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Topic: 3.90.3 or 3.97b2 (Read 13751 times) previous topic - next topic
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3.90.3 or 3.97b2

Reply #25 –
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Be careful with thinking like 'VBR is better than ABR'...

What I am confident is that, if this is merely programming bug/regression or error in the algorithm that produce such issues, it can be solved.

What I see the issue is that, these problem samples are exceptions rather than the norm.

Trumpet is a famous problem sample iirc, I think I should do a listening test too.

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It is not vague words. Just try to listen in the way i propose. It is very easy to hear at almost all songs.

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To hear what i am talkin about put at end in DSP manager in foobar "Phase inverter" and than "Downmix channels to mono".

I don't understand why you need to listen to manipulated music. Any special purposes?
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Read for what, it is better to listen isn't it?

Read the report of course. For normal listening conditions all encoders are virtually problem-free.

Or am I mis-understanding something? You need to listen to specially manipulated music?

3.90.3 or 3.97b2

Reply #26 –
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MP3 and the likes are not designed to be played back with (heavy) post-processing. There is no special "preserve surround channel" mode in Lame. It is designed to operate on regular stereo (and mono) only. Look at it this way: the surround channel is supposed to be inaudible in a stereo playback situation. And those inaudible places is where any lossy psychoacoustic encoder hides its quantisation noise. No wonder it's all bubly. High bitrate ABR probably preserves this information because it is being inefficient. What you are doing is complaining that a car doesn't swim.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=358183"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Is it postprocessing? - Yes. Heavy? - Think not. It is just a pair of wires conected other way. And i prefer ABR 256 because it sounds like CBR 320 with more efficient bitrate. But the only mode that destroy surround is VBR. --preset-extreme (or -V 0) destroys surround much more than CBR 128 is what the main thing i am talking about.

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I'm not sure what you're talking about. hpf = high pass filter? In a car the rear speakers get the same signal as the front speakers. You can do the same with the speakers behind the sofa, copy the signal that is (beware of phase problems). Of course if you have a dedicated low frequency unit, you should use a frequency crossover. Maybe that is what you mean?
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=358183"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

(edited)High Pass Filter at about 200 Hz and Low Pass Filter at about 5 KHz.
In a car the rear speakers get the same signal as the front speakers in one case you connect that such way but there is another way. One speaker connects to left plus wire and right plus wire of your headunit/amplifier another speaker connects to left minus wire and right minus wire. It is almost plain surroud.

3.90.3 or 3.97b2

Reply #27 –
Quote
Quote
To hear what i am talkin about put at end in DSP manager in foobar "Phase inverter" and than "Downmix channels to mono".

I don't understand why you need to listen to manipulated music. Any special purposes?

In the way i propose you may hear from your front speakers without any wire manipulations what i am hear from my surround channel.

Quote
Quote
Read for what, it is better to listen isn't it?

Read the report of course. For normal listening conditions all encoders are virtually problem-free.

Or am I mis-understanding something? You need to listen to specially manipulated music?
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=358233"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Manipulated - no. Just some kind of not plain stereo speaker set like many other. And i points to the fact that you don't want to hear - the only mode that heavily destroys virtual surroud channel is VBR.

3.90.3 or 3.97b2

Reply #28 –
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Trumpet is a famous problem sample iirc, I think I should do a listening test too.

You're very much welcome to do so cause this is experience not just reasoning.

Of course I do hope these problems will be overcome with current Lame development, and with the experimental lame_attack version (see his transient thread) I think Gabriel has taken a good step in the right direction.

What I tried to say in my first post here was: beware of a generalized black-and-white thinking (old vs. new, vbr vs. abr, ....). Try to differentiate.
lame3995o -Q1.7 --lowpass 17

3.90.3 or 3.97b2

Reply #29 –
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Manipulated - no. Just some kind of not plain stereo speaker set like many other. And i points to the fact that you don't want to hear - the only mode that heavily destroys virtual surroud channel is VBR.

