Why not turn the "which code do you use" thread into a poll covering a range of formats? Who on the board uses: a.) MPC b.) AAC c.) MP3 (Lame) d.) MP3 (FHG) e.) OGG f.) VQF g.) WMA for archiving Most of your music is encoded in: a.) MPC b.) AAC c.) MP3 (Lame) d.) MP3 (FHG) e.) OGG f.) VQF g.) WMA You reckon the best encoder for everyday use is: a.) MPC b.) AAC c.) MP3 (Lame) d.) MP3 (FHG) e.) OGG f.) VQF g.) WMA or something like that?

Something weird must have happened to this thread when it was validated originally for use on the main page. I'm not quite sure what happened, but I had to reconstruct the poll from scratch by manually inserting the values back into the database. Sorry about this.. I hope I got it all correct. If not.. you know why

I changed the question a little and added another option also.

I still think you should add context to the question. It can be interpreted, currently, in too many ways for it to be a well valid survey. As it stands the results will be meaningful, but still somewhat vague in how one should interpret.

John

.. and i still can't decide. mpc or lame mp3 ?

I would have voted for mpc but you asked
"Which format do you prefer for personal use?"

Since my Rockford Fosgate RFX9000 car cd player only plays mp3s/cdda...and since my rio volt only plays mp3s/cdda/wma and nothing else etc. and since i use these devices to listen to music on the way to work etc...

But if there were hardware mpc players...i'd switch in a second...

So unless "personal use" only means "in front of a computer" I really cannot see how anyone can choose most of the options given above (e.g., mpc, ogg, aac etc)...unless you always convert them to .wav and then burn them to audio cd but that's a pain, and is really not using mpc anymore but instead you are using cdda....
i also wonder why cdda was listed too since its not a compression scheme...

just some thoughts...

RD

Perhaps split the pole for Psytel & Liquid AAC? AAC encompasses quite a wide range in quality (like I know people that encode using FAAC!)

Just a thought On a day to day basis I use Psytel

Cheers,
-Nic

Well the question doesn't actually say anything about compression itself But the idea with CDDA was basically to imply any other lossless formats that I didn't mention (FLAC, Shorten, Squish, RKAU, Wavpack etc).



Well to be honest, I shouldn't even have 2 mp3 options actually.. I removed Fhg for a few minutes awhile ago, but CiTay got all excited about it... (I think he just wants to see LAME beat Fhg in a public poll! )

:evilgrin:

Yea I agree - maybe set up two other separate polls

The first asking about people's use of a format for archiving - when looking to preserve a CD or better quality original source - which encoder would people use personally or which format would they choose if they were (for some unknown reason) suddenly asked to advise the Library of Congress as to which format should be used to preserve important records for future generations :flipoff:

The second poll should probably ask about which format is used most often. I mean I use MPC and AAC when I am mixing and for archiving original CD or better quality source stuff - but to be honest the majority of my daily listening to web radio or local files is all MP3 :mad:

Regards

Bladeraptor

OGG the best.

I'll just wade into this little debate. I've been a recording engineer for 25 years and an audiophile for a bit longer than that with an extremely high end system. Currently testing Musepack, AAC and FAAC. At this point in time they are truly the only ones that would be in the running for discerning listeners. LAME unfortunately destroys the music to the point where it could not be used for any critical listening. Currently comparing using an Al Stewart track that I was present for the recording of so I know what it should sound like. If anyone's interested I'll let you know my findings once I'm done. I certainly wouldn't, at this early point, consider any of the formats suitable for archiving.

I just love how FhG and WMA got 0 here. That's putting 'em in their place

This is what I think of some of the codecs

MPC = best for high end encoding
OGG = best allrounder, best for lowend encoding
AAC = best 128-160k portable MP3/CD encoding
MP3 = ???

Does anyone else agree?

I totally agree Jenny
perhaps:
1 - MPC
2 - AAC

Hopefully we'll se portable SV8 MPC players in the future, then there are no more alternatives

My 2 cents,

MPC= For Crazy Audiophiles, hardware support seems a mirage
OGG = Free, unpatend, lots of room to grow
AAC = Zero, expensive, highly panted, near vorbis technology/quality
MP3 = Popular, Best for lossy audio hardware support, acceptable quality

HEY, FHG is King, where would audio compression be without them?, nowhere & Fastenc an old encoder still kicks ass @128

Ok, someone voted for VQF.

