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[jough]

Via Slashdot

[CortJstr]

So does Fraunhofer still hold a patent on mp3? I remember back in '98 having to jump through all sorts of hoops to encode above 64kbps. In fact that's how LAME (Lame Ain't an Mp3 Encoder) started.

[acoxcae]

I think officially they still have the patent (see http://www.mp3licensing.com), but the versions that everyone has nowadays are either unrestricted licensed versions from the major software makers, or reverse-engineered knockoffs - in either case, I'm extremely happy to be able to encode at 192kbps without having to scour the internet anymore. 1998 was a dark, dark time for encoding.

Of course, in these days of $.50/GB hard drives, I've pretty much switched to FLAC, except for my MP3 player.

Happy Birthday MP3![/url]

[St_Zartan]

Of course, in these days of $.50/GB hard drives, I've pretty much switched to FLAC, except for my MP3 player.

Explain the whole MP3 / OGG / FLAC thing to me, then - I've never really bothered to look into it because everywhere I see any discussion it is invariably accompanied by a bunch of tubby kvetching and file-format loyalty flamewars, etc.

What sort of scenario would make a guy say, OK, I am going to make the Switch from MP3, which is more or less ubiquitous and playable everywhere, by everything, to this niche hobbyist file format?

I like music but I can't parse it, dig? I cannot talk about time signatures and audio compression.

[acoxcae]

Well, the key difference between FLAC and MP3 is that FLAC is lossless - no data is actually removed, as in MP3 compression.  I keep all my CD rips in FLAC so that, should something happen to the CD, I'll have a near-perfect copy to replace it, rather than MP3, where each generation will degrade the music a little bit.  The only problem is that now I keep 2 copies of my collection, one in FLAC and one in 192kbps MP3, to put on my MP3 player.  But again, with storage being so cheap, it's not a bad deal.

I can't speak for OGG, though - I think I gave up after a technical pedant tried to explain the whole separation of OGG and Vorbis.

Plus, I like that FLAC is all free and open-sourced, so I can screw around with it if I want.  From what I understand Windows Media 10 has a lossless codec that might actually give slightly higher compression, but I skipped it basically just because it's MS closed-product.

That's pretty much the difference - lossless vs. lossy.  There are certainly smaller battles within the lossy world as to whose codec is the best-sounding or highest-compression, but I don't really worry about that too much.

[Gimpson]

Explain the whole MP3 / OGG / FLAC thing to me, then - I've never really bothered to look into it because everywhere I see any discussion it is invariably accompanied by a bunch of tubby kvetching and file-format loyalty flamewars, etc.

I can't speak to OGG, but FLAC is lossless compression.  It decodes to exactly the original digital source, rather than MP3 or OGG, which decodes to something that sounds like the original source with some frequency loss.  

When I was downloading a lot of live music I found groups where people were very adamant about trading their recordings of live shows in lossless formats.  They had whole elaborate systems set up where you could trace the recording you downloaded back through all the digital processing it went through, all the way out to the mics it was recorded with and their position relative to the stage.  They took it very seriously, and lossless compression was an absolute must, many of the recordings actually had labels in their text files saying "DO NOT ENCODE TO MP3!!!".  

I always thought that OGG was created over some sort of licensing issue and was for people who are upset that MP3 is not open source enough.  I could be completely wrong about that, though.

[St_Zartan]

Okay, a basic question, then: in the case of Lossy v. Lossless, what exactly is being lost? I thought I had read somewhere that a big part of MP3's compression was removing sound beyond the range of human hearing. I have this vague sense that removing anything will be, somehow, perceptible when compared against the original, but seriously - where's quality taking a hit?

Also, OGG and Vorbis are two separate things? I had always thought it was "OGG Vorbis", as though the open-source nerds (Gimpson, I also got the impression that OGG was pretty much by and for Linux People) who created the file format were naming it after some obscure space battleship or something. (Aside: I want to eventually read Iain M. Banks' Culture novels based entirely on a list of ship names I read.)

I can't believe it's been ten years, though. I remember being able to find huge, web-based caches of MP3s with fuck*ng AltaVista. And those MP3 search engines - remember those? YOU MUST VOTE FOR OUR SITE THREE TIMES BEFORE ENTERING

[V-Adore]

Also, OGG and Vorbis are two separate things? I had always thought it was "OGG Vorbis", as though the open-source nerds (Gimpson, I also got the impression that OGG was pretty much by and for Linux People) who created the file format were naming it after some obscure space battleship or something.

Close, actually -- "Ogg" and "Vorbis" are the surnames of two Terry Pratchett characters. There was definitely some nerd involvement. (Dull surprise!)

