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Topic: lossy archiving (Read 42303 times) previous topic - next topic
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lossy archiving

Reply #25 –
If you're sure you won't regret it in the future, then you've already outpaced the biggest concern, making the rest of the recommendation moot.  Now it's just a matter of picking the format.  According to the results of Guru's "short transcode test", either Vorbis or MPC would probably serve equally well, so it'd just be a matter of personal preference.

lossy archiving

Reply #26 –
Quote from: S-12 on
If you're sure you won't regret it in the future, then you've already outpaced the biggest concern, making the rest of the recommendation moot.  Now it's just a matter of picking the format.  According to the results of Guru's "short transcode test", either Vorbis or MPC would probably serve equally well, so it'd just be a matter of personal preference.

I can only back the other person's claims about vorbis->vorbis transcodes. It produces a real mess whatever the bitrate! I "archived" several albums I borrowed from a friend using Vorbis and I regretted the decission later since I didn't have the possibility of transcoding them properly into a lower bitrate Vorbis for my portable.
But if the person claims that he has problems recognizing a 128 kbit file, then he perhaps won't notice these (hi-freq) artifacts as well. But you should also think about the possibility of "tape trading" with someone else who could be annoyed about your archiving solution decission.

lossy archiving

Reply #27 –
Quote from: Martel on
I can only back the other person's claims about vorbis->vorbis transcodes. It produces a real mess whatever the bitrate!

I'm very curious to see your test results on that.  Not as a challenge of any kind, but the more such results we have, the more informed people can be making these very kinds of decisions.  Can you post them for us?

lossy archiving

Reply #28 –
Quote from: Lodl on
One day, the day when 500gb is only 1/1000 of typical hard drives, you'll regret you've encoded to lossy and wasted valuable information. Keep all information!
That's 15 years away. This person wants a solution now.

Cheers,
David.

lossy archiving

Reply #29 –
Quote from: S-12 on
Quote from: Martel on

I can only back the other person's claims about vorbis->vorbis transcodes. It produces a real mess whatever the bitrate!

I'm very curious to see your test results on that.  Not as a challenge of any kind, but the more such results we have, the more informed people can be making these very kinds of decisions.  Can you post them for us?

I'm sorry, I already ditched everything related to vorbis (including my test files) since the other shortcoming it had was that the battery life on my portable was half that of MP3. I switched to MP3 since the quality was not worth the trouble.
I also lack motivation to try and prove something to the HA audience as I already tried several times in the past but failed utterly, the problem obviously being my favorite genre of black and death metal, and majority of the people not used to such genre is not able to pick out/confirm the artifacts even if I point them out. It's kind of uphill battle.
Perhaps the other person complaining about the same problem could provide more "suitable" samples.

lossy archiving

Reply #30 –
Quote from: Lodl on
One day, the day when 500gb is only 1/1000 of typical hard drives, you'll regret you've encoded to lossy and wasted valuable information. Keep all information!

I completely agree with you. People who compile "archives" carelessly will later post how great redbook CD was: "I lost my correction files, damaged my princo CD-R written at 40x, dropped the hdd on the ground". Yet the original is still CD readable; what a great technology. A true archive is made for years to come, not today.

lossy archiving

Reply #31 –
Quote from: 2Bdecided on
Quote from: Lodl on
One day, the day when 500gb is only 1/1000 of typical hard drives, you'll regret you've encoded to lossy and wasted valuable information. Keep all information!
That's 15 years away. This person wants a solution now.


9 months ago a TB cost about € 300 (in Germany)
6 months ago € 240
today less than € 120
If 750 GB is sufficient, that would be € 75, or € 65 for 640 GB or € 53 for 500 GB
Conclusions:
- If that’s still too expensive, it could be affordable in a few months
- Used drives are probably cheap enough
- Burning to DVD and buying a large HDD later sounded good to me until I looked at the prices of DVDs which would eat a lot of the saving. Additionally it would be very time-consuming.
FLAC.

lossy archiving

Reply #32 –
I think the problem here is that many lossy users understand why other people might want to go lossless, but recognise that it isn't for them.

