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Topic: LAME presets (Read 24665 times) previous topic - next topic
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LAME presets

Reply #25
Quote
Originally posted by cd-rw.org
Oh yes I do understand your view. You consider this issue form your personal perspective, while I try to do it from the perspective of the general audience.


If you read my message, you would see many references to what other people think about this matter.  Yes, I am considering other people's perspectives on this.  I think the audience you are targeting (the mpc council audience) is not going to be interested.  The people here ARE interested though, so I think they are the ones that should have more influence in this case, as they are the ones that will be taking advantage of this the most anyway.

Regardless of what presets go in, LAME is still going to see FAR more use at 128kbps CBR.  You are not going to change this with a single article, or even a zillion articles.  Therefore, going backwards in quality to "accomodate the majority" (of people who don't like or use VBR or js anyway) seems rather pointless to me.

LAME presets

Reply #26
Yes, I know that it is quite impossible to change the world in this. I however wan't to share and pass this good message to the maximum number of people, rather than keeping it as the valuable little secret of a small community.

If I contact 100.000 people with an article, I sure that couple of heads will turn. Turn again, my previus LAME article had quite a lot of reactions at the CDFreaks.

LAME presets

Reply #27
Maybe lame should use the original --preset command to accomodate any kind of preset. It already has phone/voice/fm/tape/hifi/cd/studio so it could be a matter of adding some more names. The difficult part would be choosing the proper names.
She is waiting in the air

LAME presets

Reply #28
Quote
Originally posted by Artemis3
Maybe lame should use the original --preset command to accomodate any kind of preset. It already has phone/voice/fm/tape/hifi/cd/studio so it could be a matter of adding some more names. The difficult part would be choosing the proper names.


Hrm, I think that's what they're fighting over.

--
GCP

LAME presets

Reply #29
Quote
Originally posted by cd-rw.org
You may not give a damn about the MP3 council standard, but I do. Why? Because I don't look at this just as an encoding solution for me or you or the 50 mp3philes that hang around the "LAME scene". I wan't the world to change away from 128-192 to good quality VBR. Currently I am just waiting for your new presets in order to launch a new MP3 encoding article for tens of thousands of people, striking to the core of the MP3 scene.

The people have something against VBR. I think that if they are given dm standard as a default, they'll be scared by the large files and are less likely to use it. But if we can sell a decent VBR setting offering good quality and competitive bitrates, the step to talk them out to switch from -standard -> -xtreme is a whole lot smaller. But first we need to get them to use VBR.


I don't get it. You are basically trying to get the people putting out cbr192 files right now to switch over to a VBR setting.

The dm presets aren't good because

a) they're slower
b) they give big files (+- 200kbps)

Okay, fine, but why try to convince people to use VBR when you give them --r3mix?

a) it's slower than CBR
b) it doesn't seem to give better quality than cbr192

If speed is so important, then what's the advantage of r3mix VBR here?

Quote
Talking about the AQ test, I think that the participants were far for the average. It might be useful info for determining AQ, but certainly it won't tell anything about the Joe Average. The LAME-people tend to have: great sound cards, good headphones, good amps/pre-amps, good speakers, quality wiring all the way...this is not the average people!


The test included a lot of people not having experience with listening tests. It was a very good sample for people that are at least remotely interested in mp3 quality.

Edit:

My basic issue with this whole thing is that you guys are trying to get people to use VBR because of quality issues, but then immediately make a compromise (r3mix) that gives a minimal, it at all, quality improvement. What exactly are you advocating here??

--
GCP

LAME presets

Reply #30
Quote
Originally posted by MyMaster
i must agree with cd-rw.org, simplification needs to made, and i believe that --r3mix should be standard.  common guys, almost everyone outhere is trading 128cbr mp3s claiming that those are cd quality, ovbiously --r3mix is better than that, and most of the times it is good enough for the vast majority of users.  sure there will be people who require more quality than that, and there's where dibrom's presets kick in. i think it would be wrong to use all dibrom's presets (including standard) because they're are slow, and there are still some of us which are using slow computers, and to be honest speed is also important to me, and quality wise --r3mix is a good compromise between quality and speed and you must remember that after all it is lossy compression.


By the same reasoning, I recommend --abr 160 as --standard

a) it's better than cbr128
b) good enough for the 'vast majority of users'
c) if they want more, dm presets kick in
d) it's fast for the people with slow computers
e) good compromise between quality and speed

And, after all it's just lossy compression!