From what I understand, you are not talking about the same issue as halb27 says. halb27 mentions the weakness in the current LAME. What you are referring to is a usability issue, that VBR algorithm destroys the way you listen to music.

I am thinking of 3 things:

1) I think VBR (variable bit rate) by itself means that the bit rate is not constant for all the frames. It should have nothing to do with "destroying" your "virtual channels". Maybe the algorithms that is used by the LAME VBR modes (but not in CBR/ABR modes) cause this issue.

2) Does it happen in all versions of LAME up to 3.97 beta? I have an impression that it happens somewhere in the development, as VBR was heavily developed in recent years.

3) I am not sure if custom manipulation of channels can be supported, or even considered. However, seeing that CBR/ABR modes work correctly, I guess it can be done, except if there are some limitations exist somewhere else in VBR modes.

3.90.3 or 3.97b2

Reply #30 –
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--preset-extreme (or -V 0) destroys surround much more than CBR 128 is what the main thing i am talking about.

And in addition: "lame -V 0 -b 192" much worse than "lame -b 192". And in that meaning there are almost no differrences between 3.90.3 or 3.97b.

3.90.3 or 3.97b2

Reply #31 –
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Try trumpet starting with 3.97 -V5 to obviously hear what it's about. Continue with -V2 and -V0 to see that the problem is still there.
Then try 3.90.3 --abr x -h with x=192, 224, 256. Hear how the problem is not a big one even at 192 kbps, and goes away at 256 kbps.

You mixed different parameters to draw the conclusion you wanted to draw, and you probably know it.
You are comparing 2 versions using 2 different encoding modes using 2 different psymodels, and you are able to use this to conclude that abr is better than vbr at high bitrates?
The problem with trumpet.wav is in the attack detection, part of the psymodel. 3.90.3 with -V0 would also reduce the trumpet.wav problem because 3.90.3 is using gpsycho by default. This is not a vbr vs abr case.

3.90.3 or 3.97b2

Reply #32 –
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What I tried to say in my first post here was: beware of a generalized black-and-white thinking (old vs. new, vbr vs. abr, ....). Try to differentiate.

Of course I understand this. That's why listening test is important. However what I concern is how severe the issues are in real world music. Can it be generalized that LAME VBR is inferior to ABR in all music? Of course not. And I think nobody disagrees that LAME 3.97b2 is recommended over 3.90.3 in most cases.

What "recommendations" mean is that generally speaking, you should not go wrong if followed properly. Of course realizing that LAME is lossy codec, it has its problem samples. How frequent you encounter the samples is another matter.

3.90.3 or 3.97b2

Reply #33 –
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2) Does it happen in all versions of LAME up to 3.97 beta? I have an impression that it happens somewhere in the development, as VBR was heavily developed in recent years.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=358241"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

It is definitely the same with 3.90.3 and up.

There is one workaround is to use -m s switch. In case of surround channel in VBR stereo mode sound much better than plain VBR but worse that CBR but stereo signal itself starts to have much preecho effects and noise and it is practically useless even in -V 0.

3.90.3 or 3.97b2

Reply #34 –
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Try trumpet starting with 3.97 -V5 to obviously hear what it's about. Continue with -V2 and -V0 to see that the problem is still there.
Then try 3.90.3 --abr x -h with x=192, 224, 256. Hear how the problem is not a big one even at 192 kbps, and goes away at 256 kbps.

You mixed different parameters to draw the conclusion you wanted to draw, and you probably know it.
You are comparing 2 versions using 2 different encoding modes using 2 different psymodels, and you are able to use this to conclude that abr is better than vbr at high bitrates?
The problem with trumpet.wav is in the attack detection, part of the psymodel. 3.90.3 with -V0 would also reduce the trumpet.wav problem because 3.90.3 is using gpsycho by default. This is not a vbr vs abr case.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=358244"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Yes, things are mixed up in this statement.
Attention in the recent posts has been drawn towards VBR/ABR and I've answered quoting my experience which adresses more than just VBR/ABR.
As you can read from my first post here my suspicion concerning the problem is
- psymodel or psymodel usage (what you just actually confirmed)
- VBR. Well, your post makes me really wonder what my suspicion is based on. IIRC all my negative VBR experience was with the alt-presets or -Vx in current versions. I can't remember having tried -Vx with Lame 3.90.3. I do well remember other well-respected members like guruboolez were talking about certain negative experience with VBR that is cases where bit rate was chosen too low. So I will be cautions talking about VBR flaws. And will try 3.90.3 -Vx tonight.

