HydrogenAudio

Hydrogenaudio Forum => Polls => Topic started by: guruboolez on 2007-01-01 23:30:31

Poll
Question: What's your *main lossy* format of choice?
Option 1: MP3 votes: 501
Option 2: Ogg Vorbis votes: 212
Option 3: AAC votes: 118
Option 4: MPC votes: 41
Option 5: WMA Standard votes: 5
Option 6: WMA Pro votes: 3
Option 7: Atrac (any version) votes: 4
Option 8: Other / I don't use lossy AT ALL! votes: 41
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: guruboolez on 2007-01-01 23:30:31
With the agreement of Synthetic Soul, I started a new bunch of polls. As explained in a private message, I'd like to see a more rationalized usage of polls, with a fixed duration. Polls are interesting to see how what tools they're using at home. But a succession of identical polls could also teach us how people are changing with time. It could interest people fond of statistics but it could also give to developers (especially lossless' ones) good information about the popularity of their product.

This poll merge the two most popular questions into one single topic. Please answer to all questions when it's possible. Even if you rarely use a lossy or a lossless format, tell us which one you prefer to perform this rare task.

N.B. As said, the opening period should now be fixed but the duration haven't been set. It could be one new poll per year, or two polls/year, or one each quarter.


link to previous polls (2006):
• your lossy codec of choice in 2006 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=43254)
• your lossless codec of choice in 2006 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=43928)


N.B. I deliberately ignore some possible answers (like mp3pro, vqf, LA, TTA) based on results obtained in the last poll. I already add TAK lossless encoder even if it's not available for the public. Future voters could therefore give their voice to this promising encoder. The formats are sorted by popularity (results of last polls).

P.S. This thread's right place belongs to the "poll" forum but I don't own the right to directly create it at the right place.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Soap on 2007-01-01 23:41:41
Ripping program of choice would also be an interesting poll question to add to the bundle.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: memomai on 2007-01-01 23:47:22
Quote
Ripping program of choice would also be an interesting poll question to add to the bundle.


yeah that would be nice... (well I think EAC is winner right here, but maybe not.......)

I'd like to see which other rippers are used as well (I think foobar2000 should also be added to the poll then...)
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Sebastian Mares on 2007-01-01 23:48:15
For use with my iPod Nano 2G and my Sony Ericsson K750i, I encode to LAME MP3, 80 kbps mono (my left ear is totally deaf so I never knew what stereo sounds like anyways).

For lossless, I went with WavPack after trying out Monkey's Audio and FLAC. The compression ratio is good enough for me and the encoding speed is excellent.

I use dBpowerAMP RC12 for ripping and rip to single tracks.

In 2006, things looked somewhat different. Until recently, I used EAC only with my Plextor PX-755A in order to have - what I thought - "perfect rips" including the 30 samples from the lead-out. In the meanwhile I realized that it's bullshit and not worth the hassle. I also used to encode to WavPack image + CUE. Additionally, I encoded using WMA Lossless in order to import the tracks in iTunes and rip to AAC at 128 kbps VBR (WMA Lossless can contain tags that are recognized by iTunes).
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Diow on 2007-01-01 23:53:46
For general use [bitrate between ~128, ~300 kbps] LAME
for low bitrates AAC
Lossless: monkey's audio, others codecs have better decoding speed but the compression ratio are decreased and decoding speed aren
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: guruboolez on 2007-01-01 23:55:09
Ripping program of choice would also be an interesting poll question to add to the bundle.

Yes but I could only put three questions in the same poll.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Diow on 2007-01-01 23:59:35
For general use [bitrate between ~128, ~300 kbps] LAME,for low bitrates AAC.
Lossless: monkey's audio, but this just with classical and metal musics.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Teknojnky on 2007-01-02 00:48:29
I'd move to (embedded) cue + flac image if more players supported it (meaning most standard players: wmp/winamp/mediamonkey/etc).
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: rjamorim on 2007-01-02 00:50:33
Go MP3!!!! Go WavPack!!!!
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: /mnt on 2007-01-02 01:08:18
Lossey format:

MP3 (LAME 3.97 VBR V2)

LAME Mp3 can be played gaplessley with a few more different players now , such as Winamp, iTunes and mpg123 (Unix). And i can listen to Dark Side Of The Moon, The Downward Spiral, The Fragile and other gapless albums without any clicks or pops on my 4GB 2G iPod Nano. 2006 was a good year for gapless playback for mp3.

Lossless format:

FLAC and PCM Wave

I use lossless for ABX test samples are if i have really bad CD that needs to be backed ASAP.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Fandango on 2007-01-02 01:15:02
MP3/WV/IMG+CUE

I don't think my preferences will change throughout the whole year (except maybe when TAK becomes a full-blown codec with a nice license), but I would like to have quarterly votes on this subject anway. The more often these polls are being conducted the better. PS: ...and I think it was a good idea to splice all of them together.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Acid8000 on 2007-01-02 01:28:22
Lossy = MP3
No lossless, although I'm thinking of ripping to FLAC images in the future.
One file per track MP3s.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Remedial Sound on 2007-01-02 01:51:21
MP3.  Universal compatability. Transparency for me at V5 ~128 kbps.  Thanx LAME 

Compatability & ease of use for lossless - I flipped a coin and picked WavPack over FLAC.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Gnerma on 2007-01-02 01:52:27
LAME 3.97 -V 2 --vbr-new seperate tracks for my Sandisk M260.

WavPack 4.32 -hx1 single file with CUE for lossless. I'll very likely be switching to TAK once Thomas has it feature complete and expresses his confidence in using it for real.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Borisz on 2007-01-02 01:57:37
LAME 3.97 -V0 --vbr-new, using EAC to rip from CDs and Foobar2000 to convert my FLAC backups.
For lossless, I'm too lazy to reencode everything in a different format, and most people already use it, so I just stick with FLAC too. As far as I can see, it's already the standard for everything but DVD-Audio.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Andavari on 2007-01-02 02:09:10
Go MP3!!!! Go WavPack!!!!

Amen brother!
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: goldenratiophi on 2007-01-02 02:39:17
Max (cdparanoia mode instead of comparison w/ C2 becuase my CDs are barely scratched) rips to q5 Ogg Vorbis and FLAC, track-by-track.  The oggs go on my Rockbox'd iPod 5.5G 30GB.  WavPack looks interesting though, I'll have to check it out.  I did a quick test and it encoded really fast, but it has even less player support than FLAC and Ogg...
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Khaine on 2007-01-02 02:51:10
Currently I use Lame to encode my music as AAC is confusing and the open source encoders are not as well developed as the commercial alternatives.  And if I used lossless I would probably be using Flac, but because I don't want to re-rip all my music, and because it doesn't enjoy hardware support I probably won't be using it for a while.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Firon on 2007-01-02 03:06:52
Vorbis q-2 (it's transparent to me, especially on the go); WavPack; one file per track. I absolutely hate single file per disc + CUE.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: dbAmp on 2007-01-02 03:21:47
I rip everything as WavPack Images for backup purposes then use foobar2000 + iTunesEncode to convert to 128 VBR AAC for the iPod.

I've been thinking about switching back to MP3 for lossy so I can stream to my Xbox 360 through WMP11, but so far I've found too many problem samples at V5 and I don't have enough space on my iPod to go with a higher bitrate... plus I've had the dreaded iTunes LAME VBR seek issues.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Cpt. Spandrel on 2007-01-02 03:36:12
WV,
MP3,
mixed - cue for WV archive/PC playback, single MP3s now for portable use (Rockbox on iRiver h120). Was WVC for portable...

May I suggest that future polls split the "Other / I don't use x AT ALL!" question into two separate options? even if there are only 8 poll options max it looks like that answer is coming in about third or forth most popular, and it might be more interesting to get a breakdown than to see a fight for sixth and seventh.

Good idea about doing this regularly btw.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: skelly831 on 2007-01-02 05:08:18
LAME -V5 for portable/car, FLAC and/or WV image+cue for PC. Although AAC and Vorbis have cought my eye a few times (I keep up with aotuv and lancer releases) they are simply not a convenient solution for me.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: jorsol on 2007-01-02 05:46:18
Ogg Vorbis for lossy, FLAC for lossless.

I rip in one file+cue for archiving purpuse (FLAC) and then convert to Ogg Vorbis in separate tracks for PC playback.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: herefornow on 2007-01-02 05:55:06
mp3 -v5 --vbr-new for my traveling player. musepak for my archive. good enough for these old ears

cheers,
herefornow
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: hellokeith on 2007-01-02 05:58:35
My Muvo likes WMA Standard, and with two-pass VBR WMA, I couldn't get MP3's with the same quality any where near as small the file size.

Flac played through Foobar for my non-portable listening.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Jebus on 2007-01-02 07:47:24
Right now I have FLAC backups of all my discs, and i transcode that to AAC for my iPod, and MP3 for streaming to my XBOX 360... would like to get rid of the AAC and/or the MP3, but I haven't figured out how to tag iPod-compatible album art in MP3, and althought the XBOX will play back AAC files, it won't read them streamed over the network for some reason (only local or off an iPod). Oh well!
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Synthetic Soul on 2007-01-02 08:09:09
With the agreement of Synthetic Soul, I started a new bunch of polls.
This started with a discussion (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=43928&view=findpost&p=386910) in the 2006 lossless poll.  guruboolez and I agree that a fixed term poll, preferably with a short duration (3 or 6 months in my opinion), will provide a more accurate representation of users' preferences.

The current TAK situation is a good example:  If the majority of voters vote before TAK is released, and then many start using it, if the poll is left open for a year or more (2005's was open for twenty months) the poll will not accurately reflect usage for 2007.  If two or four polls are taken in that time the migration is well documented.

The idea to join the two is a good one; I think the number of votes already reflects that.  I agree with one poster that perhaps "I don't use any" should be a separate option so all such votes to that question can be "discounted".  I could add the option now if you want guruboolez, but it should probably wait until the next one, considering the number of votes already.

I told guruboolez that I would be interested in the image vs tracks question, but I'm afraid that the votes are being polluted by users that only rip to lossy.  I mean, 99% of people use tracks for listening, we're more interested in your archive/lossless version.  Maybe only people who use lossless should answer the question, and an option added for a null vote?

For my part I use LAME -V5 --vbr-new for general playing (car stereo, Nano Plus, PC) and WavPack image with cuesheet for my archive.  I use EAC with REACT to rip, and foobar2000 to play and manage my files.

Good work guruboolez, and kudos for geting this so close to the start of the year!
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Zurman on 2007-01-02 09:15:57
Lossy: MP3 (lame 128kbps CBR) because of its soft and hard compatibility, and great quality with lame

Lossless: Monkey (3.99 high) because of its excellent compression. I do not mind its poor compatibility since I only use my PC and foobar for lossless. I think I'll switch to wavpack 1 day though...

Ripping: 1 track per file, using EAC because it's the best one
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: french dok on 2007-01-02 09:36:02
- AAC because my phone-DAP handles it : the "compression rate/quality" ratio of HE-AAC is simply amazing.
-FLAC for lossless, but I rarely use it.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Kirby54925 on 2007-01-02 09:41:51
Lossy:  MP3 -V 2 --vbr-new for my laptop, -V 5 --vbr-new for my 4G iPod just because MP3 is so ubiquitous in the digital world.

