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Ogg Vorbis And Xiphophorus

Posted by emmett on from the tongue-twister dept.

mental666 writes: "Ogg Vorbis is a fully open, non-proprietary, patent-and-royalty-free general purpose compressed audio format for high quality (44.1-48.0kHz, 16+ bit, polyphonic) audio and music at fixed and variable bitrates from 16 to 128 kbps/channel. This places Vorbis in the same class as audio representations including MPEG-1 audio layer 3, MPEG-4 audio (AAC and TwinVQ), and PAC. It sounds great; I've tried it and while the file size is slightly larger than mp3, the quality is there. There's also an xmms plugin in the cvs module. For details check out The Xiph Web site."

33 of 166 comments (clear)

  1. Wow. by Chris+Johnson · · Score: 5
    I _really_ like this guy's attitude. My initial reaction was "But I have five CDs worth of songs released as mp3!", with concern about whether this could be used as a weapon to hurt mp3 and damage the viability of _any_ unrestricted digital music format (I specifically mean 'unrestricted for people to download', i.e. no 'security features', I don't mean unrestricted for the programmer)

    Then, reading the inventor's interview, I was blown away by how good his attitude was. He GPLs: I GPL. He _specifically_ and eloquently objects to the notion of 'security features'. He's clearly coming from an audiophile sort of place- I'd given up hope of finding that in compressed digital music at _all_- I currently like mp3s because they distort pretty smoothly and unaggressively, the attempt to deliver 'bright clear spectacular highs' will inevitably produce horrid distortions and breakup, just as it does in hardware and analog audio, only much worse. Now here's somebody with an actual clue concerning himself with issues that mean a great deal to me! Wow. I kinda like that.

    My take on the matter as an active and increasingly prolific net musician is this: I'm happily using mp3 128bit from BladeEnc, partly because I dislike the notion that I have to shell out big bucks to Xing or somebody (no laughing in the back there! I hear Xing is actually pretty unmusical, 'flashy' sonically) just in order to produce my work- also I know mp3 is well established, and again it degrades kind of euphonically compared to some stuff I've heard.

    CD audio is _already_ severely severely compromised. It is. I can't get over how people get into these arguments over what sounds better or worse and miss how degraded CD sound already is... I would say with my recent work, it is about the same degradation in quality going to 44.1/16 as it is going to 128k BladeEnc. I'm not fooling- this is due to my use of a customised 48/20 ADAT with custom coupling caps throughout the analog board, combined with the removing of all the (wave soldered!) anal hiss control caps which are only there to change the op-amp noise levels from -104db to -73252346 db for crazed silence freaks ;) oh, and it feeds a custom analog board through custom cabling into the computer's A/D converters through more custom cabling. (To hear all this working, listen to songs off "anima", which uses the whole setup- expect the beginnings of a techno album soon. The album "Hard Vacuum", which is pure Noise, is actually even harder on an encoder, recorded direct to 44.1/16 and I kept the masters...)

    Which is to say, I _know_ mp3 is quite flawed. I can mix and master to make this as unintrusive as possible, but it's still on a level with very good cassette tape (say, Nakamichi Dragon decks) at its best. That can be quite listenable. It can also be useful- when you start dealing with very high transparency equipment like I use, the performances have to be at a higher level, and it's easy to fake yourself out by mixing so that the slightest mistakes become obvious. If you record pretty dry it can be very unforgiving, though real punchy and involving- there's no room for error at all. I do this and then mix to 44.1/16 and then mp3 and by the time that's done, it's much harder to find flaws because the transparency just isn't there anymore :)

    However, I will still be among the first to go with Nanny Ogg (gotta love the pterry references! Didn't even clue to this right away) and will even do special high-resolution mixes tailored to stress the new format to the limit- given two things.

