Also, we don't have to forget ONE thing: this test was performed on clasical music ONLY[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Also, we don't have to forget ONE thing: this test was performed on clasical music ONLY and with guruboolez's ears and equipament ONLY.
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Ok, maybe I'm dense, but barring that, my ability to interpret the sea of numbers presented in the graphs is telling me that iTunes is coming super close to LAME.  Is that correct?
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Ok, maybe I'm dense, but barring that, my ability to interpret the sea of numbers presented in the graphs is telling me that iTunes is coming super close to LAME.  Is that correct?
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My interpretation is that iTunes @ ~130 Kb/s comes super close to LAME @ ~196 Kb/s (the "high anchor", LAME 3.97 beta 1 –V2 --vbr new) and is definitely better than LAME @ ~130 Kb/s.

Quite embarassing for a strong LAME supporter (like myself) and an an allergic to apples (like the very same myself).

Sergio
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And I just did a FLAC>3.97b1 -V 2 --vbr new conversion on all my music for the new 5th Gen 60GB iPod.  Might have to try out 160K VBR iTunes and get back space for photos and videos.
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Garf, Nero AAC may to some extend be your baby.... however, a certain kind of reaction from devs towards listening tests (i'm primarily not talking about the "what" but the "how") torpedoed musepacks public image on ha.org not so long ago.

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guruboolez great test, you trully have the patience of Job.

Also, Garf claimed several times that "most people" would perceive new encoder as better, is he referring to the old (Roberto and Co.) listening tests or is there another study I've missed? Anyone has a link to the study in which those "most" people participated?
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Nobody has so far participated in a listening test proving that "most people" are considering the new encoder as better than the previous one. Not even me. Not on HA.org, Doom9 or any other known board or website.
He's only referring to his own beliefs, disguised as valid and general claims.
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And I just did a FLAC>3.97b1 -V 2 --vbr new conversion on all my music for the new 5th Gen 60GB iPod.  Might have to try out 160K VBR iTunes and get back space for photos and videos.
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I hope you kept your FLACs, like I keep my WavPaks...
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Garf, Nero AAC may to some extend be your baby.... however, a certain kind of reaction from devs towards listening tests (i'm primarily not talking about the "what" but the "how") torpedoed musepacks public image on ha.org not so long ago.

I agree.  I think it is esp. good for devs to welcome listening tests by other people who volunteer to do quality-testing for you.  I know Aoyumi follows these tests very closely and I believe it benefits his Vorbis development.

I just wanted to make a comment about iTunes/QT AAC.  As guru pointed out in a previous reply, I am somewhat amazed at how its ABR-like nature can give such great quality.  In fact, I've made the comment long ago about iTunes AAC on castanets compared with Vorbis at 128 kbps.  iTunes/AAC barely moved in bitrate, yet produced much lower pre-echo than vanilla Vorbis with inflated bitrates.    When I did those ABX tests last night, I noticed that the iTunes files had very minimal bitrate fluctuation, yet I was unable to ABX it against the original.    Is this magic or something?    The devs at Apple certainly are doing a great job, esp when they are giving their AAC encoder away for free.
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I asume i'm not alone with this impression when i say that AAC has been in the making for a LONG time, it has been sold to us as the "next big thing" and "the future of lossy encoding".... and when during the previous years the tests didn't look good, we were told over and over "well, its still new and requires some more tuning and more research, then it will rock"..... with nero AAC, this is what we've been told for almost EVERY upcoming version: "yes, there are some errors, but the next version will be much better and probably fix this and that"....
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Now, when after years in the medium bitrate arena quicktime AAC can barely compete with vorbis, which does NOT have many of the patented toys available to AAC...... and nero AAC can barely beat LAME-MP3.... the format which supposedly is "obsolete"...... then maybe it's no surprise that people aren't very euphorous about the performance of AAC, especially nero AAC? Or is this encoder only gonna be useful for narrowband-scenarios? (question is intentionally worded in a provocative way)

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This brings up a good question: Who's doing the development on the iTunes AAC encoder?  Anybody that frequents this board, I wonder?[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=343306"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

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This brings up a good question: Who's doing the development on the iTunes AAC encoder?  Anybody that frequents this board, I wonder?[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=343306"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Yes. But he prefers to remain anonymous because of some scary Apple policies.
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This brings up a good question: Who's doing the development on the iTunes AAC encoder?  Anybody that frequents this board, I wonder?[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=343306"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Yes. But he prefers to remain anonymous because of some scary Apple policies.
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Both AAC and Vorbis use quantized MDCT with two different block sizes, followed by Huffman coding.  I would be surprised if there was a substantial difference in coding efficiency between the two formats.  What are the patented toys available to AAC?  SBR?  LTP?  SSR?  It'd be interesting to know how much improvement those actually make...
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He?  It's not one person, is it?  If so, hat's off to him for a fine job.[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=343338"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

And probably because he'd be bullied by hundreds on this board about when gapless playback is going to be supported by Apple.  [a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=343403"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

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And probably because he'd be bullied by hundreds on this board about when gapless playback is going to be supported by Apple.  [a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=343403"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I bullied him already :B

He said he wouldn't mind including it in the encoder, but it doesn't depend only on him. It also depends on the QuickTime division, the iTunes division, the iPod division... For that reason, it'll probably only happen when a decision comes from above.
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BTW, anybody looking for good DVD media to backup, check Micro Center (www.microcenter.com) for their in-house brand "WinData"....it's TY.  Right now, they're $8.99 for a 50pk spindle.  That's right, $8.99 for 50 Tayo Yuden 8x DVD+R.
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Would it be possible for you to create some small webpage pointing to your tests, like the one of rjamorim, so its easy to see whats going on and compare the results aso... atm it seems more to me your results are vanishing in the depths of the forum
if you cant make a own page, maybe you can create some thread carrying that info?
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wouldnt it be more interesting to compare helix/ct to apple in the future and not always nero over and over again? (i know nero is well established (again is used in sebastians public test), but this doesnt mean that there arent better codecs)

The good surprise comes from LAME MP3, which get the best mark (3,95)

Yes, I could.

vorbis GT2 vs. vorbis PCVS - 12 samples
extension of the AAC 128 kbs LT - part 2
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....topic=10555&hl=

... and so on...
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