HydrogenAudio

Hydrogenaudio Forum => Polls => Topic started by: antman on 2011-01-04 00:14:50

Poll
Question: The reason I use [blank] for lossy is:
Option 1: Compatibility votes: 103
Option 2: Quality votes: 74
Option 3: Match Purchased Music votes: 3
Option 4: Other votes: 5
Title: What determines which encoders/settings you use. (2011)
Post by: antman on 2011-01-04 00:14:50
Isn't this a new years tradition. 

I thought instead of doing yet another "which lossy/lossless/bitrate do you use" poll, we'd do something a little different.  I'm more interested in the reason why people use which encoders and settings they do.

And to start:

Lossy:  Compatibility, MP3 (AAC tags have given me problems in the past, mostly on cell phones).
Lossless:  Compatibility, FLAC (if a media player doesn't support FLAC, there's a plugin somewhere that will make it).
Encode:  Absolutely pack out whatever mp3 player/cell phone I got.  I can't ABX for shiznit.  V5 most of the time, V4 when I'm feelin fancy 

Compatibility can also be read as: compatibility with the devices I own.

I know there's gonna be a firestorm for leaving a quality as an option on lossy, but we're adults here.  Let's be civil.

And maybe this way we'll a trend not just within codecs but for everyone that's on here.
Title: What determines which encoders/settings you use. (2011)
Post by: mixminus1 on 2011-01-04 01:49:32
Yay, a new year's poll!

...and I'm pretty much with antman on this one:

Lossy: Compatibility, MP3 - it plays on anything, anywhere (if you ignore PCs - but *include* cell phones with media playing capabilities - I'm thinking there are now more devices in the world that play MP3 than any other format...including audio CDs or WAVs).

Lossless: Compatibility, FLAC - well-supported for ripping and encoding under both Windoze and OS X

Lossy encode: Several years ago, I did several ABX tests with (then 3.96.1) LAME @ V2, failed all of them miserably, and have never looked back (well, except for herding_calls, but 3.98.4 has conquered that one, too  )
Title: What determines which encoders/settings you use. (2011)
Post by: Cokemonkey11 on 2011-01-04 04:54:06
I use MP3 for lossy because it's the most compatible.. It works on my phone and mp3 player, and I don't have to worry about transcoding any music I download (My OCPD would force me to do that, I can't keep different types)

I chose "other" for lossless because my favorite thing about FLAC is that it's open source. I'll always choose the open standard if I don't need an alternative.

I chose "other" for my lossy encoding rate because I like 320kbps.. for no reason. I simply don't need to save space, disk drives are cheap these days, and it's easier to keep one set of music than try to use lossless for libraries and another set for home stereo and another set.. etc. I just don't have time to organize my music that much.

Cheers
Title: What determines which encoders/settings you use. (2011)
Post by: TechVsLife on 2011-01-04 06:18:56
I now use AAC/M4A as lossy and apple lossless for the greatest compatibility (with devices that are the most widely used, which also happen to be the ones I own)--& also quality advantage (at least in principle or design, perhaps in fact slight or none) of aac/m4a over mp3. 

Title: What determines which encoders/settings you use. (2011)
Post by: kornchild2002 on 2011-01-04 11:33:08
1.  I now use iTunes/QuickTime AAC for lossy encoding as every device I have works with it (whether it is my Droid X, various iPods, Xbox 360, stand-alone Blu-ray player, etc.) and it is easier to just use one program (ie iTunes) for managing and encoding my lossy files.
2.  I use ALAC for lossless encoding as I am currently tied to the Apple universe in terms of portable players.  I don't see the sense in me using any other lossless format if I can't play it with my media managing software (ie iTunes).
3.  My lossy settings are based on what I can ABX, just one step above that for my own, dumb "safety."  I can't ABX iTunes AAC at 160kbps VBR so I encode at 192kbps VBR.  I still have plenty of space on my 4G 64GB iPod touch to carry around my best of playlist, 200+ music videos, and over 8GB in apps with about 10GB worth of free space.
Title: What determines which encoders/settings you use. (2011)
Post by: DonP on 2011-01-04 13:24:35
The survey frames the questions with the assumption that you do everything the same way for the same reason, which sure doesn't apply to me.

Except for lossless.  There I stick with Flac for compatibility.  Mostly what I keep archived in Flac are rips from vinyl, live concert recordings, and albums purchased online (if available as lossless)  as they are a PITA to replace compared to reripping a CD.

