I don't want to discuss quality or filesize issues here; there are plenty of threads for that. What I want to know is which format, primarily between MPC and OGG, has/will have the strongest, most focused, most organized, and most consistant development over the next several years.

(Note: Please ignore this repeated section due to the post bug.)

Strongest: Developments will make noticable improvements to both quality and filesize issues where applicable, as well as making enhanced support for any audio support mechanisms that exist or will be developed (much like we have Replay Gain now) and various audio software and hardware (hardware will come later), and doing anything else to increase the functionality of the format.

Focused: Developments will coincide with one another and will not fragment off into several different "versions" of the same codec. Furthermore, this refers to focusing on keeping development set to a standard framework of elements.

Organized: Developments will be clean-cut with every update, as to not make any "rough" versions of an encoder/or specific elements of the codec. Most importantly, developments which will ensure as much backwards-compatibility as possible.

Consistant: Developments will continue to be much active, and releases will be made on a (preferably) regular schedule. I'm aware there will be times when development will slow down, especially when breaching into new areas of improve strongest, most focused, most organized, and most consistant development over the next several years.

(Note: Please ignore this repeated section due to the post bug.)

Strongest: Developments will make noticable improvements to both quality and filesize issues where applicable, as well as making enhanced support for any audio support mechanisms that exist or will be developed (much like we have Replay Gain now) and various audio software and hardware (hardware will come later), and doing anything else to increase the functionality of the format.

Focused: Developments will coincide with one another and will not fragment off into several different "versions" of the same codec. Furthermore, this refers to focusing on keeping development set to a standard framework of elements.

Organized: Developments will be clean-cut with every update, as to not make any "rough" versions of an encoder/or specific elements of the codec. Most importantly, developments which will ensure as much backwards-compatibility as possible.

Consistant: Developments will continue to be much active, and releases will be made on a (preferably) regular schedule. I'm aware there will be times when development will slow down, especially when breaching into new areas of improvement. However, I become weary when out-of-the-blue somebody says, "Development has pretty much stopped on the X format."

Lastly, I would like to know which format will longevous (i.e. allow it to withstand the tests of time), and will be a honorable choice for years to come. Development may come to a near halt if the codec reaches it's full potential, but by that point, I wouldnt be concerned about it. If the format will still be a great choice to use in the future, then it succeeds in longevity.

I don't want to start any dev wars or anything, but I'm pretty hazy on the official status of development on these formats, and I'd like to know what is being done with these formats. Thanks.

-Kaleb

What's your own impression after extensively browsing the forum?

Using your breakdown, I think between OGG and MPC, the most likely to go through the most development over the next year would be... AAC and WMA Pro.

MP3. No matter if it's old and obsolete, people will keep using it for a very long time.

Beyond MP3, AAC.

One might have guessed WMA an year ago. But WMA Pro is showing that Microsoft isn't caring about backwards compatibility, so it's difficult to say for how long a version will be around until Microsoft forces people to switch to the newer version.

That's a good thing about ISO standards (like MP3 and AAC). Once the format is standardized (aka frozen), they don't change it no matter what.

Regards;

Roberto.

t.g.deck:
I can't make a clear distinction. MPC's next thing (SV8) has no definate release date, and OGG's GT3 has stopped development - while I don't know what's being done by the original codec developers. I would like more information on this situation; hence why I created the thread.

blessingx:
Yeah, I figured somebody would say that. That's why I made the distinction of saying "between MPC and OGG". So far, these two formats seem to be on top of the game; thus why I chose them. I've read that AAC is good as well, but I never see much praise about it, unlike MPC or OGG. Then again, do you predict AAC to blow away the competition anytime soon?

rjamorim:
Well, longevity is certainly a factor. But I'm certain that everyone here acknowledges that MP3 has approached it's development limit (not counting MP3 Pro or anything else). I need to take a step up from that. AAC sounds promising, but I need more information about it, as I haven't heard much about it other then some simple facts.

I'm actually tired of seeing AAC praise. On quality, support, potential...

The only criticism I often hear about it is from GNU moaners that whine about AAC being patented and that these "assholes" at the industry should be supporting Vorbis because it has no patents (?) and that's the way God meant it to be.


BTW: AAC development is being much more fast paced than any codec, even MP3, I think. Look at Ahead, Apple, Dolby, FAAC, CodingTechnologies and actually everyone marketing MPEG4 solutions, like Envivio, Dicas, Ligos, Philips, Sorenson...


Edit: well, then, what information you want? We're here to help

I thought that MPEG 4 was just a video-based codec. How does it fare on audio quality? I certainly would like to check out more info on that and AAC. Despite MPC and OGG getting so much attention, I would like to be open to other popular audio codecs as well. Does this site have some type of simple fact sheet covering multiple formats? Sorry if I'm missing something obvious on another forum, but all I've been doing since I've found this place is finding out info on MPC and OGG. Basically, I'm just trying to find out which format I should use from now on (for making slightly above transparent quality encodings), and since MPC and OGG were both in the same ballpark as being very well-made codecs (both being structurally superior to mp3), I figured the one with stronger development (if there was much of a difference) would be the one to (most likely) come out on top. But, yeah, any thoughts on any other codecs would be welcome. I'm willing to give anything a try.

MPEG4 is actually a codec portfolio. It comprises several video codecs, a music codec (AAC) that on it's turn has several profiles, a voice codec (CELP), a Midi Codec (StructuredAudio), and it also accepts VRML, still images (JPEG2000), it includes an advanced container (MP4/MOV), etc.

Here are the results of a listening test I conduced comparing AAC to OGG, MPC and other encoders:
http://audio.ciara.us/test/128extension/results.html



I suggest you check the Audiocoding Wiki for that
http://www.audiocoding.com/wiki/

Good luck.

