Another version of oggdrop will soon be at the usual place: http://www.inf.ufpr.br/~rja00/

This version provides a CBR option, in addition to the normal ABR option, within bitrate selection just to make it easier to use. Also, all bitrate selectors now increment in 1k units from 32k to 512k with '0' as the default.

I think this is bug free. I tried all the options I could think of without any problems. However, if you find a problem, do please advise.

Enjoy!

john33

The files are ALREADY at the usual place.

Regards;

Roberto.

ABR??? Doesn't ogg use VBR???

Wow, I just checked out your version John. NEATO! I never knew you could do ABR and CBR with ogg like that. I love the enhanced tick and display features too. Great work!

AFAIK Ogg provides all three modes of operation: vbr, abr, cbr. In the previous versions of Oggdrop you could only use abr. Now you can use whatever you want!

Yes, Ogg Vorbis new provides VBR, ABR and CBR modes
Using the quality settings is VBR
Specifying a bitrate is ABR
Specifying bitrate = min bitrate = max bitrate is CBR

Tangent - I believe you got those last two backwards:
Specifying a bitrate is CBR
Specifying bitrate = min bitrate = max bitrate is ABR

No, he got them the right way around.
Just specifying a bitrate is ABR. specifying bitrate = min bitrate = max bitrate is *also* ABR, but cripples the encoder by not letting it use more bits in the short periods that ABR would allow. And both of them sound worse than just specifying a quality level.

Actually, the previous encoder allowed only VBR, not ABR.

The 'bitrate' options in that encoder were really aliases for what are '-q' modes now.

--
GCP

To put it another way - bitrate management was only introduced in RC3. (I think I got that riight!)

john33

Thanks for making things clear! Anyways: oggdrop just got better

Some suggestions for the interface:

In the quality setting: please make the text box editable. I like the way you can make fine adjustments, but with that short scrollbar it's not easy to select the desired quality level.

I also don't think it is a good idea to distribute the whole bitrate settings over two seperate windows. Especially the "jumping" radio button is quite annoying since you can't simply switch back to vbr; you have to exit that window, right-click, select "encode parameters" which immediately lets the radio button jump to vbr again. This will confuse people if by just opening a window their settings change.

Furthermore I don't think that splitting the encode parameters is newbie friendly. They will click around until they find the advanced settings and say: "Ahhhh! So that is where I set my bitrate!" You could perhaps place all the options in one window but grey out the abr/cbr settings. They could be activated by a check box "enable cbr/abr modes (NOT recomended!)" or something in the lines of that. Maybe on activation even pop-up an extra warning window (ok, most users will just click that away). Also: don't call them advanced since that leads people to believe that abr/cbr is better.

Another thing: I haven't experimented with oggdrop too much, but if double-click on main window is not in use then why not make it open the encoding parameters?

Oggdrop has become much better, but I still think it can be improved.

I completely second Gecko.

Now, what I'd really love to see is the ability to create tags from filename (selectable option).

Goes like:
%artist - %title (%album, %customtag)
And OGGDROP encodes the files of the 'xxx - yyy (zzz, qqq)' format according to specs. (%customtag can be any tag you'd like to add to your file like %rg_audiophile or something)

Only problem I see is 'smart detection' with tracks like 'Motörhead - Bomber (Live) (Bootleg, 1989).ogg'
+ maybe implementation of %wc / %wildcard / ? (or some symbol unrecognised in filenames) to remove unwanted info:
093Motörhead - Bomber -> ???%artist - %title


Hope it doesn't sound too complicated - guess not
Would be state-of-art though

ephemeros

I like the suggestions in the previous two posts. However, shouldn't some of the more technical stuff be left to oggenc with frontend? Oggdrop should stay simple and accessible to newbies...

I'll think about these suggestions and let you know.

With regard to the quality setting and using the slider. Once you have given 'focus' to the slider, you can use the right and left arrows on the keyboard which increment/decrement 0.1 at a time - much easier to set the quality you want that way.

john33

OK, taking the various suggestions offered, here is what I think will be the final version, cosmetically, of oggdrop(carries yesterday's date), available soon at: http://www.inf.ufpr.br/~rja00/

I have placed all the encoding options in one dialogue box.

On the Quality side, the slider has been increased in length and is, therefore, easier to adjust with the mouse. However, once the slider has the focus, left and right arrows keys can be used to set the quality level. Added narrative to make things clearer (hopefully) for 'newbies'.

On the Bitrate side, the separate CBR bitrate box is gone. selecting CBR now links and equalises Min and Max values to the value of Nom. Selecting ABR breaks that link and allows independent selection of Min and Max values.

I think that this is a cleaner interface for all levels of user. Hopefully, its clearer for 'newbies', and not irritating for the more expert user.

I am still pondering the other suggestions, but don't expect anything else too quickly, if at all. Some of the ideas would require major surgery in other areas apart from the interface, and I am not sure I wish to, or should get too far into that.

Anyway, 'you can't please all of the people all of the time', so ENJOY!

john33

Done!

Strange - whether I choose ABR or CBR, the Quality button stays selected, and the nominal bitrate on the main screen never changes...

same bug here

I'll check it out.

john33

How extremely nice! Thank you!

