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Topic: What should become of LAME? (Read 14999 times) previous topic - next topic
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What should become of LAME?

Reply #25
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Originally posted by Milkman.dan

w00t brotha. w00t.


The 'advocacy' warning wasn't there for nothing

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GCP

What should become of LAME?

Reply #26
Yeah, I would have to agree that Vorbis and AAC, as compared to MPC, have different focuses. And that certainly shows in development.

I think, to a certain extent, Vorbis addresses the transparent application with the lossless channel mode that is talked about in one of the white papers on the site. Of course, since it isn't implemented yet(or if it is, I have no idea how to access it), we can't really tell what the effect on bitrate/filesize will be.  Any thoughts on that? If Ogg has a lossless or near-lossless profile availible, would that make a difference to you personally?

Perhaps that's a bit ambiguous. How about this:
Would the opensource nature of Vorbis( and thus its high adoptability), combined with a high-quality profile, change your mind about the standing of the codec in the audiophile world?

Personally, I look at it this way. I have pretty solid hearing. I treat my ears well, and for the most part, I hear flaws in all sorts on encoded songs that I, and others have done. And since I have two applications for music on my computer, I have two different sets on needs.

On one hand, I have gobs of hard disk space availible to me. So, 90% of the time, I don't really care how much space my music collection takes up. I don't want it to be excessive, but I don't mind giving up the space if it is well used.

Application two is portable audio. I have a Rio500, and I get about 45min of 160kbpsVBR on the thing. And it's tolerable to listen to on the go. But it's not very high quality.

From my viewpoint, Anything that makes it easier for companies to integrate additional codecs, is better for me. Vorbis has the edge here. And thanks to the ripple effect, and a healthy dose of lazy, I don't want to have to transcode something to use it on a portable. So if I have the same files on both applications, that's great for me.

That's why I tend to stick up for Ogg. A lossless mode, or a near-lossless profile would be great. But for me, 192kbps ought to do it, assuming they get all their ducks in a row. I would guess that bitrate would be the middle ground between the two apps.

Anyway, sorry for rambling on. Just wanted to talk a bit. I'm interested to see what you'll say Dibrom. Or anyone else, for that matter.

Later.

What should become of LAME?

Reply #27
Let me ask for all DVD rippers ( DivX ) :

which codec has the best chances to outperform MP3 for bitrates < 128 kbps ? I am using Lame ABR now as recommended by R3MIX forum members.

Is MPC prepared and designed for lower bitrates ?

Ogg Vorbis the one that will perform best at these bitrates ?

Or is AAC ( Nic could really use somebody to help him here ) the future for DivXers ?

What should become of LAME?

Reply #28
Quote
Originally posted by Milkman.dan

I think, to a certain extent, Vorbis addresses the transparent application with the lossless channel mode that is talked about in one of the white papers on the site. Of course, since it isn't implemented yet(or if it is, I have no idea how to access it), we can't really tell what the effect on bitrate/filesize will be.  Any thoughts on that? 


The lossless mode just relates to channel coupling. It is comparable to mid-side stereo in MP3, but it's called lossless because unlike MP3 the transformation from L/R to M/S never loses a bit of precision.

This doesn't mean the codec itself gets lossless. Far from it.

It is already implemented (actually, it has always been because the pre-RC2 dual stereo is also lossless). You don't have to activate it. The encoder decides whether to use it or not depending on the audio content that you are encoding and the quality you requested. Bitrates from 256kbps and up always use lossless stereo, and so does my tuned Vorbis mode.

RC2 had some quality problems with the non-lossless modes, but they are (will be) corrected in later versions, and hence it's possible lossless coupling will be used less often in the future.

I believe the difference between 128kbps RC2 channel coupling and lossless coupling is on the order of 10-20kbps.

Quote
If Ogg has a lossless or near-lossless profile availible, would that make a difference to you personally?[/b]


Sure does. That's why I'm working on tuning high-bitrate Vorbis. The next version (RC3) should already have much improved high-bitrate modes.

A lossless mode would be nice too, but that won't be part of Vorbis (although part of Ogg, the bitstream format). There is going to come one after Vorbis stabilizes a bit more, based on Squish,FLAC and possibly Monkey's Audio.

--
GCP

What should become of LAME?

Reply #29
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Originally posted by ChristianHJW

Is MPC prepared and designed for lower bitrates ?


No. MPC is expressly designed as a high-quality high-bitrate format. It's advantage over Vorbis/AAC/MP3 at high bitrates (no frequency domain transform) becomes a large handicap at lower bitrates.

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Ogg Vorbis the one that will perform best at these bitrates ?


That's what we hope. It should do pretty well right now, and it'll only get better.

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Or is AAC ( Nic could really use somebody to help him here ) the future for DivXers ?


Given the many restrictions on that format, I'd hope not. Playing AAC movies on my linux machines would be problematic to say the very least.

Qualitywise it should do pretty ok, given it's designed for 96/128kbps, but I think Ogg Vorbis can be at least equal or even better, if not now, then certainly in the future.

--
GCP

What should become of LAME?

Reply #30
Well, maybe there should be an express lossless mode for Ogg? Like HuffYUV the video compressor? I use Huff all the time, and it is a wonderful piece of work. It would be nice to be able to capture raw video footage with compressed video and audio, both being very flexible and opensource.

What should become of LAME?

Reply #31
Agreed. If we could use Ogg (given it will use the compression features of the programs mentioned) to record audio losslessly, that would be a blessing. Of course, we'd need it to be ACM for use with capturing programs like VirtualDub.

Btw, hasn't the author of LPAC any intentions of releasing the source for his program?

What should become of LAME?

Reply #32
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Btw, hasn't the author of LPAC any intentions of releasing the source for his program?


No need to use LPAC, there is already an excellent and relatively fast open source lossless encoder in FLAC:

http://flac.sourceforge.net/

There is a comparison chart there which shows FLAC performing a tiny bit worse than LPAC but no slower. Monkeys Audio is faster (in some modes) and has better compression (about 2.5% more) than both, but it's completely unusable as an archive format (no specification, no source, Windows only).

There was a nascent project to strip FLAC of its inbuilt streaming wrapper and use the Ogg wrapping format instead -- I've seen interest in mailing lists recently about this.

 

What should become of LAME?

Reply #33
If the author of LPAC should release the sourcecode to his program (same for Monkey's Audio - which Matt actually said he would at some point) then those can be used to merge them all together into one lossless, patentless and free codec in Ogg. It's not like the exact code for each has to be used, just portions of it or certain algorithms to create the Mother of All lossless encoders.

What should become of LAME?

Reply #34
@Garf :

Thanks for your clear answer. So i better go assist ingoralfblume on getting Ogg to work in AVIs without sync problems instead of disturbing your hi-level developers talk  ....

What should become of LAME?

Reply #35
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The Mother of All lossless encoders

I like the sound of that... what would the logo be? Perhaps a happy and munificent bust of Saddam Hussein...

What should become of LAME?

Reply #36
There is loseless audio coding in the Ogg suite. But it's not Vorbis, it's Squish

What should become of LAME?

Reply #37
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Originally posted by Gabriel
There is loseless audio coding in the Ogg suite. But it's not Vorbis, it's Squish


Squish hasn't been developed for ages and does not support the Ogg bitstream format.

FLAC is, and has support for Ogg in the latest versions.

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GCP