--
GCP

LAME presets

Reply #31
It seems to me that there are basically 3 categories of audience here:

1) Those for whom size is all important; ie. how many MP3s can I squeeze in to my portable player. These people are mostly going to use 128CBR and Real Jukebox, MusicMatch, or the like. Few of these people will be likely to pay any attention to the "quality" arguments here. At best, you might "sell" them a better 128 mode.

2) Those who are interested in quality but are also size limited.

3) Those for whom quality is of more importance than size.

Spending time on the first category seems to me to be a noble but fruitless exercise. Surely the only real target audiences are categories (2) and (3)?

Most of the people who fall into category (1) wouldn't know quality if it hit them between the eyes. For them VHF stereo radio is as good as it gets!!

LAME presets

Reply #32
I agree with both parties on this one, but am leaning towards Dibrom's opinion on the issue. The fact is, people who just want low filesize and don't care about quality will always first try the -standard preset. Then, when it comes out too large for them (probably without them even listening to the quality), they'll just use a preset that gives a lower filesize (personally, I think these presets shouldn't have names at all, but should be identified by numbers, preferrably with an even amount of choices, e.g. -preset 1-4). So, what's the point in making -standard lower quality than transparent as it is? The ignorant will STILL go for a lower filesize, since they will believe the filesize they reached with -standard is, naturally, "standard", so they'll always go lower from that, despite if the audiophile community considers it transparent or not! You can see the basic reasoning here like this:

    Of course, there will also be the "unsalvagable" who will simply keep lowering the preset until it reaches the filesize they want, but those will excersize this regardless of whether -standard is transparent or not! However, since most people will go for -standard right away, it's much "safer" to make that setting of good quality to begin with.

    Oog, I had difficulty expressing this, but I hope you'll understand what I'm trying to say.

LAME presets

Reply #33
I personally use dm -standard.  I like what it does for me, and have a ton of disk space.  However, I tend to agree that perhaps an "-r3mix like" or abr160-like setting would be best as a default setting, because it is faster, good enough, blahblahblah.  I would also agree that there should be a clear switch for a dm -standard setting, for people who want the higher quality like me, but aren't into it enough to learn / figure out how to get it.

I am relatively new to mp3, LAME, and the use of the exe instead of the dll.  I went from using Audiograbber and a lame.dll at first, to messing with the dll settings, to the external in about two months.  Slow.  I was interested, though.  I tell people about all this, and they say "Wow, how did you learn about that?"  But then they don't bother to take it any further.

The goal is to improve the quality of mp3s floating around, right?  So let's do that, but leave the primo settings for people who care, and make it easier for them to get it with a nice big button.  And perhaps even a line that says (Increases bitrate) for those that have no clue.

I commend Dibrom for catering to those of us that want superior quality first.  I mean, there will always be cruddy 128s out there.  I only trust what I have encoded myself.  That is, what I have encoded since gaining some education on it.  Sometimes I am surprised by other people's rips, but not too often. 

My idea of utopia in three settings:

a) portable mp3 player setting - fast, low bitrate, as good as it can be for about 128

b) -r3mix type setting - most bang for buck theory, high speed and good quality

c) fine-tuned dm -standard setting - higher bitrate, slower encode, but worth it, dude!

LAME presets

Reply #34
Quote
Originally posted by YouriP
(personally, I think these presets shouldn't have names at all, but should be identified by numbers, preferrably with an even amount of choices, e.g. -preset 1-4).

Indeed that's more useful and in line with some other options in LAME. Why not have
-VBR [0-9]  ? Scalability being the keyword. To eliminate long arguments which is better, let the ranking be size and nothing else (even that can cause problems with VBR  ).
The rationale being that a good preset should be trying to get the best quality for its size.

As for the hard work people have put into presets, I wouldn't mind if Dibrom would provide the settings that target maybe -VBR 0 and 1 (if he wouldn't mind too).

Well I'm not so sure about what -VBR 9 should be, but maybe it could be used to compress telephone conversations 
It would be nice to have scalable (VBR) presets in the range that LAME is capable of doing, not just the part we think is "good quality". Different people might have different needs.

On the other hand if VBR isn't doing anything good on average bit rates under 128 then -VBR 0-4 would be plenty of choice. (never even tried those myself).

that's my 2 eurocents.

