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Poll

What lossy format(s) do you use on a regular basis?

AAC or HE-AAC v1/v2 (.m4a, .aac…)
LossyWAV; .lossy.flac, .lossy.wv, .lossy.tak…
MP3 (.mp3)
Musepack (.mpc)
Ogg Vorbis (.ogg)
Opus (.opus)
WavPack Lossy/Hybrid (.wv)
xHE-AAC (USAC)[
I don't encode/listen to lossy audio on a regular basis

Voting closes: 2025-01-03 23:33:30

Topic: 2024 Lossy format poll (Read 7470 times) previous topic - next topic
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2024 Lossy format poll

"In democracy it's your vote that counts; In feudalism it's your count that votes."
- (found on a Linked-in extraordinaire's bio)

It's that time of the year again!
As usual this will shut around 2025 New Years' Day, depending on where in the world you are.
Worth mentioning that, just like last year, now one can gorge oneself up by voting for up to 5 different formats.
Once said votes are confirmed they cannot be changed afterwards.
How I stopped worrying and returned to loving lossy encoding again?
By listening to music, not the media it's on.

"União e reconstrução"

Re: 2024 Lossy format poll

Reply #1 –
Voted for Opus.
Most likely popularity of xHE-AAC (USAC) will go up since ffmpeg will support  it and ffmpeg libraries are used everywhere.

Re: 2024 Lossy format poll

Reply #2 –
69th vote nice
And so, with digital, computer was put into place, and all the IT that came with it.

Re: 2024 Lossy format poll

Reply #3 –
I use Apple AAC at 192kbps TVBR with some edge cases encoded with FHG(winamp) at 192kbps, So I picked AAC.
Lossy QAAC at Q91 | Lossless FLAC(only archiving)

Re: 2024 Lossy format poll

Reply #4 –
I usually don't worry about codecs. But I have obtained interesting results with Musepack, quite transparent to my ears. So it's for casual listening when "high fidelity" isn't important (anyway, what I have is mostly M4A or content downloaded from YouTube :P). Although I didn't voted for Musepack, I don't use it too much yet :).

Re: 2024 Lossy format poll

Reply #5 –
I wonder how much time it will take to AAC/Opus overtake MP3. 10 years more?

For picture formats, JPEG is still in wide use but AVIF  and WebP are slowly becoming popular.

Re: 2024 Lossy format poll

Reply #6 –
Quote from: btc on
I wonder how much time it will take to AAC/Opus overtake MP3. 10 years more?

For picture formats, JPEG is still in wide use but AVIF  and WebP are slowly becoming popular.

Yeah, but I wonder how much time it will take to JPEG-XL to be recognized as the good format it is. (And to the Daala codec to resume it's development, if that's possible :'()
 
Opus is a bit hard to rate, being honest. But it really does a good work, taking in mind that there's no much range for improvement in audio codecs (AI magic doesn't convince me yet, maybe excepting Lyra :-\).

Re: 2024 Lossy format poll

Reply #7 –
Quote from: btc on
I wonder how much time it will take to AAC/Opus overtake MP3. 10 years more?

For picture formats, JPEG is still in wide use but AVIF  and WebP are slowly becoming popular.

AAC already won, 98% of DAP's support It and It 100% for PC/Smartphone. I think the mainstreaming of Electronic made the shift happen quicker since I can listen to Autechre at 192kbps VBR without worry about will MP3 cry playing this?.

I think JPEG situation different since It nowhere near as flawed as MP3 is.

 
Lossy QAAC at Q91 | Lossless FLAC(only archiving)

Re: 2024 Lossy format poll

Reply #8 –
AAC hasn't exactly overtaken MP3 generally, although there are applications where it is more popular.
Opus hasn't exactly overtaken MP3 either, even if that's the YouTube audio codec of choice.

Quote from: ER4SR-guy on
I think the mainstreaming of Electronic made the shift happen quicker since I can listen to Autechre at 192kbps VBR without worry about will MP3 cry playing this?.
Guess what formats are available at https://autechre.warp.net/?lang=en_GB and which one is not.

Re: 2024 Lossy format poll

Reply #9 –
Quote from: Porcus on
AAC hasn't exactly overtaken MP3 generally, although there are applications where it is more popular.
Opus hasn't exactly overtaken MP3 either, even if that's the YouTube audio codec of choice.

Quote from: ER4SR-guy on
I think the mainstreaming of Electronic made the shift happen quicker since I can listen to Autechre at 192kbps VBR without worry about will MP3 cry playing this?.
Guess what formats are available at https://autechre.warp.net/?lang=en_GB and which one is not.

They sell FLAC which people can convert to AAC or Opus at 192kbps.
Lossy QAAC at Q91 | Lossless FLAC(only archiving)

Re: 2024 Lossy format poll

Reply #10 –
Quote from: a.ok.in on
Opus is a bit hard to rate, being honest. But it really does a good work, taking in mind that there's no much range for improvement in audio codecs (AI magic doesn't convince me yet, maybe excepting Lyra :-\).
I can understand, those extremely low bitrate AI codecs don't look like a good replacement to higher bitrate current formats.

