It will be useful to gather information about good AAC encoders for listening tests and future selection of an optimal encoder.
Obviously, the lists are not complete yet.
Competitive AAC encoders:
1. Apple
2. Nero
3. Coding Technologies (now Dolby)
4. Fraunhofer. Sorenson Squeeze and Magix application(?). Have they the updated and full functionality version of Fraunhofer encoder?
[Possibly] Obsolete or noncompetitive AAC encoders:
1. FAAC http://www.audiocoding.com/ (http://www.audiocoding.com/)
2. Psytel
3. MPEG4ip Cisco. http://www.mpeg4ip.net/ (http://www.mpeg4ip.net/)
4. 3GPP reference encoder. It was tested in Gabriel's 48 kbits HE-AAC test (http://www.mp3-tech.org/content/?48kbps%20AAC%20public%20test)
AAC encoders with unknown quality
1. RealAudio 10. RealPlayer v12 (2009)
2. AVS audio converter
3. Lead AAC encoder
4. Divx (same as Mainconcept)
5. Microsoft Expression Encoder 2 SP 1
If anyone knows about any good AAC encoder post here.
Back in the day there was something called Liquid Audio (IIRC). They had an early AAC encoder which was slow and cumbersome. It wasn't free either. I searched for it and ended up with something called AVS Audio Converter (http://www.avs4you.com/AVS-Audio-Converter.aspx). I have no idea whatsoever about quality or speed, nada. But it might be worth checking out.
I was going to mention Liquid Audio. I remember that from really back in the day. My PC actually came with a copy of their software that allowed for unlimited CD ripping. The only thing is that the application would consume over 40% of my 256MHz processor (Pentium II mmx) and 50% of my 256MB of RAM. Not something I like especially considering that the software that came with my Rio 600 consumed far less.
Sony has an AAC encoder that they put in their PS3, I believe it is also in their Media Go software. I am not sure if the encoder was developed by Sony. The PS3 version wraps the AAC audio in a 3gp container. Something to think about. I could always encode a 30 second test file (I would have to burn an audio CD from the source lossless file) using my PS3 and upload it if you wanted to examine the encoder. There is also something called the LEAD AAC encoder (http://www.leadcodecs.com/help/LEADh264StandardVideoEncoder/Filters/LEADAACEncoder_UI.htm). Lastly, I believe that there is an ffmpeg AAC encoder floating around somewhere.
I don't know if any of these encoders are actually good but they are something else to look at. The AAC encoder used by the PS3 has not been tested but I know that many, many, many, many people use it for their audio ripping needs (not that user community size is a measure of quality).
Audio Transcoder used FAAC and now uses Nero.
P. S. Does Sorenson offer audio encoding?
There is also DivX AAC Encoder (beta 1 from august).
MAGIX has an MP3 Maker application which uses Fraunhofer's AAC.
Microsoft Expression Encoder 2 SP 1 and higher support H.264 and LC-AAC encoding. Don't know what encoder is behind that, though.
There's also MainConcept AAC in Sound Forge, e.g.
What AAC Encoder was used in Nokia Multimedia Player 6??? (There was LTP Profile only and CBR only)
What AAC Encoder was used in Nokia Multimedia Player 6??? (There was LTP Profile only and CBR only)
Do you mean to write
LC profile? I don't think Long Term Prediction (LTP) has been implemented in encoders or decoders to date.
Thanks to Everybody for answers. There's a lot of work to verify quality of encoders. But I think some of them can be discard at early stage.
Audio Transcoder used FAAC and now uses Nero.
Ok. It will be deleted from list of AAC encoders.
There is also DivX AAC Encoder (beta 1 from august)
There's also MainConcept AAC in Sound Forge, e.g.
Divx and Mainconcept have the same AAC encoder.
AAC encoders which were mentioned in this topic will be added to list of main post.
Lastly, I believe that there is an ffmpeg AAC encoder floating around somewhere.
IIRC some person called Kostya (http://codecs.multimedia.cx/) worked on it. The main target was higher than FAAC quality. Didn't find more information.
Apple iPhone® SDK is based on Fraunhofer code. That means Fraunhofer AAC encoder is potentially very competetive.
Thanks to Everybody for answers. There's a lot of work to verify quality of encoders. But I think some of them can be discard at early stage.
This is a preparation for some kind of all-AAC listening test?
Divx and Mainconcept have the same AAC encoder.
I thought so too, given that MainConcept is the subsidiary of DivX, Inc., but the DivX Labs page (http://labs.divx.com/node/11682) seems to imply that's it's something new, as if there were two versions - I doubt Sony would implement a beta into their precious software.
As for your question about the full functionality of MAGIX MP3 Maker (http://www.magix.com/us/mp3-maker/), it offers bitrates up to 256 kbps stereo even though FhG can go up to 512. Same goes for AVS application: 256 is the maximum setting.
I don't know about Sorenson.
Microsoft Expression Encoder 2 SP 1 and higher support H.264 and LC-AAC encoding. Don't know what encoder is behind that, though.
which is not free iirc...the only free way is to use the libraries from win7 but the AAC encoder is very limited (LC only - 128/160/192kbps as target bitrates).
