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Topic: Lame 3.94a11 (Read 30065 times) previous topic - next topic
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Lame 3.94a11

Reply #25
Yes, abr/cbr presets need some work.
I'll probably work on them this weekend, so next week you will be able to compare medium against abr.

And no, if preset medium is reaching on a specific track xxx bitrate, it should absolutely not produce the same output as --preset xxx. That would totally defeat the purpose of true vbr compared to abr.


Btw, I'm still waiting for opinions about this:
Which one seems better: medium or medium1?

Lame 3.94a11

Reply #26
Quote
180 kbps ABR files as medium preset will often produce bigger files than preset standard with classical works. Especially with some quiet tracks. Maybe not a good idea...
The --preset medium, with lame 3.93.1, turns around 150-155 kbps, with my music. Sometimes below 140.

I think gazzyk1ns meant 180kbps arbitrarily. If medium is mapped to an ABR commandline, the target bitrate would probably be in the 160-170kbps range.

I think ideally the worded presets would be all VBR...not because VBR is necessarily superior to ABR, but because you can always use --preset [xxx] to get ABR...and with music like orchestral/chamber/monophonic, ABR uses bits whether you need to spend them or not.

An action plan:

1) establish a very good medium VBR preset commandline
2) integrate the new switches into the ABR preset logic

The second task could be incredibly difficult IF you wanted every decision to be based on objective testing (i.e. you'd have to test --preset 80, --preset 96, --preset 112, etc. individually to make sure each uses the most transparent settings) but I think the team will end up making educated guesses.

 

Lame 3.94a11

Reply #27
Quote
And no, if preset medium is reaching on a specific track xxx bitrate, it should absolutely not produce the same output as --preset xxx. That would totally defeat the purpose of true vbr compared to abr.


Btw, I'm still waiting for opinions about this:
Which one seems better: medium or medium1?

We were talking that IF --preset medium were ABR instead of VBR (which isn't the case now) AND --preset medium was targetting 180kbps, --preset medium and --preset 180 would ideally be the same thing. But if the worded presets will remain all VBR, this doesn't apply.

Again, I'd have to give the nod to medium over medium1. I don't think I've found a case where one artifacts and the other doesn't, but medium often sounds better than medium1 when artifacting.

And just to make sure I'm not losing my mind, did you change the shortthreshold value for medium between a10 and a11? It looks like the value went from 3.5 to 4.25 across versions.

Lame 3.94a11

Reply #28
When will there be a LAME version which will totally improve on version 3.90.2?
Hydrogenaudio has been recommending 3.90.2 for ages now... Can we expect
anything exciting from the LAME front in the foreseeable future?

I'm just asking because I have a mass ripping & encoding session planned and
I'm wondering if there's a reason to postpone it in the event of a LAME 3.94
release...
Wanna buy a monkey?

Lame 3.94a11

Reply #29
Quote
When will there be a LAME version which will totally improve on version 3.90.2?
Hydrogenaudio has been recommending 3.90.2 for ages now... Can we expect
anything exciting from the LAME front in the foreseeable future?

I'm just asking because I have a mass ripping & encoding session planned and
I'm wondering if there's a reason to postpone it in the event of a LAME 3.94
release...

Not much reason to postpone if you use --alt-preset standard -Z with 3.90.2. Currently 3.94a --preset standard does not have as good pre-echo control, and if no tweaking is done, I suppose it will stay that way. If you use -Z with 3.90.2 --alt-preset standard, you either avoid completely or diminish the known problems very clearly with relatively small bitrate increase.

Also 3.90.2 --alt-preset performs better with serioustrouble and such (less ringing/dropouts).
In order to compensate --alt-preset standard's code level tweaks in this case, alpha imo needs switched to adjust mid/side masking and ms/lr switching separately. At the moment, if mid/side resolution is increased, it also gives more lr-frames and it leads to clearly higher bitrates, which takes most of the quality/size benefit away.

People with good pre-echo hearing can easily hear that 3.90.2 --alt-preset standard is better than a11 --preset standard for example with bassdrum, and it's no wonder when you look the following bitrate distribution graphs:

Lame 3.90.2 --alt-preset standard
average 207.7kbps:


Lame 3.94a11 --preset standard
average 172.2kbps:
Juha Laaksonheimo

Lame 3.94a11

Reply #30
Quote
Not much reason to postpone if you use --alt-preset standard -Z with 3.90.2.