    • tools that run on a PowerMac, or which can be easily built in MPW, which I'd be willing to struggle with for the cause- I'm _no_ C programmer. I'm a drummer ;) (well, and bassist and guitar player etc etc etc)
    • somewhere to PUT the damned music. I have 177.1 megs of _compressed_ music on the Web at mp3.com, _all_ freely downloadable. That is orders of magnitude beyond what I can get for my own website, which I'm quite happy with for what it is, but it charges $1 a meg, roughly, and I'm paying $45 a month all things considered.
    I like to think I am the poster child for audiophile geekness ;) God knows I am ruthless enough with my equipment hacking, and I am quite capable of producing jaw-dropping sonics, and even have credentials including articles in internationally published audio journals. Maybe that makes me more prone to embrace a new format that is genuinely more capable of delivering sonics in line with what I'm after. I can only say that I'm not getting them now, am reasonably comfortable with mp3 in general terms in spite of this, am typically hostile to things like flashy Microsoft formats tailored to outmarket mp3- and from reading the views of this format's inventor (especially about 'secure' formats) I find I would really like to support Ogg- and doubt there are many other musician audiogeeks who could outdo me at producing codec-show-off materials in a musical sense. Hell, all I'd have to do is put things more up-front and finish up the multiband compression for mastering, and I could get a sound that's airy as hell and still musical. mp3 won't handle that and I know it- CD-audio barely copes with it already, mp3 would go all wavey and so I mix for soundstage. It would be _so_ _easy_ to make mixes that went a quantum leap beyond mp3. And the next album I'm doing will kind of _want_ that sound, I already know- and mp3 will be a compromise that I accept because of where I'm publishing- and I'll have all the masters handy for anytime I want to go beyond that.

    I _like_ hearing about this stuff. I hope this works out. I hope this sees Slashdot again and somebody comes up with a Mac version of the programs, no matter how klugey, so I can work with the format and see what I can get out of it.

    Count me in- just so happens that the contract with mp3.com is NONEXCLUSIVE rights to my recordings. If anyone sets up an Ogg Music site, I can right now throw five albums of original material on it, producing custom mixes (which I needed to do anyway for a private 'audiophile CD' project I was working on) and at least some material (Extended Play, Hard Vacuum, and anima) of very demanding audiophile quality to show off the format. All I need is the web space and the software...

    (*g* dare I say it, wouldn't it be cool if I was some kinda bigshot on mp3.com by the time this happens? I'd _loooove_ to be on some sort of Successful MP3.com Musician soapbox when I start saying these things like 'use GPLed codecs' and 'no secure format bullshit' and 'there's this format called Ogg' ;) Therefore, I would be thrilled if people went and downloaded music from http://www.mp3.com/ChrisJ which is all free as in beer and speech (meaning, if you want a sample from it I'll actually let you sample individual instruments off my master tapes with my total blessing and cooperation, instead of being a dick and forbidding it), and which is fine music and great for showing off stereos and much of it makes for a nifty Bass Test, especially "Koala" which has huge warm fretless bass and a nearly subsonic string pedal tone to freak people out with... end parenthesis)


    :)

  2. How long... by Phaid · · Score: 3

    Sounds good. I wonder how long it'll take for the RIAA to file a lawsuit and get an injunction banning its distribution?

  3. Shame on you, Slashdot... by Enahs · · Score: 3

    Shame on you, Tounge-Twister and the Slashdot crew.

    At least five, possibly six, avid Slashdot readers already knew about Ogg Vorbis. Who cares that there were countless other readers who actually saw this as new news--I being among the countless others--those five, possibly six, were far more important.

    Also, at least four readers found this story to be completely irrelevant. I mean, Good Lord, you're writing about open technology and technological innovation! How dare you put stories about open-source technolog innovation on a technology news site! I for one found it very informative and relevant, but, my God, you so inconsiderately posted something that four or five folks found totally irrelevant.

    Don't think that my optimism or enthusiasm for the content of this post fool you--I'm shocked, appalled, and dismayed that you failed to realize that the whole of the universe revolves around five, possibly six, individuals with nothing better to do than sit at their computer, surfing the Web instead of innovating.

    --
    Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
  4. News that's late, for those who can wait by raph · · Score: 3

    Thanks for the props.