Sorry for talking too loud about potential VBR flaws.
lame3995o -Q1.7 --lowpass 17

3.90.3 or 3.97b2

Reply #35 –
@Gabriel:

As for the samples on your problem sample thread:
Are the problems all due to attack detection problems?
(Acoustically to me some problems share similarities, for instance herding_calls and trumpet).
lame3995o -Q1.7 --lowpass 17

3.90.3 or 3.97b2

Reply #36 –
Well, blaming VBR for badly encoded samples like trumpet and herding_calls was quite allright.

I just tested 3.90.3 gpsycho usage -Vn -h against --abr x -h, exactly speaking
-  -V2 -h against --abr 192 -h
-  -V1 -h against --abr 224 -h
-  -V0 -h against --abr 245 -h
which should be quite a fair comparison as far as generally expected average bitrate is concerned.

All the VBR modes did an extremely bad job on herding_calls and a very bad job on trumpet whereas the ABR modes are very satisfying from 224 kbps on, and not too bad with 192 kbps.

Average bitrate on herding_calls:
- -V2 -h: 113 kbps !!!
- -V1 -h: 119 kbps !!!
- -V0 -h: 127 kbps !!!
And you absolutely hear that. Awful!

Trumpet is a bit better and achieves the same quality with -V0 as does --abr 192.

Horrible results for VBR.
I know it's not the only issue cause current Lame versions behave even worse due to nspsytune usage as Gabriel said (or more complex combinations of all these things).

So I stick with my advice:

For rock-solid high quality encodings if disc space isn't a problem (in many cases it isn't) use

Lame 3.90.3 or Lame 3.91 with something like

--abr 256 -h.

It's not necessarily 256 kbps, but should be at least 224 kbps.

It's not a bad idea to lowpass additionally according to your likings.

Restricting lowest bit rate used by means of the -b switch is a further possibility to do everything to ensure quality. (But I don't know any samle where this is necessary).
lame3995o -Q1.7 --lowpass 17

3.90.3 or 3.97b2

Reply #37 –
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hmhm,
I wouldn#t say, that every post-processing is equal.

It is standard these days, to listen to stereo material via Logic7 or DPl2 decoders. Either you like it, or you don't, depends also on the music and your mood.

So, a good performasnce of a lossy format should also consider these Logic7/DPL2 decodings.

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Is it postprocessing? - Yes. Heavy? - Think not. It is just a pair of wires conected other way.
Processing which makes the inaudible audible is what I consider heavy (and almost everything will qualify). It is highly likely that you will uncover quantisation noise this way. I'm sure you could develop an encoder which also takes into account the distortion added to any surround or matrixed channel without breaking the format standard. However no such encoder exists. If one codec should happen to preserve this part of the signal it is "by accident" an inefficient. Solution: Pre-process the signal and use a proper multi-channel codec.

I would also say that listening to music via Pro Logic and the likes is far from standard. Especially in a purist environment. You can of course do whatever you like, but you can't complain if you are using something outside of the design specs.

Quote
(edited)High Pass Filter at about 200 Hz and Low Pass Filter at about 5 KHz.
In a car the rear speakers get the same signal as the front speakers in one case you connect that such way but there is another way. One speaker connects to left plus wire and right plus wire of your headunit/amplifier another speaker connects to left minus wire and right minus wire. It is almost plain surroud.
Thank you for explaining. What you are doing here is uncovering a part of the signal which was not regarded during encoding. It is bound to sound awkward. (See above)

3.90.3 or 3.97b2

Reply #38 –
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Well, blaming VBR for badly encoded samples like trumpet and herding_calls was quite allright.
...
So I stick with my advice:

For rock-solid high quality encodings if disc space isn't a problem (in many cases it isn't) use

Lame 3.90.3 or Lame 3.91 with something like

--abr 256 -h.
...

