I am interested in using ogg, but since I am new to it I am very confused. Currently I use mp3, but I have heard some files in ogg and they seem to be much clearer and crisp...if that makes sense.

What is the easiest way to encode from wave to ogg?
What is the easiest way to decode back to wave for cd burning?
What encoder settings are best? I currently use cbr 256 for mp3's (its what I like best).

Any other info you guys could provide would be much appreciated. Like I said, I am new to this so please be patient with my newbie questions .

Thank you!

oggdropXPd, it's drag'n'drop


again, oggdropXPd


the higher the better

Encode some songs with different quality settings and decide what you like best. It's also a question whether you have plenty of space and how many files you want to encode.

You can get OggDropXPd at RareWares.

(Bottom of the message)

Thanks guys. So using oggdrop, where you adjust the quality setting (4.00 default), what should that be set on for overall best quality? Also, is there a tool like mp3gain for ogg files?

Thanks

You should try it for yourself with different quality settings. But something around 5-6 should provide good results for you.



Yes. Vorbisgain.

It's available at the same site, in the "daily vorbis" package.

Regards;

Roberto.

Thank you Roberto

Is there anything that he doesn't know?

(ummmmm.... this is almost embarrassing.....)

Roberto, (or anyone), what is Vorbisgain? I really ought to know this, but in fact I do not. Nor 'mp3gain' for that matter. It's a 'tool', that's all I can gather. What does it do? Do I need it?

I personally use a default setting of -q 7.5 for my oggies, because, although it's a bit of overkill, it's like adding a bit of 'insurance' in that I don't always want to have to play 'catch up' whenever the latest new-&-improved compile of the day comes out. Also, I burn all .oggs to data discs, and cdrs being as inexpensive as they are, the higher filesize of 7.5 oggs isn't much of a hardship at all. Make sense? (Average music cds-per-blank = 8 (eight).

I sincerely hope I'll be able to play these vorbis data discs on a standalone player some day - I'm (sorta) counting on it, actually. (And I have signed the hardware support petition in another topic here).

So............ 'Vorbisgain', anyone?

Thank you.

If you are committing to that high of a bitrate, why aren't you using MPC? I personally think that Ogg "demands" to be used in low-bitrate mode. If you want archival transparency, it's the wrong encoder (as with practically all transform encoders). Ogg still has more problem samples than MPC at moderate bitrates so why not use Ogg for what it does best: highly listenable sound at bitrates <100kbps.

I agree that MPC makes more sense for such high bitrates but I think he is really hoping for hardware support and at least with OGG there is a chance of that happening.

Nick

Probably because, like me, he wants to use a popular format which has no patent or licencing issues. Vorbis is the *only* current format which has a chance of competing with MP3 in the mass market and isn't tied down to obscene licensing requirements (either explicit, as with AAC, or implicit, as with MPC).

I've had *enough* of saying 'yes, I'm just using this piece of software as an educational tool'.

If I want to archive, I buy the damn CD.

Is MPC not a derivitave, many times removed, perhaps, but still a deritive, of MP2 audio? If so, then it's MPEG, and if it's MPEG then it has real patents, 'maybe' patents, perceived patents, *all* kinds of psuedo-patents coming right out of it's ying yang. Vorbis does not.

I like and admire the philosophy behind vorbis. Like MPC, I like the idea of ongoing improvement/development. Like Vorbis (perhaps even moreso?) MPC has no widespread, integral hardware support, right?

'Transparency' is a subjective thing, and I'm not at all sure I really need it. If I want that kind of accuracy, I may as well go lossless, or maybe, just do a straight DiscCopy of my red books.

MPC *may* be acknowledged as superior at high bitrates, and Vorbis *may* be more efficient and highly tuned for lower bitrates, but I really don't care either way.

To my ears, I very rarely discern the odd artifact here and there with Vorbis, and even if MPC were to eliminate those few, it would not be enough to steer me away from (oh oh, look out - personal opinion coming up)- what I think is the most honest, most refreshing, most needed, most bullshit-free audio codec we have ever witnessed.

