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Topic: lossy archiving (Read 42841 times) previous topic - next topic
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lossy archiving

Reply #75 –
Quote from: memomai on
please post comments which refer to the topic!

What do you think of MP2? Would it be an attractive archiving codec?

As shadowking said: MPC is the better MP2.

The only advantage of original mp2 is: there is a good chance that a mp3 playing DAP (that is in practice: every DAP) plays mp2 as well. Maybe the .mp2 extension has to be renamed as .mp3, and maybe bitrate shows up wrong, but there's a chance it will play.

If you really want to use mp2 I suggest you use at least 320 kbps, or, for best quality, 384 kbps (maybe this will be a problem for a mp3 machinery playing mp2).

The main question is: with which machinery do you want to play your music?

I think the charme of the approach discussed here is: you can have an archive with perfect quality in a practical sense which you can play on PC, or on a DAP, without conversion, and which is future-proof.

In this sense I see two main choices:

a) Lyx' proposal to use very high quality mp3 (for instance Lame ABR 260).
In a practical sense this is the best solution: you can play it everywhere yourself, pass it on to other members of your family, and you are future-safe with this format as is for a very long time from now. Whenever mp3 should die it will be at a time where you can transcode losslessly without pain, so you won't loose quality.

b) same as a) but you choose another favorite codec like Vorbis or AAC using a very high bitrate around or above 200 kbps. The situation is similar to a) with a tiny advantage qualitywise (but probability is close to zero that you will ever run upon a situation where you will take profit from this fact). As a disadvantage you're more restricted towards DAP usage but if you're about to buy a new DAP there are several DAPs to chose from nowadays which play Vorbis or AAC.
Using a lossy variant of a lossless codec like lossyWAV + FLAC or wvPack lossy falls into this category.
LossyWAV has the specific advantage here that in case someday transcoding is necessary transcoding to lossless is not only a lossless process, but you keep the lossyWAV advantage of a higher compression as long as you use one of the lossless codecs that make use of the lossyWAV properties.
lame3995o -Q1.7 --lowpass 17

lossy archiving

Reply #76 –
[quote name='halb27' date='May 31 2008, 17:46' post='568283']
[quote name='memomai' post='568207' date='May 30 2008, 23:54']
please post comments which refer to the topic!


LossyWAV has the specific advantage here that in case someday transcoding is necessary transcoding to lossless is not only a lossless process, but you keep the lossyWAV advantage of a higher compression as long as you use one of the lossless codecs that make use of the lossyWAV properties.
[/quote]


That is a killer feature - I never knew it.

lossy archiving

Reply #77 –
I've just tested lossyWAV + FLAC. I like it  it reduces, for example a 991 kbps FLAC down to 497kbps. So it would make my music collection only to half the size... And I'm not recognizing any artifacts... But I don't have good ears anyway.

I think lossyWAV FLAC would be also a good source to transcode from into MP3/AAC/OGG etc. Or am I wrong?..

If the MP2 codec is not as good as MPC, then MP2 is dismissed ^^

PS: I compared lossyWAV FLAC and lossyWAV TAK (encoded from the same lossyWAV source). Surprisingly, FLAC -5 is smaller (497 kbps) than TAK -p4e (505 kbps) o.O
FB2K,APE&LAME

lossy archiving

Reply #78 –
Quote from: memomai on
PS: I compared lossyWAV FLAC and lossyWAV TAK (encoded from the same lossyWAV source). Surprisingly, FLAC -5 is smaller (497 kbps) than TAK -p4e (505 kbps) o.O


Why not? And, did you add blocksize=512 option? (-b 512 for FLAC, -fsl512 for TAK)

lossy archiving

Reply #79 –
Quote from: memomai on
.......................

I think lossyWAV FLAC would be also a good source to transcode from into MP3/AAC/OGG etc. Or am I wrong?..

........................


It should be transparent. I plan on doing tests at some stage but I don't expect to find anything. You have zero preecho + full bandwidth and that should lend to excellent transcoding.

lossy archiving

Reply #80 –
Quote
It should be transparent. I plan on doing tests at some stage but I don't expect to find anything. You have zero preecho + full bandwidth and that should lend to excellent transcoding.


Sounds excellent!  It seems that lossyWAV is exactly what I'm looking for.

Quote
Why not? And, did you add blocksize=512 option? (-b 512 for FLAC, -fsl512 for TAK)


Uhm, no, I don't really know what purpose this setting has. I thought the presets of the codecs are the best ones and it's not recommended to "tune" the presets... but I'll try it out anyway, thanks for the info.
FB2K,APE&LAME

lossy archiving

Reply #81 –
Quote from: shadowking on
Quote from: halb27 on

LossyWAV has the specific advantage here that in case someday transcoding is necessary transcoding to lossless is not only a lossless process, but you keep the lossyWAV advantage of a higher compression as long as you use one of the lossless codecs that make use of the lossyWAV properties.


