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Ogg Vorbis RC3 Released
xercist writes: "Let's start 2002 off with some good news! The long awaited RC3 release of the Ogg project's Vorbis codec is now out. Major changes include much improvement in the quality to bitrate ratio, ability to specify a hard bitrate min/max to the encoder (good for streaming), and an entirely new bitrate management engine which can emulate CBR, do constrained bitrates, and will accept quality settings via the -q flag from 0 through 10 in .00000001 increments (currently only tuned for 44.1 KHz modes). Vorbis has kicked MP3's, WMA's, and Real's asses for a long time now, hopefully this release will change the minds of anyone yet undecided. Download RC3, then show your appreciation for all their hard work and dedication by making a donation to support the project."
We really need support for OGG on products like the Phatbox.
Cryptnotic
My other first post is car post.
This is wonderful. The ability to operate at specific bitrates, especially low bitrates, is critical for streaming.
Having a flexible range, with definable minimum and maximum bounds, is a very good way to go. You get the bandwidth efficency during silence and other easily compressible sounds, without the unpredictable bitrate spiking of unbounded VBR.
Ogg Vorbis is a step well taken in resurrecting online music and radio streaming. After the losses in 2001 (RIAA fees, AFTRA fees, MP3 patent fees, increasing bandwidth costs, copyright concerns), we need all the help we can get....
I listen to Dr. Demento online and keep track of what stations remain: http://krellan.com/demento/
Dr. Demento On The 'Net!
i'd so love to use ogg, but the problem for me is that i use a rio volt, which is a portable mp3 cd player. A lot of the existing hardware out there only works with mp3 or wma. I hope that the different vendors (HELLO RIO!) will get a clue and release firmware updates that give ogg support to their devices. Once this happens, i'll never touch mp3 again. Btw, do the different vendors of mp3 hardware devices have to pay a royality to fraunhofer? If so, wouldnt ogg support make sense financially ?
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
They even use PNG-format images, instead of the notoriously closed GIF format so often seen on our own beloved Slashdot.
I only hope that Ogg Vorbis will work on my CPRM-enabled ATA drive...
I use Vorbis alot .... but man, these RC candidates might be harmful more than anything else.
... you're running out of time, ship the thing, or we'll all be stuck in WMA/MP3 hell ...
... ship it now and tweak later!
Sure, I know the Ogg team wants to release a good quality codec, but the longer Ogg Vorbis sits in pre-1.0, the harder a time it will face in a market flooded by codecs. I can go out right now and grab a stereo for my car that will play MP3s, but not Ogg Vorbis
more and more products are shipping, and they are not smart enough to have upgradeable hardware
the main problem ogg vorbis seems to be not the quality of the format, or the encoding/decoding engines, but rather in the inherient problems of accepting a new format.
people changed from wav to mp3 because wav was unusable due to its massive size, while mp3 was not noticably different in quality (to save the flames yes some people with studio quality gear can hear a difference) while resulting in a 10 fold plus savings in space. entire albums could now be stored in less space than one wav file. this in a time where pressure on any audio/video content was high due to shortages in storage capability was a breakthrough, bringing media to the people, and they embraced it. several years later the industry realized that since it was so widespread, they might as well latch on, and so beginning roughly two years ago, we saw the emergence of mp3 players for all uses, personal, car, home. this all based on two factors, compatability, and acceptance. once people accept something, they stick with it until it is blindingly obvious that the rewards of change are greater than the inherient risks.
fast forward to current times. storage capability has exploded. right now i have 100 gigs at my disposal on this box alone, and this quantity is not anything special anymore. do 5 600 meg wav files bother me anymore? no, in fact i don't even notice them except when i realize i should really archive them because that project is done. do mp3's bother me? not at all, in fact storage is so cheap that i can't even be bothered going through my collection to eliminate duplicates or outdated material. what i'm trying to say with this, is that space is no longer a limiting factor, nor is size of the file, therefore the savings accorded by any new format including ogg is not a selling point especially in the face of change.
so the only real selling points are quality or features. features are great, who wouldn't like to beable to pull up realtime lyrics, band info, pics, links, etc. all from within the music file, or spread throughout the files of a album. however, dvd has the video equivalent of these features and they have failed to be implemented to a major degree because of the time problems which accompany putting so much content into a basic product. so just to put features to the side temporarily, lets just say that features could be a selling point that would bring about a new format if the changed required to mp3 would be impractical or impossible to equal such support.