Regards;

Roberto.

Well, if you are in search of a new favourite codec, I don´t think you should base your decision solely in terms of development. It is true that both MPC and Vorbis are technically superior to MP3, but still I think all here agree that MPC is already on the throne in terms of tuning, speed, quality and bitrate. Vorbis is not quite there yet and possibly never will. However, in terms of development, I would say that Vorbis is more likely to see noticeable progress than MPC, based on the fact that Vorbis has a company backing it up and, due to it being open source, also has people from the outside tuning it (Garf). MPC, on the other hand, depends AFAIK mainly on one single person that is Frank Klemm; and has also reached a state where much progress can´t be made anymore.
Anyway, undoubtedly the codec that is seeing the most progress in all senses is AAC, which is even said to be theoretically able to surpass MPC in terms of bitrate (I don´t have the link at hand at this moment, but somewhere it is stated by Frank Klemm that AAC *could* become transparent at around 130-140 kbps), although it seems it is quite improbable.
If hardware compatibility is an issue to you, I would cross out MPC and go directly to AAC (or Vorbis, if you are a GNU enthusiast, altough the chances are a little slimmer there).

No, of course not. But since the quality of both MPC and OGG were significantly above MP3, and yet both in the same ballpark of one another, that's why I turned to this. I was having a hard time choosing between the two solely on quality, I decided that development would also be an important factor. Anyways, thanks for the following info. This is pretty much the idea I had before, but I wanted to make sure that I was clear on the development status.


You know, I had never even heard about AAC (other then the name) before coming to Hydrogen Audio. People on other forums were vocal about OGG and even MPC, but nobody told me about how good AAC actually is. I will definately check out AAC, and if it fits my quality needs well enough, that will be my choice right away. So, since the AAC format is so broad, which encoder/settings is the best one to use?

P.S. I don't care much about the whole patent-free thing; I mean there are patents everywhere. As long as the people behind AAC aren't Nazis like the people behind the GIF format, then I'm perfectly fine with that.

To be blunt, why would you expect any development of mpc? It has all that the people who use it want. (says David, having just suggested a new psychoacoustic model for encoding surround info in another thread!)

The only things mpc lacks is hardware support and widespread use. It'll be around as long as I have it on a HDD, and I want to encode 2-channel audio, and nothing better has come along. That's because I value audio quality for home playback above everything else.


It's funny - you can say the same about Ogg for people who value open source above everything else. It's more likely to get hardware support because it's being pushed. And some people will just keep using it (because it's open source) until something better comes along.


But I have a sneaky suspicion that, outside small communities like this, they're both almost irrelevant.


You've got to remember - mp2 (MPEG 1 layer II) still hasn't reached the widespread use that it will. There are 20 million viewers of digital TV in the UK who hear it every night. There are small but growing numbers of digital radio listeners in the UK who do likewise. You can bet that, for political reasons, the rest of Europe will have (or already have) the same standards, so people will be using mp2 for the next few decades. In the US, you'll probably have AC-3 on your digital TV broadcasts for decades. AAC on your radio (at a reasonable bitrate if you're lucky!)

Apart from AAC, these are out of date codecs, but they're not going away. The cost of installed equipment, and the inertia of the public means that old standards take a long time to die.

So look forward to hearing the sound of mp2 and mp3 long after Musepack can only be found in computer museums.

Cheers,
David.

From a music archiving standpoint this might be almost correct, but for video compression MPC would offer a very nice audio codec if it had

- a good 5.1 / 7.1 encoding profile ( planned for SV8 )

- a very fast mode ( low CPU usage ) offering very good quality at about 250 - 350 kbps, for live analog capturing ( feasible )

- DRC ( planned for SV8 )

- better error recovery in the standard container

SV8 was on a very very good way in this direction already, lets see if we can get things moving again, together ....



The mass of people wouldnt care either, and that should be ok with us. As long as the format does what we want it to do, and we can play the files without having to use a PC in dedicated standalones, the main goal for us is achieved already, dont you think ?

About hardware support, there are µC Linux based standalones planned ( dont know about portables, probably not ), and this will make things a lot easier in the future ...

http://audio.ciara.us/test/aac128test/results.html
Keep in mind those test results are at 128kbps, and might not reflect your personal taste.



They used to be Nazis. Now they are much nicer.

As has been mentioned previously, MPC isn't under a huge amount of development lately. However, it is being transitioned from SV7 to SV8, which ought to bring a few, small, technical improvements to it. Furthermore, SV8 is/will be releasing source as well, which ought to assist in the few final tuning tweaks that MPC still needs to achieve true transparency (hopefully with Guruboolez's invaluable ABX help ) Finally, as Christian mentioned, the standard container (if I understand correctly) for SV8 will likely be matroska audio, which ought to add all sorts of nifty features.

@Christian: MPC encodes at far over real-time here, at -q6... I take it all it needs are the proper adaptations for live encoding? I've used mppenc and foobar together with foobar just piping input in and it still worked the same. It should be more than capable of a direct-stream, live input at standard and extreme quality with no special tweaking. It'd probably just take special software.

Yes, as per Frank's decision, MPC will go opensource once it reaches SV8 alpha, and not before, for a couple of well thought reasons ....

Not fully correct. SV8 specs draft has a framing of its own for MPC, which is not related to matroska at all and very basic, but much better than SV7 framing in terms of overhead and error resilience. matroska can be what Frank calls a 'transport container', if higher error resilience thanks to ECC is wanted, or for tagging ( SV8 will not offer tagging possibilities IIRC ) .

Sure it does ... but you forget that for a live video streaming capture you have to encode the video also, and here every cycle you can spare for audio might help a lot. Currently most people capture losless, and only for short intervals, for this very reason ....