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Topic: Forum for Other formats (Read 8800 times) previous topic - next topic
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Forum for Other formats

I've already posted this subject in other threads, and the idea has enjoyed good acceptance among some users. Besides, people at IRC liked this idea too. Therefore, I would like to center discussion about this proposal in this thread.

I would like to propose the creation of a new forum dedicated to other formats. Even though some of these formats are "unwelcome" here (for very valid reasons, I should add), discussion about them happens neverthless, mostly at the General forum.

I suggest that formats covered by this forum include WMA, Real Audio, Speex, ATRAC, and everything else that has any significance for the purposes of this board - QDesign, ePAC, ADPCM flavors, other vocodecs (CELP, ACELP, g719, PureVoice, VoxWare...), etc.

Please, feel free to post other suggestions about this proposal.

Thank-you for your attention;

Roberto.

Addendum: I would like to quote some reasons mekon21 pointed for the creation of an "official" place to discuss WMA:

Quote
like it or not it is one of the major mainstream encoders that a lot of people have on their computers by default. It is a lot of peoples introduction to compression. Discussing it enables us to get the best out of it, however short of perfect that is.


Besides, I add these reasons:
-You can decode it anywhere with the unofficial decoding sources (FFMPEG)
-It's supported in Windows and MacOS, with hints of future support in Linux, so it's not really "Windows-only"
-It's much used nowadays for streaming
-Only second to MP3 in hardware support
-It's gapless, according to _Shorty's test.

Forum for Other formats

Reply #1 –
I agree that this is likely a good idea.

Forum for Other formats

Reply #2 –
I vote for this.

Forum for Other formats

Reply #3 –
Sounds great.  You have my vote.

Later.
"Did you just say he contacts you through a bird? Did I just hear you say that?" Sonny Valerio (Cliff Gorman). Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai.

Forum for Other formats

Reply #5 –
Dear lord that vqf thread was horrid!
While I agree that there is a place here for all these audio formats, what a lot of people need to
understand is that different formats were made for different purposes (eg: speex for voice).

If only they could get that notion through their heads perhaps there would be a significant
reduction in the number of horror threads like that.  (But at least the moderators jump on em eh?)
"I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous - everyone hasn't met me yet." - Rodney Dangerfield

Forum for Other formats

Reply #6 –
Quote
One problem here is that we fear we get more threads like this:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/show.php/act/.../ST/f/17/t/8472

I think those people just post in General now as happened

The positive side would that people who aren't hopeless might see the light instead.

Forum for Other formats

Reply #7 –
I agree with other formats too, it should be education, not censoring - at least as far as the other formats are concerned.

Either that or set the censor words of this forum to vqf, blade, xing, etc...

Forum for Other formats

Reply #8 –
yup...


am behind this proposal...

the info.. on "outboard" codecs..
are very limited...


Forum for Other formats

Reply #9 –
Quote
One problem here is that we fear we get more threads like this:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/show.php/act/.../ST/f/17/t/8472

I agree with Garf. It won't matter to these freaks if they post at General, or at the "Other formats" forum. And I don't see "Other Formats" as being an incentive.

@everyone else: thanks for supporting the idea.

Forum for Other formats

Reply #10 –
Roberto: You have my vote.

LIF
"Jazz washes away the dust of everyday life" (Art Blakey)

Forum for Other formats

Reply #11 –
Quote
I agree with Garf. It won't matter to these freaks if they post at General, or at the "Other formats" forum. And I don't see "Other Formats" as being an incentive.

Don't you think we would get a lot more that kind of threads than we get now, if we have a specific forum for "other formats"? Imo it's enough work to keep format wars in control now... I mean, we are trying to keep somekind of discussion level here...

Maybe I'm prejudiced, but I have been following audio discussions starting many years back like some of you know.. The thing is I've never seen users of wma or vqf to become interested in blind quality testing. And we dont want to see this kind of forum totally out of control, meaning that nobody can keep up with the claims which are thrown in to the air.

Maybe, one possibility is that we make a "other formats" -category and create specific forums for certain formats like speex, atrac and maybe wma under that. But I don't like the idea of just single "other formats" -forum. A single "other formats" -forum is like asking for trouble at least for admins/mods. Of course for some of you (especially for rjamorim  ) it would be very funny reading, but some of us have to actually keep moderating...
Juha Laaksonheimo

Forum for Other formats

Reply #12 –
I think it would be a good idea, in order to have a source of information/discussion over more formats ...And could possibly be good for those occasions when you are stressed, in order to practice "zealot-bashing" to discharge adrenaline 

Edit: now seriously, I think there's a real possibility that what JohnV says can happen to some extent.

