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Topic: My impressions on the current state of codec devel (Read 29116 times) previous topic - next topic
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My impressions on the current state of codec devel

Reply #50 –
It could be Andree. Tord seems unlikely...

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I would think it would be someone who is dissatisfied with the way the lame project is run.

More probably someone who want to play with a fresh codebase.

In any way, if the code is open this will allow us to learn more...

My impressions on the current state of codec devel

Reply #51 –
If i had to bet, i would relate it to the land of sushi.

Wasn´t there a sentence on one developoers page?

"...under construction. Stay tuned!"

Wombat
Is troll-adiposity coming from feederism?
With 24bit music you can listen to silence much louder!

My impressions on the current state of codec devel

Reply #52 –
hmm, wombat, sounds kewl...

for all: http://shibatch.sourceforge.net/

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NOTE

Some notes about nspsytune
nspsytune is an alternative psychoacoustic model for LAME MP3 encoder. You
cannot download any LAME related code from here, but you can read some notes about nspsytune. Here

Some notes about nspsytune2
nspsytune2 is under construction. Stay tuned!

My impressions on the current state of codec devel

Reply #53 –
I talked to the developer of the new mp3 encoder. The project is advancing and the encoder is now outputting valid mp3-files. It's however long way to go still, and at this point the project is not going public just yet. The developer said he's also interested in AAC, so it's interesting to see what happens in the future.
Juha Laaksonheimo

My impressions on the current state of codec devel

Reply #54 –
It is good to have more mp3 encoders, it would be good to have more vorbis encoders.

You worry because the vorbis encoder development stalled because of theora? I think when ever the cdparanoia project will get more finished... Must be at the end of the list, but consider this, cdparanoia is the only decent way of ripping outside of the windows world. It may even have the power to deal with those dreaded "copy protected" discs, should developer efforts were to go back to it. Oh but just who you think was the person behind cdparanoia? The same Monty...

So getting back to some Linus Torwalds analogy... If a bus were to hit Monty, what will we all do? Don't we have completed format specs so we can work in our own encoders?

If SV8 is out there, i suppose there could even be more people working with more encoders too, provided there is that much interest.

And AAC is clearly winning in this regard, having many alternatives for encoding, just like mp3 had.

But don't fall the chicken and egg problem. People first massively encoded mp3s, and only then, a KOREAN brand released the first hardware mp3 player. Just because now hardware manufacturers back this or that format, does not mean they could not be forced to suppport another. Say, if everyone really pushed the vorbis or some other one. Perhaps it is that vorbis is just not "convenient enough" to use it yet. I suppose the mp3 format has the advantage here, even with its 320kbps limit.

But in my opinion, there should not be even more wasted resources in "yet another mp3 encoder" (YAME) (or it is naokinocoda? ) It would be better to support the newer, not format constrained alternatives, and that means Vorbis, Musepack or Advanced Audio Coding. But i suppose there is plenty to learn by developing YAME, maybe that knowledge can later be used in some newer format. So it can't be wrong either
She is waiting in the air

My impressions on the current state of codec devel

Reply #55 –
Quote
I talked to the developer of the new mp3 encoder. The project is advancing and the encoder is now outputting valid mp3-files. It's however long way to go still, and at this point the project is not going public just yet. The developer said he's also interested in AAC, so it's interesting to see what happens in the future.

Bad news, Nokia, Sony and others can hire the developer of the  new mp3 encoder and encoder will die before it is born.
Ogg Vorbis for music and speech [q-2.0 - q6.0]
FLAC for recordings to be edited
Speex for speech

My impressions on the current state of codec devel

Reply #56 –
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Bad news, Nokia, Sony and others can hire the developer of the  new mp3 encoder and encoder will die before it is born.

Where did that idea come from?

Why would Nokia, Sony or others hire him?

My impressions on the current state of codec devel

Reply #57 –
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Where did that idea come from?


don't worry, he had a bad dream, that's all:)

He fears that he'll walk down the same path Ivan did...

