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Topic: ABR 320 INSANE (Read 8036 times) previous topic - next topic
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ABR 320 INSANE

Hey Everybody,

I'm new to this site and I tried searching for what I was looking for but I found no results on it so I thought I'd create a new thread on this. I hope this is the right section for my post.

I'm looking for the right command line that I need to use in Exact Audio Copy so as to get 320 ABR INSANE. Now I'm not sure if there is actually something like 320 ABR INSANE but I do have hopes and would really appreciate if somebody could help me with the command line.

If there's nothing that can be done then please give me a brief idea about the command line used with ABR with a slight example and how is it actually used.

I tried searching on Google but nothing worked for me.
Some help would be really appreciated.

P.S:. I'm a total noob to all this.

Thanks
Umang

ABR 320 INSANE

Reply #1 –
I am not sure if Lame offers an ABR 320kbps setting.  If it does, you would use the following command line: --abr 320

I think you are confusing your terminology as --alt-preset insane resulted in 320kbps CBR files, not ABR.  You can use the following command line to get 320kbps CBR files: -b 320  That might be what you were looking for to begin with.  The best thing that you can do is download a program called foobar2000 and then conduct a blind ABX test to determine what bitrate setting is right for you.  Lame has been optimized for VBR encoding using different switches (-V 3, -V 2, -V 4, etc.) and 320kbps CBR/ABR tends to be overkill for the majority of people there.  You could save space and not lose perceptual quality by going with a lower VBR bitrate setting such as -V 3.

ABR 320 INSANE

Reply #3 –
Someone in this forum (I forget who) uses 320 kbps abr instead of 320 kbps cbr, saying that for some files it provides better quality. Personally I doubt that I could distinguish either from a lower bitrate.

ABR 320 INSANE

Reply #4 –
Because ABR is an average and 320 is the highest bitrate you can achieve wouldn't a 320ABR == 320CBR? It can't encode anything larger than 320 so to achieve a 320 ABR every frame would have to be 320 right?

ABR 320 INSANE

Reply #5 –
Quote from: pdq on
Someone in this forum (I forget who) uses 320 kbps abr instead of 320 kbps cbr, saying that for some files it provides better quality.


I thought that person (I too can't recall their name) was claiming that -V 0 -b 320 was producing better results than -b 320.

ABR 320 INSANE

Reply #6 –
I remember seeing some tests for lower bitrates and floated the idea that --vbr-new might be beneficial for 320 CBR, but that didn't seem to pan out very well.

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=67840

ABR 320 INSANE

Reply #7 –
Thank you greynol, I believe that is the thread I remembered seeing that someone said that -V 0 -b 320 produced better quality than -b 320.  I don't think I partook in that thread as I didn't understand how limiting a VBR encoder to a minimum bitrate of 320kbps (and not going higher than that either) could be beneficial over 320kbps CBR.  The same thing goes for an abr 320kbps setting.  I don't really see how the results would be different than -b 320 except that Lame might choose encode a handful of frames at a lower bitrate.

I went ahead and converted one track using two different Lame settings: 320kbps CBR and 320kbps ABR.  This track is done by Marilyn Manson, it is called The Red Carpet Grave and comes off of his "Eat Me, Drink Me" album.  The track clocks in at 4 minutes and 5 seconds.  The source file for my Lame files was an ALAC file encoded by dBpowerAMP.  I used dBpowerAMP to convert the file using Lame 3.98.2.  The overall average bitrate of the 320kbps ABR file was 319kbps.  It had a file size of 9.34 MB and experienced a lowpass cutoff point at 20KHz (maybe it is 21KHz, the spectral view that EAC uses isn't very detailed).  I am supplying the lowpass filter information just to do it, I am not advocating the use of this information to try to prove that one setting is higher quality than the other.

The 320kbps CBR file came in at 320kbps (duh) and had a file size of 9.35 MB.  It experienced the typical lowpass filter of 20KHz (again, this might be 21KHz or 20.5KHz as I can't really tell from EAC's spectral view graphs).  So it looks like both files are about the same other than the abr setting encoding a handful of frames at a lower bitrate (probably 256kbps).  The file size difference between the two is 0.01MB.  I wouldn't call that significant at all.  Someone would need a library size of about 1 million songs just to see a 1GB difference in sizes between encoding at 320kbps CBR and ABR.  Technically speaking, I don't see how the ABR setting would produce results better than using CBR as 320kbps is the highest bitrate that Lame can use without going into the free format range (which breaks compatibility with most devices and software).