And as the gent above mentioned, what are the odds MPC is going to receive the future hardware support that I believe Vorbis deserves, and which I believe is imminent? (C'mon Monty! Piece that spec together ASAP!).

I've also been very impressed with the various web articles, interviews with key Xiph individuals, tests, and general pages I have read lately, spanning at least a couple of years back, regarding Vorbis in general.

Vorbis is catching on in case you haven't noticed. I don't see many (any?) websites offering downloads of independently produced .mpc files, but .oggs are cropping up more and more all the time. (This may be, in part, because (as you say) high quality files can be more easily fit in limited bandwiths), but I think a larger concern and more likely is the threat of potential patent conflicts. No one wants or needs to pay the fees associated with mp3, and yes, potentially, mpc.

So, anyway............ I *still* don't know what 'vorbisgain' is ! (???)

Regards,

Vorbisgain is the Vorbis format's implementation of Replaygain (similar to mp3gain for mp3, and just 'replaygain' for mpc). Replaygain is a loudness management system. The basic idea is that replaygain allows for an equalization of loudness across individual tracks or albums, depending on which mode you use. It's also useful for clipping prevention.

www.replaygain.org

Thank you Dibrom, for the explanation. I sort of suspected that was what it was for, but wasn't sure.

(I think I can live without it for the most part). When archiving cd's I capture the whole album where the tracks are, presumably, average in volume, at least in relation to each other, and not clipped to begin with.

Obliged.

A_Klingon - your post above - it was a marvelous declamation! I'm a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed novice and I agree 100% with everything you say.

The details of the relative quality of the various compressors at the same high bit rates is pretty well academic to me in practice - I can't tell the difference. (I'm converting to ogg at quality=8/10 overkill just so I know that any audio peculiarities I happen to hear are from the source. That's happened so often - I hear something odd and i think it's ogg, but it turns out it's on the original cd too and it's down to crappy production.).

However, I *can* tell the difference when two consecutive tracks are supposed to blend seamlessly - which they *do* with ogg and *not* with mp3.

The promise of the "bit peeler" is an enormous hook too! Do they realise how enormously useful that would be? Is there any work being done on "bit peeler" tools? If they got that going then people will convert in droves. When it comes down to it, convenience is as important as quality once quality is in the same ball park.

And in any case - even if all things were similar, I'd *still* go for ogg because they're not likely to become tangled up in corportate greed.

(+ I'm in the same puzzled frame of mind as A_Klingon re VorbisGain. How does it work in practice? Do you need extra stuff at the playback end for it to work? Or is all the work done when it's applied to the ogg files? ...or what? Is there a link somewhere to a practical description?)

@mijj

The results of the VorbisGain calculations are stored in the file headers as 'tags', and are in human readable form. In order for the values to be used, yes, you need appropriately enabled software. OggdropXPd can use the tags in playback, or in decoding to file, and Peter Pawlowski's in_vorbis Winamp plugin will also use the tags if requested to.

john33

re "... Peter Pawlowski's in_vorbis Winamp plugin will also use the tags if requested to."

How is the plugin sent the request? Is the existence of the tag interpreted as a request to use them, or is there a user settable switch somewhere?

(I have the horrible paranoid feeling that everyone except me knows all about VorbisGain and how to use it.)

@mijj

Using the VorbisGain tags within the Winamp plugin is a configurable option. You can select to use use the Album or Track tags (if present), or none. If you select to use tags and they are absent, it just ignores the request.

I doubt you're alone!

john33

thanks - I feel pretty confident I can make proper use of that feature now.

The handy thing with *gain is not having to reach for the damn volume control after every other song change. Beethoven can be safely followed by Marilyn Manson without fear of blowing your speakers or eardrums.

Thanks everyone !

Well! Waddaya know? Another hi-bit vorbis user, mijj!

There is a great collected body of knowledge in these pages, that's why I'm here, but once past quality issues, I'd much rather be non-technical and just enjoy my music unencumbered by technical details.