    I sent an email to Roblimo immediately after posting the interview. I have no idea what's going on inside Slashdot these days, but from the outside, it looks pretty fucked. A typical story makes it to /. days after it first breaks, whether on Advogato or one of the other free software news sites.

    Incidentally, I generally check Slashdot, Lwn, and Kuro5hin at least once a day, and post links when appropriate.

    ObOnTopic: I tried the CVS Vorbis encoder two weeks ago on a set of files, including some music that MP3 did a relatively poor job on, and was very impressed by the overall quality at 128kbps (64kbps/channel). I'm looking forward to the release of the new psychoacoustic model, as that promises to make Vorbis dramatically better than MP3 for comparable bitrates.

    That said, a great many people either can't hear the difference or don't care. How else can you explain the fact that so many people use BladeEnc or one of the barely-modified ISO coders when LAME is so much better?

    --

    LILO boot: linux init=/usr/bin/emacs

  5. BladeEnc vs MP3, MP3 loses by raph · · Score: 3

    ["The Detroit String Quartet played Brahms last night. Brahms lost." -- Bennet Cerf]

    I'm surprised that you are so manaical about your analog equipment, but are basically satisfied with BladeEnc. To me, BladeEnc at 128k distorts the music enough to detract from my listening enjoyment, and I can even hear the artifacts at 256k.

    If you're going to be doing MP3 encoding at 128kbps, use LAME. LAME is without a doubt the best free MP3 coder in existence. The differences between LAME and BladeEnc at 128kbps are striking, and it's pretty close to Fraunhofer's quality.

    I can hear distortion in 128kbps MP3's generated by LAME (and Fraunhofer, too, for that matter), but only if I listen. It's perfectly adequate for everyday listening. So I usually encode at 160kbps, at which point I cannot hear the difference. 160kbps also gets past the >16kHz cutoff of 128kbps MP3. (and here you are bitching about the loss of sound quality from the CD's 44.1kHz sampling rate!)

    Based on listening to the CVS version a couple of weeks ago, I fully expect that the production version of Vorbis at 128k will be indistinguishable from CD's, perhaps with a few minor exceptions of difficult-to-compress passages.

    And to address the main point of your posting, by all means get out there and push for Vorbis to be supported in all the cool places where MP3 is now. There are no compelling reasons not to, except for inertia. And the reasons to are, to me anyway, compelling. It simply sounds better, and it's totally free. If people are going to go around buying gold-plated speaker cables, you'd think being given a significantly better codec would be even more effective :)

    --

    LILO boot: linux init=/usr/bin/emacs

  6. Listening tests by raph · · Score: 4

    I did some listening tests with the CVS version about two weeks ago, and compared it carefully against LAME and Fraunhofer's coder, respectively the best free and proprietary MP3 coders out there.

    I listened to some regular music, plus the samples at the LAME website designed to stress MP3 coders to the max.

    Basically, Vorbis blew the pants off MP3, with one exception - there are occasional artifacts audible in only one channel (Vorbis, at present, simply encodes each channel separately). Since these artifacts are way off center in the stereo field, they are particularly annoying. Monty claims that these artifacts are fixed in the new psychoacoustic module, and you know what? I believe him.

    Keep in mind also that today's MP3 coders have years of tuning and tweaking behind them (Fraunhofer's coder of a few years ago did not sound that great, actually pretty far behind where LAME is now).

    I encourage people not to just accept information that's spoon-fed them. It only takes a few hours to set up a simple listening test. Check out the code from CVS, put on your 'phones, and put it through its paces.

    Advogato carried the interview with Monty a full week ago. I sent mail to roblimo, with whom I had been in correspondence. What's happened to Slashdot's speed lately?

    --

    LILO boot: linux init=/usr/bin/emacs

  7. This guy is way cool by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 4
    We need more innovation, since we're almost finished with duplication. It's nice to see people stepping up to bat. This guy is way cool - he has the math, as well as enough Latin to be dangerous and a crazy sense of humor.

