Hi guys - I'm new here... I just purchased tonight (07/14/2003) at Best Buy a copy of the new Nero 6 Ultra Edition, and am using Nero Mix Version 1, 4, 0, 1 that comes with Nero 6 to encode some HE-AAC files (.mp4).

By the way, I highly recommend the Nero 6 encoder to all. I like it a lot!

My question is: what is the best bitrate to use for encoding HE-AAC files for stereo audio (music)? I tried 48k CBR and 64k CBR, and am impressed with each. 48k CBR HE-AAC sounded as good, if not better than 128k MP3. The 64k HE-AAC file really blew the doors off! It sounded so crisp... I like 64k HE-AAC!

Anyone else have any experiences wit this new encoder yet? Should I use CBR or VBR, and at what bitrate should I use to archive all my music in .mp4 (HE-AAC) format? Will there be a Winamp 2.9x plugin out to play HE-AAC .mp4s soon?

Are there any licensing restrictions on use of MP4 files are their are on MP3 and MP3Pro if I want to distribute audios of my own music that I have written/published?

Thanks,

Adam
Colorado Springs, Colorado

an updated Winamp/foobar plugin for AAC+ should be availible in a few days from www.audiocoding.com (if it's not already there )

Not yet. Menno will sort out some licensing issues before releasing the SBR code (this code won't be released under the GPL, it seems.)

Thanks to both of you for your replies. I hope this HE-AAC MP4 format takes off and replaces MP3 someday, as it is definitely a better sounding, quality codec that takes up less bandwidth and size than former audio compression formats.

The key is to get MP4 (HE-AAC) players out there to as many people as possible so that Microsoft and Winamp (and the other big hitters) will 1) be able to (i.e. fair licensing) and 2) will want to include support for MP4 (HE-AAC) in their audio players and other products. As we all know, without widespread support for MP4 it will remain a proprietary format and MP3 will reign (even if it is an aging format that sounds poorer than MP4).

Thanks again. Go Nero!

Just thought I'd stick the words HE AAC in this thread since everyone else is calling it HE-AAC (there shouldn't be a dash). Now when I search for HE AAC, this thread will be in the results. And no problems with + & - either.

The files created with Nero 6 HE-AAC seems to play fine with the old winamp in_mp4 plugin. Is this playback optimal? Or should I upgrade the winamp decoder when it becomes available, to take advantage of SBR coding (ala. mp3PRO/mp3)?

TIA.

--ManK

you should update, just like mp3pro.

regards; ilikedirt

does this mean that there will not be a "legal" support of sbr in coreaac possible?

this is a severe handicap for HE AAC to be adopted by any open source platforms, most notably linux.

how did you play back the aac-he files?

As I understand it, they will release the sources in some sort of GPL clone because of some cluelessness in high management. From what I know, they don't trust enough the GPL in keeping closed software from adopting it.

That's very bad, because this clone would most probably be automatically incompatible with the GPL. Then, all GPLd projects using FAAD2 (CoreAAC, DReaM, Mplayer...) would have to stop doing so.

For that reason, I urge whoever read this to mail Ahead explaining that the GPL is enough for what they need (heh, it's been surely more time and tested against loopholes than any "homebrewn" license) and the adoption of another license would make the sources incompatible with most software that has been written for them.

Mr. Richard Lesser (Ahead CEO) seems to be a nice, reasonable guy, so hopefully he'll listen before much damage is done.

just sent a mail

hopefully ahead will change their mind, so that aac-he will have a future...

As to several replies posted to this thread I will try to answer your questions:

1. I got the name HE-AAC (with the dash) from the Nero 6 Ultimate Edition box cover itself (in 2 places, on the back of the box and also on the inside box "flap" it mentioned HE-AAC when describing the audio formats it (Nero 6) supports. I thought surely Ahead software would know how to spell the name of this format since they worked so closely with Coding Technologies and licensed support for this great format. Perhaps they made a mistake? If they are wrong in how they are advertising the name of this format perhaps you shoudl let them know.

