Hi guys.

My friend gave me some mp3's which were encoded with iTunes for windows at 192kbps. How do they compare quality wise to say lame 192? and what codec do they actually use?

I tried a search for itunes AND mp3 and it wouldn't let me.

TIA

iTunes uses an independently tuned encoder. It's quite bad at VBR around 120kbps. Dunno about quality at higher bitrates

according to a not so far away listening test, itunes mp3 at least at 128kbps is currently the worst mp3-encoder on the planet(only counting current versions of all encoders).

Search the validated news subforum(currently on page 2 i think) for an mp3 128kbps listening test.

- Lyx

Blade and dist10 compiles are probably much worse.




OMGOMGOMG! 5000 posts!!!!

ok, my mistake - i forgot about blade... because i would never consider it, except maybe as an "anchor" *g*

How the hell do you do it? You've done so much for this community and still find time to post. Do you sleep?

I think its all to do with how long he's been here. At another unrelated forum, which I joined in March 2001, I've got 8500+ posts and people think I don't sleep.

Real geeks never sleep!!!!!!!!

<sarcasm>
now that was a good use for $30, right up there with XP plus pack
</sarcasm>
edit: forgot the tags right above this

I'd like to see how it compares in CBR mode to LAME et al, most mp3's floating around on the net are still in CBR even if we all know that VBR or AT LEAST ABR is the way to go, and I think for MP3 it defaults to 160kbps Joint Stereo instead of the more common 128kbps. I have a feeling it might be fine in CBR mode as I've never listened to an iTunes mp3 and thought "damn that's bad" although I've done that with *plenty* of other mp3's found from other sources. I think just the VBR implementation is old and crap (it appears to be unchanged since SoundJam, circa-1998ish. (SoundJam became iTunes 1.0 after apple bought the rights to the program from a little company called Cassidy and Greene))

Yea. The mp3's from iTunes i have are 192kbps CBR, and they dont sound that bad, but i havent yet listened to them on my good hifi. He also gave me some M4A files at CBR 128... anyone got the link to the recent 128kbps aac test? im curious to the position of iTunes at this bitrate.

Yes, it's here. In the test, iTunes was the best, Nero second, and FAAC, Real and Compaact! tied.

It's not just a matter of being here longer than most others. Look at the top-5 posters on this board. The other 4 joined the board earlier than him (only a few days, but still), but come nowhere near his post count.

I think it's pretty impressive. Remember, he also stopped posting for several months during late 2002 - early 2003.

is the caipirinha

It was tested in CBR mode and got the lowest score of any other modern MP3 codec, so I don't understand what you're trying to say.

In a post last October to the mp3encoder mailing list, Bill Kincaid of iTunes wrote:

"The iTunes MP3 encoder was written pretty much from scratch,
based on the ISO reference source in distribution 10, as LAME was. I know,
I was the principal author (it was originally shipped in SoundJam, for
anyone who remembers that far back).

It has been heavily tweaked over the years and doesn't bear much resemblance
to dist 10 anymore..."

In another post in the same thread, he wrote:

"In iTunes I recommend using VBR with a "maximum quality" setting which gives
the encoder the most freedom to go up in bit rate as PE demands."

I only drink Gin Tonic and Baileys

I agree, it's time I start focusing on Real Life more

There's some iTunes 128 KBPS CBR mp3's floating about on IUMA.com. Some of the mp3's I've downloaded had encoded by iTunes vX.XX in the ID3v2 tag. Honestly I've heard worse 128 KBPS CBR mp3's but those are probably some Blade or XING encoded mp3's.

The current version Xing beats iTunes according to Roberto's tests, so thats not really fair to Xing (it seems it a decent MP3 codec now).

Actually, the version tested was an old version, the last one released by XingTech before they were bought by Real Networks, in 1999.

According to Karl Lillevold, Real Video codec developer, the Xing encoder underwent massive improvements inside Real. Unfortunately, I couldn't get RealOne or Real Player to work on my computer on time for the test.

So, one could guess the current version is actually even better.

RoFL... nah I sleep for him... rjamorim hits a button then I just fall asleep and he gets recharged ready to post another 5000 more...

On a serious note... I don't think Apple would be focusing much on their MP3 encoder as much as their AAC one. From my limited experience and from reading this forum it seems that iTunes produce less quality MP3s when compared to other highly tuned encoders e.g. LAME...

Regards

Perhaps it isn't fair. However it will take a long time for a bad quality reputation from the past to be extinguished on a psychological level -- even though there are valid listening tests to prove and support improvement.

I was talking about all the old XING encoded mp3's that have been sitting on free and legal mp3 download sites for years. If the newer versions of the encoder are in Real Networks software products I guess I'll never first hand test the improvement, hence I avoid Real Player, as well as RealOne.