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Ogg Vorbis 1.0

uvasmith writes "According to the Ogg Vorbis website... Release 1.0 is now ready and tagged as 'vorbis1_0_public_release' in CVS. This is a full release of a 1.0 encoder, decoder and tool set. The encoder, decoder and tools now implement all Vorbis 1.0 specification features including low-bitrate, cascading and channel coupling." Update: 07/19 17:05 GMT by C :It seems someone jumped the gun a bit in mentioning the release, but now it's official! Check out the download page, the letter from their CEO and (if you wish) cough up a few bucks at the donation page! For those audiophiles among us, you can check out a side-by-side audio comparison here. Oh, and don't forget the free music!

440 comments

  1. hot dang by Hall+and+Oates · · Score: 0

    Our tunes will sound great in ogg. Thanks.

    1. Re:hot dang by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry H&O, not yet. They haven't finished the banality plug-in filter. Go stand over there with Celine and the other big label artists.

  2. Debian packages by calc · · Score: 4, Informative

    Ogg Vorbis 1.0 is already uploaded to Debian sid and should be installed today. It should be compiled for all arch within a few days.

    1. Re:Debian packages by gowen · · Score: 4, Funny

      nd will probably make it into Debian stable by 2007...

      --
      Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
  3. Replace JPEG! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Hey, maybe we could replace JPEG with this!

    1. Re:Replace JPEG! by Eric_Cartman_South_P · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      No way, you hacker! I'm not using any "image" format because they can spread virii! Leave my boxen alone or it's off to the FBI tip line with your IP! What?!?! What do you mean you can see my C: drive on IRC? This Windoze boxen is secure! www.microsoft.com told me so!

    2. Re:Replace JPEG! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It might be possible to do this if you turn the compression off.

      The psycho-acoustic model used by Ogg contains paradigm-shift technology so converting an image to audio might just work.

    3. Re:Replace JPEG! by Rain · · Score: 1

      I posted this yesterday (and even got trolled!) My example isn't a good one--it works best with photos, but I don't have any handy that aren't copywritten by someone else and I don't have a digital camera handy.
      Here's the post again:

      Encoding image data in Ogg Vorbis audio streams:

      Written by zinx:
      http://halcyon.bluecherry.net/~rain/oggpic/ogg2yuv
      http://halcyon.bluecherry.net/~rain/oggpic/yuv2ogg

      The quality is better than you might expect, and they're fun to listen to! (Note: requires imagemagick, cat, ogg123, and oggenc.)

      (sample data is available in the same directory, http://halcyon.bluecherry.net/~rain/oggpic/, if you're too lazy or lack the resources to do it yourself.)


      Note that this is meant to be interesting rather than practical. It's a hack. But, like I said, the images are fun to listen to... (You can just use convert and play the sound as raw 8-bit samples if you want to listen to some images without the ogg step.) While this should be obvious, it apparently wasn't to someone yesterday.

      Have fun!

    4. Re:Replace JPEG! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Another Symantec employee!

    5. Re:Replace JPEG! by great_flaming_foo · · Score: 1

      Ya, We'll have the best sounding JPEG's on the net... So, what does a JPEG sound like anyway?

    6. Re:Replace JPEG! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While this should be obvious, it apparently wasn't to someone yesterday.


      what did you expect, this is slashdot, home of the ignorant. if its a music/video/picture compression sheme and wasnt available for windows first and
      got ported to linux recently by some wizkid dodging patentdangers it cannot be real.

    7. Re:Replace JPEG! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      like a picture in vorbis, so xiph just stole the jpeg algorithm and used it to encode audio ?

    8. Re:Replace JPEG! by Ziviyr · · Score: 1

      Looks like the first Ogg video format is here! :-)

      --

      Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
  4. Yay! by micromoog · · Score: 2, Funny

    It's finally 1.0! Too bad it still has the worst name ever.

    1. Re:Yay! by SmileyBen · · Score: 5, Funny

      ...says 'micromoog'...

    2. Re:Yay! by Kenja · · Score: 2, Funny
      Not true. The worst product name ever is Goobers.

      I mean who the hell wants to eat somthing called that?

      --

      "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
    3. Re:Yay! by DeepZenPill · · Score: 1

      You mean they actually make a food named after my favorite snack?

    4. Re:Yay! by Anonvmous+Coward · · Score: 4, Funny
      Not true. The worst product name ever is Goobers.

      I mean who the hell wants to eat somthing called that?
      Whooah hold on, Goobers gave us something else to call rednecks! We may have to switch over to that if they ever form an anti-defamation league because of Walmart's selling of Linux boxes!
    5. Re:Yay! by Moog · · Score: 3, Funny

      Nothing wrong with that

    6. Re:Yay! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Liberals: Calling groups names, then complaining about discrimination when they retaliate.