(http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/2613/73956717.png)
Screenshot from latest Sorensen Squeeze 6.
As for your question about the full functionality of MAGIX MP3 Maker (http://www.magix.com/us/mp3-maker/), it offers bitrates up to 256 kbps stereo even though FhG can go up to 512. Same goes for AVS application: 256 is the maximum setting.
Did you tried? How is it comparable to other AAC encoders?
Screenshot from latest Sorensen Squeeze 6.
Is Coding Technologies AAC encoder is only option in Sorensen Squeeze 6?
This is a preparation for some kind of all-AAC listening test?
The initial idea is create a list of AAC encoders. Then at least it will be personal test from my part or a public test is an option too.
Yes, its only options for AAC encoding.
Did you tried? How is it comparable to other AAC encoders?
No. I have MAGIX, so if you need it for testing purposes, I could convert a file for you.
Is Coding Technologies AAC encoder is only option in Sorensen Squeeze 6?
So Dolby's (CT's) AAC is now present in: Winamp Pro, Easy CD-DA Extractor and Sorenson Squeeze.
Fraunhofer, as far as I know, only in MP3 Maker. It's probably the codec that's the most intriguing for AAC people on HA since it's nowhere to be found and the Gesellschaft doesn't give it away for testing. Only if you're a research scientist in some university or institute.
The initial idea is create a list of AAC encoders. Then at least it will be personal test from my part or a public test is an option too.
OK. This should be interesting. I'd love it if there were a newer public test for Apple, Nero, Dolby, Fraunhofer, Real and possibly AVS if it's confirmed it's a separate type.
This is the settings window in MAGIX:
(http://i46.tinypic.com/23i89ro.png)
The VortexBox project is using ffmpg to convert the files to AAC and the mp4v2 project code to set the tags correctly. It seem to work very will and the quality is excellent.
This is the settings window in MAGIX:
(http://i46.tinypic.com/23i89ro.png)
I downloaded the last demo version of MAGIX MP3 15 (ver 10.00) maker from official site. Quality isn't bad but only CBR and no miracle at low/middle bitrates.
IIRC some person called Kostya (http://codecs.multimedia.cx/) worked on it. The main target was higher than FAAC quality. Didn't find more information.
It was being developed further by Alex Converse/peloverde, but he stopped to work on the ffmpeg-native SBR decoder. I don't know how it progressed before that, but you can find the source in ffmpeg svn somewhere.
This is the settings window in MAGIX:
(http://i46.tinypic.com/23i89ro.png)
I downloaded the last demo version of MAGIX MP3 15 (ver 10.00) maker from official site. Quality isn't bad but only CBR and no miracle at low/middle bitrates.
If it were a miracle, a lot of people would be using it. You shouldn't have expected a miracle.
This is the settings
I downloaded the last demo version of MAGIX MP3 15 (ver 10.00) maker from official site. Quality isn't bad but only CBR and no miracle at low/middle bitrates.
Could you elaborate, please? Which bitrates do you mean by low/middle?
Thanks,
Chris
Could you elaborate, please? Which bitrates do you mean by low/middle?
Thanks,
I give a try at 96/128 kbit/s for some samples and find that quality is not on par with Nero and Apple. But it is not the reason to discard right now this encoder. More detailed test is needed.
I believe that encoders from Microsoft and DivX still need lot of work and improvement in quality.
It would be good if someone could do a listening test on them.
Microsoft Expression Encoder 2 SP 1 and higher support H.264 and LC-AAC encoding. Don't know what encoder is behind that, though.
which is not free iirc...the only free way is to use the libraries from win7 but the AAC encoder is very limited (LC only - 128/160/192kbps as target bitrates).
I didn't say it's free. The only options are CBR 96 kbps to 192 kbps, 44.1 and 48 KHz, stereo and mono. The produced CBR files don't seem to be CBR though - more like ABR.
As for the libraries in Windows 7, I didn't find a way to use them yet. When I try to use the auto-encoding feature Windows 7 offers I only get MP3 files and in own programs I cannot seem to be able to access the library without initializing it with some special stuff I don't know.
As for the libraries in Windows 7, I didn't find a way to use them yet.
I can provide you a cli tool for testing...
First post here...Hi!. For 2.1 music PsyTel works very well at high bitrates. It was a favorite at one time and I'm not sure human ears have evolved much since. It has (severe) limitations for portable use but for the home or office workstation its as flawless a reproduction as I have found at/near the highest settings (bitrates>250) for any lossy encoder One aspect of testing that I do is how robust an encode is when its result is further processed by EQ plugins and other enhancements that most of us have played with at one time or another. I have found PsyTel's 2 highest settings (Archive and Ultra) to be the most robust (meaning less instrument clipping, etc) of any encoder at any setting to user tweaking after the fact. I don't have a clue why, perhaps some here with more technical knowlege could chime in. Its worth trying and ABXing if you're bored. I don't use nor have tested Nero but I suspect its very similar.
potato
As for the libraries in Windows 7, I didn't find a way to use them yet.
I can provide you a cli tool for testing...
