them to evaluate something.

The test is designed to be solid against false positives and negatives by both smart and less smart people. Don't worry

verloren

Jun 10 2003, 07:37

QUOTE(Garf @ Jun 10 2003 - 04:56 AM)

Is it me or did not many people actually click through to the test? (Or to HA in general)

I switched on Slashdot this morning and saw the headline, and had visions of my hosting service having a melted machine on their hands (audio.ciara.us is mine). But there was very little extra traffic. Now all I have to do is wait for my pulse to drop to normal again!

Cheers, Paul

ff123

Jun 10 2003, 09:00

QUOTE(verloren @ Jun 10 2003 - 05:37 AM)

QUOTE(Garf @ Jun 10 2003 - 04:56 AM)

Is it me or did not many people actually click through to the test? (Or to HA in general)

I'd estimate about 500 Meg were uploaded from my PC overnight via BitTorrent, so people are getting the test files.

I haven't seen my Usenet posting yet; I'm wondering if it got nixed by some spam filter?

ff123

tangent

Jun 10 2003, 10:28

QUOTE(Tripwire @ Jun 10 2003 - 09:16 PM)

There are a small percentage of smart people at Slashdot, no doubt, but the majority there gives me a freakin' headache, so I have a rather uncomfortable feeling having them to evaluate something.

Score: -1, Troll

verloren

Jun 10 2003, 10:35

QUOTE(ff123 @ Jun 10 2003 - 09:00 AM)

I'd estimate about 500 Meg were uploaded from my PC overnight via BitTorrent, so people are getting the test files.

I guessed that a lot of people would use BitTorrent, it being /. And of course I'm the second mirror, which helps!

I'd guess maybe 100MB was grabbed from my site at the most.

Cheers, Paul

rjamorim

Jun 10 2003, 10:45

QUOTE(Garf @ Jun 10 2003 - 07:56 AM)

Is it me or did not many people actually click through to the test? (Or to HA in general)

I'm not sure, but about 2 hours after the test had been announced on slashdot, I had five e-mails with results in my mailbox, from five different people.

They could have been slashdotters, but it could also have been a coincidence.

rjamorim

Jun 10 2003, 10:48

QUOTE(verloren @ Jun 10 2003 - 01:35 PM)

I guessed that a lot of people would use BitTorrent, it being /. And of course I'm the second mirror, which helps!

I'd guess maybe 100MB was grabbed from my site at the most.

Cheers, Paul

Hello, Paul. Sorry for not informing you before.

Indeed, thankfully people are using bittorrent more, and besides I added another mirror to the test (thanks to Menno).

And, from your stats page, it seems to me that people consumed 1Gb+ of bandwidth. :B

Thanks a lot for your support.

Regards;

Roberto.

verloren

Jun 10 2003, 11:53

QUOTE(rjamorim @ Jun 10 2003 - 10:48 AM)

Hello, Paul. Sorry for not informing you before.

And, from your stats page, it seems to me that people consumed 1Gb+ of bandwidth. :B
Regards;

Roberto.

For the test as a whole that's true, but over the last two days (i.e when the /. article has been up) they've only used about 10MB (now that I read it more closely!)

And no apology needed - the space and bandwidth is being put to good use!

Cheers, Paul
(edit - too much quoting!)

askoff

Jun 10 2003, 12:12

Hurray! Now i got things rolling. Just visited at ff123 artifact training page and after that artifacts just jumped in my ears...

It's hard to be a newbie.

Differenciam

Jun 10 2003, 15:01

QUOTE(Delirium @ Jun 9 2003 - 07:06 PM)

My favorite:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=67031&...ead&cid=6157145

"Whenever I rip a CD, I encode it into mathematically loseless MP3s" (emphasis his)

Hmm.

I saw that too. What is he referring to? The best guess I had was cracking MP3 encoders so that they went up to 1411k...

I'll get these and try 'em out.

ErikS

Jun 13 2003, 02:15

The end date 15:th still holds? There will be enough results by then?

mpcfiend

Jun 13 2003, 02:46

QUOTE

Hurray! Now i got things rolling. Just visited at ff123 artifact training page and after that artifacts just jumped in my ears...

This is **NOT** a good thing for you! It's kinda too bad you can't turn back the clock.

I started kicking myself as soon as I gained the ears to be annoyed with apx and api. Listening for artifacts is kinda like taking up smoking cause you're curious. Ya just can't quit!

askoff

Jun 13 2003, 08:50

QUOTE(mpcfiend @ Jun 13 2003 - 12:46 AM)

QUOTE

Hurray! Now i got things rolling. Just visited at ff123 artifact training page and after that artifacts just jumped in my ears...