It's not at all unusual for me to be running five concurrent copies of oggenc.exe at any given time, using, believe it or not, plain 'ol dos batch files. I've automated the process and can have oggenc compressing five different albums in five different folders. Works every time!

If I was operating a site offering streaming files, bitrate peeling is something I would be most interested in. But I rarely stream files, myself. As for vorbisgain, well, I'm such a lazy skunk I'll just watch everyone else 'struggle' with it, and learn from the posts.

Vorbis has been with us for some time, so it's entirely possible you've seen the (link) below. I include it here, because I thought it was *so* cool! The gentleman who wrote the article was using, I believe Beta 4 (!!), and even so, was impressed with it. He tries to be as 'technical' as possible (everyone will argue with his methods of course), but in truth, he's just like me. He loves music.

I thought it was marvellous how he compares his love of music with the love of a woman. (Well, ok, you'll just have to see the article for an explanation)

From a music lover and Vorbis fan who has discovered "A codec to grow old with",

http://papaya.altamente.com/ogg.html

Yup, A_Klingon,

There's a nice buzz and spirit about Ogg Vorgis. + I love the name.

I class myself as a new, simple and interested end-user : on the outside looking in as far as this site is concerned. You're right, there's a vast amount of useful information here.

One thing that bothers me a lot, though, is the lack of development on the "bit peeler" idea. Bit Peeling was one feature that caught my eye and hooked me into Ogg Vorbis. Maybe it's because work in that area doesn't have the esoteric status of work on refining the acoustic qualities of Vorbis. But it's a feature which would give Ogg Vorbis a unique utility and make it stand out without a doubt.

I have a horrible feeling that the idea is being passed by because it'd get in the way of minimising bit-rates for particular quality settings. That's how one standard compares itself against another isn't it? A sort of mine-is-smaller-than-yours competition.
But I'd say it'd be worth giving up a certain percentage of file size if it meant bit-peeling was a practical proposition.

Is bit peeling going to turn out to be vapour-ware? I hope not.

There are *already* bit-peelers being developed.

But doing it *properly* requires a lot of work.

This work has been spent getting Vorbis 1 out there.

Let the devs rest a little.

whew! ... That's very nice to hear.

I'm not so much anxious that it be completed quckly as anxious that there's little information about it's progress or existence. I'm not in any kind of rush to use the peeler. All I need to know is that anything I code using Ogg Vorbis now will be compatible with any future peeler.

Do the developers post information about their progress anywhere? I get no recent information if I Google on "bit peeler".

+

Should the developers be allowed to rest a little? Well - ok - perhaps a few minutes. But they must not be allowed any alchohol! We must protect those brains!

Not be allowed any alcohol ?????

I think the entire crew should put its' feet up, stretch out, relax, and get drunk for a straight month ! They've earned it!

Jon Ingram is quite right - Xiph has just crossed a c-r-u-c-i-a-l milestone in it's short history - I don't think anyone should hassle them for *anything* for at least a month hence, and we should all send them a case of beer each. (The champagne will have to wait until we can get our greedy little mitts on vorbis-ready hardware players)

Monty once said that writing the critical specification would be a 'scary & daunting' task, and OMG -- after wading through the voluminous text of that spec, I can see now that he wasn't fooling. NO WONDER 1.0 was delayed. (I couldn't-a-dunnit).

I know very little of bitrate peeling, mijj - if I did tell you what I know of it, it would just sound amateurish. As a rough stab though, I just think it means a website can host high-bitrate-quality vorbis files, but users may elect to stream them at lower bitrates according to their available bandwidth capacities. (See? I told you I'd sound <h>amateurish). As your own oggs are inherently HI-BIT (-q 8-10 *certainly* qualifies as high bitrate), I doubt you'll have any problems with bit-peeling (however you're supposed to use it). As an end user mijj, how would bit-peeling benefit you?

As you can see, you already know more about this than I do.

-- I simply adore your closing graphic --

I doubt that Xiph is ignoring bitrate peeling, but they have a LOT of pokers in the fire right now, and they deserve a break. The BBC has, in the past, and just recently done some streaming tests (I missed every damned one ) We haven't seen the end of this.