Lossless:  Wavpack -hmx because it has one of the highest compression rates I've seen for my lossless collection.

Ripping:  1 file per disc (image+cuesheet) using EAC+REACT because it produces the smallest file size possible for a particular album (ripping to individual tracks introduces overhead for each of the tracks).  Only thing I don't like about image+cuesheet is that AccurateRip doesn't work in verifying the rip, which is pretty depressing.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: matthias1985 on 2007-01-02 09:45:43
I use lame -V5 for portable use with my ipod nano and flac for archiving.
I rip with EAC (mareo)
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: LANjackal on 2007-01-02 10:30:21
I think my signature pretty much says it all when it comes to my personal ripping policies.

For actual playback/library I use WMA and MP3

For archiving I use MAC
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: guruboolez on 2007-01-02 11:35:23
I agree with one poster that perhaps "I don't use any" should be a separate option so all such votes to that question can be "discounted".  I could add the option now if you want guruboolez, but it should probably wait until the next one, considering the number of votes already.

As you wish. I guess that will reset the poll but revoting shouldn't be too hard
I already had the possibility to split the last aswer (10 answers are allowed) but I hesitated and finally merged both into a single one. I originally tried to avoid or limit 'ghost' answers - you know, all answers that only end with 1 or 2‰ of voters and which can't therefore be considered as totally useless. My choice seems to be valid but only for the lossy part; for lossless it seems that an important part of voters don't use lossless - hence the 10% after 160 votes. The poll is only 12 hours old; voting a second time is just a matter of few seconds so I guess it shouldn't be annoying for most people to vote again. Editing the title (provisionally) could be worth :
2007 ripping/encoding poll [UPDATED 02/01/07: VOTE AGAIN] or something like that.

What do you think?

And if you see something else to change (poor wording, etc...) especially on the thirs poll: don't hesitate.

Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: psycho on 2007-01-02 12:24:45
MP3 - because of hardware compatibility and because LAME exists. Otherwise I would use OGG Vorbis.
Monkey's Audio - because I use it only for archiving, so compression ratio is what's important to me, not decoding speed.
One file per track - mostly, because gapless ain't a problem on PC.
One file per disc - rarely, because some albums are not listenable with gaps and my car mp3 stereo can't playback mp3s gapless.

I use EAC. Before that I was using CDex and way before that Audiograbber.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: sketchy_c on 2007-01-02 13:12:45
lossy: MP3 (rip with EAC into LAME -V2 --vbr-new)

lossless: Apple Lossless due to iPod/iTunes compatibility.  Will look at FLAC if I ever go the Rockbox way.  In either case, my use of this is very limited (subliminal/binaural audio).

rip method: One file per track.  Much more conducive for mix-maxing and general silliness with MusicIP (http://www.musicip.com/).
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: MedO on 2007-01-02 13:13:11
2007 ripping/encoding poll [UPDATED 02/01/07: VOTE AGAIN] or something like that.

What do you think?


I don't mind voting again, and I'd be very interested to see how many people, like me, migrated from EAC to DbPowerAmp's CD Ripper.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: bhoar on 2007-01-02 13:31:11
I don't mind voting again, and I'd be very interested to see how many people, like me, migrated from EAC to DbPowerAmp's CD Ripper.


It seems a little unfair to gauge the move at this point in time considering the release is so close.  I'm personally waiting for the release R12 to purchase it and, even then, may only use it on tough discs, due to lack of Image Rip.

Until then, I am sticking with EAC.

-brendan
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Synthetic Soul on 2007-01-02 14:11:32
I agree with one poster that perhaps "I don't use any" should be a separate option so all such votes to that question can be "discounted".  I could add the option now if you want guruboolez, but it should probably wait until the next one, considering the number of votes already.
As you wish. I guess that will reset the poll but revoting shouldn't be too hard 
...
What do you think?

And if you see something else to change (poor wording, etc...) especially on the thirs poll: don't hesitate.
Personally I think it should be left as is for now.  It's not a major deal; it was more a suggestion for future polls really.  I wouldn't edit your poll without first consulting you, as it seems a little intrusive, or arrogant.  Your English may not be perfect, but neither is mine (as foosion knows ).  I think the poll should continue as it stands, it works well.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Squeller on 2007-01-02 15:49:23
mp3 and wavpack. But if I can afford, nero aac for lossy.
For ripping: I'm using foobar2000 more and more...
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: jcoalson on 2007-01-02 16:17:50
And if I used lossless I would probably be using Flac, but because I don't want to re-rip all my music, and because it doesn't enjoy hardware support I probably won't be using it for a while.
http://flac.sourceforge.net/links.html#hardware (http://flac.sourceforge.net/links.html#hardware)
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: evereux on 2007-01-02 17:48:29
I don't mind voting again, and I'd be very interested to see how many people, like me, migrated from EAC to DbPowerAmp's CD Ripper.


It seems a little unfair to gauge the move at this point in time considering the release is so close.

I agree, we should wait until the final release. People are at this moment using free versions for testing. If they're crippled (no more accuraterip db access) when it goes final or the cost is too much people may well switch back to EAC.

MP3 and Wavpack for me.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: smack on 2007-01-02 20:25:19
lossy=MPC, lossless=LA
I have been using this combination of codecs for several years now. It works, so there's no reason to switch.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: ExUser on 2007-01-02 21:50:45
Lossy: AAC. Only for my podcast (http://psylight.podomatic.com).
Lossless: WavPack, if I'm encoding. If I come across some other lossless format, I'll keep it as is unless foobar2000 doesn't support it.

I dropped Musepack about a month ago. No particular reason; I just figured I'd switch over to lossless as my primary format. If I could, I'd rather use Musepack than AAC for podcasting.

I will only ever rip to one-track-per-file until someone puts out a one-album-per-file or one-disc-per-file solution that is as elegant. None of them are there yet. Matroska could clean house here, but no one bothers to put the work into the foobar2000 side of things to make it work well.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: chrisgeleven on 2007-01-02 22:00:24
I have decided to start working on having a lossless backup of all my music, so I can easily update my collection as improvements are made to various encoders.

So the plan so far for 2007 I believe I am going to do this.

Lossless - FLAC files (1 file per album, with cuesheet and replaygain)
Lossy - MP3's (LAME 3.97 at either - V 2 --vbr-new or - V 3 -vbr-new), one track per song

Ripper - Max (http://sbooth.org/)
Player - iTunes 7 on OS X
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: leokennis on 2007-01-02 23:04:27
LAME MP3 V0...MP3 because it's universal, and V0 because to me it seems like a good tradeoff between quality and size...it's not that I could hear the difference between V5 and V0, but if you have the luxury (read: disk capacity) to easily suit your entire collection in V0, why go for less?

IMHO
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: 56Nomad on 2007-01-02 23:12:15
I'm primarily an MP3 guy with a few APE and FLAC files here and there. I had to grin at the results for ATRAC. I received a Sony Network Walkman as a gift and I messed around a bit with that nasty Sony SonicStage app and ripped a few ATRACs. Have to admit, they sound good, but nobody else supports it.

I have two portable players that I just about never use. My question would be this:
When/where do you use your portable?

I listen to my stereo at home unless I'm on my PC and then I use that. I listen to my car stereo in the car. I can't wear the thing at work. It's not exactly sociable to sit with other people and wear earbuds while you nod your head and play air guitar.

My other one is an older RCA Lyra with a 20 GB drive. I use it more for file transfer than I ever use it to play music or look at pictures or videos. I often wonder when/where all these bazillion iPods get used...
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: drbeachboy on 2007-01-03 01:48:34
I use EAC-REACT to rip to: Lossless=FLAC -5 and Lossy=AAC ~190 VBR

Since I use foobar2000 exclusively, I use FLAC-images+cuesheet for archiving and for playing on my home computer. AAC is strictly for my iPod. I normally use Nero, but I use iTunes for albums with gapless playback. Though, gapless playback is always a sticky proposition for me with my 3G iPod. Some play as expected, while others still have a tiny bit of silence between tracks.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: audiomars on 2007-01-03 06:53:27
My choices:

Lossy format: MP3
Lossless format: WavPack. I love the speed while decoding and transcoding. Not concerned about hardware support as I use them exclusively on my PC with foobar2000 feeding an amp from LINE OUT on my soundcard.
Ripping: EAC rip to one-track-per-file. Somehow I am not too fond of single large files with CUE sheets, embedded or otherwise.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Kirby54925 on 2007-01-03 08:48:59
Hmmm... based on the results, it looks like the people have spoken:  one file per track seems to be the norm here at HA.  Now I feel torn as to whether I should revert back to that method or stay the course with image+cuesheet.

A small debate regarding the issue can be found here (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=40608&hl=).

EDIT: 
I told guruboolez that I would be interested in the image vs tracks question, but I'm afraid that the votes are being polluted by users that only rip to lossy.  I mean, 99% of people use tracks for listening, we're more interested in your archive/lossless version.  Maybe only people who use lossless should answer the question, and an option added for a null vote?


Perhaps a new poll is in order?  I would think that would be a good idea.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Cpt. Spandrel on 2007-01-03 10:21:09
Another disambiguation suggestion: the "it depends, I mix both" option covers people who do this randomly (experimentally perhaps) and those who have a set policy, for example ripping lossy per-track and losslessly per-disc. I'm not sure how you'd change the questions to split the two, but it might be interesting to do that especially if we were looking for trends that develop.
Anyway, not a biggie.

Another suggestion given some of the feedback: add a "I can't make up my mind!!!" answer for each question. Those would've been the correct answers for me up until about 6 months ago...
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: pest on 2007-01-03 10:42:25
one more vote for monkey's 
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: drbeachboy on 2007-01-03 15:05:20
Quote
Now I feel torn as to whether I should revert back to that method or stay the course with image+cuesheet.


If you tend to listen to albums in whole as I do, then there is no reason to change from image+embedded cuesheet. Plus for archiving purposes, it is the easiest way to keep track. Also, as someone stated earlier, there is less overhead with disc space.

If you use foobar2000, it is very easy to create playlists using tracks from various image files if you want to mix it up from time to time.

For me, images are the simplest way for managing my music.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Silversight on 2007-01-03 16:10:36
It's Ogg Vorbis at q5 (playback) and q-1 (streaming) for me. I like to have one codec for all my needs, and Vorbis does the trick quite well.

Well, all but one need: Archiving goes to FLAC. I experimented with WavPack during the christmas holidays, but in order to get a noticable advantage over FLAC -8, I had to crank up the compression to a point where encoding speed dropped to 3.5x. Not worth the transcode.

edit: Just saw the TAK alpha thread. Wow, I gotta try that once it comes out.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: memomai on 2007-01-03 20:51:56
Bitrate 0-128 kbps: Nero AAC (for my iPod shuffle  )
VBR 128-320 kpbs: MP3 Lame (3.90.3 APS because of compatibility reasons)
Bitrate 384 kbps: WavPack (to make backups for my cds  )
Lossless (0-1411 kbps): FLAC/WavPack (I don't use it but would if I could...)