    Bruce

    --
    Bruce Perens.
  8. bitstream metainfo? by otis+wildflower · · Score: 4

    Hi,
    Is there any allowance for metainfo in your bitstream specs? The webpage didn't indicate it to me but I might not have been looking hard enough.. IIRC Icecast/Shoutcast file metainfo (artist, titles, genre, etc) on streams is kludgey and unreliable, where it exists. Is this involved in the bitstream or is it meta/wrapping around the bitstream?

    Easier to fix this and get it right while the standards are still in flux (then again, this is OSS, aren't the standards always flexible? ;)


    Your Working Boy,

    1. Re:bitstream metainfo? by jon_c · · Score: 3

      meta-data as in title streaming for shoutcast/icecast streams has nothing to do with the mp3 format. it's part of the sc-audio format.

      this is all that happens...
      telnet shoutcast.server:8000
      GET / HTTP/1.0

      Icy-Bla Bla bla
      icy-My stream yada yada
      icy-MetaInterval: 8192

      [data]
      and then every 8192 bytes it adds meta data on top of the mp3.

      i haven't looked at the new tech yet. but if they haven't provided a inet streaming protocol, it and it's a frame based format you should be able to do that exact same thing that shoutcast does.

      -Jon

      --
      this is my sig.
  9. Re:yet another.. by SgtPepper · · Score: 4

    but MPEG, while being "open" isn't really free...check this out they won't even tell you what the licensing terms are...Though I suggest reading the Office Faq, There /is/ a need for a FREE standard..as opposed to a "OPEN" one...

  10. Re:Isn't the real issue stream control, not codec by Ed+Avis · · Score: 5

    I think you left out MP3 from your list of successful formats...

    'Stream control' is a red herring. If you can
    listen to it, you can record it. There are sound
    drivers for Windows and for Linux that let you
    save the output stream to disk, so you can make
    perfect digital recordings of anything coming
    from RealPlayer and other 'secure' players.

    --
    -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
  11. Re:File size larger than MP3? by patbernier · · Score: 3
    > The bitrate is the quality of the audio, not the amount of compression.

    Hmmm, I'm afraid you are off-track here. Encoding bitrate, usually in kilobits per second, actually describes how many bits you need to encode a second of audio. Therefore, it does indicate the amount of compression that you are achieving (over the original sample bitrate). For example, CD-quality uncompressed audio is 44.1Khz 16 bit stereo sampling, therefore approximately 1411 kilobits per second. If the encoding outputs a stream with a bitrate of 128 kilobits per second, you've achieved a compression ratio of a bit more than 10 to 1.

    --
    "Words have meaning, and names have power." -- Lorien
  12. What a cool logo! by jms · · Score: 3

    I just wanted to say that you guys have the coolest logo ever!

    As near as I can tell, it's Jesus spanking a snake with a lit sparkler. Ogg, the symbolism!!

  13. Oh cool! by Pope+Slackman · · Score: 3

    According to a comment on Advogato from the author,
    this can run from 16 to 128k PER CHANNEL -
    in other words, 32 to 256k stereo.

    Remember, a 128k MP3 stream is actually two 64k channels.

    --Kevin

    =-=-=-=-=-=
    "Just take another hit 'cause you don't give a f*ck-
    You're a junkie and you're proud!"

  14. I bet they wished they'd never mentioned MP3... by orpheus · · Score: 3
    I bet they wished they'd never mentioned MP3, but I suppose they had to, since it was bound to be the first question in the reader's mind.

    As I see it, the "free" (as beer) feature doesn't offer enough advantage to sell it in the marketplace of ideas, however, I don't read that they meant to go head-to-head against MP3. They simply felt proud of the job they'd done in that arena.

    Regrettably, while Ogg Vorbis was specifically designed to do well at low bandwidth, they haven't implemented that code yet. The modem is going to be with us for a long time, and a streaming solution that let you listen as you surf could have fair appeal. It would also have some real commercial potential.

    Overall, it's a testbed, and I applaud the notion, though I do not know if other similar initiatives exist. Years ago, I was grumbling that no one supported wavelet and freq/time domain components simultaneously in the same audio file, and last I checked, the major formats still don't. Vorbis at least supports this, though (again) they haven't implemented it.

