This is Sonox's commercial for the product.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aRjOxvjY1k (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aRjOxvjY1k)
I didn't see much about here at HA (correct me if I'm newbie wrong) .... but look at that interface!
ABX, AB testing as well as great scientific info-graphics ... all nicely/ergonomically arranged and user-manipulated.
Alas, it ain't free: £295.00. And I'm broke...so ...
All you Foobar and open-source developers have your work cut out for you...
Is that a HD-AAC encoder i'm seeing there?
Both the DIFF and NMR analyses, though gimmick-ish, really look and sound like something worth having into a foobar plugin too.
On a side note, is it me or they're implying lossy artifacts are caused by low-pass filters alone?
If HA had some kinda deal with Sonox in which, e.g., a $-supporting HA member would get this software at a discount ... I may just be tempted to break open the piggy.
Nothing wrong with this approach IMO ... PBS/NPR have been doin' it since their inception.
If HA had some kinda deal with Sonox in which, e.g., a $-supporting HA member would get this software at a discount ... I may just be tempted to break open the piggy.
Nothing wrong with this approach IMO ... PBS/NPR have been doin' it since their inception.
But they're not HA.
IMO, even considering a discussion board's inherent freedom of speech and sometimes diverging opinions,
impartiality and common sense are two of HA's best assets.
For the very reasons you've mentioned, you just can't be too sure elsewhere.
Is that a HD-AAC encoder i'm seeing there?
Yes, I think so. IIRC there should also be a consumer version of this plugin which is much cheaper than the price user1 mentioned.
Chris
Is there no free version of HD AAC encoder? IIRC that is something like wavpack, lossy file and difference for losless, but in one file...?
IIRC that is something like wavpack, lossy file and difference for losless, but in one file...?
You are correct. The main difference is how the correction layer is stored. Wavpack uses a separate correction file, while HD-AAC (or MPEG4-SLS) uses a a secondary track in the mp4 container which can be stripped by a smart copier if only the lossy layer is required (eg. copying to DAP). Also the correction layer of HD-AAC is scalable/peelable while Wavpack's correction layer can be just turned on/off. The lossy core is an AAC-LC track so the format is fully backward compatible.
I'm still waiting for the Fraunhofer HD-AAC encoder to show up in Winamp but since the Winamp acquisition i don't know if there's any chance left for this to happen.
Apparently the mp3HD codec is back from the dead then? It's old website is still down (has been like that for at least a year) And indeed, HD-AAC (a.k.a MPEG-4 SLS) too! Just as I removed it from the lossless codec comparison on the HA Knowledgebase yesterday... edit: ah, didn't notice this video was > 2 years old. Perhaps mp3HD is still dead then...
Still, it looks like a nice plugin. Considering the price, that's not unusual for this kind of software, is it? VSTs can cost quite a lot of money too.
Is anyone supporting mpeg4 SLS ? My impression was that it was basically dead.
Is anyone supporting mpeg4 SLS ? My impression was that it was basically dead.
Rumor has it that Apple will provide music in this format on iTunes. But those are very old rumors. The main issue i think is that no high quality encoder is available to date. Implementing the decoder would be fairly straightforward, the ISO code is open. I don't know about the licensing though.
Rumor has it that Apple will provide music in this format on iTunes
Perhaps they were thinking of that at some point, but seeing that their ALAC/Apple Lossless format has gained some momentum now, that would be a weird move. If they are still thinking about supporting SLS, opening up the source of ALAC seems a silly move too.
Licensing fees can be found here (http://www.vialicensing.com/licensing/sls-fees.aspx), $0.10 per decoding unit. Professional encoders are $20. If I understand that page correctly, you'll have to pay for a separate AAC license on top of that, in other words, the $0.10 is only for the extension part. Non-core licenses are even more expensive.
Since MP4 supports data reference to an external media file, I think wavpack way (placing correction layer on different file) is possible... in theory. In practice, data reference is not well supported and probably almost nobody is using it.
QuickTime/MOV also supports it which I suppose more commonly used than MP4 dref, but it is based on the old Mac OS Alias, and points the referent by volume label of the drive and full path name, which is ridiculously inconvenient when you want to move/copy around the files.
MP4 dref (using URL) is much more sane, but still I don't know if it does support relative URLs.
Is there any reason why ffmpeg doesn't support SLS?
Is it pure lack of interest, or maybe they doesn't want to include bit-exact version of AAC decoder just for SLS?
Is there any reason why ffmpeg doesn't support SLS?
Apparently they have been busy, but it's the red tape and lack of time...
https://lists.ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-d...May/075072.html (https://lists.ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-devel/2009-May/075072.html)
http://wiki.multimedia.cx/index.php?title=...2010#MPEG-4_SLS (http://wiki.multimedia.cx/index.php?title=FFmpeg_Summer_Of_Code_2010#MPEG-4_SLS)
http://wiki.multimedia.cx/index.php?title=...2011#MPEG-4_SLS (http://wiki.multimedia.cx/index.php?title=FFmpeg_/_Libav_Summer_Of_Code_2011#MPEG-4_SLS)
So, as is written in the first mail on 2009, they are (still) waiting for the spec to be finished?
It looks like MPEG-4 SLS has disappeared on the more recent summer of code lists.
they are (still) waiting for the spec to be finished?
Don't know, that was the only stuff Google could find. Looks like no one cares for it now, as there hasn't been a mention of SLS in the last few years on the lists, see Google once more: http://www.google.nl/search?q=site%3Affmpeg.org+SLS (http://www.google.nl/search?q=site%3Affmpeg.org+SLS)