Forum for Other formats

Reply #13 –
Good idea, Roberto.
From this forum we can even tell them about the superiority of the mpc, ogg and flac formats.
Maybe we can call it [Other (Inferior) Formats] instead. Of course then formats like Speex shouldn't be in it.
Maybe they will think twice about trolling in it.

I still think we should be kinder to people who claim that their outclassed formats are superior... we have encountered them countless times, but HA.org should be THE place to get them educated. I was very amused by the vqf zealot thread (closed) though.

Darn it, I actually wished that the guy would abx the vqf killer sample, try to fake the results, and report back here.

Forum for Other formats

Reply #14 –
Quote
Good idea, Roberto.
From this forum we can even tell them about the superiority of the mpc, ogg and flac formats.
Maybe we can call it [Other (Inferior) Formats] instead.

No, HA is not a place where we create a forum like "Other inferior formats" where we "show how some formats are superior to others".
If "other formats" forum(s) are ever created, those will have similar purpose like the rest of the forums. Meaning it's mainly knowledge sharing of that specific format and not any group conversion of people using the "wrong" format...
Juha Laaksonheimo

Forum for Other formats

Reply #15 –
Quote
Don't you think we would get a lot more that kind of threads than we get now, if we have a specific forum for "other formats"? Imo it's enough work to keep format wars in control now... I mean, we are trying to keep somekind of discussion level here...

We can never know until we try.

Besides, it's already clear in the TOS that wild claims without backing won't be tolerated. The admins also made some very good examples out of trolling threads started by Ludwig, Randar, and others.

Closing a thread and banning a troll is very easy, and I reckon it's a price worth paying if with that we increase the board organization. It will also make it easier for people searching info about these "bastardized" codecs.

En fin, if this forum becomes a trollish place, so be it - the Admins close it and move the threads back to General.

Anyway, I posted in the first post that suggestions are welcome. I personally prefer the idea of only a forum for 'everything else'. There's not enough discussion going on about these subjects to justify a forum for WMA, another for Speex, another for Atrac. But, if that's what the Admins decide, so be it.

You say I am just asking for trouble for the admins/mods by proposing the creation of this forum. But I'm not that sure it will really become a place for flamewars, zealotry and wild claims. Again, you can't be sure without trying it first.

Thank-you all again for your attention.

Kind regards;

Roberto.

Obs: actually, I think that creating a forum only for WMA inside "Others" is giving the format more attention than it really deserves.

Forum for Other formats

Reply #16 –
Quote
No, HA is not a place where we create a forum like "Other inferior formats" where we "show how some formats are superior to others".
If "other formats" forum(s) are ever created, those will have similar purpose like the rest of the forums. Meaning it's mainly knowledge sharing of that specific format and not any group conversion of people using the "wrong" format...

I think the problem is going to be when in that forum someone starts to loudly praise the virtues of WMA for high bitrate encoding, are you going to be able to keep yourself from smacking him/her down to earth? Should you?

Forum for Other formats

Reply #17 –
Quote
I think the problem is going to be when in that forum someone starts to loudly praise the virtues of WMA for high bitrate encoding, are you going to be able to keep yourself from smacking him/her down to earth? Should you?

I believe this forum shouldn't me marked as a place to discuss "inferior" formats. But if somebody starts going nuts and claiming WMA to be the best thing ever, then this person should be dealt with accordingly.

Bottom line: It's not a case of trying to avoid zealotry by previously stating that the format sucks. That should be understated by previous reading. But once somebody says it doesn't suck, then mods/admins take measures. (roughly speaking)

Forum for Other formats

Reply #18 –
Quote
Don't you think we would get a lot more that kind of threads than we get now, if we have a specific forum for "other formats"? Imo it's enough work to keep format wars in control now... I mean, we are trying to keep somekind of discussion level here...


I think it's pretty much impossible to know that in advance. I think those people just post in general now, as I've said. But maybe you are right and the WMA/VQF crowd will collectively flee to HA. Let's hope not

Quote
Maybe I'm prejudiced, but I have been following audio discussions starting many years back like some of you know.. The thing is I've never seen users of wma or vqf to become interested in blind quality testing.


I won't make a statement about WMA or VQF users, but past experience certainly shows that people's opnion about a codec can surely be changed by good reasons and objective information (e.g. MPC and MP3Pro)

I'd imagine people use WMA because it's installed on Windows by default together with a ripper, and portables support it. I'd imagine people use VQF because they don't know any better or they're insane.