That is a killer feature - I never knew it.


Yes, it's really great.

(Indeed, since FLAC is lossless, there's no difference between encoding lossy.wav to lossy.tak and transcoding lossy.flac to lossy.tak  Maybe this advantage should be mentioned in lossyWAV's wiki page, FAQ section?)

lossy archiving

Reply #82 –
Quote
Indeed, since FLAC is lossless, there's no difference between encoding lossy.wav to lossy.tak and transcoding lossy.flac to lossy.tak  Maybe this advantage should be mentioned in lossyWAV's wiki page, FAQ section?)


yes, would be very useful.
FB2K,APE&LAME

lossy archiving

Reply #83 –
Quote from: memomai on
Quote
Why not? And, did you add blocksize=512 option? (-b 512 for FLAC, -fsl512 for TAK)


Uhm, no, I don't really know what purpose this setting has. I thought the presets of the codecs are the best ones and it's not recommended to "tune" the presets... but I'll try it out anyway, thanks for the info.

This setting is specific to LossyWAV, because lossyWAV divides audio to blocks of 512 samples long and processes them independently. http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?ti...c_compatibility

lossy archiving

Reply #84 –
Quote from: lvqcl on
Quote from: memomai on

Quote
Why not? And, did you add blocksize=512 option? (-b 512 for FLAC, -fsl512 for TAK)


Uhm, no, I don't really know what purpose this setting has. I thought the presets of the codecs are the best ones and it's not recommended to "tune" the presets... but I'll try it out anyway, thanks for the info.

This setting is specific to LossyWAV, because lossyWAV divides audio to blocks of 512 samples long and processes them independently. http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?ti...c_compatibility

I may attribute a bit to the background:
loosyWAV decides how many least significant bits can be removed (because they are inaudible) on a block basis of 512 samples.
The lossless codec that processes the lossyWAV result looks for the effective number of bits within its own blocks. In terms of making best use of lossyWAVs discarded bits the lossless codec's blocksize should be 512 too.
lame3995o -Q1.7 --lowpass 17

lossy archiving

Reply #85 –
Quote
I may attribute a bit to the background:
loosyWAV decides how many least significant bits can be removed (because they are inaudible) on a block basis of 512 samples.
The lossless codec that processes the lossyWAV result looks for the effective number of bits within its own blocks. In terms of making best use of lossyWAVs discarded bits the lossless codec's blocksize should be 512 too.


Ooops, ok now I changed it to blocksize=512. Now TAK delivers me less bitrate than FLAC ^^, thank you very much

Well, as it seems, lossyWAV + TAK will be my solution for my problem.

I have to also say that lossyWAV is a great implementation to lossless codecs to provide an alternative to lossless archiving.

Such a lossy archiving could be very attractive for users who have problems with space when they want to start archving.

Thank you all very much for supporting me, you've helped me a lot
FB2K,APE&LAME

lossy archiving

Reply #86 –
I'm glad you found an encoding format you're happy with for this purpose. 

lossy archiving

Reply #87 –
Quote from: shadowking on
Quote from: memomai on
I think lossyWAV FLAC would be also a good source to transcode from into MP3/AAC/OGG etc. Or am I wrong?..
It should be transparent. I plan on doing tests at some stage but I don't expect to find anything. You have zero preecho + full bandwidth and that should lend to excellent transcoding.
In its very early days, it was dramatically better than high bitrate mp3 (320kbps) to medium bitrate mp3 (-V2) for mp3 problem samples. It wasn't perfect back then though.

A transcoding test with v1.0 final is overdue - I think a lot of use are interested, but none of us has quite got around to it!

Cheers,
David.

lossy archiving

Reply #88 –
From wiki: http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=LossyWAV
Quote
Another, possibly not obvious, feature of lossyWAV is that the processed output can be "transcoded" from one lossless codec to another lossless codec with absolutely no loss of quality whatsoever.

I think the main point is that this retains both quality and filesize as long as you use compatible with lossyWAV codecs (as halb27 mentioned).
And, maybe lossyWAV should be mentioned at this page - http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?ti...less_comparison ?

lossy archiving

Reply #89 –
Sorry i am on my Mac so i cant test these out yet.

I am just wondering what sort of bitrate would LossyWav + FLAC brings me?

Any has anyone done any ABX test against MP3 , OGG or AAC ?
 

lossy archiving

Reply #91 –
Quote from: memomai on
PS: I compared lossyWAV FLAC and lossyWAV TAK (encoded from the same lossyWAV source). Surprisingly, FLAC -5 is smaller (497 kbps) than TAK -p4e (505 kbps)
Apart from the remarks on the 512 sample blocksize of lossyWav, TBeck has noted that with lossyWav setting above -p2m are useless. So in your case you should try TAK -p2e -fsl512 .
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.