There are some potentially good exceptions like you mentioned Lyra (Soundstream based) and also MDCTNet which claims to have 2x performance in comparison with Opus@48 kbps:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2212.04583
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2408.06954

Re: 2024 Lossy format poll

Reply #12 –
Quote from: a.ok.in on
I usually don't worry about codecs. But I have obtained interesting results with Musepack, quite transparent to my ears. So it's for casual listening when "high fidelity" isn't important (anyway, what I have is mostly M4A or content downloaded from YouTube :P). Although I didn't voted for Musepack, I don't use it too much yet :).
Yet!  :D


PS: You again? ;D
How I stopped worrying and returned to loving lossy encoding again?
By listening to music, not the media it's on.

"União e reconstrução"

Re: 2024 Lossy format poll

Reply #13 –
I use opus when I'm converting my flacs for use on my phone. I only use aac when I rip backups of my movies as that's just the default audio codec for mp4 files. These days I don't really use lossy compression for anything else.
 

Re: 2024 Lossy format poll

Reply #14 –
Mostly LC AAC (always created by qaac/Apple), sometimes mp3 - because of cars. It's not even because they don't understand AAC (one car of mother-in-law is just stupid and needs m4a renamed to mp4), but e.g. they don't display embedded art from aac files, whereas mp3 works. Car audio - a sad story, often just an afterthought and a mystery. E.g. embedded album art exceeding 800px doesn't display in my car. It takes time to find that out. OK, that's offtopic.

Re: 2024 Lossy format poll

Reply #15 –
Quote from: Squeller on
they don't display embedded art from aac files, whereas mp3 works.
Same, I have an old TV (from 2010) with USB support; artwork from mp3 is fine, but doesn't show anything for aac. Also it seems to detect .ogg Vorbis files, but cannot play them.
Anyway, just confirms that MP3 is the damn standard everywhere :)...

Re: 2024 Lossy format poll

Reply #16 –
Quote from: btc on
I wonder how much time it will take to AAC/Opus overtake MP3. 10 years more?

For picture formats, JPEG is still in wide use but AVIF  and WebP are slowly becoming popular.

JPEG has newer better encoders like Jpegli giving it some new life so not surprising to see it sticking around still.

Re: 2024 Lossy format poll

Reply #17 –
Hmm... 119 votes so far.
With roughly 3/4 of the year gone, it looks like we're gonna barely reach 2019 levels.

Buth heck, such numbers have been going down since the first of these post-2000s polls:



Either lossy has become irrelevant, HA's active member count has dwindled, or the novelty has simply worn off.  :-\
How I stopped worrying and returned to loving lossy encoding again?
By listening to music, not the media it's on.

"União e reconstrução"

Re: 2024 Lossy format poll

Reply #18 –
Quote from: includemeout on
Either lossy has become irrelevant, HA's active member count has dwindled, or the novelty has simply worn off.  :-\
Forums are dying slowly since many years ago. This isn't strange.

Re: 2024 Lossy format poll

Reply #19 –
I think its partly because of the way this forum is built. Sometimes i do wish for a declutter of the messages. A lot of space is occupied by unnecessary info. Not optimal for phones. Also tree structure for responses would be neat.
And so, with digital, computer was put into place, and all the IT that came with it.

Re: 2024 Lossy format poll

Reply #21 –
Quote from: btc on
There is also poll "Where do you get your music from (primary)?" (Spotify, buy CD, ...)  .
 And it's pretty dated, 2015.  https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,108139.0.html
;)
I just voted in this other poll:  https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,120442.0.html (What is the primary source you listen music from on your portable device?)
I voted the 2nd more popular option  :P

Anyway I usually don't listen much music in portable devices. If I could choose more than one option maybe I would mark too FM radio (no one voted for it  :'()... and I wonder what the hell means the option "Online streaming services in offline mode (pre-loading to cache) - poor or too expensive internet connection".

Re: 2024 Lossy format poll

Reply #23 –
Quote from: rubiconlexicon on
JPEG has newer better encoders like Jpegli giving it some new life so not surprising to see it sticking around still.
Yes,  Google, Mozilla and internet community are taking care of JPEG format.
First Mozilla has published mozjpeg, and now JPEG-XL and Google developers have improved JPEG efficiency further with jpegli.  Also there is high bitrate JPEG encoder guetzli.

MP3 in contrary is abandoned. LAME, Helix, FhG mp3  encoders are no longer under development.
If JPEG was improved after 30 years, why MP3 can't be? https://hydrogenaud.io/index.php/topic,126718.msg1051711/topicseen.html#new

Re: 2024 Lossy format poll

Reply #24 –
Quote from: btc on
MP3 in contrary is abandoned. LAME, Helix, FhG mp3  encoders are no longer under development.
The fact your parents don't supposedly look after you since you left home, does not necessarily mean they have abandoned you.

MP3 has just reached its full capacity and matter-of-factly, its maturity. Get over it!
How I stopped worrying and returned to loving lossy encoding again?
By listening to music, not the media it's on.

"União e reconstrução"