For lossy, it's mostly vorbis.  That is the most compatible in my universe of computers and players.  I make a point of getting mp3 decoders for my linux computers, but that has to be done every time I install a new release, while vorbis works right away.  I also have a fair amount in musepack (plays on all the hardware, but not all player programs I might want to try out on PC), and mp3.

For bitrate, it depends on how much I like that album, and whether it's for the car, background music,etc, vs  sitting in front of the living room stereo basking in the soundstage.  For casual, generally in the q0 to q4 range, q6 if I don't want to worry about it.

For long voice recordings (like audio books, sometimes transcoded podcasts) I take the pack-the-dap option with speex, typically around 10 kb/s.
Title: What determines which encoders/settings you use. (2011)
Post by: Pri3st on 2011-01-04 14:25:26
Lossy: I use MP3 for compatibility - speed.

Lossless: WavPack, for compression and also because is compatible "out of the box" with the software that I use (foobar2000 and zumocast).

Lossy encode: V2 as it is recommended. I am afraid to use V4 or V5  even though I cannot ABX them.
Title: What determines which encoders/settings you use. (2011)
Post by: lameboy on 2011-01-04 14:42:29
lossy: LAME MP3
lossless: FLAC
lossy encode: V0

Compatability and open source encoders/decoders are important to me.
It may be that V0 is overkill for me, but I like the "paranoia padding factor" 

BTW, regarding compatability: How's the support for ID3v2.4 coming along?


Title: What determines which encoders/settings you use. (2011)
Post by: zombiewerewolf on 2011-01-04 15:56:37
Lossy: Quality, AAC (Most electronic devices released in the past few years support AAC; DVD\Blu-ray players, Mobile phones, DAPs... There's no reason to stick with MP3 anymore).
Lossless: Compression, TAK (It's hard to beat TAK's compression/speed ratio. I also like the fact that the developer actively improves his codec).
Encode: Based On What I Can ABX,  Since I fail to ABX even MP3@128kbps. So, just to be safe, I choose to encode one step further; AAC@160kbps.
Title: What determines which encoders/settings you use. (2011)
Post by: Notat on 2011-01-04 16:07:10
Lossy: MP3 for compatibility and because that's what you download from most music stores (except iTunes).

Lossless: I've never used a lossless encoder. I don't really see the point. I use WAV for stuff that needs to be lossless (my own recordings). I still have a bunch of CDs sitting on a shelf that never get played; Those are lossless.

Encoding: I don't do much encoding these days. I can sometimes hear (what I think are) artifacts in some of my very old LAME 160kb MP3 files. The stuff I download now is all generally >200kb. It sounds good but I obviously don't have anything to compare it to.
Title: What determines which encoders/settings you use. (2011)
Post by: dyneq on 2011-01-04 21:17:48
Agree with DonP that the poll is not well designed (I choose my encoders for both compatibility and quality reasons), so I'm not going to participate in the official poll, but here are my current strategies:

1) LAME. Apple made me 'upgrade' my old iTunes files to get rid of their DRM and even though I now use Rockbox on my portable, I no longer use Vorbis because LAME does a good job and is universal.

2) FLAC. I did experiment with WavPack and liked it alot, but use FLAC for the same reasons I use LAME: works great and is the most universal codec out there.

3) I can ABX some of the well-known, difficult-to-encode samples at V 5. Instead of using fractional increases in quality to find my sweet spot, I decided to just go with V 4 and enjoy the music!
Title: What determines which encoders/settings you use. (2011)
Post by: antman on 2011-01-04 21:40:46
Agree with DonP that the poll is not well designed (I choose my encoders for both compatibility and quality reasons), so I'm not going to participate in the official poll, but here are my current strategies:

I'm sorry if my poll has offended you.    It was late and kind of thrown together.  Next year there will be a pre-poll to determine which choices will be added in the official poll. 

I just wanted to try something a little different.  I don't think there's any doubt that in the standard poll that FLAC/LAME would reign supreme, again.  But in this day and age you can find happiness in which ever setup you use.  I just wanted to know why you use what you use.  Today you could use WMAL & WMA exclusively and doesn't make you bad person.   

