Ogg The Conqueror? RC2 Is Out

jonathan_ingram writes: "There has been a lot of discussion recently in Slashdot about sound compression formats. Much has been focused on Ogg Vorbis, but the most recent version available has been a beta released in Feburary. Today, RC2 of Vorbis has been released. The most important of the many changes is channel coupling, which means that Vorbis can now encode bitsteams at a much lower bitrate than before. Try it out today!"

Comments

Why Ogg is important

[SirSlud]

I see alot of posts basically asking the question:

"I don't think Ogg is as good as compression X, so why use it?"

Answers:

- You don't have to use it. Just support it. Be aware of it's existance. One day, it may be better than compression X.

- Should MP3 technology get hijacked by the corperate world (more so than it is today), we have an alternative that works, even if you feel it isn't the best sound in the world.

- Two researchers working on the same goal in different streams and parts of the world is a Good Thing (tm). Prevents information hoarding and management on bahalf of corperate interests.

(going off memory for the rest of this, maybe I'm wrong in some claims)

Interestingly enough, XP includes an mp3 encoder, but it only encodes up to some stupidly low bitrate (128? 64?). Since many people won't go out looking for another encoder, they will blindly encode at low bitrates.

Ironically, in the long run, I think mp3s popularity will help Ogg .. if people are unhappy with mp3s (they'll be unhappy with the low bitrate in the XP-bundled encoder, but same difference to the average Joe), they will search for an alternative. Hark! Ogg to the rescue!

People will always look at the "is X better than Y" when comparing technologies. What they are missing is that many, many industries are as far ahead as they are right now due to competing projects by seperate scientific/mathematical efforts. Finally, seperate projects also allow for validation of efforts. If, in some far off evil world, mp3s patent owner X says, "I can't improve sound quality, because that would break this and that.", a seperate camp of researchers can say, "bullshit! you're just saying that because MS is paying to help drive users to windows media". Or whatever the case may be.

The value of parallel research is almost always more than the sum of the parts.

Ogg is the great OSS success story...

[Bonker]

Despite having their funding cave almost all the way in, the good folks at Xiphonious have gone ahead and pounded out the format that will kill Mpeg-based audio. It will be the most decisive victory of Open Source Software over propriety formats, even moreso than the Linux/Windows competition.

While this is strictly my opinion, these are the reasons I beleive this:

1. Xiph has spent a great deal of time on the niceties of the format. As much, or moreso than the format itself. They've made sure that anyone can encode high-quality OGGs with both a command line and a 'droplet' style encoder. They've also made sure that anyone can play oggs with plugins for all the most popular MP3 players. Their player libraries are all LGPL'd, making it so that anyone else can include OGG functionality in plugin-style to their application.
2. Because of the LGPL'd libraries, developers and publishers can use OGG format audio for free, rather than paying a patent-fee to the Fraunhoeffer institue. This is a pretty major thing, since it deducts five dollars from the cost of any given software distribution. Not a lot for a single game, but think of the money that a popular company like Verant would save by distributing their next game with an Ogg-based soundtrack. Ogg translates directly to monetary savings!

3. MP3 is compatiable with Stereo CD streams. That's great, but you really can't encode Dolby 5.1 audio without sacrificing quality. Ogg can do 255 channels, making it 'Dolby 5.1' ready. DVD Audio ain't gonna stay copy-protected for long, and when it's protection goes, you can be sure that the people encoding it will use Ogg instead of mp3 so that there is no quality loss.

4. MP3 is a dirty word if you work for an RIAA company. There are now dozens of firms who work to track down file-traders on P2P networks, IRC, Websites, and FTP sites. They aren't searching for Ogg's yet. As it becomes more and more difficult to trade MP3's, people will turn to Ogg like people who used Napster turned to Bearshear and other Gnutella clients.

5. Ogg offers significant quality improvements over MP3. Windows Media offers these same kind of improvements, but they come at the cost of restrictive Microsoft policy such as limited bit rates and 'digital rights management' schemes. Since Ogg format doesn't even contain hooks for digital rights, I think I know where the majority of Audiophiles are going to be looking for their online audio fixes.

6. The Vorbig Fishy ROCKS!

Like I said, just my opinions...