Cheers my friend - I'm off to scrunch-up my next five red-books with the NEW 1.0 !!! (Filesizes have been improved (reduced) a LOT, and the sound quality is still *wonderful*!

hiya klingon ...

This is all quite weird for me. I onlyl stumbled across Ogg about a week or so ago and now there's all these fireworks going off and the world is about to change!

By the way - I encode at q=8, rather than beween 8..10 - a peculiarity of me saying i set q to 8/10 (meaning 8 out of a range of 10).

I'm keen on bit peeling cos it's a way of making handling music between devices transparent. Don't you hate it when you want to do something that seems conceptually simple - but it turns out to be a nightmare of hunting software and format conversion. What you wanted to do becomes a tedious task so you drop the whole idea.

I wanna be able to port whatever tracks I want from my high quality archive to my portable device without having to switch from "musical whimsey" into "technical drudgery" mindset. I have an Ipaq with a 64MB card - that's about 3 albums at q=1 (I think) - and sound at q=1 is supprisingly good (especially where there's background noise - i.e. walkabout), so that's a reasonable amount of portable music selectable from a large library. But it only works if the process of choosing and porting is transparent.

Bit peeling would make it all so simple. I just choose the tracks and send to the device via the peeler (keeping the gain tags). The current alternative is to convert to wav then convert back to ogg and reapply the gain tags - and thus dissapears any inclination to spontaneously choose music to use on my Ipaq. Alternatively, I could keep 2 versions of all ogg files. Which means converting from wav twice and applying Vorbis Gain twice. So tedious - so it won't be done. The only way out is bit-peeling if music on useable portables is more than a gimmick.

Obviously, as you point out, bit peeling is going to be important for broadcast over the internet. But I'm playing (maybe) at being selfish and impatient. I want Vorbis on my Ipaq! Sober up those developers and get em back to work!

... now I think on't ... are there any .ogg docoders that work on PocketPC devices? I shall have to Google around ...

Well, you certianly stumbled in at just the right time, eh?



That happens to me every day. Normally the added complexity is my fault though. Heh.



Just out of curiosity, have you tried -q0 or -q-1 (yup, as in less than zero) yet? They sound remarkably good for their respective filesizes. Resampling and/or downmixing might give some improvement as well. Might be great for portables.



Lots of people are absolutely foaming at the mouth for bitrate peeling as well as hardware support -- going "it's going to be ***sooooo**** cool when it's done."

I'm going to assume that you were being sarcastic above. Without a smiley () though, it's harder to tell -- which is why we use them. It looks like there was some confusion in responses to your earlier posts because of this.

:eek: ... oops ....


I always forget the smileys ...


Now everyone thinks I'm a complete and utter heartless bastard!

Dear evil, heartless, bas.......

Just Kidding!!!! :-) :-) :-)

Wow, I'm a really poor one to ask anything when it comes to handheld pcs, mijj. I know nothing of them. But at least now I can see what you're attempting to do. (I think) -- download (sorta) some hi-res oggies from your desktop PC into your handheld (at) a reduced bitrate such that they will approximate ogglettes compressed at (say) -q 1, so as to fit (maybe) 3-albums-worth on your 64mb card. You wish to accomplish this via bitrate-peeling.

How to do this? I haven't got a clue.

Can it be done? I haven't got a clue.

Is there ogg decoder software for an Ipaq? I haven't got a ..... (well, you get the idea).

I don't know what kind of ins and outs your Ipaq has. I get confused even with null-modem links. One tedious solution you mentioned *may* have to suffice for now anyway.....(dual compressions - one each for your pc and handheld.) You *may* have to copy over the files that way.

Can you use any reg'lar windows software with handhelds, or do you need specialized pocket pc stuff?

I don't imagine there's much specialized 'for-pocket-pcs-only' ogg stuff floating around the internet just yet.

