what is better cbr(192) or vbr files for music?

Use search function!

The primary factor defining digital music quality is the power cord, not codec.

moonligth, I think you want to know, and to learn, what are the best options, parameters or codecs for you digital music.

You can start reading the FAQ's in this site: List of recommended LAME settings

I promise, you'll learn a lot. If you have any doubt, of course you can ask, but you'll probably find the answer quickly using the search function, and you'll learn a lot more.

By the way, for a similar bitrate, VBR is always better than CBR. If you want to know why, then you have come to the best place.

This is not true at low bitrates...

How can that be?

Always good to see that the first three responses are as tolerant and helpful as always round here...

The only benefit (besides internet streaming) that CBR has over VBR is that old mp3 hardware players are able to play it properly. I have many VBR files (LAME --preset medium) that my portable is unable to play. I think if you buy one that is less than 3 years old you shouldn't have this trouble though.

That said, VBR is designed to squeeze the best quality it can out of a song by giving a higher bitrate to the difficult parts, and a lower one to the easy parts - so it's definately recommended. Some modern audio formats don't even have a CBR mode because it's considered useless

Regarding the initial post's suggested settings (CBR 192 against VBR) , VBR should always be preferred fro quality reasons since 192 CBR might be transparent to your ears on certain pieces of music but definitely does not leave enough bitrate headroom for "not-so-easy-to-encode" music passages (as VBR does).

Comaptibility with older hardware can be an issue but the MPEG specs definitely contain VBR modes so any hardware player being incapable of handling VBR is also violating the MPEG specs and thus should be returned for refund/replacement/whatever.

Streaming (CBR is suited better for streamming) comes into account for lower bitrates only (if you are not on a T1/T3 connection ... as an example, even my ADSL line cannot handle streams of 192 kbps without dropouts although I always get full download bandwith all the time and should be able of handling up to 768 kbps).

Regarding the first three posts ... here at HA, users are "motivated" that way to use the search function before stating a question whose answer might be regarded as obvious by the "senior" members - so do not take harsh replies too serious.

Read the rules, read the codec FAQ's and use the search function - you will be able to answer most of your questions by yourself (which I personally always find more satisfying, too).

Just because the vbr function is not optimized for lower bitrates and performs badly there.
Don't know if there is a more precise explanation but I don't know it.

I think thats a LAME issue more then a general statement. Ogg for instance never uses CBR and beats lame badly at low bitrate stuff.

thanks i see that vbr(--alt-preset extreme) is better than cbr192 lame always

Correct. but this is mp3 forum...

And again, another general and unproven statement about quality ... guruboolez' latest listening test reveals some interesting facts about the vorbis superiority ...

As a rule of thumb VBR, however because the allocation of bandidth is based on assumptions (a model) at times it gets it wrong. Under these conditions CBR will outperform VBR. However in reality this not a frequent problem. If one was paranoid ABR doesn't suffer from this problem and is a more cautious choice but practically speeking the order is:

VBR>ABR>CBR

of course this is for equivalent bit rates. ( A 320kbps CBR file will kick the ass of a VBR 192k file.)

Love,
Fairy

Not true for most music. That's why Dibrom dubbed the preset "insane."

http://audio.ciara.us/test/64test/results.html

Note that vorbis is relatively close at 64kbps to 128kbps LAME. Regardless I don't think i need to prove that Vorbis is a better low bitrate codec then LAME.

Hmm I think you do. The results you point out shows Lame at 128kbps is quite better than Vorbis at 64kbps. But it says nothing about LAME quality at 64kbps.

Although I think Vorbis should be better than LAME at 64kbps, I don't think the difference is so significant. I wouldn't say "Ogg beats LAME badly", that's unsubstantiated.

I like vbr,little file high quality

As stated by previous posters - yes - in general, with exceptions of low bitrates. I'd assume however that you're referring to VBR at similar bitrates which '--alt-preset standard' would achieve with much material.


Absolutely, but I'd recommend you to stick to '--alt-preset standard' instead since I doubt you'd find the quality differing in those extra bits gained by '--alt-preset extreme'.
You could use '--alt-preset fast standard' to toggle a faster algorithm when encoding with a slight (possible) reduction of quality which also is doubted to be of any audible significance.
Try it out atleast.

cheers.

Of course you mean that 192kbps VBR will never BEAT 320kbps CBR, it is just insane to waste all those bits when 99% of the time there will be no difference

So just to clear up my earlier point, I'm guessing the Psymodel will use too few bits on some parts (say 24kbps instead of 32kbps), whereas CBR @ 32kbps just cant.

Actually, I know of no real low bitrate VBR settings (except for hilarious command lines) - I guess we are actually talking about ABR?

I'm new here and I was going to ask a similar question, specifically: APX vs. AP CBR 256. I guess everyone will say that APX is better, but the factor I'm wondering about is whether or not I should trust LAME 3.90.3's VBR-analysis. Just so you know where I'm coming from: I normally avoid mp3s but I received a 40GB iPod for Xmas (which I'm psyched about) so I'm preparing to embark on a major CD-collection conversion. I'm actually starting to lean towards CBR 320...or should I go with AAC?

BTW, my main problems with mp3 are spatial issues and sibilance issues.

SA

It says. FhG at 64 kbps (that's supposed to be better than lame at 64 kbps due to IS and stuff) scored only 1.94 vs 3.32 of Vorbis.

I would.