I must say that I'm very impressed of WavPack, I'm using the hybrid/lossy method for archiving because of HDD reasons, but I don't mind some so-said quality reductions. Home-Listening Quality is good enough for me, I don't have a cinema but a digital THX surround system where MP3 also sounds amazing, so WavPack lossy is good enough for backup my favorite cds.

FLAC / WavPack would be used for lossless, i would make a blind selection.

Rip Prog? - foobar.............. was using AudioCrusher (still using with lame 3.91 for fast ripping), Audiograbber (crappy!!!!!!!), CDex, EAC (the most time, but foobar is more comfortable to use for me... just an all-in-one tool for playback ripping testing streaming and everything else I need)

If WavPack could be played on iPods, I'd use it for everything. WavPack would be perfect if a psymodel in 0-300 bitrates would be used and tuned like MPC/MP3/OGG, over 300kbps it's already perfect for me

Foobar WavPack & Lame rules!
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: rjamorim on 2007-01-03 21:06:05
If WavPack could be played on iPods, I'd use it for everything.


It can (if you use RockBox)
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: memomai on 2007-01-03 21:35:05
Quote
QUOTE(memomai @ Jan 3 2007, 17:51)
If WavPack could be played on iPods, I'd use it for everything.


It can (if you use RockBox)


REALLY?? I use a shuffle (2nd gen), I found on Rockbox.org only versions for nano and so on...
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Jebus on 2007-01-03 23:57:40
I have two portable players that I just about never use. My question would be this:
When/where do you use your portable?

...

My other one is an older RCA Lyra with a 20 GB drive. I use it more for file transfer than I ever use it to play music or look at pictures or videos. I often wonder when/where all these bazillion iPods get used...


On the bus, walking to/from work (I don't own a car anymore - live close to downtown), at the gym, on business trips. Off the top of my head.

REALLY?? I use a shuffle (2nd gen), I found on Rockbox.org only versions for nano and so on...


You'd use wavpack on a shuffle?? You like listening to a handful of songs over and over? I'd say space is at a premium on a shuffle (and hybrid mode needs like 2x the bitrate that ACC does).
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: greynol on 2007-01-04 00:13:34
Some interesting figures from http://www.synthetic-soul.co.uk/comparison/lossless/ (http://www.synthetic-soul.co.uk/comparison/lossless/)

Compression/Encoding:
Code: [Select]
Encoder Setting        Compression  Encode Rate
FLAC -8                  65.621%         9x
WavPack -hh              64.487%        29x
TAK Normal               63.875%        40x
Monkey's Audio Normal    63.793%        39x
OptimFROG                63.386%        15x

Compression/Decoding:
Code: [Select]
Encoder Setting        Compression  Decode Rate
FLAC -8                  65.621%        78x
Monkey's Audio Fast      64.914%        46x
WavPack -hh              64.487%        47x
TAK Normal               63.875%        83x

Speed:
Code: [Select]
Encoder Setting        Compression  Encode Rate  Decode Rate
TAK Turbo                64.929%        77x          85x
FLAC -0                  70.744%        73x          79x
WavPack -f               66.741%        56x          73x
Monkey's Audio Fast      64.914%        50x          46x
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: ezra2323 on 2007-01-04 00:16:26
ALAC for archive.
AAC 128 VBR for the computer library and iPod(s)
MP3 LAME 3.97 -V0 for car MP3 CDs

Once the iPod Nano hits 15 GB (don't laugh it will), probably will just use MP3 -V0
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Klaasklever on 2007-01-04 00:50:09
Well, I'd say ...
MP3 forever, baby

I'm using LAME 3.97 V0 --vbr-new.

I don't use lossless, but if I had to, I'd use FLAC.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Martin H on 2007-01-04 01:07:32
WavPack images with embedded cuesheet and eac log for archiving.
LAME -V5 --vbr-new MP3 track files for PC playback.

Both sets generated with EAC + REACT2 with just a single click of F10(which ReplayGain scans and tags the MP3's too ). I use images for archiving since my converter of choise/audio writing app of choise is fb2k/Burrrn and they support images with embedded cuesheets perfectly and also since i don't have to worry about hidden tracks and finally since because of the psychological thing about a one file representive of one CD-DA disc. I use LAME MP3 -V5 --vbr-new since they are transparent to my ears and so there are no reason for wasting space on using -V2 --vbr-new(which i have changed from alittle time ago).

CU, Martin.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: ranunculoid on 2007-01-04 01:31:41
FLAC for archival. I choose it for it's ubiquituos support.

LAME MP3 for lossy. I can ABX 20/20 on a few samples at V4 so I use V3. Once again, I choose MP3 because it's well supported.

PS: I found a sample where V4 is much worse than V5 in LAME 3.97, should I submit it or something? I'm pretty new to all this testing and stuff so I dont know the precedure.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: rjamorim on 2007-01-04 02:32:06

REALLY?? I use a shuffle (2nd gen), I found on Rockbox.org only versions for nano and so on...

You'd use wavpack on a shuffle?? You like listening to a handful of songs over and over? I'd say space is at a premium on a shuffle (and hybrid mode needs like 2x the bitrate that ACC does).


Right. When he said he wanted WavPack on iPod, I expected it would be at least a 4Gb nano.

And no, indeed, there isn't RockBox for shuffle.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Light-Fire on 2007-01-04 03:56:19
I use:

MP3 for compatibility (almnost every device I have reads it).
Apple Lossless for back-up and/or use in the iPod.
Atrac for real gapless playback in a Sony flash player (for some reason my iPod nano doesn't play gapless properly).

I am currently using "track back up" but I am seriously considering a "file+cuesheet" type for some CDs.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: greynol on 2007-01-04 06:22:48
When he said he wanted WavPack on iPod, I expected it would be at least a 4Gb nano.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: probedb on 2007-01-04 10:41:08
LAME at -V 2 for me. It's all converted from FLAC using dbPowerAmp but I'm stuck on 3.96.1 as I can't get the 3.97 binaries to work in dbPowerAmp even following the instructions for replacing the DLL as I just get output errors. Oh well.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: memomai on 2007-01-04 11:58:12
Quote
Right. When he said he wanted WavPack on iPod, I expected it would be at least a 4Gb nano.

And no, indeed, there isn't RockBox for shuffle.


getting about 3-4 of my favorite cds on an mp3 player would have been enough for me... my shuffle takes 1 gb, so that would have been enough.

It's a pity that there's no shuffle support, but I would maybe have been the first and only one who stores WavPack on a shuffle

Quote
LAME at -V 2 for me. It's all converted from FLAC using dbPowerAmp but I'm stuck on 3.96.1 as I can't get the 3.97 binaries to work in dbPowerAmp even following the instructions for replacing the DLL as I just get output errors. Oh well.


why not using foobar for transcoding?
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: spoon on 2007-01-04 13:22:28
LAME at -V 2 for me. It's all converted from FLAC using dbPowerAmp but I'm stuck on 3.96.1 as I can't get the 3.97 binaries to work in dbPowerAmp even following the instructions for replacing the DLL as I just get output errors. Oh well.


The R12 Beta has the very latest lame, see the beta thread of the forum.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: blue57 on 2007-01-04 14:21:27
EAC secure
Lame 3.97 --V2 --vbr-new

or Cue+wav compressed with Monkey's Audio for backups
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: jamesbaud on 2007-01-05 00:47:27
LAME at -V 2 for me. It's all converted from FLAC using dbPowerAmp but I'm stuck on 3.96.1 as I can't get the 3.97 binaries to work in dbPowerAmp even following the instructions for replacing the DLL as I just get output errors. Oh well.


I use dbPowerAmp with the LAME 3.97 EXE rather than the DLL. I use the "Create Generic CLI" tool and this command line (for CD audiobooks):

[InFile] [OutFile] -V 7 --vbr-new

It works great. I'll keep doing it this way until R12 comes out of beta.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: ...Just Elliott on 2007-01-05 10:06:23
MPC has 4% :0
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: evereux on 2007-01-05 10:40:16
Sign 'O' The Times.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: ...Just Elliott on 2007-01-05 18:03:35
well... there is the sv8 work...
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: ExUser on 2007-01-05 19:03:29
If I was going to use a lossy format for personal archiving, it would be MPC.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: vinnie97 on 2007-01-05 19:49:37
Go Vorbis!  Potentially the best quality you can get at 80 kbps. ;)
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Lych on 2007-01-06 08:34:59
For lossy, iTunes AAC 192kbps VBR.  For lossless, Wavpack -h.  I switch from FLAC to Wavpack because of its feature set.  I'll probably switch over to TAK once it is completed (it looks so cool).  Once my Neuros dies, I re-ripped by songs from Vorbis to mp3 so I could load them on my iPod (I didn't know about rockbox then).
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: user on 2007-01-06 13:15:59
Archival & Listening:
Flac_1.1.3_made_by_Case_! -8 -V
because of hardware device support (now and in future) (hm, the comma bug of 1.1.3...) , listening via HiFi, speakers


Archival backup on 2nd medium:
MPC 1.16 --quality 8 --ms 15 --xlevel  (ca. 260k vbr)
Musepack, because perfect (technical lossy) mostly transparent quality, small size, so cheap backup for archival, in case the flacs get lost, or mpc for the laptop, portable with perfect quality, small size, listening via HiFi, speakers

(not voted)
for portable usb stick:
MP3 lame 3.97 -V5 --vbr-new (ca. 130k vbr)
for listening in car or running outdoors with Koss KSC 75 headphones


Extracting CDs:

EAC according http://www.high-quality.ch.vu (http://www.high-quality.ch.vu) via Mareo.exe to Flac, MPC Musepack, Lame MP3 in 1 step ! inclusive tagging

1 track/song as single file of course !



As a poll should offer neutrality, not influence the voters, I suggest (for future polls?) to add the options in alphabetical order, not in the order of "last years poll result".
In general it is a good idea by guruboolez to carry out the polls in a "guided mode"
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: guruboolez on 2007-01-06 13:37:34
As a poll should offer neutrality, not influence the voters, I suggest (for future polls?) to add the options in alphabetical order, not in the order of "last years poll result".


 
I'm not sure to understand... This poll is about a practice, not an opinion. Neutrality has therefore nothing to do here. Unless somebody could explain me in what consist a neutral practice and also a biased one...

Anyway if people are mainly interested to favour a format they don't even use (it supposes that such people exists), I'm pretty sure they don't need to be influenced by the poll structure to do so.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: guruboolez on 2007-01-06 14:56:56
I gathered the results obtained during all last polls (for lossy formats only at the moment) in order to get an idea about how members of this board are changing. Results for 2007 are based on the 1200 (400*3) first votes.

(http://img118.imageshack.us/img118/1936/formatevolutionls3.th.png) (http://img118.imageshack.us/my.php?image=formatevolutionls3.png)
(click to enlarge)

=> MP3 gained a lot of popularity here: from ~one third of voting people to more than the half now! MP3 extend its reign even on HA.org which used to be the sanctuary for alternative and modern formats. The curve is also rising. Let's see in the future if this format will gain even more popularity.