That'd be sweet. mail@sebastian-mares.de
Sorry for the delay...it's available here (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=77162&view=findpost&p=674669).
I believe that encoders from Microsoft and DivX still need lot of work and improvement in quality.
It would be good if someone could do a listening test on them.
Thank you for your time. What settings did you try with Divx AAC encoder?
I tried beta 1 http://labs.divx.com/node/11682 (http://labs.divx.com/node/11682) VBR mode -V 3 ~100 kbit/s and found that Divx has good quality actually.
IIRC MS AAC encoder is only available in Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2.
IIRC MS AAC encoder is only available in Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2.
http://www.microsoft.com/Expression/produc...r_Overview.aspx (http://www.microsoft.com/Expression/products/Encoder_Overview.aspx)
A lot of those converters online just seem to be shells for ffmpeg, which uses FAAC.
There's also Matteo Croce's "aacplusenc"
http://teknoraver.net/software/mp4tools/ (http://teknoraver.net/software/mp4tools/)
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Aacplusenc (http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Aacplusenc)
IIRC MS AAC encoder is only available in Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2.
http://www.microsoft.com/Expression/produc...r_Overview.aspx (http://www.microsoft.com/Expression/products/Encoder_Overview.aspx)
What are your findings? Has it any near reasonable quality?
I encoded several audio tracks with MainConcept DirectShow AAC Encoder (comes with MainConcept AAC Encoder Plug-in for Adobe Flash Media Live Encoder) using GraphEdit and MONOGRAM MP4 Mux and got results similar to DivX Plus HD AAC Encoder (CLI version downloaded from DivX site), bitrate was slightly higher (122 for MC compared to 119 for DivX). Filter version is 7.6.0.35746 2008/08/07 (7.6.0 is the SDK version, I think), latest MainConcept SDK is 8.2.0 (but I have some filters that states 8.5.0). Looking at the spectrogram, frequency cutoff are the same (looks typical, different from other encoders). Also, options that is showed in help of CLI encoder are the same options that DS filter have. Maybe DivX AAC Encoder CLI comes from a newer version of SDK? But definitely these two encoders are, more or less, the same.
Is DivX Plus still in beta 2 stage?
Is DivX Plus still in beta 2 stage?
if you're referring to DivX AAC encoder it's still in beta 1 stage actually.
http://labs.divx.com/node/11682 (http://labs.divx.com/node/11682)
Is DivX Plus still in beta 2 stage?
if you're referring to DivX AAC encoder it's still in beta 1 stage actually.
http://labs.divx.com/node/11682 (http://labs.divx.com/node/11682)
Yes, beta 1! That's what I meant!
Thank you, Larson!
And I see MAGIX released v16 of their MP3 Deluxe so perhaps they have a new AAC encoder version?
Its maximum is still 256 kbps, though.
AVS Audio Converter 6.2 has some settings which I think are new. 256 kbps is still the highest bitrate, but they offer something called Quality 500 and various channel settings: mono, stereo, 3/0 — front, 3/1 — surround, 3/2 — surround, 3/2 + LFE 5.1 surround:
(http://i43.tinypic.com/2dthu8.png)
Someone said this was Liquid Audio AAC once.
There's also Matteo Croce's "aacplusenc"
According to the wiki it's just a faster version of the 3GPP reference encoder.
with all the ABX'ing going on here, can I asume this* is a top 4? (meaning #1 is the best etc.)
*
Competitive AAC encoders:
1. Apple
2. Nero
3. Coding Technologies (now Dolby)
4. Fraunhofer. Sorenson Squeeze and Magix application(?). Have they the updated and full functionality version of Fraunhofer encoder?
I'm asking because I'm a Mac user. I chose Apple's AAC to rip my CDs (for iPod, iPhone etc.), but only 'cause I had no clue there were other AAC types at the time.
EDIT: Actually, I'm using what ever AAC is in XLD... and just assume it's Apple's?
At the moment Nero gives me the best results, but seeing DivX work on a decent codec is great for the development of AAC. And speaking of encoders, does anyone yet know which codec Sony is using in it's Media Go software? Is it the MainConcept codec?
That said.. things are going well for AAC en Mpeg-4..... the only things that still pisses me off are:
1. The PS3 only handling .3gp-AAC's fine
2. Apple for pushing it's .m4a-extention... Mpeg-4 should be .MP4!
EDIT: Actually, I'm using what ever AAC is in XLD... and just assume it's Apple's?
Yes, it's Apple: QuickTime/CoreAudio AAC encoding
1. The PS3 only handling .3gp-AAC's fine
2. Apple for pushing it's .m4a-extention... Mpeg-4 should be .MP4!
This is a common misconception. The MP4 spec (MPEG-4 Part 14) only states that "[t]he preferred file extension is '.mp4'". It does not require or even recommend that .mp4 be used.
Yes, it's Apple: QuickTime/CoreAudio AAC encoding
thanks
btw., I know the rules, but my English lacks sometimes. I wasn't asking for the best sound, just wanted to know what's the "best" known version of AAC. I guess 'reference' or 'benchmark' is the word I was looking for
Sony Audio Studio 10 has Fraunhofer's AAC. Again the highest setting is 256 kbps.