Whereas many lossless users seems to think that all lossy users are somehow misguided, and need educating, because they've clearly made the wrong choice.


The cost of lossless is time (5x longer to back up and move about), money (storage costs), and convenience (fewer HDDs sitting around; mp3 plays nearly everywhere without re-conversion).

Taking drive prices - they may be getting cheaper, but you'd be silly to keep only one copy - so you need at least two drives.

A _good_ 1TB drive isn't as cheap as you suggest in the UK...
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quick...376770000,50410

Even the lower quality non-warranty version costs more than 120 Euros...
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quick...376770000,50410


I have photos, more video that I could fit on several of these drives, and audio. I have decided that I don't need bit perfect lossless audio. The photos and video are lossy too. All are more than good enough for my needs.

I only need lossless for things that I have generated myself, that I may re-edit and transform through multiple generations. Clearly lossy would be a silly choice here.

For everything else, it's fine. mp3 isn't going away any time soon.

Cheers,
David.

lossy archiving

Reply #33 –
When transcoding, mp3 (or aac) is most likely the end result. There's not much point transcoding from vorbis to mpc.

If the lossless is too expensive or time consuming, I suggest either high bitrate mp3 or aac to save yourself the extra effort on transcoding--not to mention the effort on abxing which is the better lossy transcode source.

lossy archiving

Reply #34 –
You can try any lossy solution around, have ABXed every lossy codec for transparency once you tested the safety & freedom of lossless, lossy will always leave a bittertaste in your mouth.

after having tested fhg/blade/gogo/lame/wma/vqf/mpc/vorbis/megamix/aotuv/nero aac/faac ... lately I have even been thinking of using lossy as CDImage or lossywav+tak ... just to gain some space ... in the end I think I will just buy a new 1 To hard drive ... the 11th !!! (Pata120: 40/120 Go Pata133: 120/120 Go Sata150: 160/160/200/200 Go Sata300 320/320 Go) ... nowadays I only use lossy for video because 1: the source is already lossy AC3, 2:because I don't like 5.1, 3: because I only listen to it once when I watch the movie, 4: because you don't have to worry about gaplessness with video ... lossy audio is for videophile & streaming ... if you're an audiophile there is no escape: buy a new hdd ...

lossy archiving

Reply #35 –
Quote from: 2Bdecided on
Taking drive prices - they may be getting cheaper, but you'd be silly to keep only one copy - so you need at least two drives.

A _good_ 1TB drive isn't as cheap as you suggest in the UK...
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quick...376770000,50410

Even the lower quality non-warranty version costs more than 120 Euros...
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quick...376770000,50410

HDDs sold in Germany usually come with 3 years manufacturer’s warranty, with the exception of Seagate’s drives which usually come with 5 years. Besides manufacturer’s warranty, the retailer must give 2 years warranty (required by law).

You can have a look at the prices in Germany here, or sorted by price, sorted by price per GB. The cheapest TB drive is the Samsung Spinpoint F1 which is available for € 118,60 (free shipping). I think it’s also the fastest mainstream HDD.
FLAC.

lossy archiving

Reply #36 –
as far as I am aware in the 1 To/334Go by platter/3 platters competition, the samsung spinpoint F1 is cheaper, but the western digital WD10EACS-00D6B0 (be careful it is very new & there is a 4x250go=1to model too, not as good) is better ... personnaly I will take a WD when it will be available, I dunno why but the samsung is too cheap too be honest  & I don't want to lost 1 To !!! 4 years ago samsung wasn't even a top HDD sealer ... & suddenly they have the best cheapest HDD ... I may be paranoid but I find it too suspect  where have the research & development cost disapeared for samsung ? I used to buy maxtor/seagate in the past ... but in between wd have made the raptors ... so I will stick with wd personnaly.

lossy archiving

Reply #37 –
Quote from: sauvage78 on
You can try any lossy solution around, have ABXed every lossy codec for transparency once you tested the safety & freedom of lossless, lossy will always leave a bittertaste in your mouth.
You must realise the bitter taste is in your imagination?

