I just went to Johns rarewares site and got the latest version of Lame 3.94 alpha 15 dated 24th Nov 03, and the portable preset seems to have been disabled/removed. Is this just a temporary glitch in the code while someone is fixing or tweaking Lame or has it been permanently removed?
I'm not nagging - I know that using Lame alpha's means that things change about a lot - I'm just curious really. I've got the last build that has the preset in it, so I'll just use that for my portable player if the preset has been discontinued.
Thanks for any explanations!
Full Version: Lame 3.94a15 --preset portable gone AWOL?
It has been removed from the named presets.
However, -V are now using the presets. If I remember well, portable is -V6
However, -V are now using the presets. If I remember well, portable is -V6
By the way... It isn't John's site, but Roberto's. 
Where can I learn more about the Portable preset? This sounds really interesting because my solid state MP3 player only has 512Mb!
Can someone explain more about the bit rate, and frequencies, trade-offs etc.
Fairy
Can someone explain more about the bit rate, and frequencies, trade-offs etc.
Fairy
Search for threads with "lame" and "alpha" in the title. The portable preset is still being tuned, so I don't think it is recommended to use that yet. But IIRC the target bitrate was ~130 kbps. You are probably better off with --preset 130, at least until 3.94 has been released.
Only 512??? I would love to have that much...
Only 512??? I would love to have that much...
Thanks for the change-of-name info on the preset - the --preset portable setting seems to have been renamed to -V5 in newer builds of the alpha. Other than that, it doesn't seem to generate files that are different at all. -V5 gave me identical files on a series of encodes to those generated previously by --preset portable. Ah well, at least I know where it has gone 
As far as quality goes, -V5/portable is good enough if you are using ear buds on a portable, where external noise hides any of the slight distortions in the sound. However, I never use it for encodes that get played through a hi-fi/speakers or my good quality headphones - although it still sounds reasonable, the artifacts are more obvious, and there's no point if you are storing files on your hard disk cause you don't need the bitrate saving. I generally get files that range from ~100kbps up to ~150kbps depending on the music obviously. I would say that the only way to see if the quality is good enough for your purposes is to do some test encodes and see if you can hear/live with the artifacts (which are impressively small considering the bitrate) - and remember that the next alpha release might change sound-wise and bitrate-wise for this preset (both upwards and downwards in some cases!) so beware when messing about with alphas
PS. I tried preset 130, but it didn't give me personally as good sound quality vs. bitrate results, so I stuck with the VBR portable preset for my portable. But as with all audio encoding, I'm sure that this is at least partly down to my particular collection of music! So I guess everyone should try both and pick their fave
PPS. Sorry about mis-crediting Rarewares to John - I just assumed it was John's because he always seems to be the one posting about updates to it.
As far as quality goes, -V5/portable is good enough if you are using ear buds on a portable, where external noise hides any of the slight distortions in the sound. However, I never use it for encodes that get played through a hi-fi/speakers or my good quality headphones - although it still sounds reasonable, the artifacts are more obvious, and there's no point if you are storing files on your hard disk cause you don't need the bitrate saving. I generally get files that range from ~100kbps up to ~150kbps depending on the music obviously. I would say that the only way to see if the quality is good enough for your purposes is to do some test encodes and see if you can hear/live with the artifacts (which are impressively small considering the bitrate) - and remember that the next alpha release might change sound-wise and bitrate-wise for this preset (both upwards and downwards in some cases!) so beware when messing about with alphas
PS. I tried preset 130, but it didn't give me personally as good sound quality vs. bitrate results, so I stuck with the VBR portable preset for my portable. But as with all audio encoding, I'm sure that this is at least partly down to my particular collection of music! So I guess everyone should try both and pick their fave
PPS. Sorry about mis-crediting Rarewares to John - I just assumed it was John's because he always seems to be the one posting about updates to it.
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