BBC Reopens Ogg Streams

garf writes: "Once again, back by popular demand, the BBC has opened up live streaming of Radio 4, to test with the new codecs, especially for modem users. Hop over here. And for those wishing to listen to Radio 1 try these (link one), (link two). But beware: '[Radio 1 streams] are available sporadically at the moment. Don't be surprised if it cuts off, as I've probably just killed it ready for restarting with different settings.' Please email support to the BBC for their continued support for the ogg format. Happy listening."

Comments

OGG's niche

[freebsd guy]

As a longtime audiophile and a fan of digital music and all things open source, I was quite excited when I read about Xiph's Ogg Vorbis project. I had high hopes for the new format; unencumbered by patents and restrictions, the Ogg team was working on a way to replace the tinny, empty sound of MP3 that had become so prevalent in most online song swapping venues. I looked forward to a new revolution, where I could listen to CD-quality sound from my computer and truly appreciate the depth of tone that had previously been belted out of my Harmon Kardon AVR 520.

But alas, Ogg has disappointed me. Although it blows MP3, Real, and especially WMA out of the water on telephone-quality 56k streams, it produced nothing but unpleasantness for me when I attempted to use it to recreate the trebelish peaks and bassive lows of Rachmaninoff's work. In some ways, MP3 was almost easier to listen to, because I had become accustomed to its quirks.

Thus, Ogg has found its niche: low bandwidth applications benefit enormously by the nearly lossless compression that it offers for low-speed streams. As for music distribution - so far there are no clear contenders, but hopefully someday a format will exist that does an acceptable job of re-creating music the way it was meant to be enjoyed.

freebsd guy