My impressions on the current state of codec devel

Reply #58 –
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Bad news, Nokia, Sony and others can hire the developer of the  new mp3 encoder and encoder will die before it is born.

Where did that idea come from?

Why would Nokia, Sony or others hire him?

As JohnV wrote the developer is interested in AAC too. IMHO if he is going to do something revolutionary with MP3 coder it will make MP3 stronger (especially if his improvments are related to low bitrate). Hiring him 'the giants' can slow down or even stop development of MP3 and if the the 'developer X' rocks in AAC he can improve it. And of course this will cost much lower than hiring Fraunhofer Institute or the other one. IMHO.
As you asking where did this idea come from...
IMHO in such cases, most of the time, few free developers (programmers) can do much more than huge graduated group (just compare WMA, MP3Pro, Fraunhofer MP3 encoders with LAME, Vorbis, Speex, FLAC and others.). But this can't go so long time. The sad day will come and 'giants' will change their strategy. Just look at Syntrillium. This can happen to anybody.
And the last. I wish good luck to the 'developer X'. Will I be right or wrong - I will be happy in both cases.
1. We get a better new MP3 encoder.
2. All developers of these free projects made realy great job, and it will be very good if they will get some money for the work they are doing for us.

Sorry for bad English.
Ogg Vorbis for music and speech [q-2.0 - q6.0]
FLAC for recordings to be edited
Speex for speech
 

My impressions on the current state of codec devel

Reply #59 –
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IMHO if he is going to do something revolutionary with MP3 coder it will make MP3 stronger (especially if his improvments are related to low bitrate).

Hrm. I don't think he'll do something really revolutionary, from what I heard. About the same quality as LAME on 10~20 kbps less, but don't expect transparency at 128kbps.

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IMHO in such cases, most of the time, few free developers (programmers) can do much more than huge graduated group (just compare WMA, MP3Pro, Fraunhofer MP3 encoders with LAME, Vorbis, Speex, FLAC and others.).


LAME took much more time to reach high quality than FhG MP3 did. Speex isn't a good example either. JMValin himself told me he doesn't expect Speex to beat modern vocodecs (g729, ACELP) on a listening test we're planning,  because of the workarounds he had to do to avoid patents.

Regards;

Roberto.

My impressions on the current state of codec devel

Reply #60 –
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...cdparanoia is the only decent way of ripping outside of the windows world.

This is simply not true. First of all, cdparanoia III seems to be very Linux-specific and doesn't work on Mac OS X. Second, Mac OS X mounts CDDAs as a disk with AIFF files you can play in any player, or copy to disk. Third, Solaris does the same thing as Mac OS X, only they aren't AIFFs. It may be that cdparanoia is the only decent ripper for Linux or the other BSD's - I wouldn't know - but other decent ways of ripping definitely exist outside the Windows world.

Anyway, Mac OS X handles most protected CD's just fine. Usually, one track will give I/O errors, and the rest will work fine.

My impressions on the current state of codec devel

Reply #61 –
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Hrm. I don't think he'll do something really revolutionary, from what I heard. About the same quality as LAME on 10~20 kbps less, but don't expect transparency at 128kbps.

Please don't spread this kind of rumors that it will be same quality with 10-20kbps less bitrate.
At the moment it's in early alpha stage. We will see how well it performs eventually, but it's simply stupid to give some figures at this point. There can be estimates, but those aren't anything official. Also it will not "take Musepack's psychoacoustics", like I think you were telling to John33 and John33 wrote it here..

Also, it may not be exactly revolutionary, but it introduces an intresting solution regarding the missing scf-21 problem of mp3.

What comes to the issue raised by de Mon that some industry giant will hire this developer, I think he's "a bit" early with this "bad news". 
Juha Laaksonheimo

My impressions on the current state of codec devel

Reply #62 –
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Speex isn't a good example either. JMValin himself told me he doesn't expect Speex to beat modern vocodecs (g729, ACELP) on a listening test we're planning,  because of the workarounds he had to do to avoid patents.

