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Topic: --alt-preset medium (Read 30874 times) previous topic - next topic
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--alt-preset medium

Reply #25
Apologies for this layman question, but can you give us an 'advance preview' of what switches -preset medium will be equivalent too, to use now?

I've found that -alt-preset standard -V5 -b96 gives me around the filesize I want, but after reading this thread (most of which was over my head), it seems that innocuous playing with switches might not be so innocuous, quality-wise...

v

--alt-preset medium

Reply #26
The only thing that is sure is that over standard, it will includes -Y and a lower -b

--alt-preset medium

Reply #27
Can you comment on whether -aps -V5 -b96 is a questionable choice for the time being?  I'm just wondering whether that introduces artifacts, or simply acts to make irrelevant other desired switches contained in 'standard'.  I.e. would I be better off changing V5 to Y for now?

--alt-preset medium

Reply #28
You can consider -Y and -b96 as safe.
But probably not -V5.

What average bitrate are you targetting, and what bitrate do you have when using aps on your music?

--alt-preset medium

Reply #29
I'm targetting 128-160 range, ideally, both for portability and sharing when appropriate.  aps is significantly above that (180-200?  can't recall offhand).

--alt-preset medium

Reply #30
Well, even with -Y -b96 you will probably be quite above (around 160-190)

I would suggest you to use --alt-preset 150 in the meantime

--alt-preset medium

Reply #31
Hm, yeah, before, I was using 144 -b96, but what I was missing was a 'global' look at the file, where quiet, sparse sections could sacrifice the resolution for the busy, higher-freq sections.  (I encode lots of dynamic music - jazz, experimental, etc - which at this point you may be saying, "well, then, settle for a higher bitrate!").

But, if there's no perfect answer for what I'm asking for, ok, c'est la vie.

So ABR at 144 (or whatever) is probably better than aps -V5, even though the latter often reaches up into higher freqs than the former (judging by the encoding histogram)?  Is this because V5 screws up other stuff?

--alt-preset medium

Reply #32
Mainly because aps was not designed to be used with V5

--alt-preset medium

Reply #33
I was surprised to see some posts in this thread where the Y switch hardly changed the file from aps. On my files, it is about a 25% reduction in file size (From 200-220 aps down to 150-180). I cannot tell the difference in quality between the 2 on my Ipod. Has anyone else experienced a difference in quality? On what equipment?

I would love a true VBR with a switch that can crunch the file size down to 150-160 with similar quality to the Y switch. ABR is not a good substitute for VBR. I can tell the difference b/t ABR 160 and aps -Y.

Can anyone really tell the difference between aps and ape?

--alt-preset medium

Reply #34
Quote
I was surprised to see some posts in this thread where the Y switch hardly changed the file from aps. On my files, it is about a 25% reduction in file size (From 200-220 aps down to 150-180). I cannot tell the difference in quality between the 2 on my Ipod. Has anyone else experienced a difference in quality? On what equipment?

I would love a true VBR with a switch that can crunch the file size down to 150-160 with similar quality to the Y switch. ABR is not a good substitute for VBR. I can tell the difference b/t ABR 160 and aps -Y.

Can anyone really tell the difference between aps and ape?

The size difference will depend on the high frequency content of the original wav. If there are lots of HF, the output size difference will be bigger.

Being able to tell the difference between -Y and withuot -Y depends on your ear's capabilities to hear HF as well as your playback equipment's capability to play those back.

--alt-preset medium

Reply #35
Given that MP3 is a format generally played on less-than-stellar equipment - PC speakers, portables, car stereos, etc. - you don't necessarily need perfect transparency, not that MP3 is capable of delivering that anyway. In this light, throwing out signals above 16KHz isn't tragic. Sure, some might notice the omission of these very high frequencies in a direct A-B comparison but since MP3 wasn't really designed to handle 16KHz+ signals (no scalefactor for sfb21), save the bits and toss the signals.

Because I don't use MP3 for anything serious, I always use the -Y switch with the presets. It's a good compromise.

--alt-preset medium

Reply #36
The problem then is: Downloading VBR-files doesn't mean I have good quality. For CBR files I can see the difference but not for VBR files.

Maybe you can add a small description to every file sourcecode (extreme, standard, medium, portable..) which can be read by programs like EncSpot ect. Otherwise I can't be sure wherther I have a portable mp3 file or a extreme...

--alt-preset medium

Reply #37
can someone tell me what -preset medium ended up as?

--alt-preset medium

Reply #38
Quote
can someone tell me what -preset medium ended up as?


Sure; it ended up being --preset medium  .

Now being serious, medium is a new preset you can find in versions 3.92; 3.93.1 and the future 3.94, based in VBR modes, not ABR. It produces an average bitrate arround 165 - 170kbps; so, it's not transparent as --preset standard or --preset extreme can be; but IMHO it sounds great, and is the way to go for portable devices.

If your question was about what command line arguments are the equivalent of this preset; I think the answer is none. The presets are theaked operation modes that cannot been reproduced with a command line, that's why they sound better 
Just a thought...