Bugs verified. (radio button on vbr mode allways on; nominal bitrate shows that of vbr mode even if non vbr mode is selected - in fact I can't permanently select abr/crb mode. A quick test shows quality mode is used (to encode) no matter what I select!)

Bitrate selection in abr mode should be "smarter", i.e.: "min bitrate" <= "nominal bitrate" <= "max bitrate". In cbr mode I would grey out or simply hide the min/max boxes.

Does "double-click on main window" currently have a function?

Greets... Gecko

Sorry about that guys! If I had a pound or a dollar, or should it be a euro? for every time that I have screwed up working code by 'cleaning it up', I should be very rich by now!

Anyway new versions just uploaded to Roberto under today's date.

(I still can't think exactly what it was that I did, but nevermind, it's OK now.)

john33

Files already online!

Regards;

Roberto.

OK, Roberto's girlfriend is going to kill me!! Gecko, your suggestions regarding disabling bitrate boxes and preventing bizarre bitrate selections were too good to ignore, so they're done!

Basically, select Quality and all bitrate boxes are disabled (greyed); select ABR and all bitrate boxes are enabled with min not permitted to be higher than nom and max not permitted to be lower than nom. This was actually catered for in the core code, but I think it makes sense to take care of it here. Select CBR and min and max are disabled, but still register the nom bitrate changes.

So, hopefully everyone will be happy, except Roberto's girlfriend!

Files have been uploaded to Roberto so should be available soon.

john33

Anybody thinks that Robert has been continously reporting "New files are now online!" just to get into the top 5 posts list?

Sorry, I won't report anything anymore.

-@$$hole(s)-

Bye.

Fantastic!

I feel almost ashamed, knowing that john33, rjamorim and his girlfriend are getting fed up with this, to make yet another suggestion (or two).

When the user changes nom bitrate the program should modify the min/max values if needed.

I still like the idea of double-clicking the main window for options

The text in the main window should probably resemble better, what mode is currently used. People might get confused if it just says: "Bitrate: 217.0 kbit/s" and they get an 212kbit/s file. Maybe just say "target bitrate". (As I've read that even in pseudo cbr mode bitrate may vary. (See the "Serious problem with Oggenc" thread.)

Admitted: these are more or less cosmetic fixes, but the goal after all was to make a user friendly interface, so every newbie could use it without having to scratch his head. But hey! Take a break (and give rjamorim's girlfriend a rest ); these issues are not serious. Your work is very much appreciated.

PS: rjamorim, please do keep posting updates! Thanks for hosting those files!

For those who didn't understand yet the girlfriend thing.

I'm at the beach with my girlfriend, in her house, using HER laptop to connect every 30 mins to Mayhem and to my mail account to grab the updates.

Then, I have to upload the files to my server, edit index.html with vi, since it's an SSH connection and I can't use emacs... 33kbps connection...
Now you get why she gets annoyed.

Anyway, tomorrow I'll be back to my hometown (classes start on monday). There, I'll be at my own house, using my own computer, and with my own ADSL connection.

Thanks a lot for supporting me. It makes worth the job of keeping everything as up-to-date as possible in my page.

Roberto.

Btw: since you asked, the files are already there. Hope tangent doesn't get mad at me because I posted this report.

Oh come on, you know I'm not mad. You know I was only kidding right? You did see my smiley right? Please come give the cute teddy bear a hug?

Heh.

Ok, people, see you tomorrow.
Goin' back home... <sigh>

BTW, I'd never expect to surpass Dibrom's number of posts.

(How many has he already posted? 700?) :eek:

Aw shucks. He was kidding

Personally I always find that your and John33's "update" posts makes me smile (besides the fact that the updates are welcomed). You're like the efficient Hardy and Laurel

"That's another fine mess you've gotten me into"

nice! Never mind the tagging stuff - I just don't find any good tagging options - didn't work with eac, and cdex uses localtime as date (I just want the year of production)

Little cosmetic bug: when selecting ABR/CBR, slider isn't grayed out -> result: when sliding, the option reverts to VBR but the other boxes stay active (as 'not grayed out')


-ephemeros


PS So, is Win2k (semi-)transparency difficult to implement :ponder:

More cosmetic improvements made, plus correction of one small bug introduced.

Give 'focus' to the slider and the bitrate boxes are disabled. Thanks, ephemeros, I had missed that. In ABR mode, Max bitrate is allowed to be 0 (zero) for defaults to apply, otherwise it is not allowed to be lower than Nom bitrate. In Quality mode, Quality value and Nominal bitrate equivalent are white background, non- editable boxes. In ABR/CBR modes these boxes are disabled (greyed).

I think that's all the rules covered, and the current mode and it's options should be clearer. I had a quick look at enabling left button double-click, but it didn't seem to want to play! I might take another look, but I don't think it's exactly critical!

Files have been uploaded to Roberto, but won't be available until some time later today (Sunday) when he has returned home.

I really think that's about it for the moment, but i've thought that before!!

john33;)

I won't report the new files are already available, no matter how much you try to make me say that! [img]e6410f8091[/img]

Hey Roberto, you know your site is down?

It's back up again now!

john33

Blame the damn Sysadmin.

Sorry, but it happens. It's not hosted in a data center, you know. It's a damn hhtp server in an university.