It should be possible to reason with all but the last category.

Quote
And we dont want to see this kind of forum totally out of control, meaning that nobody can keep up with the claims which are thrown in to the air.


I understand this feeling, it's an effect of the board getting bigger and bigger and more and more newbie users joining. When the board started most of it's userbase consisted of people with a lot of experience (this had a lot to do with the reasons for it's creation of course). That has changed, and the level of discussions with it. I don't think this will change for the better ever again.

Quote
Maybe, one possibility is that we make a "other formats" -category and create specific forums for certain formats like speex, atrac and maybe wma under that. But I don't like the idea of just single "other formats" -forum. A single "other formats" -forum is like asking for trouble at least for admins/mods. Of course for some of you (especially for rjamorim  ) it would be very funny reading, but some of us have to actually keep moderating...


Making for subforums doesn't seem like a good idea, you'd still have to make an 'other formats' forum no matter how many subforums you make, and most of them would be near empty.

I don't think putting multiple codecs next to each other would be a problem (it's so common on this board!), but I understand the issue about moderating.

Banning a user is not that trivial (or at least, I don't think it is, I'm not an admin ). You have to really ask yourself if the banning is warranted, and there's a risk someone takes revenge and thus creates more work for the admins.

Forum for Other formats

Reply #19 –
Quote
I'd imagine people use WMA because it's installed on Windows by default together with a ripper, and portables support it.

Don't forget about Microsoft's powerful marketing machine. :B

Quote
Banning a user is not that trivial (or at least, I don't think it is, I'm not an admin ). You have to really ask yourself if the banning is warranted, and there's a risk someone takes revenge and thus creates more work for the admins.


I agree banning is not something to be taken lightly (look at my rants about some #foobar2000 OPs behaviour), but is has already happened here and will continue happening.

And the worst revenge I ever saw here was a flame mail a banned guy sent to Dibrom. 

Forum for Other formats

Reply #20 –
Quote
I think the problem is going to be when in that forum someone starts to loudly praise the virtues of WMA for high bitrate encoding, are you going to be able to keep yourself from smacking him/her down to earth? Should you?


I am not too sure that you would have to, any "sensible" person coming to this forum in search of info about making his/her WMA files sound better has got to be at least inquisitive, so after finding what they were looking for they might have a scan through the other forums, then they might say to themselves "mmm, maybe I should try this, or this and maybe this". I am only sad that I did not find this forum earlier (it's still not that easy to find it), after trying WMA and not being too happy I tried the usual encoding with MMJB etc in MP3, still not satisfied I searched on Google and landed on the r3mix site. What a revelation, it was like the clouds broke and the sunlight came streaming through (is that overdramatic do you think ?  ) anyway the crux of it was I ended up discovering stuff like EAC, lame, Razor lame etc which I never would have heard of otherwise. I ended up encoding all my CD's with Lame using the r3mix setting, which I now find is not the most recommended setting but I only aquired this info by reading all you guys posts and trying out different settings for myself. Who knows ? I might have ended up encoding with MPC if I had discovered it earlier (I'm still toying with the idea). I think by having a forum for other formats, it will encourage those who come here for info regarding it to try something different. I mean take this likely scenario, person comes across this site "ah, audio compression" I'll see if they have any info on my chosen format WMA (I only use this as an example), scans down the menus, " no nothing there" I'll move onto another site. Could be a lost convert with something valuable to add to the forum.

Thats my 2 cents worth anyway, regarding the the more "extreme" supporters of various formats, the internet is full of extremists and there is little we can do to stop them whatever, if they find this site it won't matter what forums we have, they will still post if they want to.

Cheers

Forum for Other formats

Reply #21 –
2 new forums added:
"Speech codecs" and "Other Lossy Formats".

The old lossless category is now renamed, so the new category/forums look like this:
- Other Audio Codecs

Juha Laaksonheimo

Forum for Other formats

Reply #22 –
Great. Thank-you very much, JohnV.

Forum for Other formats

Reply #23 –
Cheers, and thanks for listening.

Forum for Other formats

Reply #24 –
Quote
I think the problem is going to be when in that forum someone starts to loudly praise the virtues of WMA for high bitrate encoding, are you going to be able to keep yourself from smacking him/her down to earth?

Yes.

Quote
Should you?


Yes. I would have more difficulties if it were Vorbis, though... 
ZZee ya, Hans-Jürgen
BLUEZZ BASTARDZZ - "That lil' ol' ZZ Top cover band from Hamburg..."
INDIGO ROCKS - "Down home rockin' blues. Tasty as strudel."