    7. Re:Yay! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm guessing that you would preferred that it be called "Ogg Daddy Dog" or something.

    8. Re:Yay! by Overand · · Score: 1

      What's wrong with a name that's based on one of the least expensive synths made by one of the world's first (and best) synthesizer companies ever? Heck, Bob Moog practically invented the modern synth, after Buchla started.

    9. Re:Yay! by Anonvmous+Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      "Liberals: Calling groups names, then complaining about discrimination when they retaliate."

      So what's the word for somebody who takes a humorous comment too seriously?

    10. Re:Yay! by p3d0 · · Score: 1

      "Goober" is another word for "peanut". The name got hijacked presumably because of its similarity to "booger".

      --
      Patrick Doyle
      I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
    11. Re:Yay! by 13Echo · · Score: 4, Informative

      Moog is Bob Moog's last name. Maybe you don't know who he is, or how it is even pronounced. Regardless, I'll fill you in on something. He was the pioneer of the synthesizer.

    12. Re:Yay! by Ilgaz · · Score: 1

      haha come on,laugh, it was funny...

      er... said 13echo *g*

    13. Re:Yay! by Kenja · · Score: 2, Funny

      Slashdoter.

      --

      "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
    14. Re:Yay! by micromoog · · Score: 5, Funny

      We meet at last, stealer-of-my-first-choice!

    15. Re:Yay! by TheMoog · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Nowt wrong with the name 'Moog' mate :)

    16. Re:Yay! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, sure, for people who are only used to all those happy marketing names companies of today make up.

    17. Re:Yay! by Joe+Tie. · · Score: 1

      Too bad it still has the worst name ever.

      I think you're seriously shorting the honor of Theora. I actually kind of liked the name ogg vorbis, but theora...theora!

      --
      Everything will be taken away from you.
    18. Re:Yay! by Clubber+Lang · · Score: 1

      Whooah hold on, Goobers gave us something else to call rednecks

      I always thought that was a reference to Gomer and Goober from The Andy Griffith Show (formerly Mayberry RFD)... no?

      --
      Actuaries - making accountants look interesting since 1949
    19. Re:Yay! by Dr.Dubious+DDQ · · Score: 2
      >what's the word for somebody who takes a humorous comment too seriously?
      Slashdoter[sic]

      Hey! We prefer "Differently Rational", thank you very much, you oppressive tool of The Man(tm)!

    20. Re:Yay! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're thinking about the original rapping mutt from the 60's Hanna-Barbera cartoon: "Augie Doggie's Daddy"

    21. Re:Yay! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >> Too bad it still has the worst name ever.
      > I think you're seriously shorting the honor of Theora. I actually kind of liked the name ogg vorbis, but theora...theora!

      Not a Max Headroom fan, then?..

  5. Argh Too Early by boa13 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Just wait a few more minutes, the mirrors and the website are being uploaded. :(

    1. Re:Argh Too Early by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Slashdot: Bringing You The News Before It Happens (again)

    2. Re:Argh Too Early by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hehe! Mod this up! It should be Slashdot's new slogan... ;)

    3. Re:Argh Too Early by aardvarkjoe · · Score: 3, Funny
      "Hello. This is slashdot, calling to say that we're about to flood your servers with the legion of well-trained trolls that we keep penned up inside the SlashHouse. Would you be so kind as to call back when your release is complete, so that we won't prevent it from happening? Otherwise, all your servers are belong to us."

      Nah ... that would be just too easy.

      --

      How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
    4. Re:Argh Too Early by boa13 · · Score: 2

      Actually Xiph.Org's Emmett worked is a former Slashdot employee. He called them to ask them to refrain publishing any Vorbis story before the actual release. But it was last Sunday, so it seems they forgot. And now, he's calling them again, having some explanations for his former co-workers. :/

      Slashdot is blind-rolling-monster that nothing can stop.

  6. Re:Woohoo! by Sinistar2k · · Score: 4, Insightful

    WTF are you talking about?

    Backwards compatibility with pre-release versions? Uh, yeah. Since the RC's were started, OGGs have worked right up through the chain (or at least mine have).

    Now, if the next release means you can't play any previously encoded OGGs, then go ahead and repost your rant.

  7. W-O-W by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You waited until the website acknowledged that the build was done and ready to be uploaded?

    Why not do that with new distro's, instead of sitting in CVS, refreshing every 10 seconds....