To be more precise, I don't expect Speex to beat them all at constant bit-rates (though it may be close to G.729) which is what most current codecs are designed for. However, I think Speex could beat many of them using VBR, which most current codecs can't do. Same for wideband, there aren't many wideband speech codecs yet.

My impressions on the current state of codec devel

Reply #63 –
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However, I think Speex could beat many of them using VBR, which most current codecs can't do.

Yeah. But exactly because most codecs can't encode VBR, that feature can't be safely tested (without having to deal with lots of criticism)

Good ol' apples and oranges. >_<

My impressions on the current state of codec devel

Reply #64 –
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Yeah. But exactly because most codecs can't encode VBR, that feature can't be safely tested (without having to deal with lots of criticism)

What I mean is that if all you care about is how much quality you can get by compressing a file down to a certain file, then you want to use any feature you can. If (I say "if" because it hasn't been tested) you can get better quality with Speex VBR at 8 kbps than G.729 CBR at 8 kbps (G.729 doesn't support VBR), why would you use G.729 - even if (not tested either) it provides better CBR quality?

The same way, if I come up with an audio (music) codec that only does CBR, there's no reason to restrict Vorbis/MP3/... to CBR while testing (unless there's a real reason why it's CBR, e.g. for real-time streaming).

My impressions on the current state of codec devel

Reply #65 –
I still see Ogg audio files in a lot of Shockwave games & activision games, like bookworm and Star Trek Away Team.  Anyone see Ogg in any PS2 or Xbox games yet?

My impressions on the current state of codec devel

Reply #66 –
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Also it will not "take Musepack's psychoacoustics", like I think you were telling to John33 and John33 wrote it here..



Oh, well.
Good fantasy, too bad it didn't last...

Anyway, I'm up for any improvement.
I'm the one in the picture, sitting on a giant cabbage in Mexico, circa 1978.
Reseñas de Rock en Español: www.estadogeneral.com

My impressions on the current state of codec devel

Reply #67 –
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Very interesting thread, really.

I was happy to read on the Vorbis-dev ML today that there is serious work being done on a working 5.1 Vorbis implementation. Of course, they wouldnt be Xiph if they would just take what is proven to good and wide spread, no they have to redo everything and make a new 5.0 standard based on an ambisonics approach, making it almost impossible to simply transcode a 5.1 DTS or AC3 sound stream into a Vorbis file, without having to to modify/remix the individual channels on a PCM basis, with complex algo's, before encoding, but thats fine with me ... it will be the perfect way for DSPguru to prove his unbeatable Digital Processing knowledge, and a good reason to reactivate him from pensioneering :D !!

About the slow Vorbis development recently : well, the upcoming Theora was certainly the reason for this, and i still have doubts if it was a wise move to set on the old ON2 VP3 video codec, instead of improving Vorbis and pushing Tarkin as a parallel development same time. The decision to make Theora had a huge demotivating factor for the Tarkin developers it seems, both the MLs seem to be dead since a couple of months, all devs seem to have left.

In the end, and there can be no doubt about that, once Theora is here and Xiph people manage to bring some good codec developers in, maybe even from the FFMPEG or XviD scene ( like Mike Melanson or Michael Nidermayer ), so they can offer better quality at low bitrates than VP3 does currently offer, than there will be a big run towards Theora as a patent and license free video streaming solution, and this will hopefully have a positive effect on Vorbis development also ... we'll see !

After almost one year of fighting with the Ogg bitstream adaption to fit for video needs, Monty for sure will have a couple of very good ideas on how to tweal Vorbis, and being the real full hearted codec developer he is, he will be glad to have the chance to make them happen, no doubt :) !


About AAC :

Its doing extremely well currently, and we are proud to be amongst the first video container formats to support it in matroska, and since the latest VirtualdubMod release we can even edit/cut matroska movies with AAC audio ( not even the highly official MP4 can do this yet :D ! ), and since Microsoft released a WMV9 VCM codec recently, we can finally even use this very nice video codec with some good sounding audio, instead of crappy WMA :P  .... my experiences with Nero's latest AAC encoder are so extremely positive that i decided to transcode all AC3 to AAC 5.1 now, and add both the English and the German audio track to my typical 2 CD backups, instead of keeping the German AC3 and adding a English Vorbis Stereo track at q 0.2 to it ;) ......