    Still... I can help but think their project name was just the first audible output from pre-alpha code (Who knows what the input was?)

    __________

    --

    If you can go to bed, knowing you did a valuable thing today, you're very lucky. If you can't... it's not bedtime

  15. The point... by zeke · · Score: 4

    The bulk of the responses seem to fall into three categories:

    (A) "We have mp3 - why do we need Ogg?"

    (B) "Mp3 is too entrenched for any competitor to
    ever succeed."

    (C) "Ogg is not as good as mp3, or requires
    higher bandwidth."

    Bah! Don't you people *think*?!?

    The mp3 format is not going to get better. Vorbis is being actively developed. Just because it may not be better than mp3 at this moment (And I make no such claims here - check the advogato interview for more info, or better yet download the software and play with it.) does not mean that it will not become so in the forseeable future.

    Beta never caught on because (A) it was very expensive and (B) Sony had the licensing locked up tight. If Sony had been *giving away* VCR's the home movie industry might have developed differently.

    So what does Vorbis have going for it?

    FREE
    FREE and powerful
    FREE and powerful and open source.

    What attracted you to linux in the first place?

    This is a major boon to anyone who wants to legally stream audio but can't afford to pay for an mp3 encoder. If all you want to do is listen to music on your computer, then maybe you don't care what format it is. Do consider this: A free encoder will allow a whole lot more people to provide content online. Heck, with this, any band that wanted to and could afford a bit of bandwidth could put up their own songs online w/o suffering through mp3.com or running the legal risk of using an mp3 encoder w/o paying for it.

    I don't think mp3 is as entrenched as some of you seem to believe. How many of you have both a Realaudio player and a separate mp3 player on your computer? What would it take to get you to download another? How about if it were just an XMMS plugin?

    Does anybody really sweat a free download?

    zeke

  16. Re:Isn't the real issue stream control, not codec by Rombuu · · Score: 3

    Yeah, I think we should give them total control

    Good, glad we see eye to eye

    They should make you buy one DVD that can only be listened to during the day at home, one for at night at home, and one for in the car.

    Companies should have the right to place whatever license they want on their product. No one is putting a gun to your head and focing you to buy the product.

    So a company (or a bunch of companies) can spend their time and money developing a spec, such as DVD, but they don't have the right to place licenses on it in your world?

    Basically we should let them require you to sell yourself into slavery to them in order to access their wonderful content

    Like everything in the world, you have a choice. There is a cost to the content (both in money and rights you may give up). You perform a simple equation in your head... do I value the content enough to give up the required money and combination of rights? If so, you pay, otherwise, you don't use the content. How hard is that to understand?????

    It works really well, and has its own built in negative feedback mechanism, as if the cost of the content is too high (in either rights or $$$$), no one will view the content.


    --

    DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
  17. Re: The quality depends on the MP3 Encoder by korr · · Score: 3
    I have much experience with various MP3 encoders, and I have found that the quality of results you get depends on both the encoder, and the type of music that is being encoded. Generally, the worst types of music to compress are classical and dirty-rock with tons of cymbals and stuff. Most pop nonsense sounds fine at just 128kbps.
    • BladeEnc: BladeEnc I have found produces the very worst audio, even worse than Xing. I can make out artifacts on every type of music, even at bitrates up to 256kbps. The highs get all slushy, and you can usually hear strange electronic noises when listening through a good pair of headphones. Avoid BladeEnc.

    • Xing Encoder: Xing is very common, and yet it is horrible. I can tell if an mp3 was made with Xing right away upon hearing it. Generally Xing has the same sort of problems as BladeEnc, but not quite as pronounced. I must say it is 2 or 3 times faster than the other codecs, but it is definately 4 or 5 times worse. Stay away.

    • LAME: When I first tried LAME under Linux, I thought it was just as good as the modern Fraunhofer codec found in products such as MP3 Producer. But, after using it for a while and ABing it against the same music made with the more modern Fraunhofer codecs, I have found that it is not quite perfect. But the quality is acceptable, and if the bitrate is reasonably high (192-256kbps), I have no problems listening to MP3s encoded with LAME. For pop music, it is even listenable at 128 kbps.