=> AAC started from very low (~5%). Its popularity grown in 2004 but the curve is stable since two years. iPod success and hegemony on the market didn't influenced that much HA members.

=> Vorbis' curve is playing yo-yo but is more or less stable with ~25% of voting people.

=> MPC was a very popular format (and even the most popular one in 2004); it's now totally marginal, probably engulfed by MP3 and lossless for archiving purpose.

=> WMA (not present in the graph) is still unpopular here (1.17% in 2004; 1.99% in 2005; 1.34% in 2006 and 1% of the first 400 voters in 2007).

____
link to earlier polls:

• 2002-2003 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=2404) (results are now buggy but are partially available here (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=31832&view=findpost&p=359447)
• 2004 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=24678)
• 2005 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=31832)
• 2006 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=43254)


data table:
Code: [Select]
          2003     2004¹    2005     2006     2007 (beginning)
AAC       5.60%   11.14%   11.26%   12.67%   11.75%
MP3      32.32%   28.01%   36.09%   46.04%   55.50%
MPC      29.60%   28.45%   24.17%    9.68%    4.75%
VORBIS   24.85%   20.38%   25.50%   27.39%   22.50%

¹ 10% of voters gave their voice to “lossless” in this poll.
Values for all lossy contenders are consequently lower.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: boombaard on 2007-01-06 15:21:27
i suspect more and more people are just switching to mp3 for convenience's sake than before (that is, the crowd with portable players is still growing, and not too many people might have the cash/knowhow for a (rockboxable) iAudio or comparable player), and since the difference between 'quality' encoders like mpc and 'convenient' encoders (mp3) is so damn small these days, why bother with something you can't really send to others if you want them to test/listen to something if you can just do both with mp3 and kill 2 birds with the same stone?
I have pretty much all my music (main library) in lossless format (~1600 cds), so i only use lossy for playback on my DAP, and it only plays mp3 (that i consider acceptable), which makes it an easy enough choice.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: le_canz on 2007-01-06 16:05:27
Vorbis & FLAC for me.

Most of time I encode track per track.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Yen on 2007-01-06 16:52:45
Lossy: Mostly MP3 (for my portable media player), Ogg Vorbis (when possible)

Lossless: FLAC
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: pika2000 on 2007-01-07 05:22:58
Lossy: MP3, compatible with anything.
Lossless: none. DVD media is so cheap nowadays, I don't see any reason to complicate myself using another codec. Used to use APE when backing to CD-Rs.
Ripping: WAV image + CUE sheet, safest way to preserve gapless for my purpose.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: pepoluan on 2007-01-08 08:33:50
With GSPlayer on my iPaq 2210... Vorbis, of course! -q -0.5 sounds mighty good to me on the road.

I'm lucky that many friends asked me what DAP they should be buying if not the iPod... I always refer them to DAPs I know can play Vorbis.

Glad to be part of the 2nd largest lossy community on HA, heh

But I'm depressed knowing I'm the sole OptimFROG user...  (at point of posting)

Oh, about ripping, nearly always one file per track, except if the CD is mastered gaplessly, which I will rip 1 file per disc + cue... then transcode to Vorbis -q 1 using foobar2000 to one file per track
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Synthetic Soul on 2007-01-08 11:00:45
I gathered the results obtained during all last polls (for lossy formats only at the moment) in order to get an idea about how members of this board are changing. Results for 2007 are based on the 1200 (400*3) first votes.

[a href="http://img118.imageshack.us/my.php?image=formatevolutionls3.png" target="_blank"] (at point of posting)
Yes, very interesting.  On the assumption that maybe 1 or 2 of the "Other" votes are for LA, it is really quite surprising that more people don't go for compression rate over everything else.  The fact that neither FLAC or WavPack (who have over 80% of the vote collectively) are super-high compression does prove something.  I'm not sure what, but definately something.  Monkey's Audio generally seems to be as far as most people are prepared to go, but even then it's a very low percentage (5.5%) of the populous.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: boombaard on 2007-01-08 11:13:06
But I'm depressed knowing I'm the sole OptimFROG user...  (at point of posting)
Yes, very interesting.  On the assumption that maybe 1 or 2 of the "Other" votes are for LA, it is really quite surprising that more people don't go for compression rate over everything else.  The fact that neither FLAC or WavPack (who have over 80% of the vote collectively) are super-high compression does prove something.  I'm not sure what, but definately something.  Monkey's Audio generally seems to be as far as most people are prepared to go, but even then it's a very low percentage (5.5%) of the populous.


i suspect the *horrible* encoding times (.7-3.5x spd for encodes that are compressed better than MAC's -c4000 (based on my old amd 2800+ system)) count there.. encoding many cds easily becomes very boring that way.. i considered it for a very short while (the 2-3% difference still makes a bit of difference when you've got a 350gb+ collection), but since i also use my collection for playback the amount of CPU it uses decoding as well as encoding just makes me reject them outright..
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Junon on 2007-01-08 12:07:50
Vorbis (aoTuV+Lancer) is my main lossy format because I like codecs that offer decent  quality at low bitrates (~64-96 kbps), especially since my portable player is a  flash-based one and the car stereo is fed with self-burned 700 MB CDs. Its  only drawback is the feeble support for Vorbis comments in many  hardware players' cases, e.g. the stupid thing in my car doesn't read them at all, forcing me to rely on a clearly arranged directory and filename structure on the CD.
 
  FLAC for archiving, mainly due to its great software compatibility and bearable compression speed (at -5) as well as  the fact that both Vorbis and FLAC use the same tagging format,  enabling simple preservation of the tags when transcoding from lossless  to lossy; although I must admit that this reason is an outdated relic  from the days when I was still using OggDropXP to encode to Vorbis.  Nowadays, with foobar2000 being my main transcoder and with EAC+REACT2  creating both FLAC and Vorbis in two automated follow-up processes tag  preservation isn't a reason for using FLAC anymore. But nonetheless,  both the Nero burning software and my preferred audio player, Winamp,  love the format, making it a very user-friendly one. In lossless  audio's case file sizes don't matter too much for me, hardware compatibility  is of no interest at all. Hence, an alternative lossless format might be an option if it enjoyed comparable software compatibility and noticeably better compression while still maintaining decent working speed. "Noticeably" means something with the efficiency of, let's say, the new TAK codec. Too sad that it's still in its very early days, offering no tagging and software support

I rip to a single .wav with cuesheets using EAC+REACT2's notorious F10 button, afterwards it's split to single FLAC -5 and Vorbis -q2 files.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: gameplaya15143 on 2007-01-09 02:15:47
Vorbis for lossy 

I only picked flac for lossless because I don't know if monkey's audio supports replaygain (it probably does but I'm too lazy to find out, I rarely use lossless anyways).

1 track = 1 file

ripper = dBpowerAMP.. it's just easier than EAC
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: SamHain86 on 2007-01-09 23:21:32
My favorite format of all time is APE, set to extra high, since insane takes too long to scroll through on my machine. I rip new CDs as a single track with CUE sheet and convert it to APE, until I listen to the whole thing and decide if I like it enough to worry about how it sounds. I listen to a good deal of trance and symphonic metal [quite a combination, no?] and I can hear the differences there.

MP3 is my favorite lossy... only because I like watching the histograms in LAME[3.97] when encoding to VBR. I know how lame that sounds but I think it is neat to watch. Favorite settings are --noreplaygain -verbose -q 0 -v --vbr-new -V 0 -B 320. I set up FooBar2000 with my favorite conversions so I don't need to split my files first.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Artemis3 on 2007-01-10 10:39:49
I like Ogg Vorbis for lossy (pc listening), lame --abr 128 for my s1 portable; wavpack for lossless and never use cuesheets.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Synthetic Soul on 2007-01-10 11:43:46
I have been marvelling at the number of votes achieved, and then realised that the "Total Votes" is actually the number of voters times the number of questions in the poll. 

Still, not bad stats for ten days... (462 voters at this point)

Following last year's lossless poll, and the comments in this thread,  I'm surprised that FLAC has over twice as many votes as WavPack.  I would have expected it to be more like 3:2.  Is FLAC making a resurgence?  Could this be due to more DAPs?  Or are people who don't generally use lossless voting for FLAC if they were to use it in the future?
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: beto on 2007-01-10 13:34:23
Following last year's lossless poll, and the comments in this thread,  I'm surprised that FLAC has over twice as many votes as WavPack.  I would have expected it to be more like 3:2.  Is FLAC making a resurgence?  Could this be due to more DAPs?  Or are people who don't generally use lossless voting for FLAC if they were to use it in the future?


I am not that surprised. FLAC is the de-facto standard for lossless in most p2p communities and online record labels. 
Don't ask me about the reasons for this. Probably they are the same reasons that make mp3 the de-facto standard for lossy.

edit: damn typos
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: fabio on 2007-01-10 14:22:35
Hello,

For lossy: MP3
For lossless: WavPack
Ripping: one file per track

Some notes:

MP3 because of hardware support... I'd like to change to AAC/MP4 ~96 kbps (Nero encoder), but I'm not sure if there is another player than iPod that do it.
I'd like also change to Ogg Vorbis at ~96 kbps, but here in my country there are not players able to support it.

WavPack at high mode has good compression ratio, while keeping good decoding speed (I don't care about encoding time). When I need higher compression, I go with OptimFROG.
I'm waiting for new OptimFROG version... also, let's see new TAK progress.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Synthetic Soul on 2007-01-10 15:11:39
I am not that surprised. FLAC is the de-facto standard for lossless in most p2p communities and online record labels. 
Don't ask me about the reasons for this. Probably they are the same reasons that make mp3 the de-facto standard for lossy.
Yes, good point.

If I were to make a lossless file available for download I would have to seriously think about providing a FLAC version, simply because it is so popular, and 'near-standard'.  I would (bandwidth allowing) also provide a WavPack version (and promote this one more) because that is my codec of choice, and I think it deserves more recognition; however, bowing to popular demand, I may have to chose FLAC over WavPack if I could only host one.

Dunno.  I'll worry about this if and when I have to!  I am simply trying to explain why I think FLAC is used; it's popular because it's popular... As you say, similar to the MP3 situation really, although not quite such an obvious choice.

I think it will be difficult for any codec in the near future to surpass FLAC's popularity.  Maybe Apple Lossless or WMA Lossless at some point... but both suffer from the cross-OS issue.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: pepoluan on 2007-01-10 17:03:05
i suspect the *horrible* encoding times (.7-3.5x spd for encodes that are compressed better than MAC's -c4000 (based on my old amd 2800+ system)) count there.. encoding many cds easily becomes very boring that way.. i considered it for a very short while (the 2-3% difference still makes a bit of difference when you've got a 350gb+ collection), but since i also use my collection for playback the amount of CPU it uses decoding as well as encoding just makes me reject them outright..
Ahh, there's where I beg to differ... I use my archive as... well, archive. For day-to-day use, *only* Vorbis. Thus call me anal or something, but I have a deep conviction, very very deep, that archives should have the best compression ever.

