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."

Comments

Double Blind Listening Tests... Where ???

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm still waiting for those properly conducted and documented double blind listening tests.... you know, like the ones that've been done in the past which shows that only the very best listeners only sometimes could tell 128 kbps MP3 (FgH encoder, not Xing, Blade, etc) apart from the original material. At least two of these types of properly conducted double blind tests have been done for MP3, WMA and others.

So where are these tests for Vorbis?

That is what it will take to convince me. A long laundry list of impressive sounding (in techno-speak) features does not necessarily make for an impressive sounding codec. True double blind listening tests with a statistically valid sample size, both in terms on the number of musical selections and listeners (who can even reliably tell the difference at all) are the only way to really know.

Of course, it's all a moot point for the majority of people who can't really tell the differences... but it makes for better conversation eg, my codec can beat up your codec.....

Re:Double Blind Listening Tests... Where ???

[Anonymous Coward]

How about ff123's 128kbit double blind test. It's using RC2 as a basis, and the quality improvements since then have been quite substantial.

ff123 is planning more tests at such bitrates - it's difficult to organise a test, gather results and publish findings on the same day as an RC.

Re:Double Blind Listening Tests... Where ???

[pezpunk]

this baffles me. maybe it depends on the type of music. i listen to guitar and drum heavy rock and roll, and at 128 kbps, the high-hats cut through my brain like a knife in a totally un-source-like way. and yeah that's with the fgh encoder. at 192, i find it much more difficult to tell it apart from the original, but i wish people would stop arguing in favor of 128 kbps as near-cd-quality cuz it just ain't.

Re:Double Blind Listening Tests... Where ???

[Chris Johnson]

Well, such tests are more a test of the listener's ability to not get ear fatigue than anything else. That said, this guy has PC software to do this with, plus a lot of files to compare, including one (a test of 'articulation') that uses lossy-encoded files vs. an uncompressed version. He also has a link to a Mac version now, because I coded it for him.

When I did that, I also tried some of his tests to see what kind of listener I was. I can barely hear background noise at all, but was able to pick out the original from 256K mp3 encoding 11 out of 14 times, which is proof to ABXers. This was Arny's 'articulation' test at 'probably impossible' level... I am a mastering engineer who writes DSP software and I was using my studio reference system. He tells me there was one other person once who was able to ace that test, and he's considering toning down the language and not calling it 'impossible' anymore if people can get it 11 out of 14 and so on- but to most people it is impossible. Again, that's 256K mp3, and not Xing either.

I'm sure I could tell Ogg Vorbis too, but you have to know what to listen for when the bit rate gets luxurious. There was no real tonal change to listen for, it's just that the 256K file was recognizably characterless, sort of like 'pod people' of audio. Hardly surprising as this is just what I work to avoid in full-resolution CD audio- that too can be rather bland and characterless if you're not careful!

(My own audio work is at www.airwindows.com/dithering/, GPLed, recently added some mid/side stereo features and a GUI Knob class that worked out quite well)

This won't change much...

[DrEldarion]

Maybe some slashdotters will use this, but really, will anyone else?

Everyone and their mom knows what an MP3 is by now. They know how to rip their CDs into mp3s, they know how to play mp3s, they know how to download mp3s, etc.

This is like trying to get everyone who's using Windows for day-to-day things to switch over to Linux. Even if the alternative is superior, they're all using Windows, they all KNOW Windows, and they really don't feel like switching just for the hell of it.

-- Dr. Eldarion --

Re:This won't change much...

[ichimunki]

Hmmm. Maybe some Slashdotters? I don't know... I've been listening to BBC Radio 1 via Ogg Vorbis stream for several days-- in fact caught their New Year's festivities live from Donegall Square in Belfast over it last night. I'd say they are exactly a group who wouldn't switch just for the hell of it, and they're exploring Ogg Vorbis.

What Ogg Vorbis really needs is some hardware supported devices. Soon. If I can buy a CD player that also plays mp3s, that is a clear win for the mp3 format-- those players are quite a bit cheaper than the no-disc players, and offer me some versatility. And as far as I know, there isn't any device (CD-based or Flash based) that runs even a beta Ogg Vorbis codec.

Just the company's .01$

[cgenman]

Consumers have a large library of MP3's that are currently free to encode, use, and share. They access the free CDDB to get information for ripping their CD's, and they share them for free on Kazaa, Napster, et. al. Life is perfect.

How many more of these conditions do you see surviving the next two years? Let's be realistic. MP3's eventually won't be free. Period. There will come a time once it has become an entrenched standard in the commercial world that group behind the MPEG codec start behaving in the way best fitting their stockholders. We've seen it with CDDB, we've seen it with GIF, we'll see it with MP3s. Ogg Vorbis, on the other hand, is a freely available alternative for streaming or downloading audio. While the idea of a non-recordable Ogg Vorbis stream may be as palatable to most slashdotters as having to pay Microsoft every time someone wants to print from word (don't get any ideas now), such a proposition could serve as a very appealing alternative to many broadcasters. If the end-to-end solution is in place, who cares what format it comes over? It can find a home there, especially if it can reduce both software and bandwidth costs.

Let's not forget that if you can reduce file size by 30% for the same audio quality, you can reduce your data costs by 30%. This will be a non-negligable issue to most large providers, and may become a non-negligable one to the average user as broadband companys start enforcing bandwidth caps.

There is no reason to go through your music collection and delete all of the WMA files you may find. There is no reason to convert all the GIF's on your website into JPG's. There is no reason that OVA's have to entirely supplant MP3's. There's no reason it has to happen right away.

Being open-source *should* also make it easier to build audio applications around it, though we all know how that can go.

The mind and wallet of the consumer is *not* the most important place to make changes. The mind and wallet of providers is (In the case of Gnutella, that is also the consumer. Que sera.) We don't need everyone to come on board for Ogg to survive, we just need some forward-thinking companies that realize the bottom line they should care about is theirs.

P.S. the majority of people on Gnutella are still dialup. Tell them that 30% faster transfers are unimportant.

Why Ogg Vorbis will not succeed. Yet

[iGawyn]

Although Ogg Vorbis seems to be more promising than MP3, WMA, RA, or any of the other formats out there, for filesize and quality, it's lacking something. MP3 is by far the most supported format, not just in software, but in hardware. There are MP3 CD players, portable MP3 players, as well as tons of software on every platform imaginable.

Because of this, as well as the popularity of programs such as Morpheus/Kazaa, Napster, Gnutella, and so on, that help you find MP3s, the public equates "digital music" with "MP3," and so Ogg Vorbis is already a step behind, publicity wise.

The public opinion will be almost impossible to change, as normally, whichever company/standard/format grabs the opinion first, and is popular enough, is what stays. Regardless of quality. It's dismaying, but I don't think that we'll see, at least for another year or two, Ogg Vorbis having anywhere near the level of popularity as MP3s, as far as hardware devices.

Gawyn