Quote
after having tested fhg/blade/gogo/lame/wma/vqf/mpc/vorbis/megamix/aotuv/nero aac/faac ... lately I have even been thinking of using lossy as CDImage or lossywav+tak ... just to gain some space ... in the end I think I will just buy a new 1 To hard drive ... the 11th !!!
First you mention "freedom", then you mention 11 HDDs - that's not the kind of freedom I'm looking for!

Cheers,
David.

lossy archiving

Reply #38 –
well sometimes I wish I was dumb & deaf but splitability problem, untranscodability, no gaplessness (mostly solved with time) & DCT artefact below 128Kbps are very real I fear  ... it will be the 11th HDD I buy but I only have the 6 sata remaining, I already dropped pata several years ago. Yes I feel more free with lossless, I only wish I didn't felt poorer too  ... it's not a problem of quality if I could losslessly split/join lossy I would like lossy much more ... I store as CDImage & I will not go back to separate tracks as tagging is a waste of time for me ... but I could go back to lossy, if it were more friendly for single file+cue, I am aware of placebo, I just don't feel free with lossy. I prefer losing money buying HDD than losing time tagging & splitting all my single files. Maybe my first post was unclear it's not a quality problem for me, it's a usability problem.

lossy archiving

Reply #39 –
*counting the TOS#8 violations in this thread*

*ran out of fingers and toes* 

(Or has HA dropped that rule?  I've been busy for several months and may have missed that.)

Quote from: sauvage78 on
[...] no gaplessness (mostly solved with time) [...]

That's an important one for me, too, which I forgot to mention in my earlier posts.

What do you mean "solved with time", though?  I've never foreseen that being changed in any non-gapless format (MP3, AAC, etc.)

lossy archiving

Reply #40 –
you forget the "mostly" ... read: "improved" if you prefer ... last time I checked the major lossy formats (nero aac/vorbis/lame) were gapless in software (sometimes by tagging tricks) but it was the lack of hardware support for their gaplessness in DAP that was faulty.

lossy archiving

Reply #41 –
Quote from: S-12 on
*counting the TOS#8 violations in this thread*

*ran out of fingers and toes*

There's a Report button below each and every post.

I guess it's more effort for you to click it than whine about how the thread isn't being moderated.

With the title "lossy archiving, makes it sense?" I'm not the least bit surprised to see that this thread isn't getting any serious attention.

lossy archiving

Reply #42 –
Whoa, calm yourself down, there.  No one's whining, and no one's targeting moderation.  I was just honestly curious. 

And yes, the title is a bit off-putting, isn't it.

lossy archiving

Reply #43 –
Quote
With the title "lossy archiving, makes it sense?" I'm not the least bit surprised to see that this thread isn't getting any serious attention.


Why? I thought HA is a forum discussion site where some very high skilled members can help me with my problem, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who has the same problem as I have with space and finding another solution besides lossless archiving.

Lossy archiving is not an ironic question, it's an interesting point, that's all.

I've never met a user who left so many posts which attack other user's abilities and individuality as you do, greynol.

Quote
And yes, the title is a bit off-putting, isn't it.


do you mean lossy archiving is not worth talking about?


-------------------------

What about AAC @ very high bitrate to transcode from? Has anyone made experience with it?

Next weekend I'll take the time and try out lossyWAV, maybe I can get some "lossyTAKs"
FB2K,APE&LAME

lossy archiving

Reply #44 –
Quote from: memomai on
do you mean lossy archiving is not worth talking about?

No, I think for people with a large amount of music, limited hard drive space and limited resources for expanding said hard drive space, that it's quite worthwhile to consider non-lossless encoding solutions at least to cover system fault tolerance and disaster recovery while providing a perceptually acceptable transcode source.  Folks without enough hard drive to accommodate 35MB music files deserve some form of archival, too.  That's why I've been making serious recommendations all along.  I was just foreseeing that people of somewhat limited maturity might poke fun at it.

Quote from: memomai on
What about AAC @ very high bitrate to transcode from? Has anyone made experience with it?