I even cook up a batch file compressing WAV's to OptimFROG and LA, then deleting the larger one automagically. Unfortunately I read somewhere that LA's decompressor for foobar2000 does not produce bit-perfect files, so I abandoned LA. (I still keep the batch file, just in case).

If I were to make a lossless file available for download I would have to seriously think about providing a FLAC version, simply because it is so popular, and 'near-standard'.  I would (bandwidth allowing) also provide a WavPack version (and promote this one more) because that is my codec of choice, and I think it deserves more recognition; however, bowing to popular demand, I may have to chose FLAC over WavPack if I could only host one.

Dunno.  I'll worry about this if and when I have to!  I am simply trying to explain why I think FLAC is used; it's popular because it's popular... As you say, similar to the MP3 situation really, although not quite such an obvious choice.

I think it will be difficult for any codec in the near future to surpass FLAC's popularity.  Maybe Apple Lossless or WMA Lossless at some point... but both suffer from the cross-OS issue.
If you go into the WavPack forum, you should be aware that the next version of WinZip uses WavPack to compress audio files. This should help WavPack's popularity.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: beto on 2007-01-10 17:06:02
Dunno.  I'll worry about this if and when I have to!  I am simply trying to explain why I think FLAC is used; it's popular because it's popular... As you say, similar to the MP3 situation really, although not quite such an obvious choice.

I am speculating here, but I think that one of the reasons is because of the p2p communities. They have affinities with the open source scene and heavily promote FLAC due to the fact that it is under the xiph umbrella (some of them even ban other codecs and allow just FLAC).
Another reason might be that FLAC is around for some time now and general consensus is that it is a stable and widespread codec whereas the perception about wavpack is that it is a newer codec that might not be so stable.

I think it will be difficult for any codec in the near future to surpass FLAC's popularity.  Maybe Apple Lossless or WMA Lossless at some point... but both suffer from the cross-OS issue.

I agree with you here. FLAC will be hard to surpass, however Apple Lossless and WMA Lossless can do this if heavily marketed. It's hard to quantify which one has the advantage here (Apple or MS): Apple has the iPod thingie while MS is on every Windows (90% of desktops). It sure will be an interesting fight with undefined outcome.
To me the cross-OS issue is a non-issue. Just see the stats: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp (http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp)
As long as a codec is supported in Windows it should be fine marketwise. You don't have to support Linux (3.3%) or Mac (3.5%) because they are irrelevant and do not show a consistent usage growth trend. IMO both Apple and Microsoft know that to make their codec the standard they just have to market it agressively, but they have to start this now before lossless becomes the standard and FLAC is more widespread. Otherwise FLAC might become the MP3 of lossless.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: jcoalson on 2007-01-10 17:08:36
Following last year's lossless poll, and the comments in this thread,  I'm surprised that FLAC has over twice as many votes as WavPack.  I would have expected it to be more like 3:2.  Is FLAC making a resurgence?  Could this be due to more DAPs?  Or are people who don't generally use lossless voting for FLAC if they were to use it in the future?

actually, I think outside HA the percentages would be even more different.  just as they would be higher for MP3 and to a lesser extent AAC/WMA and lower for everything else, the percentages for FLAC and to a lesser extent ALAC/WMAL/APE would be higher, for mostly the same reasons.

also, I think we tend to be PC-centric here but the non-PC options for audio are getting downright fantastic and people are really starting to take to them.  not just DAPs, but especially home stereo.  I never listen to music on a PC anymore.  off the PC the only real choice is FLAC (all the better since it's free and easy to integrate) unless you're apple or microsoft.

Josh
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Synthetic Soul on 2007-01-10 17:37:31
If you go into the WavPack forum, you should be aware that the next version of WinZip uses WavPack to compress audio files. This should help WavPack's popularity.
Yes, I am aware of that, and it is great; however I get the impression the fact is not advertised, and therefore Winzip users will be none-the-wiser.

I am speculating here, but I think that one of the reasons is because of the p2p communities. They have affinities with the open source scene and heavily promote FLAC due to the fact that it is under the xiph umbrella (some of them even ban other codecs and allow just FLAC)
I think your assumption makes a lot of sense.  LOL @ banning other codecs.

also, I think we tend to be PC-centric here but the non-PC options for audio are getting downright fantastic and people are really starting to take to them.  not just DAPs, but especially home stereo.  I never listen to music on a PC anymore.  off the PC the only real choice is FLAC (all the better since it's free and easy to integrate) unless you're apple or microsoft.
I suspect that  home stereo, and video, systems running *nix will escalate tremendously in the coming years; it just make so much sense.

I guess you are right about the increased difference outside of Hydrogen Audio.  Again, this comes down purely to "it's popular, because it's popular".  Your forethought and initial work with FLAC has really payed off. Kudos.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: John64 on 2007-01-10 18:05:47
The only time i personally use lossy is when i download music (legal here) and that is the highest availible quality.  I prefer to use FLAC with one track and cuesheet, but due to my iPod, i selected ALAC and trackwise ripping, as that is what i do most.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: pepoluan on 2007-01-10 18:13:12
If you go into the WavPack forum, you should be aware that the next version of WinZip uses WavPack to compress audio files. This should help WavPack's popularity.
Yes, I am aware of that, and it is great; however I get the impression the fact is not advertised, and therefore Winzip users will be none-the-wiser.
Winzip users perhaps will not be aware, but media players will take notice. Without support from media players, alternative formats have no future.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: ffooky on 2007-01-10 18:15:01
I think one reason for the resistance to WavPack in p2p/Usenet is the use of the .wv extension for both lossy and lossless files. Admittedly you can usually work out the nature of the file you're dealing with by the filesize but I think it was a fundamental and IMO inexplicable error not to adopt a different extension for the two compression modes.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Martin H on 2007-01-11 14:46:49
I have changed my mind about my archiving/playback formats of choise and i'm know using FLAC images with embedded cuesheets/logfiles for archiving and Ogg Vorbis track files for PC playback and i have just finished a job of transcoding my WavPack images into FLAC images and also transcoded the FLAC images into Ogg Vorbis -q5 track files for PC playback with the Lancer-sse2/aoTuV-b5 compile. I decided that decoding speed would be one of the most important criterias for me and then after looking at Synthetic soul's comparisson for lossless codecs and then compared WavPack -f to FLAC -5, in where FLAC -5 gave both faster decoding + better compression ratio and after reading about the new FLAC v1.1.3 release, then i decided to make the switch. I really think that Josh has done a great job with this release and the option for transcoding from FLAC to FLAC while preserving metadata is just pure genious and also the slightly better compression ratio while not making any sacrifises to the decoding speed and better error recovery support and the new switch for setting e.g. a cuesheet/eaclog vorbis comment field from a file.

CU, Martin.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: toology on 2007-01-11 16:21:16
I use foobar for ripping cds into WavPack high x3. At the time when I started using it it had better compression than Flac, I don't know if that's still the case but I'll keep using it.
As for lossy, since I'm an iPod owner, I'd like to use Nero aac but currently it's easier and better (gapless) to use Lame mp3.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: ozmosis82 on 2007-01-11 17:30:50
iTunes (blech) AAC for my iPod (for gapless playback) @ 160kbps "VBR"
WavPack for my archives

I'd probably save around 10-12 gigs of space if I could use Nero AAC but, alas, no gapless support yet (on iPods). Otherwise, I'd rather use Vorbis.

Was thinking on going back to FLAC for my archives but... well, I'm lazy.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: singaiya on 2007-01-11 22:00:56
lossy = AAC (itunes 128vbr)
lossless = Wavpack (might go TAK when released)
ripping = tracks

iTunes (blech) AAC for my iPod (for gapless playback) @ 160kbps "VBR"
WavPack for my archives

I'd probably save around 10-12 gigs of space if I could use Nero AAC but, alas, no gapless support yet (on iPods). Otherwise, I'd rather use Vorbis.


I don't understand how can you save that much space by using Nero? Couldn't you just lower your itunes bitrate? I don't know of any samples that are better with either one or the other implementation (at bitrates of 128 or above).
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Martin H on 2007-01-12 13:23:43
There was one person who previously in this thread said that nearly no one where ripping to images and that the evidence of this was shown in this very poll. My personal theory about this, is that among HA newbies, then track file ripping is without a doubt the norm, but then for the HA old-timers(not myself ), then image ripping has a much higher user count and i suspect that this is the explenation we are seing here for the very low image ripping user base, as i suspect that the image ripping results are being somewhat "poluted" by newbies.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: collector on 2007-01-12 13:59:22
In my opinion many track-rippers rip for playing those tracks and image-rippers rip for archiving. I don't use foobar but 1by1 or qcd for playing the audio and my versions can't play images.
Maybe a poll about archiving gives other results. For a week or so I'm experimenting with Wavpak for archives.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: beto on 2007-01-12 17:23:24
There was one person who previously in this thread said that nearly no one where ripping to images and that the evidence of this was shown in this very poll. My personal theory about this, is that among HA newbies, then track file ripping is without a doubt the norm, but then for the HA old-timers(not myself ), then image ripping has a much higher user count and i suspect that this is the explenation we are seing here for the very low image ripping user base, as i suspect that the image ripping results are being somewhat "poluted" by newbies.

Your theory is flawed. 
You cannot draw any conclusion about newbies and old timers behaviour because the votes are mixed. The pool shows this: only a few people rip to image+CUE. The vast majority (old timers and newbies) prefer one file per track.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Martin H on 2007-01-12 18:43:56
Yeah, of course you are right

I apologise for drawing the wrong conclusions

Sorry mate(s)

CU, Martin.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: user on 2007-01-15 16:08:53
hm,

maybe the interpretation "flac is so popular, as it is popular" is too simple.
I can find technical arguments & history, why I think, flac is so popular, and the reasons, I use flac myself, though there was a time I ripped to wavpack before !

The reasons are probably, that flac became most popular, are imo: - fast decoding & encoding !
- this leads also to the next very important reason, which could be compared with the "mp3-reasoning":
- non-PC devices for playback, be it portable like for cars, or home stereo.
- the point, that since longer time, users see, that flac is supported by commercial industry.

- wavpack or ape as next popular formats show, better compression ratios in various modes, but mostly on the costs of either en- and decoding speed or both,
while especially the decoding speed is technically important for the industry support, ie. necessary cpu power for the decode, also the argument of battery consumption.
In the end, those little promille or percent compression ratio of other formats don't matter at Lossless sizes and todays/future storage capacities.

the success of mp3 has its reasons also in mp3-encoder/decoder having been "free" to use for everybody (while flac is really free !). And that mp3 can be played by nearly every non-PC audio device.

Apple & co could overcome flac only, if they would start big public campaign for their Lossless formats.
But I don#t see this happen, as for them, they "think", lossy is enough for mass-market, so they implement Loslsess only as additional feature into their devices, but no special marketing.
But this is the great thing for our world of audio, as other smaller or middle sized companies can offer and do already ! alternative good audio devices playing flac eg., not only the monopole formats "BBD" or however they are named.