2. Bond asked me how I played back the HE AAC files... I used the built-in NeroMIX program that I also used to encode the HE AAC files. This comes with Nero 6 Ultra Edition. It is a fair media player, but I wish Winamp 2.9x had a HE AAC plugin available that included the full SBR support so I wouldn't have to use NeroMIX. Also I wish Coding Technologies posted a Winamp 2.9x plugin on their web site just like they do for their free MP3Pro WinAMP plugin. As more developers include HE AAC support this should not be a problem. I remember when MP3 had just come out, and the player support was minimal and I had to use Fraunhoffer's free player. Now there are so many MP3 players out there. I hope that is the case with MP4 (HE AAC) players.

I'll bet that the RIAA will hate MP4! It is far superior (in my opinion) to MP3 or MP3Pro. Even the folks in Europe judged it to be the best of all formats tested, so they picked AACPlus (aka HE-AAC) for Radio Mondiale (Shortwave radio's new mono audio standard).

Adam

By the way, I did not get an answer to my original post about which bitrate is best to use for HE AAC encoding for stereo audio (music).

Is is that I am the only person who has purchased Nero 6 Ultra Edition and played around with it yet? I guess the store put out copies on the shelves early here instead of waiting until the July 18th release date.

I am trying to decide if I should use CBR or VBR encoding and 48k or 64k bitrates (if using CBR). Any help would be greatly appreciated. I don't want to use more bits than are necessary to capture a very good quality sound recording.

I believe that 48k CBR HE AAC is equivalent (or superior) to MP3 at 128k CBR. Is that right? If so, what is 64k CBR HE AAC equivalent to in MP3 quality?

I like the fact that I can fit almost 3 times the space on one CD using 48k CBR HE AAC (MP4). I just don't want to lose quality.

Any recommendations as to your preferred encoding bitrates?

Thanks.

I got the name HE AAC (without the dash) from Ivan Dimkovic, an Ahead MPEG4 developer, in the thread I mentioned above. I trust him more than the company, because everything printed on the box, manuals & documentation was probably done by some other department that doesn't concern itself with development, and thus it would be quite easy for them to make such a simple mistake.

However, even if the correct way to spell it would be with the dash, I'd still like to request that you not include it, because a search of this site for HE-AAC or AAC+, for example, will yield no results (see more in this thread), and having to do a Google search within the site is rather unpleasant.

Thanks,

Radu

Thanks Radu for the clarification of the correct way to list HE AAC.

talking with menno, the restrictions seem to be only commercial-related...
the sbr code will be open source

this doesn't hinder any other projects greatly, but it may mean that only source-code is distributable...

but that isn't guaranteed by me...

guest0101
thanks for your answers!
on another board i read that there seems to be a multi audio decoder directshow filter added called NeAudio.ax or so, which perhaps also can play back sbr content!?
the filter didnt work for the guy who wrote the message (he got some failure message)
can you please try opening the .ax in graphedit? (cant wait till friday anymore )

thanks


i hope that the faac crew will continue the work on their plugin in_mp4 and add sbr support (no matter which license)

48kbit HE AAC like 128kbit MP3 is kinda like WMA9 48kbit being like 128kbit MP3. I made my first tries yesterday, and IMO I need at least 64bit to get at 128kbit MP3 comparable quality, and even then it sounds more like 128kbit Xing to me.

Thanks for the bitrate comparison info tripwire. I appreciate it. Anybody else have any tests, ideas or suggestions as to what is the best bitrate for good quality HE AAC encoding with Nero 6?

As always, there's no "best". And it would need a blind group testing to find out objectively what HE AAC 64kbps compares to quality wise, and even still there can be big subjective differences. Anyway, I suggest you update on july 18th to the latest AAC plugin version. The one I believe you are using is many weeks old, and the development has been ongoing, and of course it continues after the official release.

imho a good idea would be to update ff123's 64kbps listening test with new he-aac first (i think rjamorim already talked about that)

Update? What does that mean here in practise?

i dont know what he meant exactly (and if he has specific plans) but i think he will test wma9 and he-aac @64kbps too (as vorbis and mp3pro didnt change since then)
i like that idea

But I don't think it's that simple, since you'd need the same people and even they would prolly need to rate all the codecs again in order to get the correct rating.
Imo "update" in this since is pretty impossible. It should be a new test.