And yes indeed, you were *most* fortuitous to have stumbled upon oggie-poo technology at this point in time. I think many folks have spent gobs (oggs?) of time encoding with beta 2, beta 4, rc2, rc3 (rc="release candidate"), or rc4 (which I think was out for 5 minutes or so before 1.0 GOLD kicked in) and god only knows what else.

For myself, I clocked into the ogg world at rc3, which I think has been around for 7 months or so. That's why I initially chose a high q setting -- for a wee bit of 'insurance' in case an update was imminent. Whether rc3 OR 1.0 - the resulting oggladites all sound sensational. Am not overly concerned about moderately higher filesizes - that's what inexpensive cdrs are for - a cdr can hold a whack of ogglers.

Sorry I couldn't be of assistance, mijj.

lol - A_Klingon

I'm not demanding answers from you, I'm just brainstorming (in your direction) the desires and ideas the potential of OggVorbis has triggered in my mind. Kinda like the loony you occasionally see shouting to himself in the middle of a shopping centre.

... got any spare change?

.....well here, lemme check. Yea ok, you can have this, will it be enough? I can write a check out if you like.

"Welcome K-Mart shopper. How may I serve you today?"

McDonald's: "Would you like some fries with that?"

Sure mijj, you can borrow my car for the evening. Here's the keys. You might need gas, you say? Sure, no problem, here's my Visa then, for a fillup.

My sister? Hang on a sec. [[Hey Nancy! Are you free tonight? Yes?]] - Yea, okay mijj, she'll go out with you tonight, sure.

(What can I say? We aim to please.)

A_Klingon :


The pocketPCs have a different operating system. So any music playing sware would need ogg dlls or exes (or whatever-the-hell it expects to be there so it can decode the ogg file and send the result to the OS) specially written for that operating system. If you see what I mean.


... 13 cents? ... hmmm ...

Yeah, you've more or less got it. As I mentioned earlier, bitrate peeling isn't done yet, but it's gonna be damn skippy when it is.

As for an ogg decoder for the ipaq, I seem to vagely recall someone doing it along with a divx player for the thing. I don't own an ipaq, so it immediately fell out of my brain...

Googling...

Ah, here's what I was looking for: http://home.adelphia.net/~mdukette

Looks like there's some pretty preliminiary Ogg Vorbis support in the PocketPC DivX player, so it might be worth a shot. IIRC, the ipaq has a 200 MHz ARM processor in it, so it should be plenty powerful enough.

Edit: [b]PocketPC DivX Player

I checked these two PocketPC software distribution sites ...

www.PocketGear.com

www.handango.com

(... sigh) no result in either when searching for "vorbis".

... oops! :eek:

! hang on a minute !

there's one result in www.handango.com!

not for PocketPC type handheld, but for the Zaurus Linux handheld.

tkcPlayer by theKompany.com

The blurb says ...

I believe the tkc player was indeed, the first one to allow portable ogg playback. I recall reading a news page on that one. So if you have all kinds of money stuffed under your mattress you can buy a machine to install the (resaonably priced $10.95 for download) software, poke everything into your car's glove compartment, and drive away surrounded by musical ogglettes.

However it's a Linux-only thingee. The same search ('vorbis') comes up empty (as you have no doubt discovered) when looking in the Windows section.

It would appear that you have your work cut out for you!!

What a cruel, unjust world! It's enough to force one to take up programming and write one's *own* ogg player, right?

<<hint-hint, looking around.....>>

I'd be happy to write-up a tasty litle player for you after dinner, mijj, but unfortunately, I'm lucky if I can manage to program my VCR.

(And by the way, now that I've had a good night's sleep and just crawled out of bed and can think clearly), without a useable ogg player it kind of makes bitrate-peeling oggies over to your handheld rather an exercise in futility. What would you DO with 'em even if you *did* peel 'em right over on to your 64 meg card????

(They look very pretty I suppose. You can hold 'em up to the light and admire their colourful technology.)

I must go shave and powder my nose now........

well. yers, Mr Klingon.