I'm in the middle of encoding most of my CD-collection with Lame -aps, so Lame MP3 is my codec of choice for listening. My main "interest" is being able to play the songs on my iRiver 250, so I need the best MP3 codec available

But... I want to begin playing around with OGG, just in case our Korean friends at iRiver release a new firmware supporting OGG

And if iRiver didn't have space enough in their 8 Mb upgradeable flash memory, I'm sure I could live without the WMA/ASF codecs They could offer two firmwares:

1) MP3/OGG
2) MP3/WMA

If anyone wanted to use WMA, they aren't really prepared to use OGG

Best wishes from Valencia (by the Mediterranean Sea in Spain / España)...

Hey!!! I'm glad to see this time around some people are voting for AAC! Last time I saw a poll like this it was in the gutters with VQF & WMA.

Personally I see AAC as soon to be the best all rounder. Equal quality to MPC at the highest end, the best at 100-150kbs, and not too far behind ogg atm at the low end. With AAC+SBR it will hopefully rival OGG at the low end, being the best or close 2nd in all three areas

Uhm... you all know that this thread is a year old?

I guess you can say "Equal quality to MPC at the highest end", yeah, but it's simply false. MPC is better at the "highest end". But you can say it's subjective. So, yeah whatever ..

OK, to prove it's not just a matter of opinion, AAC has ~5ms pre-echo (according to Psytel's site, which now is inactive) and MPC has ~2ms pre-echo. "Just as good quality" BUT better pre-echo handling = "BETTER quality".
chakachakachakaprrrrrbang!

As far as I understand & the tests I have seen MPC has no pre-echo problems, it's inaudible AAC may only have ~5ms pre-echo but it's clearly a problem & I think it can never be as good as MPC/subband encoding.

IMO MPC kicks any codecs ass from 160kbps+

Lol, I knew I'd be jumped on for saying such things!


To me, these are both very small and so are similar. I can't identify pre-echo in any AAC file I've played. I don't see why 5ms should be a clear problem whereas 2ms is totally undetectable.


That's battling my uncommon opinion with your more widely believed opinion!
Nobody has done the golden thing of ABXing AAC vs MPC in a musical sample other than fatboy! I need to see something I could see a difference in to be swayed.

My thoughts on it are that both AAC and MPC are at the point where at 160kb+ they are transparent. Heck, I couldn't ABX an 88kb AAC from the original wave! Unless you have good equipment in a good listening environment, with good hearing and you are actively looking for faults, you won't spot any difference between these codecs. I'm not looking for faults unless I'm testing, I'm looking for good music Seriously, does that make me not an audiophile? (eg, what is one, other than one who loves music?)

160kb is the magic number for MPC. Below that point its very nature prevents it from doing well? That just isn't flexible enough! That's my main complaint with MPC. My other 2 complaints was it's community didn't have a Rjamorim in it, and I didn't like it's lowpassing... it looked mechanical, whereas AAC's looks more natural. (you see how er, non technical I can be)

Hrmm... actually, IIRC, on that page Frank made which showed the graphs of time resolution for various codecs, he stated that AAC could theoretically have better time resolution than MPC/MP2/etc when TNS was being utilized. The problem though is tuning and short block triggering. It might actually have a possibility for even less pre-echo than MPC during certain situations (short blocks + TNS) but actually getting this stuff triggered exactly when it is necessary is much more difficult than the way in which MPC would handle it. So as a result, MPC often sounds much better in that regard.

"Lol, I knew I'd be jumped on for saying such things!"
Didn't jump on you, really ..

"I need to see something I could see a difference in to be swayed."
More like "hear" .
That's easy encode castanets.wav with AAC with archive quality and with MPC with --quality 7 or 8. I'm almost sure you'll notice the difference.

i voted lossless, waiting for sv8 to come out.

Hehe, I can see the difference between them. I followed ff123's guidlines on how to spot pre-echo (here) The MPC has very little pre-echo, and the AAC has it for the same length of time (3ms) but it's a lot louder.

No way could I hear the difference in them! So I made it a bit fairer on me and encoded them in -normal and what's it, -q5. AAC = 185kbs MPC = 193kbs

from ABCH :



Erm... well I think that proves conclusively I can't tell a difference!

lets not forget this thread
cast your votes please

I get "You have already voted in this poll" ??? I didn't vote yet.

