Hello all, i'm new to hydrogen

i'm using gtune3b2 for some time now, and i was wondering if / when gtune3b3 will be available? does developing still go on?

sorry if a similar thread already exists, i couldn't find one using "gtune" as search string.

cheers!

I assume you are referring to Garf's tunings. The answer is that it will never be available since Garf is now working on MPEG-4 AAC at Ahead.

If you're interested in another third-party Vorbis tunings, I suggest you look at aoTuV

Why not MegaMix2?

indeed. hm, not good.

what is the best tuned 3rd party encoder? (based on new vorbis releases)

thanks for the answer!

edit: i tried aoTuV, and it resulted in EAC returning me an error, but gt3b2 and megamix2 work well using the -q 7 switch?

The best tuned 3rd party encoder, at the moment, that's been rigorously tested is aoTuV beta 2, which along with musepack, won the 128 kbps listening test (that included wma std, lame mp3, iTunes aac). Vorbis 1.1 has included most of aoTuV beta 2 but there have been some accounts of the former having quality regressions. However, bitrate management in aoTuV beta 2 doesnt work while Vorbis 1.1 has fixed this and has new code for bitrate management too.



Did you try downloading oggenc (aoTuV beta 2) from http://www.rarewares.org ?

thanks, but 128kbps is not an option. i always encode -q7 which results in >230kbps average (metal/punk/etc.) so i'm currently using megamix2 which seems like a good option to me, since it contains garf's tunings and some other (like yours )


i did not try aoTuV beta2, though i did try beta3 (because of the newer codebase) and beta 3 does not work with EAC, no matter what.

update: ok, i redownloaded aoTuVb3 from the official homepage (instead of rarewares) and now it works fine with EAC.

but still the questions remains, what encoder should i use? megamixII or aoTuVb3? it's mainly used for punk/metal and so on...

there is a slight difference between megamixII and aoTuVb3 (about 8kbps/track)

I would recommend megamix1 over megamix2 as it was experimental, aka it resulted in higher bitrates without significant (if any) quality improvement to justify this.

At those bitrates you should be using Musepack anyway

Megamix 2 tends to smear less on microattack samples than Megamix 1 at q 5 and above, all because of a certain value I forgot to port over (to Megamix 1).

I thought you made a fixed version of Megamix I with that value ported over. I could be wrong though.

I did? hmm...its been a while ago so I dont remember.

my portable doesnt support mpc (MPeye HTS-150)


so, i decided to use aotuvb3 over megamix2 because of the newer codebase, any objections?

Up untill a few months ago it was very clear. . . aoTuV for low bitrates, GT3b2 or MegaMix for hight, and the official release for general use. But then Vorbis made a release that implemented aoTuV and not too long ago, aoTuVb3 came out and since then no major tests have been done. Also theres as much good comments about aoTuVb3 over aoTuVb2 as there is bad, quality wise. . . so thats a bit shaky too. Also, I dont really know if GT3b2/megamix still hold the endge on high bitrates against aoTuVb3 or simply ignored because of the older code. High bitrates with vorbis havent been discussed here in a long time so i dont see you in fault as of starting this tread and i am glad you settled for something .

Guess you cant go wrong with any of them

I noticed something strange today, aoTuVb3 produces CLEAR noise/distortions encoding Dropkick Murphys' Blackout Album.
It's irish punkrock using bagpipes, currently I'm re-encoding using Megamix II.

I'll keep you up to date.

update: it's more or less the same with every vorbis encoder (@q7) , actually MP3 CBR 192 sounds best (no noise, no distortions)

now how does that work?

It's best that you do a double blind listening test (ABX or ABC/HR) to remove the possibility of placebo