Maybay you are right. I should stop this before i have to find all my CD:s and rerip everythin under 256kbps mp3's. Luckily i quit smoking two years a go after trying it couple of years... Yes we all can do it

den

Jun 14 2003, 03:53

Phew, just got them knocked over.

Great stuff Roberto. Looking forward to the results, and then the big comparison against the other 128 kbit lossy codecs... B)

Den.

rjamorim

Jun 14 2003, 21:00

Hello.

I'd like to inform that the test finish won't be postponed. In 24 hours counting from now (at midnight Brazilian time, 4AM GMT, 8PM Pacific time), I'll close the test, delete the sample packages from the servers, won't accept any more sample scores and will start calculating the results.

I'd like to invite anyone that didn't take the test yet to download some samples and dedicate some of your time on Sunday to participate. All scores will be very welcome. BTW, I suggest you choose packages randomly, and don't start with 1, or we might end up too many results for 1 and too few for others.

Thanks a lot for everyone who participated. If I manage to maintain my planned schedule, the extension test comparing the AAC winner to other formats will start in a month.

Kind regards;

Roberto Amorim.

Edit: BTW: Check out my updated test page:

http://rarewares.hydrogenaudio.org/test/
Many thanks to Dibrom for creating the design baseline

Mike Giacomelli

Jun 14 2003, 22:48

Any reason those torrents don't work? I get nothing but tracker errors

I'm running 4 other torrents with no trouble, so I don't think its my end.

Dibrom

Jun 14 2003, 23:20

QUOTE(Mike Giacomelli @ Jun 14 2003 - 09:48 PM)

Any reason those torrents don't work? I get nothing but tracker errors

I'm running 4 other torrents with no trouble, so I don't think its my end.

The tracker is offline atm, sorry. I'll try and set it back up sometime tonight.

rjamorim

Jun 15 2003, 21:01

Test closed!

Thanks for everybody that participated.

For those interested, here is the amount of participants:
Sample01: 18
Sample02: 13
Sample03: 13
Sample04: 15
Sample05: 15
Sample06: 14
Sample07: 13
Sample08: 11
Sample09: 14
Sample10: 12
Sample11: 12
Sample12: 14

Results will be made available ASAP at
http://rarewares.hydrogenaudio.org/test/

Frank Klemm

Jun 16 2003, 04:06

QUOTE(rjamorim @ Jun 4 2003 - 11:53 PM)

I just started a new public listening test.
Addition: a specific web site for the test has been created: http://rarewares.hydrogenaudio.org/test/

The purpose is to find what encoder performs best encoding AAC at 128kbps

The encoders and parameters tested are:
Psytel AACenc 2.15 -br 128
Ahead/Nero 5.5.10.35 128kbps CBR, high quality
Sorenson Squeeze 3.5 (FhG Pro) 128kbps
Apple QuickTime 6.3 (Dolby) 128kbps high quality
FAAC 1.17b -a 64 (64kbps/channel)

--Who should take the test?

Anyone interested in AAC quality, or people that have no interest but would like to help making this test better.
You don't need excellent hearing, but some good gear is welcome (headphones are must-have).

--How do I take the test?

Download ABC/HR + the readme file here or here. If you already have ABC/HR, get the readme here.
Further instructions, and links to the sample packages, are inside the readme.

For people using BitTorrent: I strongly suggest you download using it.
The torrents are available here:
http://static.hydrogenaudio.org/extra/AACTest/
It would help me save bandwidth and you will probably download faster too

The average size of the sample packages is 4Mb. It sums to 47Mb, all the 12 packages.

Edit: For those that already downloaded packages, read here

--I'm on Linux/MacOS/something other than Windows. Can I take the test?

You can. But you won't be able to use the ABC/HR utility, that is Win32 only. Since the reference file must be hidden (That's the HR in the name), tests performed without it wouldn't be valid. So, I can't plot your scores against others. But your comments on sample quality and artifacts would still be welcome.

--When will the test finish?

The test is scheduled to end on June 15. This date may be extended if proved necessary.

If you have any other question, please post in this thread.

Thank-you very much,

Roberto.

Where can I download the audio files? Firewall allows access on port #23 and #80.

Garf

Jun 16 2003, 04:12

The test was closed already. Files are no longer available I think - though maybe BitTorrent works (not behind a firewall though). Edit: Nope, BitTorrent also no longer works.

They were the same ones from the 64kbps test. If you don't have those, someone can probably set you up with them.

rjamorim

Jun 16 2003, 12:17

QUOTE(Frank Klemm @ Jun 16 2003 - 07:06 AM)

Where can I download the audio files? Firewall allows access on port #23 and #80.

Too bad, Frank.

Well, as you probably noticed in the post you quoted:

QUOTE

--When will the test finish?

The test is scheduled to end on June 15. This date may be extended if proved necessary.

Hopefully you'll be able to participate in the extension test.

Regards;

Roberto.

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