Any chance we could start a Codec Choice 2002 poll? I tried but don't have permission to start a poll .

I suspect there are a few converts to Ogg since Vorbis 1.0's release and at least one member who has given up on MPC altogether! I'm pretty sure the VQF choice can be removed (that guy has surely moved on to mp3PRO...) but I'd leave WMA on just for a laugh.

Anyone else for a new poll?

I think they should also state the reason for choice, maybe what they would like added to the format, bitrate/profile. Add something diffrent otherwise it's just more of the same.

I've been playing around with Ogg Vorbis for the past couple days, and I have just become a huge fan of it. I had tried it pre-1.0 and I wasn't very impressed at all, but it seems there have been some great leaps and bounds in psychoacoustic tuning since then.

I'm just a guy who went from LAME 192S -> MPC -extreme -> MPC -standard -> LAME -aps -> Ogg Vorbis -q 4

(I think it's a logical progression from wanting to be a poseur computer audiophile to getting back to the basics of just listening to music for music's sake)

In just a few test encodings of a few albums, I have to say the Vorbis 1.0 encoder at just a 128kbps nominal bitrate is very damn close to LAME -aps of about 180-200kbps (though I seem to hear a slightly better stereo separation in Ogg). And with the default support of Ogg Vorbis decoding in the recent releases of Winamp, and the hopeful iRiver hardware support, it beats MPC in mass market penetration and acceptance.

I'm on the bandwagon! Woohoo! Go Ogg!

Okay, folks... Last time.

Ogg is not a codec. Ogg is a multimedia framework in which you put things encoded with codecs. For example, you use Vorbis (a codec) to perform lossy compression on audio, and then you put that encoded data inside Ogg (the framework), and you get an 'Ogg Vorbis' file. Huzzah. Just repeat 'Ogg is not a codec' over and over to yourself when you go to sleep tonight. Think of 'Ogg' the same way you think of 'QuickTime,' and you'll start to understand a little bit of how it breaks down.

Let's say you have a collector's tin of Xiph.org commemorative action figures. There are a few action figures in the tin. One action figure is named 'Vorbis,' another one is named 'Speex,' and another one is named 'Theora.' The action figures go in the collector's tin. The tin is called 'Ogg.' It's a container. Like a box of girl scout cookies. Like an envelope from your Aunt Martha. Things go inside Ogg. Ogg is not a codec.

Emmett Plant
CEO, Xiph.org Foundation

Is it just me or is this not the best way to promote Ogg? Every time I think of QuickTime I feel like gouging my eyes out with dull kitchen implements and carpet-bombing Apple HQ with books on good UI design

I think after saying "I've been playing around with Ogg Vorbis v1.0" it's safe to say "Go Ogg" without that being interpreted as meaning "Go the possibility of MPC wrapped in an Ogg container"

Lol! Nitpicking puts me off

Aww, I really didn't mean to nitpick. It's just important because Ogg is bigger than just 'a container for Vorbis.' It's kinda like defining 'The Beatles' by calling it 'Ringo's Band.'

Emmett Plant
CEO, Xiph.org Foundation

Well, imo the correct names should be used like Emmett said. It's especially important now that there starts to be more codecs in Ogg container besides Vorbis.

Probably all people writing in this thread knew the difference, but some still use the shorter "Ogg". People probably woudn't take it as nitpicking, if it is just said that it's important that the proper codec name should be used. I don't think people here used "ogg" because they didn't know better..
However, even if it was understandable (although wrong) before, today "ogg" shouldn't be used anymore when talking about Vorbis..

I'll sit quietly feeling belittled now

Am I right in thinking it would be the same mistake as saying I listen to MP4 audio.. as it's really AAC converted to the MP4 headers, but you can stuff things like videos, images & mp3's in there?

MP4 audio can be AAC (in all it's innumerable forms), TwinVQ, CELP, MP1, MP2, MP3, SA...

So how do you know exactly what's inside the container?

One way would be using MP4creator, by MPEG4ip. (available at RareWares)

mp4creator -list filename.mp4

The output is detailed information on the streams contained in that MP4 file.

roberto, are you sure about MP2 and MP1 being in MPEG4 specs for MP4 container ? First time i hear ....