[acoxcae]

Okay, a basic question, then: in the case of Lossy v. Lossless, what exactly is being lost? I thought I had read somewhere that a big part of MP3's compression was removing sound beyond the range of human hearing. I have this vague sense that removing anything will be, somehow, perceptible when compared against the original, but seriously - where's quality taking a hit?

For most MP3s, it doesn't - exactly.  256kbps MP3 ripped straight from a CD will sound just dandy to all but the most lying audio elitist.  The problem comes in at lower bitrates, where there just isn't enough room to put in ALL the audible spectrum, so they take out little bits of the spectrum where the average human has diminished hearing - very high highs, very low lows, what have you.  And that's not even a huge problem unto itself, unless you go below about 128kbps, where they have to cut so much it starts to sound like AM radio in a big hurry.  But then, Man 1 (who bought the CD), rips his to 128kbps MP3, and then burns it back to CD later, maybe for a friend, who rips his, encodes it, and etc - but each time, the codec strips out a little bit more data, even where it looks like it's already been stripped out.  Hence, generational degradation.  A lot like copying audio tapes used to be.

I also used to trade concert tapes, and thought it was ridiculous that they spent so much time detailing the source tree and all that - until I got like a 19th generation MP3-sourced show, and I almost couldn't listen to it.


...the More You Know®

[St_Zartan]

256kbps MP3 ripped straight from a CD will sound just dandy to all but the most lying audio elitist.

That was awesome.

Thanks for the explanation, by the way - I no longer have to wonder / worry that I'm doing myself some big disservice by "settling" for 160 or 192 kbps, after hearing people rack on about I CAN TELL THE DIFFERENCE A BOO BLOO BLOO YOU MIGHT AS WELL JUST LISTEN TO TAPES YOU LEFT IN YOUR GLOVE BOX ALL SUMMER

So when you see people on Soulseek or whatever who have something ripped at like 3xx kbps or above, you can assume a lot about their personality. Cool.

[CortJstr]

From what I can tell ogg vorbis mainly came about due to Fraunhofer's attempted iron-grip on the mp3 format back in the day. Supposedly ogg is actually better as far as compression goes but it's VHS/Beta at this point.

You also have to take the actual encoder into account. An mp3 at 256 made by Xing is still going to sound worse than one made at 192 with LAME because Xing was designed for speed only. This also means that if I rip an mp3 at 192, burn you a mix CD, then you rip that same CD at 192 your mp3 will still sound slightly worse unless you use the exact same encoder I did.

This is why when making mix CDs its considered polite to obtain copy the tracks from orginal CDs or lossless formats such as wav, FLAC, or Monkey's Audio instead of mp3's whenever possible.

[jough]

With the speed of processing power today ripping mp3s via LAME high quality  takes about 5 minutes a CD.  It's hardly worth sweating.

I actually *can* tell the difference between a 192kbps mp3 and a 128 or 160kbps - but not any higher than that unless it's classical, which I tend to rip at 256 or 320 because the acoustic stuff really brings out the weakness in lossy encoding.

However, after REALLY listening and doing a test with a friend we determined that not only could I not tell the difference between most rock music at either 192 or 256, but sometimes I thought the 192 sounded "better."

I was 10 for 10 with the 128kbps tracks, though.  And my hearing is for shit (I do have really decent in-ear canal ear phones, though, which means that I can hear, say, fingers sliding on guitar strings or someone sneezing WAY in the back of the mix on "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window."

[Choop]

I was 10 for 10 with the 128kbps tracks, though.  And my hearing is for shit (I do have really decent in-ear canal ear phones, though, which means that I can hear, say, fingers sliding on guitar strings or someone sneezing WAY in the back of the mix on "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window."

I have the noice-reducing ear-covering headphones, and i've always thought the sneeze was written into the song.

[CortJstr]

I remember on the Audiograbber forum somebody tried all 4 major codecs (LAME, Xing, FLAC, and Ogg) on various types of music. Apparently each had a strength when you compared punk vs. classic vs. folk etc.

[acoxcae]

I pretty much always use 192kbps for MP3s, since they'll just be on my MP3 player, and I'm likely not trying to really sit and listen to something from my Zen.  If I want to listen critically, FLAC is where it's at - no worries about whether I've lost anything or not.  Plus, my stereo speakers are, estimating conservatively, a billion times better than my headphones.

I maintain that 256kbps is as good as it needs to be, and if you're going to rip at 320, just go lossless - but I agree that there can be times when 192 just doesn't cut it.  128 rarely cuts it, unless it's just some kind of throwaway pop junk, or some idiot taped it from the radio.  This happens more than I would like to think about.[/quote]