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Topic: Why is it called oggenc? (Read 3854 times) previous topic - next topic
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Why is it called oggenc?

As we know, Ogg is the file container that will contain audio streams (Vorbis), video (Theora), etc.  So the audio codec should be called Vorbis.  Now the encoder we use to compress audio is called 'oggenc' yet it only produces a Vorbis stream inside an Ogg file.  So wouldn't it be more fitting to call the program 'vorbisenc' so that people know it only compresses audio using Vorbis rather than 'Ogg'. 

Why is it called oggenc?

Reply #1 –
Yes. I agree. I am fed up with people calling it OGG. Even i-River is ignorant on this issue.
The object of mankind lies in its highest individuals.
One must have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

Why is it called oggenc?

Reply #2 –
Quote
So wouldn't it be more fitting to call the program 'vorbisenc' so that people know it only compresses audio using Vorbis rather than 'Ogg'. 

The Xiph people are aware of this problem, and are planning to fix it in a future release.

Why is it called oggenc?

Reply #3 –
Blame me :-)

I wrote oggenc fairly early in the history of the vorbis project. In retrospect, as others have seen, it was a poor choice of name.

In the future, it's likely that either the program name will be changed, or oggenc will be augmented to enable encoding of more codecs.

Mike

Why is it called oggenc?

Reply #4 –
Ok  I'll blame you  But why doesn't Xiph give up on the Ogg container entirely and move to Matroska?
The object of mankind lies in its highest individuals.
One must have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

Why is it called oggenc?

Reply #5 –
Quote
But why doesn't Xiph give up on the Ogg container entirely and move to Matroska?

I think because

- There is an excellent streaming server for Ogg
- Ogg does a good job
- Xiph is familiar with Ogg
- Xiph is concentrating on other things
- Ogg works
- Ogg works
- Ogg works



 

Maik

Why is it called oggenc?

Reply #6 –
I actually brought this "issue" up almost a year ago here.

Soon OggFile will provide a framework for all Ogg Codecs and be implemented in the various frontends like oggenc.
Please don't provoke useless Ogg vs. MKA flamewars, especially in obvious cases like this (Please notify me if I missed any sarcasm in your statement).

dev0
"To understand me, you'll have to swallow a world." Or maybe your words.

Why is it called oggenc?

Reply #7 –
Quote
But why doesn't Xiph give up on the Ogg container entirely and move to Matroska?
<sarcasm>Who wants to admit that they messed up?  Wouldn't it make more sense to keep plodding along down the wrong path instead?  I mean heck, once you started, you might as well drive your product all of the way into the ground. </sarcasm>

Seriously though, for streaming low bitrate Vorbis, Ogg is typically going to have a lower overhead than Matroska, and this is a case where it really matters.  Also, for hardware support they would be shooting themselves in the foot as they would need support for two containers instead of one.  In the embedded world, the simple bitstream format of Ogg should be easier to parse, requiring less code.

Matroska was designed to be a general container that can hold anything and do lots of interesting stuff, and I like to think that it does a decent job at it.  Ogg was designed to stream low bitrate Vorbis, something it does pretty well at.

If you would like to learn some things about the shortcomings of Ogg, and how it relates to OGM and Xiph's attempts at putting video in it, then visit the #Matroska channel on irc.corecodec.org.  It may not be the most unbiased place to ask, but the developers of several Ogg tools are there and would be happy to share their thoughts.