And this is similar to the mp3 success, if soon a lot "Korean, Chinese" made priceworthy (ie. you don#t pay for advertisements on TV/radio, if you buy it) audio devices play flac as quasi-standard, we can be happy to not be dependent on 1 big-apple company
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Bourne on 2007-01-17 00:10:51
Hi. WAVPACK to go.

Well, I am migrating everything I have in lossless to WAVPACK. I was pretty going mad with hundreds of files and tagging, when I found out wavpack has embedded cuesheets, that called my attention. When I tested I really found real cool, and thought: "Hell, I now don't need to go through this file-to-file tagging hassle."

FLAC is becoming the "standard" lossless codec on the net sharing files (The name is catchy, that's the reason I think). But as it happened with MP3, it is not necessary the best. (Read here, OGG is better than MP3). But MP3 was the lossy that stuck! So I think that RIGHT NOW, at this moment... none lossless codec has a good hardware support, like MP3 has. We cannot claim that "this lossless is better over that other" just because a few more devices will play it. No. Until DVD Players, that are for general multi-media use, do not come with those lossless support, I think there won't be a "widespread" hardware support. We're talking here about the Joe user being able to play his lossless onto anything. So it's not worth stick with FLAC when you can only play on a two or three expensive devices. When it's hitting the DVD Players along with the portables, it's gonna stuck.

I can store my lossless archive in single album files, plus the seeking in WAVPACK is damn fast, whereas in FLAC is a delays a bit (and that *IS* irritating). But the main reason to switch to WAVPACK is organization. Like I said, you can go mad with hundreds of files that you need to tag, and if you're a damn perfectionist, then you're definitely go nuts. WAVPACK makes it easy. And you can unwind.

I also have learned that backup CD's are worthless since they will only last for a short time. So I don't burn anything onto CD's anymore. They're dead and they're going late coz I have lost few original CD's over 10 years and they were quite expensive, and yes, there were no replacement for them but download a lossless copy of it laying on the internet. So what's the point spending US$ 15.00 onto something that will eventually wear out. I don't want to go through the ripping hassle, nor worried about a perfect rip CD. Nooo.. not anymore, I have suffered enough with my paranoia. I still think that in a 10 year period, music will be totally digital. If there's something in the shelves, it will be already digitalized.

I really DO HOPE that wavpack hardware support increases with all its features. It's just so nice. Well, thanks for it Wavpack. My musical life would be hell if it wasn't for you. And until that wide support does not show up, I will go with -V2 -vbr-new and stick my pen-drive onto my powerful mini-system.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Jebus on 2007-01-17 00:59:05
FLAC, faster decoding to other formats (I use it for archival purposes, not actual playback). I guess if space ever gets really tight, i'll just convert it.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Martin H on 2007-01-17 01:24:55
none lossless codec has a good hardware support, like MP3 has. So it's not worth stick with FLAC when you can only play on a two or three expensive devices. That's not for us mortal workers.

Two or three devices ???

From the supported hardware devices list at the FLAC site :
http://flac.sourceforge.net/links.html#hardware (http://flac.sourceforge.net/links.html#hardware)

Home stereo:

    * AudioReQuest music servers
    * Avega Systems' wireless Oyster loudspeakers
    * Digital Techniques' Blackbird Digital Music Players
    * Escient's FireBall servers (E2-40/160/300, DVDM-300, SE-D1), networked home stereo components with hard-drives
    * Hifidelio, a wireless home stereo component
    * iMuse audio/video media servers
    * Meda Systems' Bravo servers
    * The MS300 Music Server by McIntosh Laboratory (brochure)
    * Olive's Opus, Symphony, and Musica wireless digital music centers
    * PhatNoise Home Digital Media Player
    * Pixel Magic's HD MediaBox
    * PONTIS' MS330 Media Server
    * Neodigits' Helios X5000 HD network media player
    * Netgear EVA8000 HD digital media player
    * Numark's DJ equipment like the HDX and CDX turntables with integrated hard drive and CD player, and the HDMIX mixer
    * Rio Reciever and Dell Digital Audio Receiver via RioPlay, RRR, tRio, or xPLRio.net clients
    * Roku Photobridge HD via plugin
    * Roku Soundbridge(*)
    * SkipJam's networked audio/video devices
    * Sonos Digital Music System (review)
    * Slim Devices' Transporter and Squeezebox networked audio players (review)
    * Turtle Beach's AudioTron(*) via Bery Rinaldo's Samba VFS Module
    * Zensonic Z500 Networked DVD Media Player
    * Ziova's CS510 and CS505 network media players
    * (*) device decodes FLAC to WAVE/PCM on server-side
    * (**) device decodes FLAC to MP3 on server-side

Car stereo:

    * Kenwood Music Keg
    * PhatBox
    * URAL ConceRt CDD
    * Volvo's Digital Jukebox

Portable/Handheld:

    * Bluedot's BMP-1430
    * COWON's iAUDIO A2, iAUDIO F2, iAUDIO U3, iAUDIO M3, iAUDIO M5, iAUDIO T2, and iAUDIO X5
    * Green Apple's portable media player: AP3000
    * iPod via the Rockbox firmware replacement
    * iRiver iHP-120/iHP-140/H320/H340 via the Rockbox firmware replacement
    * Iwod G10
    * Meizu M6 Miniplayer
    * Onda VX737
    * Rio Karma
    * Teclast TL-29
    * TrekStor's Vibez

Btw, i have gone over to FLAC, because of it's fastest decoding speed(not counting the out-dated Shorten format) and also because i was really impressed with Josh's great work on his latest FLAC v1.1.3, which now actually has better embedded cuesheet support than WavPack(a switch for embedding the cuesheet into a Vorbis comment and a switch for embedding it into a CUESHEET metadata block + a switch for decoding single tracks out of the image file and one can choose between any index'es). Also FLAC to FLAC transcoding while transferring all tags by just running "glob -c flac -f *.flac" or "glob -c flac -f ***.flac" for recursive operation in a command prompt is just pure genious also. Finally it's not bad either that it has the best software/hardware support of any lossless codec either

CU, Martin.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: jcoalson on 2007-01-17 06:43:14
I've got a handful more from CES to add to the list when I get the chance... 

p.s. there's a newer poll: Moderation: this is the newer poll, now relevant posts have been moved.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: shadowking on 2007-01-17 11:45:08
In the non-HA DAP world - Ipod, zen, iriver rule, So in that case wavpack and flac have equal hardware support: rockbox. They are both great codecs and I prefer wavpack. The wavpack decoding is very fast unless you run a C-64  . On my PIII 550 even the very high mode runs smooth enough for most tasks. The other modes (high, normal, fast) have no trouble even on portable hardware.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Martin H on 2007-01-17 13:37:13
Fast decoding for me personally is nice because of the waiting time savings when transcoding my FLAC images into aoTuV Lancer -q5 track files and which i will do frequently between every new release, or when i change my mind about the used compression setting, like i have just done from -q6 to -q5 and also for FLAC to FLAC transcodings when new versions arrives. I personally use FLAC for archiving and Ogg Vorbis(aoTuV -q5) for PC playback.

CU, Martin.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Bourne on 2007-01-17 14:45:21
For every album, I do:

- 1 WavPack copy with embedded cuesheet. It's neat, and you can't mess files.
- 1 MP3 VBR 2 fast mode copy. Only to listen in the computer or a portable/car.
- 1 CD-R with the redbook standard copy. It can be played anywhere. Neat.

I don't think one can get better than this...

In the future? Ahhh....

I'll rip WAV files onto the Blue-Ray.... yeah... not even using lossy or lossless in the future.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: jcoalson on 2007-01-17 16:17:23
In the non-HA DAP world - Ipod, zen, iriver rule, So in that case wavpack and flac have equal hardware support: rockbox.

I would still argue that DAP market share is not a good indicator of choice, otherwise AAC and ALAC are the most supported codecs because of the ipod.

also, I think where FLAC really shines is in the home stereo, which is why there are so many more devices in that section.

Josh
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Balthazar_B on 2007-01-23 19:14:00
My choices are based mostly on format versatility. I'm still pretty new at this, so no religion has taken hold yet  . I'm also far from the completion of ripping my entire library, learning the ins and outs of REACT2, etc. Ultimately, I want to use REACT/EAC to do everything in one pass, with individual tracks for both lossless and lossy (as long as I can reconstruct a CD with tracks/cuesheet -- not that I've confirmed I can do this yet -- this makes the most sense to me).

FLAC for lossless, because it has broad support not only as a codec format but also for the tag-related stuff discussed earlier in this topic. Slimserver is a driver here. The rumors flying around about iTunes supporting FLAC soon (at least as a transcoding source) are notable, even though I use Winamp instead of iTunes to feed my 5.5g iPod. If something else emerges someday that's a lot better than FLAC, I expect it will be easy to transcode to it from FLAC.

LAME MP3 for lossy, since everything I use for lossy will play it, and lots of things support LAME gapless tags. I can burn MP3 CDs (for car audio systems that don't support direct iPod connections), feed my old Zen DAP, use any playback software where lossy isn't a problem, etc. If AAC or Ogg were noticeably better in both quality and compression in the environments where I use lossless, and had equivalently broad device support (including gapless), I'd consider a change (also assuming I could transcode from FLAC on autopilot with perfect tag fidelity, etc.).

Frankly, I  think the whole database/tagging end of things is the most challenging, where current standards (such as they are) are lacking (with useful support for classical tags, for instance) and transparency between all the tag formats is not there yet.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: kornchild2002 on 2007-01-23 21:45:40
lossy = AAC (itunes 128vbr)
lossless = Wavpack (might go TAK when released)
ripping = tracks


iTunes (blech) AAC for my iPod (for gapless playback) @ 160kbps "VBR"
WavPack for my archives

I'd probably save around 10-12 gigs of space if I could use Nero AAC but, alas, no gapless support yet (on iPods). Otherwise, I'd rather use Vorbis.


I don't understand how can you save that much space by using Nero? Couldn't you just lower your itunes bitrate? I don't know of any samples that are better with either one or the other implementation (at bitrates of 128 or above).


I think that said user had a stereo separation (or some stereo sound) problem with the iTunes AAC encoder on one of those rare killer samples (that EVERY encoder has).

For me, I use iTunes AAC at 128kbps VBR as my main lossy format.  I recently made the switch from Lame mp3 at -V 2 due to hard drive space limitations.  I could have just gone with a lower bitrate Lame setting but now my car, computer, iPod, PDA, and gaming console all support AAC so I see no need for mp3 in my situation (even though the Lame mp3 encoder can hold its own).

As far a lossless goes, I use Apple lossless since it is built right into iTunes and I can easily convert from ALAC to AAC without the need for 3rd party software (like going from FLAC to iTunes AAC).  I guess you can say that I have sold my audio soul to Apple as I used to be a Lame, foobar2000, FLAC junkie.