BTW. no big problem to have the --dm-preset and --r3mix as well, (aliases ?) having a status like the experimental switches.

Ge Someone.
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.

LAME presets

Reply #35
I suggested the usage of -standard -xtreme -etc. due to the fact that Psytel AAC and MPC use such names for their presets. They are a sort of a standard, make sense and using such presets makes it easier for a newbie to try these different encoders.

LAME presets

Reply #36
Quote
Originally posted by cd-rw.org
I suggested the usage of -standard -xtreme -etc. due to the fact that Psytel AAC and MPC use such names for their presets. They are a sort of a standard, make sense and using such presets makes it easier for a newbie to try these different encoders.

I agree. In my opinion -standard -xtreme etc. naming is better.
One thing that is bothering me with --r3mix setting being the -standard is that it doesn't have very good pre-echo control. It's often at the level of Lame192CBR, with some pre-echo test samples I actually prefer Lame192cbr over --r3mix, which is not very good.

Let's see what Dib has to offer. Maybe something can be done to combine vbr-mtrh, close to --r3mix bitrate and better pre-echo control. Part of the problem is that lack of nssafejoint has negative effect on pre-echo.

This should be done right at the first time and not rush too much. I believe (at least hope) that better than --r3mix quality can be achieved with similar bitrates. And yes, in my opinion the lack of speed of vbr-old would be somewhat a problem for -standard preset.
Juha Laaksonheimo

LAME presets

Reply #37
If things can be done better with similar --r3mix ~200kbps targetting bitrates with MTRH speed(I think this is important for the -standard), then by all means please do so.

LAME presets

Reply #38
Sure sure, cd-rw. But i don't think we should rush now. Robert is doing vbr-mtrh modification that makes other than average noise measurement work correctly. Dib is doing very nice tweakings.

In my opinion we shouldn't rush now.
Juha Laaksonheimo

LAME presets

Reply #39
Hi all,

I can understand the current dilemma that everyone is debating here.  I understand Dibrom's stance that quality should come first because everyone involved on LAME lately has been trying very hard to improve quality and testing to help improve quality.

I also see the other side of the coin that LAME should be adapted to appeal to a greater range of listeners than just audiophiles.

There is a compromise here and one that I think we can clearly categorize for all people who want to use LAME from the mp3-portable user all the way up to archival-CD-burning-quality users.  I agree that an attempt has to be made to convince the "mp3-council" to use VBR.  Even if that attempt is fruitless, a hand must be extended in sincere wisdom nonetheless.  I'm convinced if we do this, some of their brethren will breakaway from the pack and give LAME a legitimate shot.  The 'AQ-test' was a fantastic first step towards convincing these people to use VBR over CBR, and that when properly implemented, joint-stereo can deliver just as high quality a sound as full stereo.

I would say we should allow a two or three tier quality spectrum separating user interest levels.  A level for portable users in the 96 kb/sec - 128 kb/sec range.  A level targeted at casual users who are limited in hard drive space and CPU speed, but want decent quality, acceptable speed, and simple user-friendly commands or a front-end for windows, their target is 128 kb/sec - 160 kb/sec.  Finally, we can have a level catering to ourselves at the top of the ladder and label this level the popular "AQ".

PORTABLE USER - Recent developments in LAME settings have resulted in an array of good low-bitrate command lines which should interest portable users.  Remember ff123's command line?  -b128 --nspsytune -mj -h --athtype 2 --nsbass -8 --lowpass 16  I'm sure the brilliant minds here can come up with some nice command lines for the low-bitrate crowd.

CASUAL USER - I agree with Dibrom that we aren't likely to convince many casual users to give up the medium bitrates and it will be very hard for them to understand the advantages of VBR when they see wild differences in bitrate from song to song.  We can likely get them to use ABR in this range.  This would greatly improve their results and may allow them to make a step towards understanding and accepting VBR.  Try to introduce --r3mix to this crowd or re-tool r3mix to keep bitrates under 192 kb/sec.  This will require us to convince Roel to maybe lower --r3mix quality just a tad for the casual user.

AQ LEVEL - No explanation needed.  All the high quality presets can fall into this category.  --dm standard can be the hallmark setting for most users and we can try to encourage casual users to adopt this setting as it gets lower in bitrate.