Guruboolez did in this test.  Although it was a fairly limited sample set, only one tester, and it was done three years ago, the results should still be somewhat relevant as it did focus on high bitrates, the guy who performed the test is trusted as having some of the best ears in this place, and three years isn't very long in the field of audio encoding development compared to the speed at which the rest of the technology industry moves.

(I hope it helps you a bit in your decision - and please forgive me if it doesn't.)

lossy archiving

Reply #45 –
If you're curious about TOS #8, read the Terms of Service (there's a link at the top of this page), but limited maturity???

@Nick E:
It wasn't a dig on the poor English (now that would have shown limited maturity).  It's the fact that lossy archiving is an oxymoron.  Making a backup of your lossy collection is one thing, but to downgrade from lossless to lossy and call it an archive is something entirely different.

I make no apologies for what I've written here.

lossy archiving

Reply #46 –
Quote from: memomai on
Quote
With the title "lossy archiving, makes it sense?" I'm not the least bit surprised to see that this thread isn't getting any serious attention.


Why? I thought HA is a forum discussion site where some very high skilled members can help me with my problem, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who has the same problem as I have with space and finding another solution besides lossless archiving.


Perhaps he merely meant the title sounded odd -- "makes it sense?" is not idiomatic English.  On the other hand, when he read the thread I suppose he'd have seen you're not a native speaker, so perhaps not.

lossy archiving

Reply #47 –
True, with a higher than average percentage of international participation here, people don't usually concern themselves with picking apart English grammar or spelling.

Quote from: greynol on
I make no apologies for what I've written here.

That says it all, doesn't it? 

lossy archiving

Reply #48 –
Quote from: S-12 on
Quote from: memomai on

One says musepack is good for transcoding, the other one says vorbis is the best one. I think there will be no clear winner, *cause every lossy codec has its problems with transcoding, and I also think this is unavoidable.

I believe the test to which de Mon refers is this one.  The test scope was limited, so its results should be considered accordingly.  And you're right to say there's no clear winner, other than the LAME MP3 version used in the test not generally being a good transcode source.  Vorbis had the highest average score, but it looks to me like it's probably within the error margin with at least the MPC encoder.  The other person's claim is skirting a TOS#8 violation.


Yes, I meant exactly this test and I had mentioned it was 'little' test.

Anyway, I think the rational way would be lossless or MP3 V2 (despite you have player which plays other codecs). Despite I use Ogg Vorbis as lossy, the quality of sound is not the main gain for me.

I like Ogg Vorbis's for:

1. replay gain tagging possibility
2. encoding speed (Lancer's compile)
3. tags
4. true gapless playback
5. FREE and open source
6. quality per kbs ratio

Yes, quality at the last place despite it is very very good codec.

Anyway I can listen my Ogg Vorbis files without transoding everywhere except my car.

But if someone wants compatability - better use MP3 (LAME at V2) and don't bother with spending time on transcoding.
Ogg Vorbis for music and speech [q-2.0 - q6.0]
FLAC for recordings to be edited
Speex for speech

lossy archiving

Reply #49 –
Back on the original topic, there is only 3 options:

-lossless                    100%quality/100%freedom
-transparent lossywav 99%quality/99%freedom/50%spacegain (no warm & fuzzy feeling)
-transparent lossy      98%quality/10%freedom/90%spacegain

pure lossy is very risky as an archive format, each time I tried I always ended deleting all the archive, from my limited experience, recoding from lossy whatever the bitrate is always a bad idea because whatever the bitrate I always heard added quantization noise if I transcoded at ABXable bitrate ... many people think transcoding from an higher bitrate is better ... but from my limited testing they foul their own mind ... because they transcode lossy at overkill bitrates to lossy at transparent bitrates ... so yes indeed most often it's still tranparent ... but if you transcode below transparency ... you quickly realize that transcoding lossy to lossy is really a no-no due to exponential additionnal degradation ... so if you know that you won't buy a new HD & at the same time wants to transcode to lossy then I would go lossywav ... I have the same problem actually but I ended buying a new hdd. You alone can decide for yourself.