I still can't believe that ATRAC received two votes especially since many Sony players can now handle AAC and have been able to play mp3 (Lame) for a really long time now.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: ShadowVlican on 2007-02-04 22:01:49
What's your *main lossy* format of choice?
MP3, because it works everywhere

What's your *main lossless* format of choice?
FLAC, because it's the most supported lossless format

What's your favorite ripping mode {for your main or archive library if you have several ones}?
one file per track, because of widespread support. cuesheets aren't widely supported and i wouldn't be able to easily send "track X" to a friend, etc.

so as you can see, while the formats i chose aren't the most advanced, they are easily the most headache free formats. my grandma would be able to handle them.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: dewey1973 on 2007-02-05 23:24:31
Ogg Vorbis - My Karma supports it so why not take advantage of the better sound:file size ratio?

FLAC - I have 140 GB of FLAC files in my archive, but it has been a long time since I was actively archiving.  My eye is starting to wander.  OptimFrog is looking pretty tempting.  WavPack is also one I'm considering.  So I'm interested to see how this poll develops.

one file per disc with cuesheet or chapters - I was a single track guy, but now I'm using images.  I don't want to worry about anything hidden in the pre-gap and so I think images are better for me.  They also seem easier to manage.  Especially with scripts like REACT2 out there to help me create lossy files for the Karma.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: xequence on 2007-02-13 01:52:22
I used to use FLAC, but ive recently switched to... WavPack

I did my own unscientific tests and found it to have better compression and better encoding speed then flac, as well as the decoding speed is very similar, most often the same but sometimes very slightly worse then flac.

And since, as far as I know, FLAC and WavPack are the only two major totally free (source code and price, as in linux type free) lossless codecs. Both work well and are great, but I like WavPack better. And as a big plus to WavPack, it has one of those uber type options (x6) that takes a major long time to encode but can get better compression. Sure, not always practical, but still, nice to have

Ive been converting my shorten files to WavPack recently. I really dont like shorten... Sure, fast encode and decode, but not that great compression or seeking. WavPack and FLAC both have great seeking.

Monkeys Audio seems to have better compression then WavPack or FLAC (and it has a nice and useful GUI for it), but id like to support free (see above) software. FLAC is probably GPL, and I think WavPack is BSD.

Im not sure how many people work on WavPack besides the main person (who I think is bryant), but thanks alot for a great product
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: jcoalson on 2007-02-13 01:59:44
FLAC is probably GPL, and I think WavPack is BSD.

FLAC is mostly BSD.  the command-line programs are GPL.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Kowalski on 2007-02-13 02:49:28
I only do lossy encodings with lame. I used to use -V0 for everything but since my harddisk died 2 months ago I had to re-ripp everything again! I used -V2 --vbr-new this time. That's transparent to me (mostly Rock/Metal sources).

Unfortunately I did not think of using flac.    And I'm just too damn lazy to start ripping AGAIN. 


Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Øyvin Eikeland on 2007-02-13 11:44:19
I use flac and mp3.
I like the fact that both are without any sort of drm and that they are not controlled by apple, sony or microsoft (or any other big player). I also like the fact that they are the codecs with the best hardware support. MP3 has defined itself as the defacto standard for lossy compression. No manufacturer will release a portable player that does not support mp3. Hopefully, the same will be true for one of the open source lossless codecs in the future. Currently, my money is on FLAC, as it has the best hardware support. If this changes in the future, I might change to wavpack or something else.

I want lossless audio in my pocket, in my living room, in my car and in my kitchen. I also want lossless audio available in every store. I want to be able to copy my songs to all my different players with no hassle.

Øyvin
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Martin H on 2007-02-13 17:50:51
I have personally switched to using WavPack(-hm) images with embedded cuesheets/eaclogs for archiving and LAME MP3 track files(-V5 --vbr-new) for playback(i don't use lossless for playback, because i only have a 40GB harddrive, and so i burn the lossless images to TY DVD+R's when they have been ripped and converted to MP3 track files for playback), and that this will be the final decision for me and that i will not change away from this ever again  (atleast for WavPack i'm 100% certain about that )

CU, Martin.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Julien on 2007-02-13 17:56:43
I have voted Wavpack again this year. The points in its favour are not only its impressive encoding speed but also the fact that it's able to encode 32b float files and will preserve the non standard RIFF sub-chunks. It's definitely a plus when backinp up my own samples(that often contain loop points and other kinds of information) and audio tracks.  I really hope this format will get even more attention this year for it's really unbeatable for music makers.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Lashiec on 2007-02-13 19:06:40
Encoding to FLAC for archiving, and to Vorbis for general use (both at the computer and with my imaginary iPod  ). With big HDDs these days, I could use only FLAC, but I prefer to have this under lock and key, and save space at the same time, in case I need the extra space. I'm not thinking in changing the compressors for a time, maybe FLAC is TAK is good enough.

As for the settings, -6 for FLAC (improved compression and the drop in encoding time is small) and -6 for Vorbis too, which is quite good quality at a fair size. I used -8 in the past, but I realized that it was a bit too much. Also, I'm encoding track by track, because it's the only way to preserve all the custom tags I add to the files in the post-encoding phase (at least the most practical way)
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: sPeziFisH on 2007-02-13 20:48:18
I'm going with:
lossy: mp3, to interchange with friends
lossless: wavpack (my evolution: monkey -> FLAC -> wavpack); lossless only for temporary storage
ripping: album -> one file per track using foobar, just to be able to take (handle, share) any track without further processing


for parties: cool guys always have cool music on discs (a la carte), operating with playlist-and-files is for teens - but still the right choice for home/portable-listening
(opinion my change with regard to professional equipment)
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: jcoalson on 2007-02-13 21:14:44
the comments don't seem to match the graphs... for whatever reason (maybe related to advocacy), I think it's interesting.  my quick count about what people explicitly said in comments that they used:

Code: [Select]
27/68 FLAC           40%
27/68 WavPack        40%
9/68 Monkey's audio  13%
4/68 ALAC             6%
1/68 OptimFROG        1%
0/68 WMA lossless
0/68 Tak
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: bryant on 2007-02-13 21:50:40
the comments don't seem to match the graphs... for whatever reason (maybe related to advocacy), I think it's interesting.  my quick count about what people explicitly said in comments that they used:

Code: [Select]
27/68 FLAC           40%
27/68 WavPack        40%
9/68 Monkey's audio  13%
4/68 ALAC             6%
1/68 OptimFROG        1%
0/68 WMA lossless
0/68 Tak

I imagine that people are more likely to make a comment if they are not voting for the most popular choices. It would be interesting to see of the same thing applied to MP3.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: TCM on 2007-02-26 05:04:55
i use flac over wavpack because it feels better designed. this includes details such as embedding the md5 sum per default instead of having a flag for it that's off per default. also, wavpack is more a compressed wav than an independent audio format. if i had any use for custom riff chunks, i might be using wavpack instead.

for lossy, i chose none, although that might change if i ever decide to get a portable player. if i do that, flac's faster decoding also comes into play, as i would be transcoding albums as needed.

for listening at the pc, i use flac with complete images and cue sheets, serving as both a 1:1 archive as well as a direct access format.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: SebastianG on 2007-02-26 10:54:19
I didn't vote / here's my comment:

In the lossy segment no format is clearly superior to all others, IMO. I tend to use MP3 for compatibility although I own a portable that can play Vorbis. I'd like to use AAC in the future once I get a portable player with AAC support because I consider its design to be better than Vorbis and MP3 -- from a technical point of view. But this isn't as important as other features I expect from a good portable player so I'm gonna stick with my rockboxed H120 unit until it dies.

I don't use lossless formats a lot. I don't back up CDs losslessly. I mainly rip music to be able to listen to it and I like the files to be small. Though, I purchased two losslessly encoded albums (flac) to have at least one high quality version. WavPack seems like a good overall solution. I'd make more use of it if I cared more about lossless formats.

Edit: I forgot. Here's my take on the last question: It's single track files for me even for DJ mixes and other stuff with non-silent track transitions. Why? Well, MP3 can be played back seamlessly with proper players but also because I've at least one HQ version (Flac, WavPack or CDDA) I can always rerip/transcode in case I need something to play back seamlessly on other devices...

Cheers!
SG
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: halb27 on 2007-02-26 11:59:12
...
I'd like to use AAC in the future once I get a portable player with AAC support...

You can use AAC with current Rockbox version on your H120 if you don't care much that battery will run down earlier.
I got aware of the AAC playing ability last week but it seems to be possible since last November.
I've tried it (using current Nero CLI encoder) on my H140 and it's great. I consider using it in practice but I'm not sure yet.  Technically speaking and with regard to supposed future hardware support I also favor AAC. mp3 however has some practical advantages, and it can produce very high quality too.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: SebastianG on 2007-02-26 12:27:01
Last time I checked it didn't play AAC in real-time. Also, I've been told that the Rockbox firmware doesn't use variable clock rates on the H1xx yet (==> Vorbis/AAC playback shouldn't drain the battery more). But maybe this has changed. I gotta check this ...

edit: typos
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Remedial Sound on 2007-02-26 14:08:19
also, wavpack is more a compressed wav than an independent audio format.

What are you basing this on, it's name?    WavPack is a pretty robust lossless format, check the comparison table (http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Lossless_comparison#Comparison_Table).
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Martin H on 2007-02-26 17:17:26
also, wavpack is more a compressed wav than an independent audio format.

A relevant quote from David Bryant about this issue :
Quote
This idea that WavPack and FLAC are fundamentally different because one compresses files and the other compresses audio is no longer true. The current native WavPack format is not tied to a particular audio file format. It is the case that the command-line compressor only accepts wav files and the unpacker only generates wav files (or raw audio data), but this is because not a single person has ever asked for any other format. I could easily add other formats without breaking anything.

I have dedicated two metadata field ids for storing images of the RIFF data so that a wav file can be perfectly recreated (one is for RIFF data that comes after the audio). But these fields are not required to interpret the audio information, are ignored by plugins (except Audition which uses them), and do not restrict the format in any way. A similar mechanism could be added to FLAC so that it too could, if desired, make perfect copies of wav files. Certainly this would not hobble the format or detract in any way; it would simply be an additional feature. (I am, of course, not suggesting this be added to FLAC. Given the enormous popularity of FLAC, I need every niche I can find! smile.gif )

[...]

Obviously nobody would complain if an MP3 encoder discarded RIFF data. However, because archiving is one of their primary uses, I believe that lossless audio compressors are different. That extra RIFF information is part of the archive, and the fact that FLAC discards those unknown subchunks simply makes it unusable for some (albeit rare) applications. The fact that WavPack saves them does not similarly make it unusable for any current or future application (except maybe for the guy that specifically wanted them discarded, for whom I have now provided an option).

Source : http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....st&p=340767 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=38532&view=findpost&p=340767)
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: fairyliquidizer on 2007-02-26 21:18:23
AAC as Lossy is just for my iPod and iTunes is a natural choice for the iPod and AAC is better than the nasty MP3 encoder in iTunes.

MP3 would be my codec of choice for lossy were it not for iTunes integration as MP3 is universal.  LAME rocks!

FLAC is my lossless choice which I use to both archive and play on my Squeezebox.  Perhaps the greatest inventions since Penicillin!  Better still I'm not allergic to Penicillin.