    • Modern Fraunhofer (MP3 Producer, etc): This is definately the best encoding algorythms. Fraunhofer has perfected their psychoacoustic encoder over the years, taking advantage of their extended knowledge of the codec. 50% of all music sounds find at 128kbps, 95% at 192kbps, at 256kbps, it is impossible for me to hear the difference between the mp3 and cd, even with the most demanding recordings.
    I have found that many open-source zealots will try out BladeEnc, being free, and after encoding a few songs make the blanket statement that all MP3s sound like crap. This is simply not true. Please try listening to some properly encoded mp3s before you make rash generalizations.
    --

    Download a fast DirectX Tetris Clone [276 k]

  18. The Corollary Slashdot Effect by Dr.Evil · · Score: 5

    The fatalist attitude of so many on Slashdot amazes me sometimes. Here we are, a community numbering in the six figures (maybe even seven by now), and we sit here and go, "Too bad it won't make a difference." Hundreds of thousands of users could make a huge difference, if we just agreed to do something together! Heck, just going and looking at the web sites in most stories on Slashdot is enough to bring mortal servers to their knees!

    We don't have to overwhelm MP3 to make Vorbis work - we just have to create a niche market. Especially if clever programmers write converters (tricky without compunding artifacts), Vorbis can stand on its own.

    If we're serious about supporting Open Source, then we should support it right down the line - no patent-encumbered formats like MP3 and GIF. If we all live by that, then new standards like Vorbis and PNG will win in the end.

    --
    Right...
  19. Re:Isn't the real issue stream control, not codec by interiot · · Score: 3
    Yes, companies should have the right to control their content. What the original poster was addressing was that once a company can completely control a stream (eg. DVD), they can control what content can be produced within that stream. This allows the big boys to keep any smaller companies from ever having a hope of making it to the top because they aren't allowed access to that stream.

    The issue isn't that the company doesn't have control over their own content, it's that they prevent other companies' content from being available because they have a monopoly on the interface.



    Imagine this: some company (rhymes with "Noel") writes new networking software that's initially compatible with TCP/IP, but is so successful on its own that they later remove support for TCP from the product. They kill off all competitors by restrictive liscencing since they have 95% of the market. Since nearly everyone accesses the 'net through them, other companies pay tons of money to advertise on their network. They can also become market leader in any market they want by advertising their product and preventing others from advertising competing products on their network. If done subtley enough, they can also silence opposing opinions (let a few of the slightly-negative things through so people think you're "objective", but filter the really bad stuff out). Open source is no longer viable... in order to write applications for the new network, an organization has to sign a contract that prevents disclosure of source code.

    The above scenario is a big stretch (and pretty cynical, especially for me), but I suspect that it's what the "dot com" and media CEOs secretly dream about at night. Fortunately, the government is wary of losing its control and would try to stop something like this at all costs.
    --

  20. Vorbis *does* support >128kbps streams by high_bandwidth_user · · Score: 4

    One thing that everyone seems to be missing, is that Vorbis supports bitrates of 16kbps-128kbps per channel! Since it uses better algorithms than MPEG-1 Layer 3 (MP3), it has the potential to sound much better. It's not done yet, and the development team is still making changes to it that will affect the quality. I'm going to wait and see how it works, but it sounds like it will be excellent when it gets done.

  21. This is what OSS community should do with video by Markonen · · Score: 4

    It's terrific to finally see an open, IP-free audio codec with (seemingly) great sound and compression efficiency.

    One of the things most often complained about at Slashdot is the lack of Quicktime players for Linux, and more specifically, lack of a player capable of playing movies compressed with Quicktime 4's Sorenson codec. Many sites, especially those of the movie industry, have adopted Sorenson because it has genuine advantages over industry-standard MPEG video: Sorenson produces significantly better video quality at the bitrates preferred on the Internet today. While Sorenson and Microsoft's proprietary offerings are gaining ground, the use of free video standards like MPEG is becoming more and more scarce.