If we make it clear what "level" of user we are talking about, then we can easily make presets that they can enjoy.  That's my compromise.  What do you guys think?

mp3

LAME presets

Reply #40
I totally support the idea of people's names not being attached to preset names for two reasons.

1.It seems to affect the ego very negatively in some, seeing there nick in that command line box. We have witnessed some very innappropriate behaviour over the last few months which was at least partly related to the naming issue IMO.

2.It seems to cause extreme conservative behaviour for the switches in the given preset. Getting a change implemented without a bruised ego should not be the principle concern.

LAME presets

Reply #41
Hmm,

I really don't care if someone uses their nickname in a preset or anything else.  If someone put their hard work into a good commandline and even contributed some code, then why not?  Most people will eventually be using a windows frontend or .dll for their LAME mp3s anyway when a stable release comes out.  The only people who really know who "r3mix" or "dm" are, are us here on the bulletin boards.  I personally don't even know Dibrom or Roel.  So what if they work hard on something and put a nickname on it?  I think it's only natural to feel some pride and a deep sense of accomplishment when something you work hard on is being used by many people.

On the other hand, you make a point about over-blown ego's and hurt feelings when presets don't test as well as the creator intended.  Roel saw the test results of "AQ" and was in denial about the results.  If the second AQ test proves again that r3mix isn't quite AQ, then it might hurt him a lot.  I know how hard he has worked on this stuff.  I see myself as not having an ego to bruise, but then again, I haven't put my sweat and work into a preset.  It's easy to tell these guys not to have an ego about it, until it's you who creates one that doesn't come out well on a test.

mp3

LAME presets

Reply #42
I agree totally that hard work should be acknowledged and appreciated. But the negatives have outweighed the positives very much in the last month or two, at least for me.

There is also a big difference between CREATING switches and changes in an encoder and using the ones created by others. The lame changelog is a very exclusive club to find one's name, and I think this is a more appropriate place to acknowledge such efforts.

Everyone in this community knows who is actually trying to improve the product and who is trying to cling to an idea proven false anyway.

Getting rid of the names wont solve the ego thing but it might take the edge off and ease/speed changes to the presets when improvements are made, IMHO  FWIW.

LAME presets

Reply #43
Quote
Originally posted by kennedyb4
I totally support the idea of people's names not being attached to preset names for two reasons.

1.It seems to affect the ego very negatively in some, seeing there nick in that command line box. We have witnessed some very innappropriate behaviour over the last few months which was at least partly related to the naming issue IMO.


Sigh...  I'm tired of seeing this.  I see a few people complaining about the fact that I have my initials on some presets (which I never asked for btw) and so I think I'll change them... then everyone else tells me they want them left the way they are and that those complaining are in the minority.  So I think.. "ok fine".  Then I continue to see this kind of thing.  My conclusion?  That it is basically a complete waste of time to bother worrying about what people think of the name of a stupid preset.  I don't care if the name does get changed at this point, but I'm not going to bother spending time worrying about who this will affect of why, etc.  If a name change comes it will be when it is appropriate and it will have little to do with any of this.

Oh, and if you actually think that what has happened recently has anything to do with me thinking my presets are superior because they have my initials on them, you are totally wrong.  I know they are superior because they have been proven so.  What all this has to do with (recent events that is) is not related to that, it is related to the fact that certain people cannot handle the truth, and they are willing to totally disrespect and mistreat others in the community simply to further their flawed agenda.

Quote
2.It seems to cause extreme conservative behaviour for the switches in the given preset. Getting a change implemented without a bruised ego should not be the principle concern.


Care to be a little less vague?  I'll take a guess here and assume you are referring to nsmsfix.  If not, then completely disregard the rest..

I've already explained multiple times in the past why nsmsfix has been inappropriate to use to decrease bitrate without affecting quality.  You seemed to have not understood this.  Recognize that there are those out there who have a different opinion about quality and where compromises should be made to acheive a lower bitrate.

Common sense would have had that I should have used athtype 3 (old version) in the past to lower bitrates, right?  Well look at what happened when I created dm-preset standard.. I found a much better and much more appropriate solution.  The same thing is happening now.  I've found a much more appropriate solution to decreasing bitrates and in fact I'm working on more fundamentally solving the issues that safejoint has helped to fix in the past, so now nsmsfix isn't such a problem.  But, when it was originally brought up, it was not appropriate.

