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Topic: exhale - Open Source USAC encoder (Read 311589 times) previous topic - next topic
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Re: exhale - Open Source USAC encoder

Reply #925 –
Compiled for ARM64 Linux.

 exhale.bz2  (125.14 KB)




MOD edit: changed attachment type
 

Re: exhale - Open Source USAC encoder

Reply #927 –
Quote from: C.R.Helmrich on
Yes, removing those extra interference tones before encoding would be an option, yes, but it's not trivial to implement (you would have to analyze the entire song before encoding). But Gravitator, since you seem to be very sensitive to high frequencies: have you considered just using exhale's non-SBR modes or Fraunhofer's encoder?
Chris
I'll try it later :)

enc v1.1.6-9d500c64, dec v1.23, win64
#a - a click appears on the 2nd second.

Re: exhale - Open Source USAC encoder

Reply #928 –
fyi, apparently an xHE-AAC encoder plug-in for FFmpeg will be available soon (don't know if it will be free of charge, though).

The developers, MainConcept and Fraunhofer IIS, will host an introductory Webinar on August 18.

Chris
If I don't reply to your reply, it means I agree with you.

Re: exhale - Open Source USAC encoder

Reply #929 –
Thank you. The encoder I purchased has two large limitations: only works with Windows and has only the graphical interface.

Re: exhale - Open Source USAC encoder

Reply #932 –
That's the final 1.1.7 release. No functional changes since last month, but since we haven't had a new version for a few months, I decided to make a new one.

To all developers: Please note the changes to exhale's Readme.md.

Changes since version 1.1.6 from May 2021:
  • minor tuning at low SBR rates, enabled SBR coding at 22050 Hz input sample rate
  • exhaleApp: added expert modes for loudness leveling, custom Intra frame interval

See also this and the following quote of a previous post of mine:

"When the audio is at 48 kHz, it's possible to perfectly align the xHE-AAC I-frames (IPFs) with those of modern video codecs, which typically use an I-frame every N pictures, where N is an integer multiple of a power of two. For example, if the video is at 50 fps and uses I-frames every 96 pictures (i.e. every 1.92 seconds), then exhale can use an IPF every 45 audio frames. Similarly, if the video is at 60 fps and has an I-frame every 64 or 128 pictures (i.e. every 1.067 or 2.133 seconds), then exhale can write an IPF every 25 or 50 audio frames."

Chris
If I don't reply to your reply, it means I agree with you.

Re: exhale - Open Source USAC encoder

Reply #934 –
Updated compiles of exhale-V1.1.7-acd53a21 now at Rarewares.

Re: exhale - Open Source USAC encoder

Reply #935 –
Sorry if this somehow naive question but why is the upper bitrate limited to 192?  Is exhale something by design valuable for low bitrates only?

Re: exhale - Open Source USAC encoder

Reply #936 –
So I tried encoding some music files to 40kbps vbr1, very impressed with the quality plays fine on Foobar2000 on my laptop and desktop with correct plugin, copied some files over to my Samsung S10+ plays well with built in music player on CX File Explorer app and Samsung music player app but does not work with Neutron music player or VLC.

What I like is the amount of music we can store now with decent enough audio quality.  Want to try audio books soon with lower bitrates.

Re: exhale - Open Source USAC encoder

Reply #937 –
I'm loving the exhale encoder; xHE-AAC provides a meaningful improvement in quality at medium quality over Opus. I wanted to thank you Chris for working on it. I've been curious about xHE-AAC for a long time now, given it is older even than Opus, but no encoder was ever available.

I do have one question: are there any plans to make exhale handle files with high bitrate/frequency range (24bit/96KHz?) I'm aware there's no real audible improvement on those over 16/48KHz, but I have some digital albums available only in that capacity, and it would be nice if exhale could automatically step so-called high res audio down to 16/48KHz (or 44.1 KHz) when converting.

Re: exhale - Open Source USAC encoder

Reply #938 –
Quote from: alter4 on
Sorry if this somehow naive question but why is the upper bitrate limited to 192?  Is exhale something by design valuable for low bitrates only?
Because both AAC and USAC produce high quality at higher rates and the last one doesn't have much of advantage at 128+ kbps area.

Re: exhale - Open Source USAC encoder

Reply #939 –
Correct. Also, encoding at very high bit-rates would require more source code to ensure that the resulting files are always fully standard compliant, and I rather spend my time focusing on the lower bit-rates.

Quote from: AdamantTurtle on
are there any plans to make exhale handle files with high bitrate/frequency range (24bit/96KHz?) I'm aware there's no real audible improvement on those over 16/48KHz, but I have some digital albums available only in that capacity, and it would be nice if exhale could automatically step so-called high res audio down to 16/48KHz (or 44.1 KHz) when converting.
exhale happily accepts 24-bit and 32-bit PCM data. You can also encode directly to high sampling rates such as 96 kHz, e.g. using exhale's CVBR modes >a and >4. If you want to explicitly encode to a lower sampling rate and are using foobar2000, see this Wiki entry on how to configure for on-the-fly resampling during encoding.