I've never used -Y or -Z with the --alt-presets before. Is there no down side
to using -Z?

I'm sure the experimental switches have been discussed before, but I'd like to
know if they make any difference...

Can -Z be used with ape and api too?
Wanna buy a monkey?

Lame 3.94a11

Reply #31
Quote
I've never used -Y or -Z with the --alt-presets before. Is there no down side
to using -Z?

No quality down sides with using Lame 3.90.2 --alt-preset standard -Z what so ever, only positive quality effects. But a bit higher bitrate sometimes. And using -Z here is not experimental, Gpsycho has always used noise shaping type 1, which is quality wise safer choice. Noise shaping type 2 is used with nspsytune vbr only because of one reason: to increase quality/size ratio by lowering bitrate, but it does not work 100%. erhu is a good example, where ns-type 2 fails badly.
Quote
Can -Z be used with ape and api too?
Do not use it with api, since it already uses noise shaping 1, and you don't want to switch it back to 2. But it's ok to use it with 3.90.2 ape.
Juha Laaksonheimo

Lame 3.94a11

Reply #32
Thanx John V 
Wanna buy a monkey?

Lame 3.94a11

Reply #33
Quote
Quote
I've never used -Y or -Z with the --alt-presets before. Is there no down side
to using -Z?

No quality down sides with using Lame 3.90.2 --alt-preset standard -Z what so ever, only positive quality effects. But a bit higher bitrate sometimes. And using -Z here is not experimental, Gpsycho has always used noise shaping type 1, which is quality wise safer choice. Noise shaping type 2 is used with nspsytune vbr only because of one reason: to increase quality/size ratio by lowering bitrate, but it does not work 100%. erhu is a good example, where ns-type 2 fails badly.
Quote
Can -Z be used with ape and api too?
Do not use it with api, since it already use noise shaping 1, and you don't want to switch it back to 2. But it's ok to use it with 3.90.2 ape.

Interesting; Dibrom of the preset settings say that the -z switch is not needed for the alt presets:

Copy&paste from topic http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....t=ST&f=16&t=593
-
JohnV about covered the rest, but I'll just add a small comment here about this issue. First, the --alt-preset switches have been tuned to a level to where -Z is no longer needed.
-

I am talking about version 3.90.2; I know this is a bit off-topic..................

Lame 3.94a11

Reply #34
Mithrandir:
Thatnks for the clarification about the --preset medium settings, I see exactly what was meant now.

Lame 3.94a11

Reply #35
I just commited some updated abr/cbr presets. That way you can now compare abr against medium (I'd suggest you to wait tommorow in order to be sure that new compiles have the new abr presets).

I did not want to bump the alpha, as I'd like to take care of the pre-echo regression for standard before.
Btw, now that you pointed it, it seems obvious to me that current standard should regress in pre-echo compared to previous versions.

Damn, all this tuning is awfully time-consuming.

Lame 3.94a11

Reply #36
This is my first post ( but as i've been playing with LAME versions since 3.70, I don't consider myself a real newbie  )

I've tried --preset medium with a collection of 50 of my favorite songs (50 diferent autors, music of very different kinds) and i've obtained an average bitrate of 172 kbps; which i think it's the ideal target bitrate for the medium preset. Not to low (at 150 kbps the quality can suffer a lot); neither to high (for such a high bitrate we already have --preset standard); it seem to me like the perfect equilibrium for portable players.

As a reference, LAME 3.90.2 goes to 203 kbps on the same collection of songs.

Gabriel, on some of those songs -- preset medium sounds to me a little better than medium1, but i haven't done a real blind test, so don't take it as something serious. I'll wait for the abr-tunned version to compare with --preset 172.

Hope that helps...
Just a thought...

Lame 3.94a11

Reply #37
New win32 binaries uploaded and available at my 'Other' page at Mirror 1 (link at foot of homepage).

Lame 3.94a11

Reply #38
Note: Takehiro commited some changes during the week-end that are increasing bitrate by 2% on average.

Lame 3.94a11

Reply #39
John33

At your webpage the link is lame 3.94 alpha 11 bundle with a DATE = 2003-02-16

BUT the contained lame.exe has a version output: lame --version as: LAME version 3.94 MMX (alpha 11, Feb  9 2003 11:16:20) (http://www.mp3dev.org/) ; the same as your previous build. The filesize is also the same: 243.200 bytes. 

Is this a coincidence? Haven't I found the correct link to the new binaries?
Just a thought...

