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Topic: How awful to transcode ogg to other lossy? (Read 6555 times) previous topic - next topic
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How awful to transcode ogg to other lossy?

My Rio Karma is dying and there are so few players that support ogg that I may end up with a player that does not support Ogg Vorbis.  My question is: does anyone know how bad the sound quality would deteriorate if I transcoded my 320 Kbps ogg files into a more broadly supported lossy format like MP3?  Should I try to keep the bit rate the same?

I know - it is a big sell out to do so.  I wonder if other people have faced this problem.  I suppose I should try a sample myself.  At least I still have a good percentage of files in FLAC, so I can trancode those without a problem, but I still have a good amount of musie that I paid for in an ogg format (only).

How awful to transcode ogg to other lossy?

Reply #1 –
This is really something only you'll know, because different people have different tolerances.  Me, for instance, 128 kbps mp3 is already near transparent to me.

Personal variances aside, considering that the transcoded mp3s are going to a portable player, it's probably not going to be a problem.  Chances are you're not going to be listening in an ideal condition, anyway.

Bottom line, transcode a few songs you like, and see if the degradation's acceptable.
When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute--and it’s longer than any hour.  That’s relativity.
-- Albert Einstein

How awful to transcode ogg to other lossy?

Reply #2 –
Well fortunately even though your Karma is dying you probably will still be able to get a DAP that supports Vorbis nowadays.  With Rockbox now running on the iPod there is now a currently in-production DAP that plays Vorbis (and gaplessly too ).  OK the 5G doesn't have audio playback yet, but will very soon.

Current DAP situation is a lot nicer than it was not long ago.  Hopefully you'll be able to just leave the files alone
Nero AAC 1.5.1.0: -q0.45

How awful to transcode ogg to other lossy?

Reply #3 –
Everyone has their transcoding preferences.  When transcoding to MP3 make sure to use version 3.97.  You can either use the -b 320 for maximum quality; however, try using -V 2 --vbr-new instead (its the recommended setting over in the MP3 forum).

I know what you are going through.  My Neuros player died a while ago and my entire collection was in both FLAC and Vorbis.  I ended up deleting all of my Vorbis files (since I had a FLAC copy) and transcoding everything to MP3.  I ditched my now dead neuros for an iPod with video 30GB (I hightly recommend it).

Since you are using 320Kbps, why not use lossless?  I believe the Iriver supports lossless (don't quote me on that).

How awful to transcode ogg to other lossy?

Reply #4 –
Quote
My question is: does anyone know how bad the sound quality would deteriorate if I transcoded my 320 Kbps ogg files into a more broadly supported lossy format like MP3?  Should I try to keep the bit rate the same?[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=362597"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Seeing as your ogg files are at such a high bitrate, I doubt it would be noticeably worse than reripping the CD, IMHO.

So use whatever mp3 bitrate that you generally perfer to use.
Vorbis-q0-lowpass99
lame3.93.1-q5-V9-k-nspsytune

How awful to transcode ogg to other lossy?

Reply #5 –
Well the mp3's and oggs cut out different parts of the wav file, so you are more likely to hear problems than when going from ogg320-->ogg??? or mp3 to mp3.

Look around.  The ipods supposedly have a linuxpod firmware that can play ogg files.  So picking up a 30 to 60gb photo shouldn't be too difficult.  They seem to have ogg playing in real time on the photo.  Could probably find one for $250 on the net.
Neuros442 (neurosaudio.com) will have definitely have ogg support soon I've heard (PVP) and it has a hardware upgrade policy which is unique.  PQI p800 has ogg support, but their players firmware is weak, and the company seems not to have the ability to fix things quickly.  Archos AV320 might have ogg support in the future (not sure) archopen.org using replacement MediaOS firmware.  iubi has inexpensive linux based HD players that support ogg, but seemingly only in Korea

If I were you, I'd buy one of these players that might not support ogg yet, but likely will soon with replacement/hacker firmwares, and just keep your ogg files around, maybe transcode to mp3 to use in the interim.

If you listened to ogg and mp3 critically, you'd probably notice that ogg has higher quality than original mp3, and definitely higher quality than transcoded (ogg>mp3) quality, but it would be a matter of degrees (i.e how "sharp" or clean do you demand of your music tracks) and how good are your ears in picking up the high frequencies (that is, are you very young and/or have exceptional hearing for your age).