I thought the third question was truly the most interesting.  I wanted to know who actually base settings on what they hear and not what the superpowers on here hear.
Title: What determines which encoders/settings you use. (2011)
Post by: indybrett on 2011-01-04 21:45:36
Lossless FLAC 6
Lossy LAME v3

Both for hardware compatibility.

v3 on the LAME as it's the best "bang for the buck" for me.  Dropping everything over about 16k saves a ton of space on metal music, and I can't hear those frequencies anymore anyway, lol.



Title: What determines which encoders/settings you use. (2011)
Post by: DonP on 2011-01-04 22:15:05
wrt the  choices on how I pick a rate, I've confirmed that sample pairs I can abx with concentration are generally not discernible if I'm only hearing one.  So I don't feel like I need a safety margin.  If I happen to hear some artifact at that level that bothers me (hasn't happened yet)  I can then check with abx and recode the track with a higher setting or different format.

Title: What determines which encoders/settings you use. (2011)
Post by: Stephan37 on 2011-01-04 22:46:23
Hi, y'all! Happy new year!

I have just finished ripping more than 1000 CDs and my strategy was:

MP3s (V2 setting) for car, ipod etc. (Compatibility - my car's stereo doesn't play AAC)

ALAC (m4a) for lossless - I use Itunes and a Sonos at home which both support m4a and my Ipod, too of course

both done at the same time using dbpoweramp

I use the V2 settings without much thinking. I know that it's definitely overkill, but I don't care since memory costs next to nothing nowadays.

Title: What determines which encoders/settings you use. (2011)
Post by: dyneq on 2011-01-04 23:19:25
I'm sorry if my poll has offended you.    It was late and kind of thrown together.  Next year there will be a pre-poll to determine which choices will be added in the official poll. 

No offense taken  (and I hope I didn't offend you)! I wouldn't have participated at all if I didn't think you had some good ideas. If I remember correctly, some of the previous annual polls had the same design limitations. I just didn't want to put in answers that did not reflect my true usage patterns. I'm very interested in what other members are doing and why.
Title: What determines which encoders/settings you use. (2011)
Post by: UNHchabo on 2011-01-04 23:34:02
Lossy: Quality: I use Vorbis for my laptop and my Rockbox'd Sansa, because it gives better quality for the bitrate (or lower bitrate for the quality, however you want to look at it). Also, the Vorbis format natively supports gapless playback, unlike MP3. However, I also encode to MP3 for the sake of a USB stick I use in my car. In that case, I use MP3 instead of one of the other formats my car supports (WMA, AAC), because MP3 is so ubiquitous.

Lossless: Other: I use Flac. A big reason is compatibility; it's the only lossless format that can be used by just about anything, partially because it's the only major lossless format that has an open standard. Probably the main reason is the amount of testing that's done though; since so many people use Flac every day, any issues present are bound to be caught by someone else before they destroy my data.

Lossy encode: -V2 for LAME, -q 6 for Vorbis. In both cases, I'm only able to ABX killer samples. Occasionally I'll hear artifacts that I can't consistently ABX, but they're so minor that it doesn't bother me. I listen to the lossless sources often enough that I feel my settings are a good tradeoff for when I don't have the space for the lossless versions.

Incidentally, those are also the two default settings I chose for each encoder in FlacSquisher. (aren't shameless plugs great? )
Title: What determines which encoders/settings you use. (2011)
Post by: B7k on 2011-01-19 15:31:11
Flac for backups of my cd's
lame mp3's @ -v3 for portability.
Title: What determines which encoders/settings you use. (2011)
Post by: halb27 on 2011-01-19 19:55:16
lossy: quality based best choice for me is lossyWAV | FLAC, and I don't care much about bitrate which anyway is pretty low with current lossyWAV, but for compatibility issues (with my wife, friends, relatives) I switched to good old mp3 which at very high bitrate is so good that it doesn't make me really miss something.

lossless (for CD backup): TAK
Title: What determines which encoders/settings you use. (2011)
Post by: KFal on 2011-01-20 07:41:09
1. I use AAC. It is compatible with all devices I use for playback, but so is MP3. Originally I went for AAC in the past because it is the theoretically superior format and it appealed to me that I should get superior quality at the same file size when compared to MP3. I never really verified this but stuck to AAC because I was and still am happy with the quality it delivers. From all that I read and hear (listen to) there is no compelling reason to switch to any other lossy format.