It is a somewhat technical exersize to have a small memory handheld ogg player (which ought to be able to have frequently changed music content) when the bit-peeler in't around. However, my geekience quotient indicates I'd enjoy the shiny toy factor of a handheld Vorbis player, even if the lack of a bit-peeler meant it only had gimmick value.
(no different to mp3 on a handheld on that score - I have lots of mp3s, I have a handheld mp3 player - I have enought memory for a couple of albums at least - but once i tried it a couple of times, I gave up using it because it's too tedius recoding stuff that you're gonna want to change in a few hours).

It's bound to happen tho (handheld PocketPC Ogg player) - the entire force of the Universe is behind Ogg Vorbis, (or so I'm beginning to believe.).

+

I've had a recent demonstration of the value of using "q" values for coding rather than setting average-bit-rates.

I coded up (amongst others) two tracks, both at "-q 8". (and there's no doubt about this : I code all my tracks at "q 8", and the file information confirms nominal bitrate = 256kbps.)

Sounds of the Earth - 23 - Nature - Wind Chimes.ogg
- average bitrate = 174.9 kbps,
- nominal bitrate = 256 kbps (meaning: coded with setting "-q 8")

Sounds of the Earth - 08 - Nature - Rock Water.ogg
- average bitrate = 427.1 kbps,
- nominal bitrate = 256 kbps (meaning: coded with setting "-q 8")

!

Amazing, eh!?

(The wind chimes are just chimes randomly hit - no background noise of any sort.
The "Rock Water" is the sound of a babbling brook - it seems this type of sound is anathema to Vorbis!)

If I'd set average bit rate I would have wasted loads of space on the first, and got crappy sound with the second!

So ! Whey Hey! They're right to insist on us using the "q" settings!

Yes, we're working with an *efficient* codec here at any -q setting.

Less efficient, but perhaps equally effective, is the tongue-twisting name 'Xiphophorus' which is generally presumed to have been coined by overworked programmers burning the midnight oil long past their bedtimes.

Myself, I just think they were trying to tic the good German folks off at Fraunhofer, itself a tricky word to work your gums around after consuming any more than three beers.

"Rubber-Baby-Buggy-Bumpers"..........

What's your take on the pronounciation? My Universal Translator Software (still in beta) works it out thusly:

EX - as in "ex-wife, ex-spouse".
AH - as in "have --> a <-- nice day", or " how --> a <--bout that?"
FOFF - rhymes with "off", only with an 'f' in front of it.
FIR - as in a 'fir' tree, not to be confused with a pine tree or an oak tree.
US - as in you & I, WE are "US".

Which gives us .... EX-AH-FOFF-FIR-US Sound about right? We'll put the primary accent on "FOFF", and the secondary accent on "EX".

This question appears to a burning technical issue which I am certain keeps many of us up late at night, wondering what Monty was smoking on the night of its inception.

I am pleased that I am able contribute such crucial issues for public contemplation in this most technologically-oriented forum.

Please discuss this matter amongst yourselves, and I will expect a full report on my desk first thing in the morning.

-- Klingy - Senior Advisor To The Klingon High Council --

The name "Xiphophorus" is gone. Now it's the "Xiph.org foundation"

Taking into account that it is a latinized greek denomination of a fish (http://www.xiph.org/xiphname.html), I propose a greek (latin) pronunciation:

X - like Xylophone
I - as in "bit"
FO - as in "not"
FO - as in "for"
RUS - as in "pull"

The greek word xiphephoros (adj., carrying a sword) has an accent on "phor", hence I suggest a similar emphasis.

Ahhh, then we have our answer gentlemen. Thank you. Everything's as cleas as mud now. I will sleep soundly now from here on in.

And right you are Roberto, "Xiph" it is. (That in itself sounds like a hiccup doesn't it?)

(Continuum, you know I was just joking, right?) But thank you for the details. Your proposed name is a good one, but I propose another:

(What's Latinized Greek for, "Let's Pound The Living Crap Out Of Microsoft's WMA"?)

I bet *that* would be a difficult one to pronounce!

-- Mike, The Klingon --

Glad to hear that.
I don't know, but swordsman (they certainly don't really mean a cute little fish) seems to be a good approximation...