So instead of thinking about "conservatism" and "bruised egos" you should perhaps be glad that someone is willing to not add some switch to a preset just because it's the "new thing" and that popular demand says it should be there, even though that is not backed by a single objective test at all.  In fact, I did try to get some people to perform some testing with this switch since they were interested in it's use, but asking for this got me a bunch of flames instead.  So I'm sorry, but when shooting for the highest quality level possible, it should be understandable that I will only make a change which I am certain will not decrease quality, not at least without offering higher quality elsewhere. In addition, I need to have objective data (multiple abx test results) which shows this.

Again, if you were not referring to the nsmsfix issue again, then feel free to ignore all of that..

LAME presets

Reply #44
Dibrom,

I have to ask.  Have tests been done that lead you to believe that nsmsfix is hurting quality when it's used to lower bitrate?  And if so, at what setting is the quality being hurt?  I'm interested in your findings.

mp3

LAME presets

Reply #45
Dibrom,

Clearly you have spent so much time defending yourself from J and --r3mix that you are on red alert for criticism.

Please re-read the posts I have made. The comments made are not directed at you whatsoever.

I would however still believe that the removal of any "personal" ID attached to a preset would be a good thing for the reasons I mention.

The conservative behaviour I  mention also does not apply to you. Your presets appear to be under regular revision/ testing, yes?

As far as -msfix goes, I understand your explanations for not pursuing this for your presets. I still believe it is a worthwhile adjustment to look at in the future. It may have a place for multimike stuff around 160kbit, for instance. Or 192 cbr or abr.

LAME presets

Reply #46
i also think that it's much wiser to rename presets

i told this already many times....

LAME presets

Reply #47
Quote
Originally posted by mp3fan
I have to ask.  Have tests been done that lead you to believe that nsmsfix is hurting quality when it's used to lower bitrate?  And if so, at what setting is the quality being hurt?  I'm interested in your findings.


Yes, I have found that in some cases using a higher nsmsfix value actually has an audible impact (for the worse) on quality.  I've mainly come across this on samples heavy on impulses such as fatboy and some of the others.  It appears that these particular clips even cause problems for joint stereo interestingly enough..  I'm working on other ways to improve the quality in these situations though, so once those are in place nsmsfix will be used if appropriate.

Sorry, I don't have any hard numbers for you at the moment because I've been constantly testing and tweaking various settings, but especially on these particular types of samples, the joint stereo thresholds are so critical that I've actually been working on ways to make switching criterion even more strict in various situations to improve quality.

LAME presets

Reply #48
Quote
Originally posted by kennedyb4
Clearly you have spent so much time defending yourself from J and --r3mix that you are on red alert for criticism.

Please re-read the posts I have made. The comments made are not directed at you whatsoever.


Yeah, I re-read them.  I'm sorry if I offended you, but I honestly thought those comments could have been (and actually were) directed at me since I've seen people attempt to criticize me on those very issues lately.  At any rate, I should have probably taken a bit more time to think about the statements before responding.  Again, sorry about that..

Quote
I would however still believe that the removal of any "personal" ID attached to a preset would be a good thing for the reasons I mention.


Possibly.  I don't actually put my full nick on the presets and they are only even there to differentiate the work that I'm doing from the rest of the stuff.  The dm signifies that they are presets that are designed separately from the standard LAME presets.. and also that they are subject to much more in depth testing and tuning to achieve optimal quality.  In this case it isn't so much that they are mine because they have my initials on them, it's more just a reference to what I'm working on or towards.  Changing the name might be prudent, but I'm not sure what it should be changed to.  I'm also not really sure that it is worth worrying about at this moment because I may actually change the entire preset structure when I finish these latest modifications.

Quote
The conservative behaviour I  mention also does not apply to you. Your presets appear to be under regular revision/ testing, yes?


Well, it appears so

Quote
As far as -msfix goes, I understand your explanations for not pursuing this for your presets. I still believe it is a worthwhile adjustment to look at in the future. It may have a place for multimike stuff around 160kbit, for instance. Or 192 cbr or abr.


I have already been looking at this a lot lately.  If I can find a way to use something which lowers bitrate without decreasing quality, rest assured that I will take advantage of that.

LAME presets

Reply #49
Quote
Originally posted by kennedyb4

Everyone in this community knows who is actually trying to improve the product and who is trying to cling to an idea proven false anyway.