Personally, these two settings are way to high for me and, from what I have seen here on HA and other websites, they are too high for most other people as well.  One should always conduct blind ABX tests to determine what bitrate setting is right for them especially when many portable players on the market have 4-8GB of storage.  The file size differences between 320kbps and even -V 2 are drastic and could allow the players to carry around a lot more songs.

ABR 320 INSANE

Reply #8 –
I am one of those who went into looking at ABR 320 using LAME 3.97 out of curiosity.  Don't use --preset 320 or you'll end up CBR.  Use --ABR 320 instead. Using LAME 3.98.2 will give a higher bitrate compared to 3.97 (IIRC, I get bitrates around 290 using old LAME). There have been issues regarding CBR and presumably ABR with regards to 3.98.2, as the version was focused on VBR optimization.

If one can't distinguish and ABR 320 and CBR 320, then one can say that ABR 320 is better when it comes to same quality yet smaller filesize than CBR 320.

Cheers!

EDIT: I used --ABR 320 -q0 for 3.97, as -q has been unoperable in 3.98.
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....st&p=524954
"Listen to me...
Never take unsolicited advice..."

ABR 320 INSANE

Reply #9 –
I think the main difference between ABR 320 and CBR 320 is that ABR 320 will encode frames that LAME determines is silence at 32kbps instead of 320kbps.  For many songs, that will be 0.5% or less of the total frames.  That's also where the difference in filesize between ABR 320 and CBR 320 occurs.

Otherwise, ABR 320 will result in 99.5% or more of the frames being encoded at 320kbps.

ABR 320 INSANE

Reply #10 –
ABR 320 -q0 using LAME 3.97 tends to encode around ~290 kbps
"Listen to me...
Never take unsolicited advice..."

ABR 320 INSANE

Reply #11 –
Quote from: Rio on
ABR 320 -q0 using LAME 3.97 tends to encode around ~290 kbps



Interesting.  Using "-b 320" for 320 CBR and "--abr 320" for 320 ABR with LAME 3.98.2 yields only a difference of about 0.5% at the worst in the tracks I tested.  They were still encoded at ~318 or ~319 kbps with ABR 320.


ABR 320 INSANE

Reply #12 –
don't use 3.98 like i have said, use 3.97 with -q0 on. 3.98 uses -q0 by default, but still bloats the bitrate. further encodes i achieved ~280 kbps
"Listen to me...
Never take unsolicited advice..."

ABR 320 INSANE

Reply #13 –
You can shrink files encoded by lame 3.98 with mp3packer.

ABR 320 INSANE

Reply #14 –
At the risk of being accused of being a pedantic bully AGAIN, the OP clearly states in the subtitle of the topic, "I need the command line for the same.", but then goes on to say in the opening post, "I'm a total noob to all this.".

How does he know that he needs it? Has he carried out ABX testing to ascertain that he does actually need it?

Cheers, Slipstreem. 

ABR 320 INSANE

Reply #15 –
Quote from: Rio on
don't use 3.98 like i have said, use 3.97 with -q0 on. 3.98 uses -q0 by default, but still bloats the bitrate. further encodes i achieved ~280 kbps


So presumably lame3.98 would produce 280kpbs files (if that's what you want) if you used an "-ABR 280" command line option.

ABR 320 INSANE

Reply #16 –
Quote from: uart on
Quote from: Rio on
don't use 3.98 like i have said, use 3.97 with -q0 on. 3.98 uses -q0 by default, but still bloats the bitrate. further encodes i achieved ~280 kbps


So presumably lame3.98 would produce 280kpbs files (if that's what you want) if you used an "-ABR 280" command line option.


What I wanted is a step further from 320 CBR, that is, a 320 kbps quality MP3 but significantly less bitrate than 320. One will say go -V0, but on the benefit of ABR vs. CBR I went to exploit ABR 320 even it would not average at 320 kbps, aiming to achieve the prespecified goal. Since LAME 3.98 would not allow me with that, I used 3.97.

It just so happened that it shrinks the resulting encode to ~280 (even down to ~270 kbps) which is around 12.5 to 15.6% reduction in filesize from 320 kbps.

Of course, you could still use 3.98 if you want --ABR 280.

EDIT: BTW, the -q0 option was to justify the bitrate optimization, as opposed to the post of Wonderslug of it still ~320.

BTW, mp3repacker works good, but that would mean additional process just to justify 3.98. Again, there still have been issues regarding CBR on 3.98. Why repack a 3.98 encoded CBR with issues?
"Listen to me...
Never take unsolicited advice..."

ABR 320 INSANE

Reply #17 –
I PM'ed the OP. He's happy with the settings.

Question: If I say ABR 320 is better than CBR 320, will I be violating TOS#8?
"Listen to me...
Never take unsolicited advice..."