Claiming "rock-solid" with merely 2 problem samples is unwise. You must prove this statement across a wide range, if not all, samples at this bitrate in order to draw the conclusion. I think you cannot do so, seeing that LAME is generally achieving transparency at 128kbps for a lot of music samples.

What I would rephrase is that "for those music that you find suffering in current VBR modes like (problem samples here), try ABR."

Of course it would be better if the cause is found and fixed.

3.90.3 or 3.97b2

Reply #39 –
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a) ... I think you cannot do so, seeing that LAME is generally achieving transparency at 128kbps for a lot of music samples. ...

b) What I would rephrase is that "for those music that you find suffering in current VBR modes like (problem samples here), try ABR."

c) Of course it would be better if the cause is found and fixed.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=358461"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

a) Lame 3.97b -V5 is great for most of the music.
b) Of course you can always use a method that works most of the time and switch to another method when you encounter problems.
c) I do hope so.

Everything is fine doing so.
Just a personal decision.
I personally like using a method which is guaranteed to be reliable to a very great extend. I can never have security, but with 3.90.3 --abr 270 -h -b224 --lowpass 18600 I feel very much on the safe side. All my productive mp3 music is encoded this way (so far - for the next future I will try Helix just out of curiosity). I've never encountered a problem neither with 'normal' music nor with all the problem samples I tried. And as I don't have to care about disc space neither on PC nor on my iRiver H140 this is my way to go.
I'll switch back to current Lame as soon as the problems are reliably solved.
lame3995o -Q1.7 --lowpass 17

3.90.3 or 3.97b2

Reply #40 –
@Gabriel:

What is strange is:

I had a suspicion against nspsytune in the early days of my occupation with the problems.
You were arguing against that but you concentrated more on the formal things (my kind of writing) than giving insight to the issue.
After realizing that 3.90.3 api works fine on trumpet I didn't talk about nspsytune any more though my suspicion remained.
After testing 3.90.3 --abr x and --alt-preset x for finding what x should be good enough I found quality difference is there for x=224 and especially x=192 (in favor of --abr x), but was neglegible to me at 256 kbps.

So as for 3.90.3 and these problems gpsycho is preferable, but at very high bit rates it's not so essential any more.
VBR problems are more essential with 3.90.3.

With Lame 3.96/3.97/3.98 however psymodel or it's usage has become more unreliable. trumpet isn't transparent even at cbr 320.
lame3995o -Q1.7 --lowpass 17

3.90.3 or 3.97b2

Reply #41 –
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You were arguing against that but you concentrated more on the formal things (my kind of writing) than giving insight to the issue.

Probably because you are often drawing "formal" conclusions based a only 1 or two tests mixing different parameters at once, thus hindering ability to find real conclusions.

Example:
In this thread I told you that the problem with trumpet.wav is not a vbr vs abr problem but instead a psymodel problem.
You then tested tested 3.90.3 gpsycho usage -Vn -h against --abr x -h using herding_calls, which a different sample, to conclude on abr superiority against vbr.
To me this is simply flawed.

3.90.3 or 3.97b2

Reply #42 –
Well, it isn´t worth to waste so much energy to find the "new" best lame setting with old versions and 2-sample bettering command lines.
I have a good feeling about some BIG improvements happening atm, i heard. Soon we all can spend our time finding new samples cause much of the older will be clean
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!

3.90.3 or 3.97b2

Reply #43 –
Quote
Quote
You were arguing against that but you concentrated more on the formal things (my kind of writing) than giving insight to the issue.

Probably because you are often drawing "formal" conclusions based a only 1 or two tests mixing different parameters at once, thus hindering ability to find real conclusions.