It won't be an update. It'll be an extension (in the aspect that it will extend the former test with up-to-date encoders), and therefore, should be considered a different test.

I am just going (?) to keep the same samples and settings in order to put things into perspective.

if many people are participating a test the results should be representativ and shouldnt depend very much on the people who particpated (hopefully ), so exactly the same people arent necessary imho although most of the pros will still be there to participate.

technically in abx you rate one sample while comparing it with the source, so the other samples shouldnt interfere the rating of one sample (ok in reality i think that many people rate while comparing directly the different samples)

so i think it should be possible to only "update" that test, imho (of course the same samples have to be used)

but a new one would be even better of course

EDIT: and adding atrac3 (realaudio) would be also great @64kbps

Since it'll be an extension, and not an update (to start with, an update would have to be conduced by Darryl for maximum credibility), I won't bother with keeping the same samples. People are already fed up with listening always the same f***ing samples, let's give them a break.



True, but still, I'd rather have only 5 codecs. So, I would end up removing either Vorbis VBR or Vorbis CBR.

Besides, it's worth doing a very quick test first (few samples, few competitors) just to see if RealAudio compares well with the competition. If it is clearly worse, no point bothering with it.

Besides, there are two flavors of RealAudio at 64kbps. Atrac3, developed by Sony, and Cook, developed in-house by Ken Cooke. Which one would be the choice for the test?

i would drop vorbis cbr (ok i am no pro so...)

and on "atrac3 vs. cook" perhaps karl_lillevold hanging out on doom9 can help here?

edit: and perhaps opening an own 64kbps listening test thread would also be great as we are pretty much off topic

I will mail him as the test nears. I have his mail address (he actually participated in the AAC@128 test)



Nonono! Not yet, I didn't even start the 128 extension one. :B

Wow. I am impressed by AAC+ about how it sounds at 64k

Now waiting badly for a usable dshow decoder. The one that comes with nero (Neaudio.ax) can't be inserted manually in graphedit. Cannot use it with video yet as a result.

Memmo/Chris, please make CoreAAC with SBR avaiable ASAP Can't wait.

Yes I agree that 64k CBR (HE AAC) sounds better to me than 48k CBR or even Variable Bit Rate at a higher bitrate with Nero 6. Perhaps the VBR code included on the Nero 6 CD is older and has since been updated (tweaked for performance & quality) and will be available for download once the product comes out July 18th.

I would think that the VBR encoding would be the best, but for some reason my ears keep telling me 64k CBR is the best setting so far for general audio encoding with HE AAC.

I have been told ATRAC3 at 66 kbps is not very listenable, and in the GUI Helix Producer we make it "hard to choose" that flavor. RA8 (#24 [*]) cook at 64 kbps would be our preferred choice if a RealAudio codec is to be included at 64 kbps.

[*] See this link for all RealAudio codec flavors, cook, ATRAC3 etc. Registration at Helix Community is needed, so if anyone wants to see, but not register, I will copy it here. Let me know.

I just upgraded to the new NeroMix 1.4.0.4 that came out today, and still need an answer to my original question I posted in this thread.

Just what exactly is the best bitrate setting for HE AAC in Nero 6 for general stereo encoding of music? Should I use 64k or 80k CBR or should I use VBR instead (if so, what bitrate)? I understand the 80k CBR encoding bug has been fixed in this new update to NeroMIX, so I have held off trying 80k until this new update came out.

If you were going to switch you entire library of music for your own use to HE AAC, what format (VBR or CBR) and what bitrate would you use?

Thanks in advance to all who respond to this question...

Adam