Chris
If I don't reply to your reply, it means I agree with you.

Re: exhale - Open Source USAC encoder

Reply #940 –
Thank you Chris. I was having conversions fail, and couldn't figure out why. Didn't realize 96 kHz audio couldn't be used as-is with preset 3 (tried both command line and foobar.) I set foobar to resample to 44.1 KHz during conversion, and now my files work without error.

Re: exhale - Open Source USAC encoder

Reply #941 –
This or next month Android 12 will be released.
It brings decoding  support of a new format MPEG-H 3D Audio which is  a successor of xHE-AAC.

Looking at the results, I think it will be a first format which will reach quality of MP3 128 kbps at half of bitrate.
http://ecodis.de/audio/3da_base_results.gif


Not sure if it was offtopic  ::)  but it's related to xHE-AAC somehow. Maybe it's worth already to move to MPEG-H Audio.

Re: exhale - Open Source USAC encoder

Reply #942 –
And I doubt that anyone is going to be working on an open source encoder for that for quite a long time.

Re: exhale - Open Source USAC encoder

Reply #943 –
Quote from: IgorC on
This or next month Android 12 will be released.
It brings decoding  support of a new format MPEG-H 3D Audio which is  a successor of xHE-AAC.

Looking at the results, I think it will be a first format which will reach quality of MP3 128 kbps at half of bitrate.
http://ecodis.de/audio/3da_base_results.gif


Not sure if it was offtopic  ::)  but it's related to xHE-AAC somehow. Maybe it's worth already to move to MPEG-H Audio.


Quote from: IgorC on
This or next month Android 12 will be released.
It brings decoding  support of a new format MPEG-H 3D Audio which is  a successor of xHE-AAC.

Looking at the results, I think it will be a first format which will reach quality of MP3 128 kbps at half of bitrate.
http://ecodis.de/audio/3da_base_results.gif


Not sure if it was offtopic  ::)  but it's related to xHE-AAC somehow. Maybe it's worth already to move to MPEG-H Audio.



MPEG-H is for 3D audio. xHE-AAC still is more efficient for music/speech stereo/mono.

Re: exhale - Open Source USAC encoder

Reply #944 –
Quote
MPEG-H is for 3D audio. xHE-AAC still is more efficient for music/speech stereo/mono.

Have you done listening tests?

Re: exhale - Open Source USAC encoder

Reply #945 –
Quote from: Jurgga on
MPEG-H is for 3D audio. xHE-AAC still is more efficient for music/speech stereo/mono.
Have you familiarized with MPEG-H specs?

Re: exhale - Open Source USAC encoder

Reply #946 –
Quote
Have you done listening tests?

No. So please ignore my comment on audio quality. I heard MPEG-H is better with multichannel (3D) but it indeed supports channel-based Mono/Stereo as well.

I am going to test an MPEG-H encoder soon. Plan is to include an encoder into EZ CD if everything goes well.
Quote
Have you familiarized with MPEG-H specs?

Yes

Re: exhale - Open Source USAC encoder

Reply #947 –
Quote from: Jurgga on
MPEG-H is for 3D audio. xHE-AAC still is more efficient for music/speech stereo/mono.
My dissertation describes most parts of the "Baseline" MPEG-H Audio standard, especially those which I contributed to. There, I came to the conclusion that, at 48 kbps stereo and above, MPEG-H Audio sounds at least as good as xHE-AAC (sometimes slightly better) but the decoding requires about one third fewer operations. So MPEG-H Audio is slightly more efficient than xHE-AAC at and above 48 kbps stereo (or multichannel equivalent).

Quote from: Jurgga on
I am going to test an MPEG-H encoder soon. Plan is to include an encoder into EZ CD if everything goes well.
That's great to hear! Looking forward to giving it a try!

Chris
If I don't reply to your reply, it means I agree with you.

Re: exhale - Open Source USAC encoder

Reply #948 –
Quote from: Jurgga on
I am going to test an MPEG-H encoder soon. Plan is to include an encoder into EZ CD if everything goes well.
I want candy.  :D
EZ CD Audio Converter / FLAC or WavPack

Re: exhale - Open Source USAC encoder

Reply #949 –
Quote from: Jurgga on
I am going to test an MPEG-H encoder soon. Plan is to include an encoder into EZ CD if everything goes well.

Well, but the problem is that today you still cannot distribute compressed content in these formats because not all operating systems include the decoder, especially Windows, more than a year after the agreement for xHE-AAC, this decoder is still missing in the OS.