Skip to main content ↑ ↓

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.
Topic: Freeware Encoders (Read 6094 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Freeware Encoders

Well, i am new to the forum... I've been using LAME for as long as i can remember and i'm very happy with it!

My question is, of all the encoders out there, wich ones will remain free? I know LAME will allways be freeware (I hope) but what about OGG, AAC, MPC, and others?


Another question... having in mind that i use LAME 3.92 with --alt-preset fast extreme, what is the encoder that gives me the best quality, using the bitrates obtained by that particular LAME preset (bitrates 220-270 kbit/s -- usually averages around 256kbps)?

thank you for your time...!

Bye

Freeware Encoders

Reply #1 –
Hi DirtRider

Quote
My question is, of all the encoders out there, wich ones will remain free? I know LAME will allways be freeware (I hope) but what about OGG, AAC, MPC, and others?


Ogg Vorbis will definately be freeware forever! I have heard some time ago, that mpc will be shareware someday, but I don't know exactly. With AAC, I don't know much about AAC anyway 

Quote
Another question... having in mind that i use LAME 3.92 with --alt-preset fast extreme, what is the encoder that gives me the best quality, using the bitrates obtained by that particular LAME preset (bitrates 220-270 kbit/s -- usually averages around 256kbps)?


I suggest using Ogg Vorbis with Quality 7. The nominal Bitrate is 224kbps. In my Ogg Files it is with Quality 7 from 196kbps - 232kbps. It is much better and much faster than LAME, and it's...it's just Ogg Vorbis! 

Regards
Joerg

Freeware Encoders

Reply #2 –
Quote
My question is, of all the encoders out there, wich ones will remain free? I know LAME will allways be freeware (I hope) but what about OGG, AAC, MPC, and others?

You know or you hope? MP3 is patented technology. The licensing for free en/decoders is 'unclear' to say the least. So whether LAME is free or not is actually quite unclear. It's not because you can download it that it's free. (e.g. warez )

Vorbis is not patented, has free specs, and libraries under the BSD license.

AAC is even more heavily patented than MP3. MPC situtation looks unclear like MP3 does.

Freeware Encoders

Reply #3 –
Ogg Vorbis will indeed stay free.

MPC will stay free as long as none of the copyright-holders of the patented technology asks for a fee. If that will happen and when, nobody knows.


At that bitrate mpc will quality-wise be the best choice.

Freeware Encoders

Reply #4 –
The obly ones that are curently FREE!!! is ogg vorbis and monkeys audio. All other formats are in some patented ...

But that is actually a good thing! Because ogg vorbis and monkeys audio are roughtly the best codecs on the market (net) ... Ogg vorbis as the high quality lossy encoder and Monkeys audio as the high powered lossless format.

Sadly, many people still use Mp3 for all kinds of audio. And mp3, as we all know, suxx bigtime!.

Freeware Encoders

Reply #5 –
Lame is not freeware.

The source code is covered by lgpl license, but that's all.
There is no binary released by the Lame project.

If you find a binary somewhere produced using the source code released by the Lame project, this binary is covered by patents, and so need a patent license.

If you use the source code yourself and compile it yourself in order to study it (like as an example to check if it is producing mp3 files or something else), then it is still covered by patents (of course), but you do not need any patent license, as you are only using the patent description (ie the code that is a patent description) to study the patended process for your own knowledge.

As you can see, it is quite confusing, and is a matter of interpretation of the law.

As a conclusion: Lame is not free

Freeware Encoders

Reply #6 –
MP3 don't suck bigtime! For many people out there MP3 sounds indifferent to their ears, and thus will stick with a format that is pretty much Standardised.

My family can't tell the difference between MP3 at 128kbit and MP3 at 192kbit, so I don't even bother arguing with them! For me its pretty hard to already ABX APS files, so I wouldn't go as far as saying MP3 sucks.

Laters
AgentMil
-=MusePack... Living Audio Compression=-

Honda - The Power of Dreams

Freeware Encoders

Reply #7 –
Quote
The obly ones that are curently FREE!!! is ogg vorbis and monkeys audio. All other formats are in some patented ...

I don't think this is correct. I would be surprised if FLAC was patented. Same thing goes for most lossless encoders.

Freeware Encoders

Reply #8 –
Quote
The obly ones that are curently FREE!!! is ogg vorbis and monkeys audio. All other formats are in some patented ...

According to the flack site (here) monkey's audio is not really free.

Freeware Encoders

Reply #9 –
Quote
According to the flack site (here) monkey's audio is not really free.

Actually, the site does not say that at all.

Quote
...Monkey's Audio is available but the licenses are more restrictive). Most others give out free binaries, but without access to the source, you are leaving your data to the whim of the maintainer for eternity; you have no way to port the program to another OS or fix it if it breaks.


This claim really should be buried IMO. It's not nice to demand so much from the author when anyone can have unrestricted free usage of such a great piece of software.
"Something bothering you, Mister Spock?"

Freeware Encoders

Reply #10 –
Okay, an update.

LPC time domain lossless compression is patented

Which means FLAC is not free. I think MA uses the technique as well, and so do most lossless coders.