Fairy
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: quas on 2007-02-26 21:57:08
Last time I checked it didn't play AAC in real-time. Also, I've been told that the Rockbox firmware doesn't use variable clock rates on the H1xx yet (==> Vorbis/AAC playback shouldn't drain the battery more).

I don't think AAC playback has been completely optimized yet, but Rockbox was able to play the small sample of files I tried recently. Officially, it is supposed to play AAC realtime on iRiver targets:
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main...#Current_status (http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/SoundCodecs#Current_status)

Also, I'm pretty sure that Rockbox supports CPU boosting on the H100 players. I have an H320, which uses the same Coldfire CPU, and it's definitely boosting the CPU when required. You can test this by going to the menu, then Info > Debug > View audio thread. Boost ratio was around 70% for the AAC file I tried.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Mirage2k on 2007-03-04 17:43:27
Ripping on an Apple PowerBook here, so my main lossless codec which I use for "archive" purposes is Apple Lossless, which I store on an external hard drive and back-up to DVD-R.  All of my listening is done with LAME MP3s.

I initially had some concerns about using ALAC as a long-term lossless format, but, especially now that Mac users have Max, I figure I can always batch convert to FLAC if I need to.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Kim_C on 2007-03-15 18:26:52
Ogg Vorbis & Flac. Since i got into lossy compression somewhere in 1999/2000 (damn it's been a long time!) and days of "128 kbs MP3 is cd-quality" i have wanted to compress my music so that 1 minute music would result in about 1 mb file and it would be qualitywise as close to original audio as possible. It felt like a good size/quality ratio and i knew that it would be someday possible with mp3's successor AAC being developed.

But i never seriously thought that Ogg Vorbis would someday achieve same level of quality with Xiph's development speed.. luckily Aoyumi came along and made Vorbis competive against AAC and others with his incredible tunings. I am a Open Source fan and i think Ogg Vorbis is a great project with lots of potential. It's been my preferred format and i want to use and support it everywhere i can.

Nowdays Vorbis & AAC give great quality in even lower bitrates and thanks to LAME even mp3 is very much transparent to me, as last 128kbs test showed which i did take part and couldn't abx any of them except low anchor! But i use -q 4.25 because to me 1 to 1 (with other formats too) is practical ratio with small files and very much transparent quality for listening and general archiving.

For archiving important songs or general lossless use i use FLAC. It's actively developed, well supported in hardware & software and all around good lossless format.

However, Wavpack is very interesting and i've been thinking to use it on my Rockboxed iHP-120. I understand that Wavpack lossy gives good quality on 256-300 kbs range and lossy files use less cpu power for decoding. It would be cool to archive my cd's to harddrive in lossless wavpack and encode them in lossy for my mp3-player and have more playing time from battery than with mp3 and other formats! Even better if Squeezebox and others would support Wavpack, but unfortunately not yet...
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Zarggg on 2007-03-22 02:20:29
I must qualify my vote.

I use Ogg Vorbis for my computer.
Since I use a vanilla iPod, I have been using 128kb/s CBR AAC lately for that. I used to use LAME -V4.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Dr. Oviri on 2007-03-22 02:42:53
Mp3 with Lame preset R3Mix (with CD cover and Unsynced Lyrics) for my player 

Monkey's Audio ExtraHigh

One file per track 
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: beto on 2007-03-22 13:57:59
Mp3 with Lame preset R3Mix (with CD cover and Unsynced Lyrics) for my player 


You are outdated.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Agent69 on 2007-03-22 16:48:50
I use Flac and an external cue sheet.

I use Foobar as a player and I expect that I will eventually use Foobar to extract and encode individual files for my iPod Shuffle as well; once I have the time to figure out how to make Foobar do it.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: fairyliquidizer on 2007-03-27 15:19:03
Mp3 with Lame preset R3Mix (with CD cover and Unsynced Lyrics) for my player 


R3Mix, LMFAO!      Dude, the Viet Cong won, the 20th century is over, and R3Mix is history.  What version of LAME are you using?
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: aabxx on 2007-05-16 02:33:33
Vorbis, because:
- It's proven over a long time now that it's one of the best quality-wise, at every bitrate.
- Flexible for metadata
- It's open source, gratis and patent-free. And suits my linux very well thankyou
- It has the coolest name damnit... ! 
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: jcoalson on 2007-05-18 01:24:41
the comments don't seem to match the graphs... for whatever reason (maybe related to advocacy), I think it's interesting. (...)

lately I've been trying to get a better idea of lossless codec usage and I have some stats that may be interesting.  what they say exactly is more open to interpretation but I think one thing that seems clear is that the polls here don't extrapolate to the outside world (nothing wrong with that BTW).

(data gathered some time througout apr/may 2007, also included some mp3-related stats for some perspective)

answers.yahoo.com results for query:
Code: [Select]
: 42298 'mp3'
:   102 'flac'
:     9 'shn'
:     8 'apple lossless'
:     0 'alac'
:     1 'wavpack'
:     1 'wavepack'
:     1 'wma lossless'
:     0 'wmal'
:     0 'optimfrog'


del.icio.us results for tag:
Code: [Select]
: 182628 'mp3'
:   2228 'flac'
:    301 'shn'
:    141 'alac'
:     95 'wavpack'


inlinks (via siteexplorer.yahoo.com)
Code: [Select]
:  33068   flac.sourceforge.net + flac.sf.net (doesn't include sourceforge.net/projects/flac)
:   8619   www.monkeysaudio.com + monkeysaudio.com
:   5248   www.wavpack.com + wavpack.com
:   2925   www.true-audio.com + true-audio.com (tta)
:   1843   www.losslessaudio.org + losslessaudio.org (ofr)
:   1335   www.lossless-audio.com + lossless-audio.com (la)


google hits for query: (approximate)
Code: [Select]
:  662000000 'mp3'
:    8670000 'flac'
:    2330000 'shn'
:    2090000 'monkeys audio'
:    1590000 'alac'
:     730000 '"apple lossless"'
:     714000 'wavpack'
:     109000 'optimfrog'
:     102000 '"wma lossless"'


site traffic/month (I only have sourceforge estimates for my site, others I got from trafficestimate.com 30-day estimates which could be wildly wrong)
Code: [Select]
: ~2000000 flac.sourceforge.net (~2M hits/month  700K pageviews/mo  ? project page hits/mo  110K downloads/mo)
:   100400 www.monkeysaudio.com
:    16100 www.wavpack.com
:    11700 www.true-audio.com (TTA)

(monkeysaudio.com may be inflated since spammers have assaulted the forums)

lossless-only web search query volume estimate
Code: [Select]
: 80%  FLAC-related ('flac' 'free lossless audio codec' etc)
: 13%  Shorten-related ('shn', not 'shorten' because of too many false positives)
:  3%  ALAC-related ('alac' 'apple lossless' etc)
:  2%  APE-related ('monkey's audio' etc, not 'ape' because of too many false positives)
:  1%  WMAL-related ('wmal' 'wma lossless' etc)
:  1%  WV related ('wavpack' 'wavepack' 'wavepak' etc)
: ~0%  OptimFROG-related ('optimfrog' 'ofr' etc)


edit: typos, clarity
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: adam917 on 2007-07-13 21:18:11
I use Exact Audio Copy for ripping, and I now prefer to rip track-by-track with the correct offset, the 'non-compliant' Cuesheet, Secure rip, Log, and 'Test & Copy'.

For lossless audio, I use FLAC at -8 -V.

For lossy audio, I prefer Ogg Vorbis after over 5 years of using MP3 for a number of reasons, such as it being a gapless format, as well as native VBR and excellent tagging capabilities (this works great with Foobar2000).
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: JohnHenryBonham on 2007-07-14 12:16:56
Never used mp3 , always encoded with vqf and then m4a, before i discovered FLAC.

regards,
JHB.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: Spikey on 2007-07-16 06:54:06
I voted for Ogg Vorbis, since I still prefer it to MP3- but because MP3 and Ogg are pretty much the same these days, I've started putting the music on my site in both Ogg and MP3 formats.


I also voted for FLAC. Easy to use and no known bugs (known to me anyway  ).

Also, I use individual tracks rather than complete discs. Annoying that way, although I remember reading there's some reason to do it that way.

- Spike
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: hybridfan on 2007-07-16 12:42:52
Ripping program of choice would also be an interesting poll question to add to the bundle.


EAC would be the clear winner me thinks

I rip to ogg q-5
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: beyondipod on 2007-10-21 12:47:23
snip

I don't think one can get better than this...

In the future? Ahhh....

I'll rip WAV files onto the Blue-Ray.... yeah... not even using lossy or lossless in the future.


Blue-Ray hardware is expensive. HD-DVD could dominate.
Title: 2007 ripping/encoding general poll
Post by: houyhnhnm on 2007-12-28 18:56:57
(What an ideal topic for a newcomer like me to try out a first post! Thank you.  )

I choose AAC for lossy, because I don't need a high bitrate.
I choose WavPack for lossless because of its good efficiency, many functions and -t option. Unfortunately wvgain doesn't have the option, though.
I rip CDs as lossless images for backup purposes.


It seems some "your codec of choice" polls are still open.

Lossy:
  • [a href='index.php?showtopic=191']2001 lossy (open)[/a] 717 votes in Feb. 2007 -> 728 votes in Dec. 2007
  • [a href='index.php?showtopic=2404']2002 lossy (closed)[/a] ? votes in Feb. 2007 -> ? votes in Dec. 2007
  • [a href='index.php?showtopic=13718']2003 lossy (open)[/a] 217 votes in Feb. 2007 -> 217 votes in Dec. 2007
  • [a href='index.php?showtopic=24678']2004 lossy (closed)[/a] 682 votes in Feb. 2007 -> 682 votes in Dec. 2007
  • [a href='index.php?showtopic=31832']2005 lossy (closed)[/a] 604 votes in Feb. 2007 -> 604 votes in Dec. 2007
  • [a href='index.php?showtopic=43254']2006 lossy (closed)[/a] 971 votes in Feb. 2007 -> 971 votes in Dec. 2007
Lossless:
  • [a href='index.php?showtopic=3918']2002 lossless (open)[/a] 268 votes in Feb. 2007 -> 268 votes in Dec. 2007
  • [a href='index.php?showtopic=12050']2003 lossless (closed)[/a] 166 votes in Feb. 2007 -> 166 votes in Dec. 2007
  • [a href='index.php?showtopic=24921']2004-2005 lossless (closed)[/a] 715 votes in Feb. 2007 -> 715 votes in Dec. 2007
  • [a href='index.php?showtopic=43928']2006 lossless (closed)[/a] 433 votes in Feb. 2007 -> 433 votes in Dec. 2007
Some people might have voted reminded of their choices of the past, though...


By the way, I followed [a href='index.php?act=findpost&pid=462293']guruboolez[/a]. 

(http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/4525/lossydi7.th.png) (http://img406.imageshack.us/my.php?image=lossydi7.png)

(http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/1208/losslessok2.th.png) (http://img177.imageshack.us/my.php?image=losslessok2.png)

Edit: tags