    The only feasible way of reversing this trend is to come up with a superior video codec and distribute it freely. Until now, many people have argued that developing a good media codec involves such high-end mathematics that developing one under traditional Open Source development model is not possible.

    It is high time that someone proved them wrong.

    --
    Marko Karppinen
  22. Free Speech, not free beer, naysayers! by pgio2000 · · Score: 3

    'Oh, nothing'll topple MP3 - it's got too much mindshare!' 'I don't see the point - wasn't MPEG open?"

    A good, free CODEC really IS vital for free/open online multimedia. Remember that the uses for compressed/streaming audio go beyond Shoutcast stations or packing a million songs on your harddrive. Vorbis will end up in free versions of online music collaboration software, I'm sure, as well as conferencing, telephony perhaps ... places where it's really important to minimize bandwidth usage without the inconvenience or licensing fees for proprietary CODECs/APIs.

    Look at something like Rocket Network's online studios. Sounds cool, huh? But who would pay for the technology license to develop and deploy a free (in both senses) Rocket Network server? Nobody, I'm guessing. You can get a 'free' online studio now - as in beer - but what if you wanted to make that your business? Lotsa money, no control of the technology.

    For these systems to develop in the free/open software community, we need control of all segments of the technology. Think of this in terms of GIF vs. PNG, with a lower practical barrier since the entire world of online mutlimedia is still emerging and CODECs are inherently pluggable in multimedia apps.

    Or maybe my head's up my butt.

  23. Re:Where is the psychoacoustics model? by xiphmont · · Score: 3
    ...there's no document yet (although the only reason for that is lack of time). However, the code for the psychoacoustics is not totally impenetrable; check out the CVS code on the new_acoustics_pending_merge_20000328 branch and look at vorbis/lib/masking.h and vorbis/lib/psy.c

    Also, for references, see the most recent mail archive article on that subject.

    Monty

  24. Some questions answered by xiphmont · · Score: 5
    Hi folks,

    I'm taking time to answer a few questions as it seems a number of vocal folks have started posting without looking at the Vorbis web pages first. Practically every question and musing here is addressed there...

    First off, I wasn't ready for this. Vorbis is not at release, although I hope that will be soon. I'm not releasing before it's ready.... and it isn't quite ready. Most of the fun stuff has been going on on a CVS branch; the mainline is only a functional, stable, dull, unimpressive version for starting application work. That way when Vorbis *is* released, all the Sonique, XMMS, Winamp, kmpg and Freeamp folks will have to do is recompile.

    Second, the name 'Xiphophorus'; the organization is a democracy and I was outvoted. I personally like to emphasize 'xiph.org'. I rather Like 'Ogg' and 'Vorbis' though. Oh, and it's not Jesus spanking a snake. It's Thor, Mjollnir and Jörmungandr. I have a page about the names/logos; go read it.

    Lastly, distributing hacked up encoders right now is fine, but keep in mind, that as soon as the new psychoacoustic engine is merged into the CVS main branch the bitstream format will change. The change is minor, but it will break existsing streams. That will happen this week, so you don't need to contain your enthusiasm too long :-)

    Monty
    xiph.org

  25. The name is 'Ogg'. That's harder than mp3? by xiphmont · · Score: 5
    Hee hee. Let's ignore everything even remotely having to do with the format and it's implications and flame about names. This is more fun :-)

    The name of the format is 'Ogg'. Just 'Ogg'. It has less unique characters than 'mp3' and can be pronounced in one syllable. Where I come from, that counts as pretty easy. Try it.

    • "Fish"
    • "Cat"
    • "Ogg"
    Vorbis is the name of a CODEC that Ogg uses. Just like 'Sorensen' is one of 'Quicktime's' video codecs. 'Ogg' is much easier than 'Quicktime' too.

    ...and the file extention is *also* .ogg. In the future when you get an ogg file, you know an .ogg player will handle it. How could you get simpler?