Freeware Encoders

Reply #11 –
Quote
LPC time domain lossless compression is patented


Not to stray off the topic, but I wonder what Monty has in mind for Ogg Squish. He said he was to going colleberate with some of the developers of the lossless audio coder's about it and try to get some idea of what he might be able to add to it. I guess using predicition coeffcients can be ruled out then. They do seem to be used rather ellogantly in most lossless coders, but then again what isn't patented these days?. 
budding I.T professional

Freeware Encoders

Reply #12 –
Quote
Quote
According to the flack site (here) monkey's audio is not really free.

Actually, the site does not say that at all.

Quote
...Monkey's Audio is available but the licenses are more restrictive). Most others give out free binaries, but without access to the source, you are leaving your data to the whim of the maintainer for eternity; you have no way to port the program to another OS or fix it if it breaks.


This claim really should be buried IMO. It's not nice to demand so much from the author when anyone can have unrestricted free usage of such a great piece of software.

Which claim?  The two final sentences quoted are talking about two different things.

Freeware Encoders

Reply #13 –
Quote
Okay, an update.

LPC time domain lossless compression is patented

Which means FLAC is not free. I think MA uses the technique as well, and so do most lossless coders.

Could you provide more info?  These techniques are decades old.

MA uses an adaptive time domain technique.  If you look at the way it works it's pretty impressive that Matt came up with it all by himself., but itt seems more likely to run afoul of some patent.

FLAC uses the Levinson Durbin algo to construct an FIR filter from the autocorrelation coefficients.  This technique has been known for a long time.

If the patent is on combining a time domain decorrelator with lossless error coding, that's like the backing store patent: irrelevant.

Josh

Freeware Encoders

Reply #14 –
Quote
Lame is not freeware.

The source code is covered by lgpl license, but that's all.
There is no binary released by the Lame project.

If you find a binary somewhere produced using the source code released by the Lame project, this binary is covered by patents, and so need a patent license.

If you use the source code yourself and compile it yourself in order to study it (like as an example to check if it is producing mp3 files or something else), then it is still covered by patents (of course), but you do not need any patent license, as you are only using the patent description (ie the code that is a patent description) to study the patended process for your own knowledge.

As you can see, it is quite confusing, and is a matter of interpretation of the law.

As a conclusion: Lame is not free

Well, as long as you don't live in the states and don't give a fuck about patents, it's free :-)

Freeware Encoders

Reply #15 –
Quote
Quote
...[blah]...Lame is not free

Well, as long as you don't live in the states and don't give a fuck about patents, it's free :-)

If you are European (like me), you are still at risk if the Europarlament approves the ePatents laws.

Freeware Encoders

Reply #16 –
The mp3 patents are already valid in europe

Freeware Encoders

Reply #17 –
Quote
Could you provide more info?  These techniques are decades old.

You want to talk to the vorbis people and xiphmont in particular. It seems there were several patents discovered that are relevant at the time when the patent searches for vorbis were done. It affected Ogg Squish, and it's claimed it affects FLAC as well.

Freeware Encoders

Reply #18 –
Quote
Which claim?  The two final sentences quoted are talking about two different things.

The open-source argument is pretty weak. What can I say? I got the software and it runs, so where's the issue about it breaking? Well, maybe a future Windows will shed Win32 in favor of 64-bit only apps but that's not Monkey's fault.
"Something bothering you, Mister Spock?"

Freeware Encoders

Reply #19 –
Quote
The open-source argument is pretty weak. What can I say? I got the software and it runs, so where's the issue about it breaking? Well, maybe a future Windows will shed Win32 in favor of 64-bit only apps but that's not Monkey's fault.

It's not Monkey's fault, but it affects the long-term accessibility of the music collection.  If a closed-source piece of software chooses not to support a future platform, you either lose your music, or have to avoid using that platform.  If the software is open source on the other hand, you can either add support yourself, pay someone to add support, or post around the internet until enough people get interested that someone goes and adds support.

How likely this is I'll leave up to you to judge.

Freeware Encoders

Reply #20 –
Quote
It's not Monkey's fault, but it affects the long-term accessibility of the music collection.  If a closed-source piece of software chooses not to support a future platform, you either lose your music, or have to avoid using that platform.  If the software is open source on the other hand, you can either add support yourself, pay someone to add support, or post around the internet until enough people get interested that someone goes and adds support.

How likely this is I'll leave up to you to judge.

I don't see the problem. 

1. The source of MA is available.

2. If you plan to change operatingsystem to one that MA does not run on, it is not difficult to transcode the music to another format first.

Freeware Encoders

Reply #21 –
Quote
I don't see the problem. 

1. The source of MA is available.

2. If you plan to change operatingsystem to one that MA does not run on, it is not difficult to transcode the music to another format first.

Well yes.  1. means that you could port it to another OS, but you couldn't actually distribute your port (legally) without permission fo the author.  2. makes these considerations less important for lossless than lossy formats, since you don't get "locked in" to the format -- if you want to switch, you can always do so.  This isn't the case with lossy formats -- you wouldn't want to transcode your MP3s to Oggs at some point in the future, for example.

Freeware Encoders

Reply #22 –
Quote
The mp3 patents are already valid in europe

Correct
Including any signatory country to the Berne agreement.