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Ogg Vorbis RC3 Released

Posted by timothy on from the need-more-hardware-players dept.

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."

3 of 321 comments (clear)

  1. Double Blind Listening Tests... Where ??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting
    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.....

  2. This won't change much... by DrEldarion · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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 --

  3. Just the company's .01$ by cgenman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    --
    The ______ Agenda