Example:
In this thread I told you that the problem with trumpet.wav is not a vbr vs abr problem but instead a psymodel problem.
You then tested tested 3.90.3 gpsycho usage -Vn -h against --abr x -h using herding_calls, which a different sample, to conclude on abr superiority against vbr.
To me this is simply flawed.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=358514"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

???
I was testing trumpet and herding_calls (those samples I do know suffer most from the problems).
trumpet showed bad VBR behavior as well, it just wasn't so extremely bad as herding_calls. So I reported more on herding_calls.

Apart from that I feeled obliged having to test VBR behavior as I really couldn't say what my opinion was based on. It has emerged over time but that doesn't say it has a real background. I felt obliged to test 3.90.3 -Vn, I felt not obliged to test specifically trumpet for the only reason you were talking about trumpet.

Sure I always test trumpet, and -V2, -V1, -V0 were all bad on it, much worse than the competitive --abr 192, --abr 224, --abr 245.
lame3995o -Q1.7 --lowpass 17

3.90.3 or 3.97b2

Reply #44 –
Quote
Well, it isn´t worth to waste so much energy to find the "new" best lame setting with old versions and 2-sample bettering command lines.
I have a good feeling about some BIG improvements happening atm, i heard. Soon we all can spend our time finding new samples cause much of the older will be clean
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=358521"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

OK, let's look forward for it.
lame3995o -Q1.7 --lowpass 17

3.90.3 or 3.97b2

Reply #45 –
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I would also say that listening to music via Pro Logic and the likes is far from standard. Especially in a purist environment. You can of course do whatever you like, but you can't complain if you are using something outside of the design specs.


erm, please reread what i wrote above.
No simple ProLogic.
I wrote about Logic7/DPL2. Very different from ProLogic in practical terms.
It is stereo, stereo is standard, there are specs, howto mix DS2 stereo stream doing yourself by freeware, developed originally by DarkAvenger for HeadAC3he, even mp2 can save DS2, and Besweet has implementation of DS2 also.

Though this stereo offers a nice possibility to get good surround.
Lossy stereo formats don't have general problems encoding this, see Lame 128k or mp2. Only certain modes might get in trouble or perform worse or better on this.
So, it is interesting to point out flaws, as there are also examples, where lossy works well. So the developers can see, which modes could be tuned, and which things result to which effects.
No need to discuss about "purist environment" in music listening, and concentrating in "pure stereo". Lossy stereo is especially not for purists, those would go Lossless only, or even swear, that original CD is better than Lossless, whatever.
Lossy/mp3 is common, also common are capable Logic7/DPL2 amps. No probs. I think, it is obvious, that developers might not have Logic7/DPl2 as most important issue on their ToDo-lists, but it is also unnecessary to argue against this feature by "purists arguments", as it is really well possible in Lossy.
 

3.90.3 or 3.97b2

Reply #46 –
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Processing which makes the inaudible audible is what I consider heavy (and almost everything will qualify). It is highly likely that you will uncover quantisation noise this way. I'm sure you could develop an encoder which also takes into account the distortion added to any surround or matrixed channel without breaking the format standard. However no such encoder exists. If one codec should happen to preserve this part of the signal it is "by accident" an inefficient. Solution: Pre-process the signal and use a proper multi-channel codec.

I would also say that listening to music via Pro Logic and the likes is far from standard. Especially in a purist environment. You can of course do whatever you like, but you can't complain if you are using something outside of the design specs.

[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=358351"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Prologic sucks with music content i'm talking about something closer to "simple" surround.

The question is why we are talking about vbr as a most quality and compromise mode if it's not true in special needs? I understand you point but more logically to use abr and cbr instead of multichannel codec or vbr and not to talk to use vbr in this case.

I think the good idea is to describe recommendations to this situation at "Recommended LAME settings".
And i hope the LAME developers draw an attention to this fact. And it'll be interesting to hear from developers why only vbr corrupts surround "channel" even with high lower bitrate floor (-b). And of cause it will be good to have something like "surround preserve switch" in vbr mode.

Thanks.