Skip to main content ↑ ↓

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.
Topic: alt-preset cbr xxx Question (Read 4135 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

alt-preset cbr xxx Question

Hi

In what way is the "alt-preset cbr xxx" preset better than using lame's normal cbr?

alt-preset cbr xxx Question

Reply #1 –
yes

alt-preset cbr xxx Question

Reply #2 –
Yes, what???

alt-preset cbr xxx Question

Reply #3 –
Yes, indeed!

Mp3s made with the alt-presets are of higher audio quality than the ones made the regular way. The alt-presets are more than just an alias for a long command line, they include code level tweaks which allow for a more flexible, intelligent use of the encoder. Keep in mind you are limiting the possible quality alot by using cbr instead of abr or vbr. The cbr and abr presets are tuned less than the vbr one. Browse/search the forum and you will find lots of discussion threads where others have allready answered that question in great detail many times.

This place is in desperate need of a FAQ! Apart from redesigning the looks of the forum, are there any efforts made in that direction?

alt-preset cbr xxx Question

Reply #4 –
well, it seems that I'm tired today...

alt-preset cbr xxx Question

Reply #5 –
Quote
Originally posted by Gecko
This place is in desperate need of a FAQ! Apart from redesigning the looks of the forum, are there any efforts made in that direction?


Yes. Lots of eforts. But they are still hidden.

alt-preset cbr xxx Question

Reply #6 –
Quote
Originally posted by Gecko
Keep in mind you are limiting the possible quality alot by using cbr instead of abr or vbr. The cbr and abr presets are tuned less than the vbr one.

IMHO, that's really a pity.  CBR is part of the Mpeg layer 3 specification, and there are definite uses for it (streaming, submission to sites like MP3.COM, usage with certain portable players, etc). 

I suppose FhG is always a viable option for CBR encoding, but it's unfortunate that Dibrom didn't put more energy into improving Lame CBR.  I guess everyone has to set priorities.

alt-preset cbr xxx Question

Reply #7 –
Quote
Originally posted by Gecko
This place is in desperate need of a FAQ! Apart from redesigning the looks of the forum, are there any efforts made in that direction?


As rjamorim mentioned already, yes there are extensive FAQ's being written at the moment.  I'm sure some people are wondering why they aren't available yet:

1.  They aren't finished ( a few are close though ).
2.  There isn't an extensive FAQ on the --alt-presets yet
3.  I don't really want to have to shoehorn the FAQ section into this current site and to do that would require me to do all of the work twice since the layout (even for the FAQs) will be totally different on the new site; I'd rather just work on the new site version.
4.  The infrastructure for updating the FAQs (in a manner in which I feel comfortable with) isn't completed yet.
5.  Sort of back to 3, I'd rather do all of this all at once with the new site instead of piecemealing out bits of the FAQ and wasting time adding it to the soon-to-be-obsolete site.

Anyway, when things are finally ready to go, I'm sure most people will be quite impressed and pleased with the results

alt-preset cbr xxx Question

Reply #8 –
Quote
Originally posted by fewtch
I suppose FhG is always a viable option for CBR encoding, but it's unfortunate that Dibrom didn't put more energy into improving Lame CBR.  I guess everyone has to set priorities.


Reasons why I didn't:

1.  I had already been working on most of this for months.  This included listening tests, tuning, coding, etc.  When the time came that I was finally finished up with the VBR stuff I didn't have time to go back and work as much on everything else.

2.  I have no interest in CBR.  It's not a quality based solution and so no matter what I do, it will never be as good as VBR.

3.  Low bitrate CBR is all that I think has relevance since this is within the context of streaming.  Unfortunately, LAME has no intensity stereo, so low bitrate encodings with LAME will never be optimal as far as mp3 goes just from that aspect.

4.  There's less area for modifications and tweaks with CBR due to it simply being less flexible than vbr.  The encoding routines are simpler, etc, and there's only so much you can do to try and increase quality when you can't flex the bitrate.

