Not so much coding as Encoding

[James]

I was just wondering after reading an article what the current options are for encoding audio. Mp3, Mp3pro (the subject of the article) wma, Og Vorbis, etc. All with a common goal. To get CD (or better) audio in the lowest possible bitrate.

What are your ideas for getting better (lower) bitrates and better audio quality.


The Article: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200-4436219.html?tag=st.ne.1002.tgif.ni
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I overclocked my 40w light bulb to run at 150w...

I need a new bulb.

[This message has been edited by James (edited January 10, 2001).]

[slipgun]

Is it really a big issue? I mean, the average user with DSL can get an MP3 in under 3 minutes...that's pretty fast, and 128kbps is pretty low too...

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I, Bin Laden, declare a day of mourning in the whole of the Middle East over the death of an atomic bomb buried in the seabed of the Pacific

[Humus]

It is a big issue for audiophiles. Many will agree with me when I say mp3 sucks, and I'm not even a audiophile. Most people going for other formats then mp3 will probably go for VQF (www.vqf.com) is they want lower bitrate and Mp+ or LQT if they want the ultimate audio quality. I recommend Mp+ (mpegplus.cjb.net) as it is free while LQT is a commercial product. OGG vorbis (www.vorbis.com) is also a very good free codec which seams to get more and more support.

[kid A]

Yeah check out Ogg Vorbis - it's also said to be the next big thing as far as audio quality is concerned...and supposedly it will stay free forever...

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Now listening to:
Belle & Sebastian - The Boy With the Arab Strap

[slipgun]

In that case: Napster better change!

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I, Bin Laden, declare a day of mourning in the whole of the Middle East over the death of an atomic bomb buried in the seabed of the Pacific

[Humus]

Yeah, Napster is sort of holding the evolution in this area back. They only support mp3 and wma, of which both suck equally.

[James]

I just find it truly bizarre how the audiophile "high" end and the consumer quality "low" end are becoming more and more seperated.

On the low end some encoding schemas offer up to 20x compression with "acceptable" quality loss. Mp3 encoding is terrible from a quality standpoint. It sacrafices quality for small file size. The reasoning behind which is that the sounds the Mp3 encoding process removes in compressing the file would be lost anyway in real world playback. Even using VBR encoding, it still is far from audiophile quality.

On the high end is the DVD audio format. Boasting better than CD quality sound, but at the price of a massive increase in space consumed (storage space, not physical space).

Now does any of the current or upcoming encoding schemas occupy a quasi-middle ground. Namely, do any of them offer a compression ratio close to or better than Mp3 while at the same time offering audiophile quality?

Ogg Vorbis is a nice all around format, but still not exactly up to audiophile specs.

I have yet to check out Mp+ or VQF, but I will as soon as I get home.

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"I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates who once said, 'I Drank What?'"

[Humus]

Well, MP+ uses a little more space than mp3, but with a huge improvement in quality.
VQF on the other hand is very small (you cannot even make it higher that 96kbit/s), but has it's own sets of artefacts (sounds a little blurred and not that good stereo separation). But compared with mp3 on the same bitrate it's much better.