--alt-preset medium

Reply #39
Why not use -m j instead of --nsmsfix?
-m j will reduce filesize more than --nsmsfix; --nsmsfix maybe isn't optimal at the bitrates used.

And with -m j you could increase the lowpass to 17.7/18 Khz, increasing the quality.
[ Commodore 64 Forever...! ]

--alt-preset medium

Reply #40
Quote
Why not use -m j instead of --nsmsfix?
-m j will reduce filesize more than --nsmsfix; --nsmsfix maybe isn't optimal at the bitrates used.

And with -m j you could increase the lowpass to 17.7/18 Khz, increasing the quality.

Hmm, it sounds like you are confused.

-m j basically means "use joint stereo". It doesn't have anything to do with reducing filesize (by itself...of course joint-stereo is more efficient than straight stereo).

--nsmsfix tweaks the mid/side stereo switching and accepts a decimal value from 0 to "infinity". It's not a toggle. Values closer to 0 make LAME use more L/R frames as well as modifying some masking algorithm. The default --nsmsfix value for LAME is 3.5. --alt-preset standard uses 1.38, I believe. If this sounds confusing then just ignore this switch.

--alt-preset medium

Reply #41
I know that --nsmsfix it's a setting that use less L/R frames than -m j.

I said to use -m j instead of --nsmsfix, because I think that -m j (default Joint Stereo, which use more L/R frames) can help to decrease filesize more than --nsmsfix.

On a sample I've obtained an average bitrate of 150kbps with --nsmfix and of 145kbps with -m j.

Then I've said that with the save of bits obtained with -m j we can set an higher lowpass, increasing the quality.
[ Commodore 64 Forever...! ]

--alt-preset medium

Reply #42
I've found that by using 3.90.2-msvc and "--alt-preset fast standard -Y" I get files between 155 and 180 roughly. The "fast" brings down the siza a bit and so does the msvc compile. Never been happier:-)
//From the barren lands of the Northsmen

--alt-preset medium

Reply #43
IMO -Y degrade the sound, you should try another ways to decrease bitrate.
[ Commodore 64 Forever...! ]

--alt-preset medium

Reply #44
previously

-alt-preset standard


now

--preset standard

Why don't use

-standard

isn't it easier this way

--alt-preset medium

Reply #45
Quote
IMO -Y degrade the sound, you should try another ways to decrease bitrate.

The -Y switch might decrease the sound quality (I for sure can't detect any sound loss) but it's still one of the best ways to do it. IMO
//From the barren lands of the Northsmen

--alt-preset medium

Reply #46
Quote
I know that --nsmsfix it's a setting that use less L/R frames than -m j.

I said to use -m j instead of --nsmsfix, because I think that -m j (default Joint Stereo, which use more L/R frames) can help to decrease filesize more than --nsmsfix.

On a sample I've obtained an average bitrate of 150kbps with --nsmfix and of 145kbps with -m j.

Then I've said that with the save of bits obtained with -m j we can set an higher lowpass, increasing the quality.

I still don't understand what you are saying.

All of the alt-presets and presets (except for insane) use -m j joint stereo by default. You do not need to add the -m j switch.

--nsmsfix is used alongside -m j; neither is used instead of the other. For instance, --alt-preset standard uses "-m j --nsmsfix 1.38". The first switch says use joint stereo, the second says set the switching threshold to 1.38.

If you are creating your own commandline (while using psytune) and do not specify --nsmsfix, LAME defaults to --nsmsfix 3.5. Remember, this is only for 3.94 alphas, not 3.90.2.

So you could modify --preset standard with "--nsmfix [some value larger than 2]" and this will reduce the bitrate (but I'm not necessarily recommending this).

--alt-preset medium

Reply #47
Ok.
Just 1 question:
What treshold I should use with --nsmsfix to obtain the same amount of L/R Frames of -m j ? (-m j used without any other switch)
[ Commodore 64 Forever...! ]

--alt-preset medium

Reply #48
Quote
Ok.
Just 1 question:
What treshold I should use with --nsmsfix to obtain the same amount of L/R Frames of -m j ? (-m j used without any other switch)

The default --nsmsfix value is 3.5 (unless you are using one of the named presets).

Therefore, "-m j" and "-m j --nsmsfix 3.5" are the same.

--alt-preset medium

Reply #49
So I've got a question that perhaps I should post elsewhere.  I got down off my high horse of ogg and started using mp3, largely b/c a friend gave me a portable that reads mp3's off of cd-r.  My optimum quality to size ration for such listening seems to be fine at around -alt-preset cbr 160 (depending on the difficulty of the music for encoding).  -aps is bigger than I feel like going.  But, given the bitrate at which I'm working, is there a good vbr setting that's actually intelligent vbr (I'm using cbr b/c I don't see abr as giving much marginal benefit).  How is the -r3mix setting?  I've never used it.

rip waves w/ EAC
encode using Lame 3.93 dll w/ CDex as frontend
Trim any beginning silence, and ending silence if live or supposed-to-be-gapless transition with mp3trim
mp3gain @ 89 dB
Tag using Tag
God kills a kitten every time you encode with CBR 320