Lame 3.94a11

Reply #40
Quote
John33

At your webpage the link is lame 3.94 alpha 11 bundle with a DATE = 2003-02-16

BUT the contained lame.exe has a version output: lame --version as: LAME version 3.94 MMX (alpha 11, Feb  9 2003 11:16:20) (http://www.mp3dev.org/) ; the same as your previous build. The filesize is also the same: 243.200 bytes. 

Is this a coincidence? Haven't I found the correct link to the new binaries?

You have the correct version. The problem arises, I think, because I only recompiled the changed modules, not a complete recompile. I'll do a full recompile and upload again just to avoid confusion. Give me about 10 mins. The recompile will carry today's date, ie. 17 Feb.

Lame 3.94a11

Reply #41
I know this is kind of an irrelevant question but I didn't want to start a new thread
over it:

Is there any way to make Windows XP display the bitrate of VBR mp3 files correctly?
I've encoded many files with the --alt-presets and when I open a folder with my
mp3s, the bitrates in the "bitrate" column are all wrong (and exaggerated). Can
this be fixed?
Wanna buy a monkey?

Lame 3.94a11

Reply #42
Quote
I'll do a full recompile and upload again just to avoid confusion. Give me about 10 mins. The recompile will carry today's date, ie. 17 Feb.


THANKS!!!!

Well; it's not THAT important.  It's only a doubt I had.  But thank you; you guys are doing a really good job with this.
Just a thought...

Lame 3.94a11

Reply #43
Quote
Is there any way to make Windows XP display the bitrate of VBR mp3 files correctly?
I've encoded many files with the --alt-presets and when I open a folder with my
mp3s, the bitrates in the "bitrate" column are all wrong (and exaggerated). Can
this be fixed?


Not that I know of. 

Lame 3.94a11

Reply #44
Just finished testing a lot of "medium vs. meduim1" samples in ABC/hr.

I agree with most people here, --preset medium is slightly better. --preset medium1 tended to sound rather "swishy" at the top end, for a good example encode "Common People" by Pulp, and what I mean should be fairly obvious. I can provide a flac if anyone needs it.

One thing I was a little uneasy about was that to me (again, using ABC/hr) --alt-preset 192 sounded much better than --preset medium... and bearing in mind that I found --preset medium produced many encodes which averaged at around 180, --ap192 is by far the preferable option.

Lame 3.94a11

Reply #45
are the options to control sfcsi or scale factor included in this version? I read something about them on lame dev but haven't been able to remember them exactly. What about the replaygain patches? Have they been applied or ... ? When are they planned to be included.
Thanks
Lossy
r3mix zealot.

Lame 3.94a11

Reply #46
Quote
One thing I was a little uneasy about was that to me (again, using ABC/hr) --alt-preset 192 sounded much better than --preset medium... and bearing in mind that I found --preset medium produced many encodes which averaged at around 180, --ap192 is by far the preferable option.

I'm not totally suprised because --alt-preset 192 (er, are you using 3.90.2 or 3.94a11 for this?) is ABR and at this bitrate, ABR is generally very good all around. Much better? I'm not so sure about that one but maybe your musical choices have something to do with that. If --preset medium is giving you 180kbps, then you've tried more "difficult" music. If you start encoding a lot of music (like hundreds and hundreds of files), you'll find medium averages around 165kbps. Then one could easily say 165kbps vs. 192kbps is not a fair comparison.

An ABR medium preset will be added in a12 so you should find this addition interesting. (I assume Gabriel will choose something in the 160-170kbps range).

Lame 3.94a11

Reply #47
Yeah, I deliberately chose music I thought would be quite hard to encode for the purpose of testing the new alpha. And yup, I'm using the Feb 17th Alpha 11.

In hindsight, saying that --ap 192 was much better may have been an exaggeration, but it was certainly "significantly" better, i.e. more or less transparent where the 181kbps --preset medium had some fairly prominent artefacts.

I will post a couple of flac samples tomorrow when I can use a friend's webspace to host them, that way you can see what I'm talking about. I take it there are no copyright issues etc. with posting a few differently encoded versions of a 10 second sample?

Lame 3.94a11

Reply #48
I agree that abr192 should be better than preset medium.
Medium is targetted to 165kbps, and I think that overall, it really fits into this target.
It seems to me that abr 170 would be more fair to compare with preset medium.

Lame 3.94a11

Reply #49
any idea when v3.94 will become beta and/or final?