We should start this poll over again. I voted for Ogg Vorbis but have switched to Musepack.

Although I voted for MPC I am still using Lame MP3, OGG, and MPC.

In fact I just finished encoding all of my CD's and there is roughly a 33% split between the formats; 33% mpc, 33% ogg, and 33% Lame mp3.

1. lossless is lossles and NOTHING better can be achieved...
2.HD, memory, network speed are getting bigger and wider...

Why trying to achieve something that will be very soon obsolet?

Go lossless and don't bother!!!

ps: what was the size of your HD the first time you started to store MP3???

too small
If I would switch to lossless I would have that same problem again
--
Ge Someone

I voted for MPC myself. I agree with the concept of moving towards lossless though. I started encoding MP3s when I had a 2.1GB hard drive. Now that I have 40GB I still have feelings of 'I must keep the bitrate low to save space' even though I have enough free drive space. Anyone else feel like this? How do I overcome this? Hehe... Small Bit-raters Anonymous?

"Hi, I'm Chris and I encode at 128kbps."

Audio Track types in MP4 file:

/* MP4 Audio track types - see MP4AddAudioTrack()*/
#define MP4_INVALID_AUDIO_TYPE 0x00
#define MP4_MPEG1_AUDIO_TYPE 0x6B
#define MP4_MPEG2_AUDIO_TYPE 0x69
#define MP4_MP3_AUDIO_TYPE MP4_MPEG2_AUDIO_TYPE
#define MP4_MPEG2_AAC_MAIN_AUDIO_TYPE 0x66
#define MP4_MPEG2_AAC_LC_AUDIO_TYPE 0x67
#define MP4_MPEG2_AAC_SSR_AUDIO_TYPE 0x68
#define MP4_MPEG2_AAC_AUDIO_TYPE MP4_MPEG2_AAC_MAIN_AUDIO_TYPE
#define MP4_MPEG4_AUDIO_TYPE 0x40
#define MP4_PRIVATE_AUDIO_TYPE 0xC0



/* MP4 MPEG-4 Audio types from 14496-3 Table 1.5.1 */
#define MP4_MPEG4_INVALID_AUDIO_TYPE 0
#define MP4_MPEG4_AAC_MAIN_AUDIO_TYPE 1
#define MP4_MPEG4_AAC_LC_AUDIO_TYPE 2
#define MP4_MPEG4_AAC_SSR_AUDIO_TYPE 3
#define MP4_MPEG4_AAC_LTP_AUDIO_TYPE 4
#define MP4_MPEG4_AAC_SCALABLE_AUDIO_TYPE 6
#define MP4_MPEG4_CELP_AUDIO_TYPE 8
#define MP4_MPEG4_HVXC_AUDIO_TYPE 9
#define MP4_MPEG4_TTSI_AUDIO_TYPE 12
#define MP4_MPEG4_MAIN_SYNTHETIC_AUDIO_TYPE 13
#define MP4_MPEG4_WAVETABLE_AUDIO_TYPE 14
#define MP4_MPEG4_MIDI_AUDIO_TYPE 15
#define MP4_MPEG4_ALGORITHMIC_FX_AUDIO_TYPE 16


/* MP4 Video track types */
#define MP4_INVALID_VIDEO_TYPE 0x00
#define MP4_MPEG1_VIDEO_TYPE 0x6A
#define MP4_MPEG2_SIMPLE_VIDEO_TYPE 0x60
#define MP4_MPEG2_MAIN_VIDEO_TYPE 0x61
#define MP4_MPEG2_SNR_VIDEO_TYPE 0x62
#define MP4_MPEG2_SPATIAL_VIDEO_TYPE 0x63
#define MP4_MPEG2_HIGH_VIDEO_TYPE 0x64
#define MP4_MPEG2_442_VIDEO_TYPE 0x65
#define MP4_MPEG2_VIDEO_TYPE MP4_MPEG2_MAIN_VIDEO_TYPE
#define MP4_MPEG4_VIDEO_TYPE 0x20
#define MP4_JPEG_VIDEO_TYPE 0x6C
#define MP4_PRIVATE_VIDEO_TYPE 0xD0

(JPEG2000, H.264 should also be here)

Why couldent i vote other?

What is MPC??