With that being said, I have spent a fairly decent amount of time with the abr/cbr stuff anyway.  You make it sound as if I barely did anything which isn't quite the case.  I just didn't do as much, but as illustrated above, that is because of various reasons.

alt-preset cbr xxx Question

Reply #9 –
Thanks, but I didn't mean to imply anything at all, I was simply replying to Gecko's comment: "The cbr and abr presets are tuned less than the vbr one," and pointing out there are plenty of uses for CBR (a few of which I already mentioned).

Anyway, if a quality-based solution was the highest priority for me I wouldn't even be using the MP3 format, but that's a different story...

alt-preset cbr xxx Question

Reply #10 –
Quote
Originally posted by fewtch: IMHO, that's really a pity.  CBR is part of the Mpeg layer 3 specification, and there are definite uses for it (streaming, submission to sites like MP3.COM, usage with certain portable players, etc).


I just want to clarify my post. My intention was basicaly to say (seperately!) that
1) in theory vbr is "better" than cbr (with or without tuning).
2) the vbr presets have been tuned more than the others.

I did not mean to link these two statements allthough the way I said it, it sounds that way.  I didn't want to go on and write a lot of text about why vbr is better (many others have allready done so). I also didn't mean to imply that Dibrom has neglected the cbr presets. Like he said, it's hard to improve things if you are limited to one specific bitrate, but he did what he could for cbr but concentrated his efforts on where it mattered most. The cbr presets do well, vbr does better! I wanted to give a quick answer to MrCoke without going into details (others have done that...), but hint that cbr might not be the perfect solution. I do not know if he requires cbr for whatever reason so I don't start rambling about why cbr is inferior instead of trying to provide an answer to his question.

alt-preset cbr xxx Question

Reply #11 –
I've been encoding a lot of my favorite albums with --alt-preset cbr 128, as I was given a portable cd/mp3 player (plays mp3's off of cd-r), that works best with cbr mp3's.  For usage with cheap headphones (and the player's 1 bit DAC), this is good enough quality... I can notice the mp3-ish-ness at times, but not it's rarely annoying.  What I'm wondering is, how much better is --alt-preset cbr 128 than lame's default -b 128?  I ask this mainly because the --alt-preset takes a lot longer to encode.  Not that it matters too much when I do overnight batch files...
God kills a kitten every time you encode with CBR 320

alt-preset cbr xxx Question

Reply #12 –
Quote
Originally posted by fewtch

I suppose FhG is always a viable option for CBR encoding


My dvd-player only plays cbr mp3, that's why I need the best setting/encoder that can give me cbr. I decided to use 192 kbps, now which will be the better : lame with alt-preset cbr 192 or FhG at 192??

alt-preset cbr xxx Question

Reply #13 –
As ever I'd always say try both and see if you can tell the difference!

But, IMO, I would use LAME simply because it is getting developed far quicker and generally is better sounding than all other encoders.

Ruairi
rc55.com - nothing going on

alt-preset cbr xxx Question

Reply #14 –
I've tried FhG with 128-192k CBR (Producer Pro, HQ and 'standard'), and Lame with the same settings using --alt-preset cbr xxx.

My opinion is that there are differences, but I don't notice any worse or better artifacting in either case.  Neither sounds identical to the original .wav, but it seems like Lame has its own sort of sound, and FhG has another (who knows, I'm not an expert).  I tend to like the sound of FhG a little better at bitrates <= 192k.

It probably boils down to what you prefer.  Just stay away from Blade, at all costs .
 

alt-preset cbr xxx Question

Reply #15 –
I'd just like to add that one should be careful about which Fraunhofer encoder one chooses to use, since there's been a lot of bugs in those (stereo collapse, crappy joint stereo in the older codecs etc. -- see ff123's webpages for reference). To be on the safe side, I always choose LAME over a Fraunhofer codec just to be on the safe side if I'm encoding MP3s.