-Eugene

LAME preset extreme is useless imho, bitrate is too close to 320cbr to justify the VBR hassles (slow encode, some players have problem with playtime & seeking...)

downlaod this and this, see if you pick a diff between aps, 256k and 320k. Nobody can answer that quwstion for you, only your own hearing
I tried all samples from that site and those are hardest ones for mp3 imho.

I guess I need to look a bit more into the hassles of VBR. I'm only going to be using the mp3s for my iPod and I assume that it can handle VBR files, but I'll have to test it out. The time factor isn't such an issue because I plan to compress while I sleep. The average bitrate for APX is actually a little lower than 256, so 320 would definitely be 'a notch' up I think, file-size-wise. I've got 40GB but I also have a lot of CDs...

Too close to justify VBR hassles, what are you talking about?
Define this "VBR hassle" you speak of and elaborate you claim as it seems to point out LAME VBR as being problematic in some sense - which I do not understand.

slow encoding sure, but do try adding "fast" to the commandline "--alt-preset fast extreme".
Those players that you speak of that have problems with playtime and seeking I'd like to see listed. This is not something you cannot fix on the program side.


edit: I believe you can get better accuracy when it comes to seeking in VBR files than CBR files. I'd like some developer familiar with MP3 decoding in practice to clarify this though.

search the forum for problems on VBR mp3 and seeking problems with hardware palyers. or just fire up a lame vbr mp3 in windows media player (which, as I guess, many many people use) and look at the total time of the track displayed there.

good luck getting Microsoft fixing that "on the program side"

for my style of music (heavy metal), ap extreme averages around 250k. Note that I said for me, just for me the gap to 320cbr would be too small here to use VBR.
That is not true for ap standard, which is just fine.

Correct!



Exactly! Up to the limit of the bit rate you are encoding at. As the limit is normally 320kbps, no VBR file can beat a CBR 320 file. I never use this much bandwidth as the cost outweighs the benefit.


EHM.... ABR encodes like CBR and if it needs more space will increase the bit rate. There is no Psymodel as such for ABR.

So to conclude I advise APS (or PS in 3.95.1) for music except where space is tight in which case an ABR file makes more sense or APS -Y (although this isn't much smaller). CBR is only a weapon of last resort for me. Bear in mind that LAME isn't as good as FhG at low bit rates and that FhG sucks at VBR (due to the messed up header!).


Cheers,
Fairy

I've never actually seen a hardware device that had trouble with VBR. They exist of course, but are hardly that common.

And since you brought up "most people", I'd guess they're hardly a concern since most people probably own no hardware mp3 decoders at all.

As for WMP, most WMP users probably record with WMP, not LAME. Again this is a nonissue for "most people". You're talking about a small subset of users who actually like WMP but actually know/care enough about MP3 to use APE.

Most (or at least a lot of) people own DVD-players today, of which most can play MP3-CD:s. But not all are 100% MP3 compliant. Philips players for instance does not support certain bitrates (like 160, 192 and 320) but still claims to support VBR according to specs. Strange.

Dude, we are talking about an iPod here...
I think you are going to use it "on the road", are you not?
I seriosly think that you would never tell the difference between -aps, -apx and 320CBR on any portable player on normal portable-player-listening-conditions.

Even though 40GB should be enough for anyone's collection, I would choose lower bitrates, maybe in the 160k area, maybe --alt-preset medium or better yet, AAC.

Or am I missing something?

Well, I'm going to be using studio headphones and I have very good ears (which is not necessarily a good thing in this case). I work with compressed video and audio all day (though obviously not mp3 very much) so I'm uncommonly attuned to compression artifacts. But you're probably still right, APS would probably work out ok. I haven't installed iTunes yet, so I haven't checked out AAC. I guess that should be my next step. Anyone know how a 192 AAC file compares to APS or APX?

I am interested in streaming sermons for our church.

From previous threads it seems this is a good line for Lame 3.95.1.


lame --alt-preset 64 -a --resample 22 --lowpass 7


Is CBR recommended over VBR or ABR for web streaming ?

Aren't you posting this question in the wrong thread?

Anyway, yes CBR is preferred for web streaming.

I think you are messing to much with the preset. Where did you find that command line being recommended?

I would primarily consider
lame -preset cbr 64 -a

A lower sampling rate is ok, because there's only going to be speech in it. Unless the -a switch does that...

Edit: ABR is practically CBR, as far as I have experienced with encoding in LAME. At such low bitrates the quality difference is practically negligible though.

The recommendations came from this thread:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....=3270&hl=speech

They were made by JohnV, I respect his opinion.

One of my key questions was whether I could benefit from VBR, or I was locked into CBR to do internet streaming.

Ah, but JohnV recommended the addition of --resample 22, because the original poster required a sampling rate of 22 kHz, not because it would give any better quality. If you use -preset cbr 64 -a, lame will choose a suitable lowpass and a matching sampling frequency. If you are not happy with the result, it is OK to add -lowpass something.

I can't see any real benefits of using VBR in streming, the quality improvement can't be that big. And since you will be using quite high bitrate frames from time to time that should lead to issues for low bandwidth users. But since you chose 64 kbps maybe you are not targetting those?

Thank you for your suggestions magic75 and sld.

I tried your settings and this command line seems best to my ears. I used the lower bitrate as suggested for dial-up users. This is specific to 3.95.1.

lame -b 32 -a --lowpass 7

CBR is the default for 3.95.1 according to the --longhelp, -a forces it to mono. The --lowpass 7 cuts out the higher frequencies that contribute to the tape hiss I had, and seem to cause audible artifacts at this low bit rate anyway. I tried a cutoff of --lowpass 10, but that had some hard metalic artifacts I did not like.

Thanks again everyone.