2. Apple lossless is used as a CD backup and for playback on home audio and PC. I started off with FLAC but I now use iTunes to sync lossy music with my iPhone and various iPods. Using Apple lossless and AAC allows me to simultaneously edit my lossless and lossy files. There are a number of deficiencies in iTunes, e.g. handling of multiple artists, but the overall simplicity of the approach makes me stick to it.

3. I am using NeroAAC to encode at quality 0.5. Testing using ABX had shown that I could not reliably identify differences at that quality setting. I pondered if I should try going even lower to save space -- or rather higher to add some safety margin for not yet tested music. On one hand I had no storage problems on my portable players and on the other hand continued listening did not reveal problems. Overall I decided to stop fretting with quality settings and ever since I am happily just enjoying music.
Title: What determines which encoders/settings you use. (2011)
Post by: itisljar on 2011-01-20 08:05:49
Well, I primarily use FLAC for archiving, but will use anything else if I feel adventurous  APE, Wavpack... whatever. Since it is archiving, it is not crucial which format it is, as long as it is free to use at home
For lossy I use AAC, Nero@0.48, since I can't ABX even 128 kbit mp3, I took a bit of overhead (around 175 kbit) for all possible artifacts to be squashed. I used to use lame mp3 at similar bitrates, but changed to aac since I got iPod.

That's about it.
Title: What determines which encoders/settings you use. (2011)
Post by: ExUser on 2011-01-20 20:29:35
FLAC usually for mastered (ie. 16-bit) material.
WavPack for unmastered (ie. 32-bit float) material.
MP3 for portable/distribution. I never use above V2. I often use V5 when trying to pack my Clip+.
I've distributed some of my mash-ups in FLAC / LossyWAV --standard, which I also use for all my vinyl rips, as the increased noise floor of LossyWAV works well to discard the uselessly-high noise floor of vinyl rips anyhow.
Title: What determines which encoders/settings you use. (2011)
Post by: uncajesse on 2011-01-21 06:44:13
Lossy: Quality, Lame V0...

I think the first question is diluted because people are mixing it between formats, and encoders.  I voted quality, because i use Lame/Settings for quality.

I do use the mp3 FORMAT for compatibility, but the question is asking why you use the ENCODER & settings you do.  Not format.  And it doesn't specify how to pick from which lossy format to vote on.  So I just went with what I use for most things, which makes sense in both cases I guess.  But still...  Confusing, no?
Title: What determines which encoders/settings you use. (2011)
Post by: Nessuno on 2011-01-21 08:00:41
Apple lossless is used as a CD backup and for playback on home audio and PC. I started off with FLAC but I now use iTunes to sync lossy music with my iPhone and various iPods. Using Apple lossless and AAC allows me to simultaneously edit my lossless and lossy files. There are a number of deficiencies in iTunes, e.g. handling of multiple artists, but the overall simplicity of the approach makes me stick to it.


Excuse me, could you please explain better this point? Do you mean to say there is a way to have two differently encoded version of every track of your collection in different locations (say, lossy on internal HD and lossless on bigger external one) and keep their tags automagically in sync?

P. S. For the moderator: maybe this post should change subj or place. If so, please handle it properly. Thanks...
Title: What determines which encoders/settings you use. (2011)
Post by: FelixIvory on 2011-01-21 11:44:32
1. I use AAC.
2. flac.
3. I am using the newest NeroAAC to encode at quality 0.75.
Title: What determines which encoders/settings you use. (2011)
Post by: KFal on 2011-01-21 23:03:34
Apple lossless is used as a CD backup and for playback on home audio and PC. I started off with FLAC but I now use iTunes to sync lossy music with my iPhone and various iPods. Using Apple lossless and AAC allows me to simultaneously edit my lossless and lossy files. There are a number of deficiencies in iTunes, e.g. handling of multiple artists, but the overall simplicity of the approach makes me stick to it.


Excuse me, could you please explain better this point? Do you mean to say there is a way to have two differently encoded version of every track of your collection in different locations (say, lossy on internal HD and lossless on bigger external one) and keep their tags automagically in sync?