AAC's future is certain, it will definitely become the worlds next audio compression standard, with wide spread hardware support, the real MP3 successor. But my heart, please forgive me all you talented people working at Ahead and elsewhere, is still pounding for Vorbis ... maybe i am in the OSS scene too long already ;) ....

Christian, do you actually pay attention to context, or do you only remember sentence fragments from what I say and let them settle where they fit what you already think?

a) 5.1 has nothing to do with ambisonics.  Ambisonics is 3 or 4 channel.  You can't directly map one to the other.  Ambsonics is not planned until Vorbis II and cannot replace Dolby for preexisting 5.1 encodings.  Read the Vorbis I spec: It says the six channel encoding is Dolby-style.  Where are we reinventing wheels?  Both Dolby and 5.1 are thoroughly pre-invented for our use.

B) Slow development had nothing to do with Theora.  Slow dev was due to Emmett overselling my time to embedded Vorbis devolpement contracts to such an extent that we fired him months ago, and we're *still* committed to contracts that may well have me busy through the summer.

c) You *still* cling to the dogma that Ogg was never designed for video.  You're dead wrong and always have been, but gee, you'd know better than me.

Monty

My impressions on the current state of codec devel

Reply #68 –
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Christian, do you actually pay attention to context, or do you only remember sentence fragments from what I say and let them settle where they fit what you already think?

LOL!!!!! 

My impressions on the current state of codec devel

Reply #69 –
 

Well, after a certain point, those christian vs monty flames in all these forums (doom9,gentoo,this) have become somethat funny!

From your words, monty, I presume we can expect more devices getting vorbis support later in 2004? I'm talking about those embedded contracts you mentioned.

My impressions on the current state of codec devel

Reply #70 –
I've confirmed that Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 for PS2 uses Ogg for sounds in the game(I don't know if it's the music or game sounds, it's hard to tell)




Edit: Scratch that I must be seeing things

My impressions on the current state of codec devel

Reply #71 –
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I've confirmed that Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 for PS2 uses Ogg for sounds in the game(I don't know if it's the music or game sounds, it's hard to tell)

How did you confirm that?

AFAIK, the official audio formats supported in the PS2 SDK are DTS, AC3, ADPCM and PCM (and the official video format is MPEG2). Not even MP3 is supported.

My impressions on the current state of codec devel

Reply #72 –
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I've confirmed that Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 for PS2 uses Ogg for sounds in the game(I don't know if it's the music or game sounds, it's hard to tell)


Very unlikely.. the PS2 has hardware to handle certain streams... it can stream multiple streams off disc, but importantly it can decode them at no cost.. ADPCM with about 1/4 compression from waves can be done at no cost.. using something like ogg would just require CPU time, something that the PS2 doesn't usually have a lot to spare... plus i doubt most people would notice, most still play via tv... its common practice to lower sample frequency to save space/bandwidth... again without analysing or knowing that its lowered few would question it..

My impressions on the current state of codec devel

Reply #73 –
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I've confirmed that Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 for PS2 uses Ogg for sounds in the game(I don't know if it's the music or game sounds, it's hard to tell)

How did you confirm that?

AFAIK, the official audio formats supported in the PS2 SDK are DTS, AC3, ADPCM and PCM (and the official video format is MPEG2). Not even MP3 is supported.

I remember sometimes ago a developer of PS2 team start to hack thing around and post to Vorbis ML, maybe he finally success 
still LAME 3.96.1 --preset extreme -q 0 -V 0 -m s at least until 2005.

My impressions on the current state of codec devel

Reply #74 –
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I remember sometimes ago a developer of PS2 team start to hack thing around and post to Vorbis ML, maybe he finally success 

In any case, it would be absolutely stupid to use Vorbis on PS2 games. It would steal precious resources that could be used for better graphics, or something like that.

Granted that ADPCM doesn't compress as well, it uses 0 CPU resources for playback - all processing is done directly on Sony's SPU.