    But wait! There's More!

    ...well, no, actually, there isn't. Anything more would make this harder, and we're all about 'easy'!

    Monty xiph.org

  26. Re:Voog? by scumdamn · · Score: 3

    Actually, the names are from Discworld. Nanny Ogg and Vorbis. For references to Vorbis, grab Small Gods. For Nanny Ogg, the most recent book would be Maskerade.

  27. Missing the point by naasking · · Score: 4
    Most people here seem to be missing the point. They're exclaiming that "mp3 is already here, it has good quality, so why even bother?"

    This is as pointless an argmuent as, "why develop linux. Windows already has 90% of the market share, it's reasonably good(it's useable), so why bother with Linux?" Some would say, "it's better!" But that's not the real point. The point is that Linux is FREE and OPEN. This is the true power and purpose behind Vorbis as well.


    -----
    "I will be as a fly on the wall... I shall slip amongst them like a great ... invisible ... THING ... !"
    --
    Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
  28. Why Ogg Vorbis is better by aat · · Score: 5
    Here's a link to an interview with the author, with his explanation of why vorbis is better than mp3.

    http://www.advogato.org/article/56.html

    Arun

  29. Re:is it worth it?! by Bert+Peers · · Score: 3

    I believe the bitrate of an mp3 file is the 'final' bitrate, after compressing both channels. This new format seems to explicitly support 128kbps per channel, meaning both formats can deliver exactly the same format. It does make you wonder if this means the new format doesn't exploit inter-channel dependencies the way mp3 does, though, if they mention bitrates per channel...

  30. Isn't the real issue stream control, not codec by dpilot · · Score: 3

    and MP3 is currently under HEAVY attack from the RIIA, in various forms, the Napster attack being the latest.

    Yes, you can always capture the audio output, but that isn't considered the threat that capturing the digital stream is.

    And I'll agree that you can capture the digital stream, as well, by hook or by crook. But it's a bit harder, and at the moment isn't mainstream. Heck, at the worst grab the RealAudio ipchains proxy and hack it to put the stream capture code there.

    If surreptitious stream capture techniques were to rise to the general consciousness, I'm sure the RIAA (and MPAA, where relevant) would be after them.

    --
    The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
    1. Re:Isn't the real issue stream control, not codec by Frank+T.+Lofaro+Jr. · · Score: 3
      That is a much less far fetched scenario that you think. The intellectual property interests would help any company that does that, as long as they made piracy harder and still allowed the content providers (but only the big boys that can buy lawmakers and judges and pay off all "interested" parties) to have enough "freedom" to market products over this network and make a killing doing so.

      The lawmakers would support it too, as long as they gave the government enough control. "Yeah, let us take over, don't stop us. Why do you have to listen to us? Well you are the gov't so you don't, but here is way you want to. We can make all the politically incorrect speech disappear. We can make any pro-drug info disappear. We can make all independant political speech disappear. With UCITA and the DMCA any people trying to use our net despite our wishes (which will include your wishes) will be breaking that law. But it won't be "censorship" or a violation of the First Amendment, since we will do the censoring for you. No one will sue you or stop you or hate you, since you'll just have us do your dirty work."

      That is a risk you missed on your otherwise very good analysis. And you weren't being cynical, just realistic. It will and has been attempted. DVDCCA/MPAA is about control, not just piracy. Welcome to the 21st century. Please check your freedom at the door.

      --
      Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
  31. Isn't the real issue stream control, not codec IP? by dpilot · · Score: 4

    AFAIK, the only "standards" to have taken off are Real Audio, Windows Media Player, and Quicktime, all of which have proprietary codecs. But isn't the real issue that they also are able to enforce end-to-end stream control?

    This is what prevents one from capturing a stream and saving it. Use an open codec, and the codec can be replaced/subverted to capture the stream, and then everyone in the world will immediately pirate the precious content.

    IMHO, a free codec won't help. We've got to crack the nut of organizations who want to retain intimate and complete control over content delivery.

    It's not really a software problem, it's a greed and political problem.

    --
    The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.