It's very simple indeed. I do keep lossy and lossless versions in separate locations and both versions are imported into iTunes. Since all relevant tags are identical, lossy and lossless tracs of an album for instance appear under the same album. (This applies in spirit to tracs without album.) If I want to change the album title for both lossy and lossless, it's just two steps to select and edit both kinds of tracs in one go. Similarly if I want to just change one individual trac, both lossless and lossy version sit next to each other in the iTunes listing and can be selected for a simultaneous edit. The same applies to all sorts of changes because iTunes has quite complex filtering capabilities and by default the lossy and lossless version always sit next to each other in the resulting display. Should that not be sufficient, then I resort to tools such as the mighty mp3tag where the changes have to be applied sequentially to both lossy and lossless -- but that may be due to my limited knowledge of advanced mp3tag features.

Syncing to iPods or iPhone is then simply done based on dynamic playlists which filter the collection and also filter out lossless files. Easy to set up and a smooth ride.

Kudos for the initial idea go to Kornchild, btw.


Title: What determines which encoders/settings you use. (2011)
Post by: Angenial on 2011-01-22 13:51:56
Lossy: Compatibility. I selected compatibility because I never have to worry about whether an MP3 will play somewhere.  On the other hand, my collection is in FLAC so I can transcode to whatever is necessary; as such, I could transcode to whatever the best codec for the target device would be, but since I only use tools whose source code is available, and because my portable player doesn't support Vorbis, I use lame (I'd quite possibly use lame anyway, just because I know it's transparent to me).

Lossless: Other.  I use FLAC for a few reasons.  First off, it's totally free, meaning the specification is not secret, and source code is available. Also, momentum.  I've been using it for years, and I don't really feel like converting it all to another format.  It's simply not worth a few percent of compression.  If I run out of space I'll just buy new drives.  Compatibility is also a reason.  Since flac is free and has been around forever, I'm more confident that it'll be supported if I switch players on my computer (I don't see myself using lossless on a portable device, at least not for a long while).

I do periodically think about switching to WavPack; in my tests it has slightly better compression than FLAC, and is licensed in the same way.  Like FLAC, WavPack comes with a library that provides an easy API for adding support to a player that can't play WavPack (I wrote a WavPack plugin for a library of mine, and the entire source file, including comments and blank lines, is 145 lines of C code).  There is also support for WavPack in TagLib, which is nice.  The two downsides are: 1) decompression time slows down as the compression level increases and 2) the gains aren't so great that I want to re-encode my entire library.

Encode: ABX.  My portable player's drive is large enough that I don't have to worry about filling it up, so why not what I can ABX?  I'd bet, though, that I could go a lot smaller since I mainly use my player in the car and at the gym, neither of which demands the highest music quality.
Title: What determines which encoders/settings you use. (2011)
Post by: serkan on 2011-01-29 12:27:11
Lossless: FLAC, compatibility
Lossy: MP3 (LAME), compatibility
320kbps CBR, highest quality

Tried OggVorbis for some time and compatibility was not an issue... it was the lack of cover art support with the software I use.
With MP3 I acutally managed to hear a difference between 320kbps and lossless once in a club with a pretty great sound system (I'm a DJ). Most of the times I can't ABX 192kbps from lossless but when I realized that there is a sonic difference, I started using FLAC where I can or at least 320kbps on MP3.
Title: What determines which encoders/settings you use. (2011)
Post by: yourlord on 2011-03-02 22:49:45
I have multiple reasons for my choices, but I voted based on the factor which held the most weight.

For lossy I use Vorbis for 2 primary reasons; the quality at lower bitrates (vorbis at -q2 blows my mind with how good it sounds for such a low bitrate), and the spec is fully open and royalty free.

For lossless I use FLAC purely for compatibility, and part of that compatibility is the fact the spec is open and royalty free. It's close enough to all other comparable lossless codecs in features and compression to not care about anything else.

I encode all vorbis files at -q2, or ~96kbps because that's the point where any remaining artifacts become tolerable, and I only use these files on DAP's where I want to maximize my storage capacity.

If forced, I encode to mp3 at -V2, or ~192Kbps because that's the level where mp3 artifacts become tolerable. These only go on DAP's that don't support vorbis. I do not own any such players, and never will, so this option never really gets used.

Title: What determines which encoders/settings you use. (2011)
Post by: Meeko on 2011-06-27 19:16:48
To fill in these blanks:

I use MP3 for lossy for compatability.  The portable players I have can only do MP3/WMA so the choice there is obvious.

I use FLAC for lossless for compatability.  Again, a lot of things I use like foobar, xmplay, audacity support FLAC.

I encode MP3 for high quality.  I paid for space, so I may as well use it.  I don't need my entire music collection on a portable player all at once.