this leaves us with quality. therefore quality alone will be required to convince consumers and companys to abandon mp3 and change to something else like ogg. now quality is subjective to a great degree, but anyone i know can distinguish the difference in video quality from mpeg-1 to mpeg-2 (dvd), they can distinguish the difference between 800x600 and 1600x1200 screen res, but very few on a blind test can distinguish the difference between mp3 at 128 and 192, none, unless i pull out my dj headphones in wich case a very few, can tell the difference between a cd burned from a original, and from mp3s (which is a more accurate comparison because the hardware used to produce the sound is the same). ogg has nothing better to grab than the cd stream, and while a few hardcore fans will tell you that the audio quality is better, the filesize is smaller, and support will eventually come. right now i can not see how these arguments justify the switch from the widely compatable mp3 format, with my collection which can be expanded easily from an uncomprehensiably large supply, is supported wherever i go, and is having money thrown at it by manufacturers to deliver better and better products.
there are far too few pressures to make the change in the area that counts the most, the mind and wallet of the consumer.
-john
**AA: a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes
I'd really love to see better Ogg support tied into the iPod & iTunes myself.
:) Of course, it wouldn't actually be Apple doing it, since Pixo actually took care of this part of the software design I believe. A little strong-arming never hurt anyone though.
I ripped 150 CD's into Ogg format early in this year from my FreeBSD box, and threw myself into the Ogg format totally.. hacking up a nice multi-queue ripper/encoder, and going at it. I was unhappy with how slow the Ogg encoder was (it was 0.7 at the time I believe), and artifacts that came onto some albums (Junkie XL comes to mind). I still dealt with it happily. When it came time to move from FreeBSD to MacOS X as my desktop, I simply began to use Audion as my
Then, I get an iPod. This throws my world upside down. Suddenly, everything I had ripped is useless. So, I begin re-ripping with iTunes. I don't care for iTunes for a player, but it's a DAMNED nice ripper/encoder for my albums. It's simultaneous rip/encode process means I can take a CD from insert to rip to encode to eject in 4 minutes (if I'm lucky and I score a 15X encode/rip time).. With it's auto-encode-on-insert and auto-eject-when-done modes, it makes it a real factory process.
Apple is making a very big deal about moving everything it can to a standards based form.. While Ogg is not really a standard, it'd be really nice if a future iPod firmware update would support Ogg's, being a first for a *publically available* portable audio device supporting Ogg.. it'd be keen, wouldn't it?
That and then I could theoretically store more albums on my little angel. I am worried about the extra firmware bloat on the iPod though. It's very saddening for me to say I won't ever go to Ogg's till my iPod has support for it now.. but we can keep on dreaming, can't we?
Well, 24 bit is a huge noticable improvement to 16 bit. I'm not an audiophile and my ears are somewhat shot from playing in loud bands, and even I can tell the difference between a CD mastered at 44.1/16 and the same CD mastered at 96/24. 96Khz is a clever ruse, what matters is the 24 bits vs. 16.
So support of 96/24 will be important.
--jeff
ipv6 is my vpn
No, but here's a great way to avoid that - stop thieving the music. I never get these problems because the only reason I ever get mp3s is to find old songs where I'm not sure which song I'm thinking of. I then find a CD with the song on it and buy it. I rip all my own mp3s. It's anecdotal evidence for sure, but the only effect Napster had on my CD buying habits was that I bought more (I realise I may be in the minority though).
Of course, you may just download the mp3s to avoid the hassle of ripping your CD collection, but having done my own CDs, I have to say it's easier than downloading the mp3s.
Yes, the RIAA are a bunch of tossers, and I hate what they are doing to the flexibility of digital music, but people who download a load of mp3s for free and then bitch about the poor quality of the stuff they just got for free are kind of making the RIAA's point for them.
Interestingly, the two internet services that made me buy more CDs simply by letting me work out what music I wanted to buy (the lyrics.ch server and Napster) were both shut down by the RIAA or similar entities for fear that it would lose them money. Of course, as I mentioned, I realise I may be in the minority (buying CDs rather than just stealing music) so maybe the RIAA have a point after all. Which doesn't justify all the crap they're trying to pull, but hey ho.
In my humble opinion :-)
Tim
Are we at all surprised that hardware makers are not taking the time to code in support for a beta sound codec? I mean, with the development time of hardware in general, the pre SP1 codec-supporting hardware would just be hitting the shelves right now, no?
Once the first non-beta release is out, then it would make more sense to expect business-centric hardware makers to consider including support for it, right?
--something witty
it's not that the thought police can charge you directly for the posession of mp3's. the mp3 standard is patented by the fraunhofer folks. this means that when someone like rio wants to add mp3 decoding ability to their devices they have to pay fraunhofer royalties. also if you want to do any encoding the person who make the encoder has to pay them royalties.
so if you want to listen to mp3's on a commercial player these costs get transferred to you the user. also people who have developed free encoders (like bladeenc) have been threatened by the mp3 thought police for giving away the encoder without paying the mp3 hordes.
-- john