  8. Serious question: iTunes by Dark+Paladin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I like iTunes and my iPod, and I'm curious: does anyone know of a plug-in for these two products?

    I'm not sure I'm ready to give up my beloved MP3's, but I wouldn't mind trying something that isn't tied to somebody else's patent.

  9. Argh, too early by Skuto · · Score: 0, Redundant

    They are _not_ out yet. The link are still pointing to RC3. Slashdot was too early.

    --
    GCP

    1. Re:Argh, too early by basse · · Score: 1

      This is only because slashdot jumped the gun, again...

      The xiph guys have been forced to take out the servers to be able to finish the release properly. You _were_ actually able to get the real 1.0 files for a while, if you knew where to look for them. This is what Monty had to say about the whole affair, a couple of minutes ago on #vorbis:
      "So that we can actually get to our own servers, xiph.org and vorbis.com have both been taken down so that we can finish the release in peace. Or at all."

  10. oggenc -1 mode by calc · · Score: 5, Informative

    oggenc now has a -1 quality mode with a nominal bitrate of 45kbps. It actually sounds very good try it out.

    1. Re:oggenc -1 mode by GigsVT · · Score: 1

      That's great, because in all honesty, MS was kicking out ass in the low bitrate audio area. If you have heard the MS codec for low bitrate, you know what I am talking about, it's incredible. I believe Yahoo chat uses it for their voice chat.

      Good job ogg team!

      --
      I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
    2. Re:oggenc -1 mode by RadioheadKid · · Score: 5, Informative

      Well for music, WMA 64kbs vs. Ogg 64kbs, I definetly believed WMA beat ogg vorbis RC3, but not anymore. Ogg Vorbis 1.0 at 64kbs (quality setting 0) is amazing. Beats WMA hands down. In a some cases Ogg Vorbis 64kbs beats the poorer MP3 encoders at 128kbs.

      --
      "Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -Homer Simpson
    3. Re:oggenc -1 mode by FatRatBastard · · Score: 2

      Do live365 use this codec? I simply ask because their tool for downsampling mp3 to around 56K works DAMN WELL. I tried sampling directly to the low bitrate with things like LAME, but I have yet to find anything that sounds as good at that low a rate.

    4. Re:oggenc -1 mode by GigsVT · · Score: 1

      The MS codec only produces WMA files, not mp3.

      --
      I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
    5. Re:oggenc -1 mode by PM4RK5 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The operative word being _was_. I have a song (in wav format) that I recorded off of a reel-to-reel tape. I encoded it using qualities, 10, 6, and -1. Honestly, for me, it was rather difficult to tell the difference between the 3, past the size difference. The fidelity of OGG at -1 is incredible, with an average bitrate of 34 kbps, or 4 kilobytes a second. Thats almost streamable over a modem!

      (for those of you interested, the 3:52 song was only about 974k at -1, from a 16bit 44100kHz stereo .wav)

      Kudos to the OGG team and all the hard work they put in to the codec, as it performs extremely well for a wide range of bitrates!

  11. Adoption now... by Kr3m3Puff · · Score: 1

    I wonder how this will effect adoption. Maybe we will get Ogg Net Players and maybe the BBC will return to encoding. It will be nice to have free (in beer and other ways) music and sound now. Congratulations to the team.

    --
    D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M.
  12. OOG is really cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    oh wait, never mind...

    1. Re:OOG is really cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ha Ha!! It sucks comments like this aren't 'couth.'

  13. The Vorbis Way by boa13 · · Score: 5, Informative

    To quote irc.openprojects.net/#vorbis:

    <xercist> sites are down, and staying that way until it's ready. period.

    And slightly afterwards:

    <xiphmont> Hello. Slashdot jumped the gun. So that we can actually get to our own servers, xiph.org and vorbis.com have both been taken down so that we can finish the release in peace. Or at all.

    1. Re:The Vorbis Way by Ilgaz · · Score: 1

      Those nicks... No wonder they are the ones found "Ogg" name *g*

      Besides jokes, congratulations! Sounds great!

    2. Re:The Vorbis Way by uvasmith · · Score: 1

      Interesting that my submission has caused such a flurry of activity. I submitted the release story because I went to the web site this morning and it said 1.0 was out.

      Perhaps someone should have had the foresight to hold off on updating the website until it was "released." Since the website was updated, the comments like "we didn't announce it" are pretty hollow.

    3. Re:The Vorbis Way by boa13 · · Score: 2

      You are not at fault here. The Xiph.Org team was uploading the site and the binaries, and had already completed some parts of the site when you passed by.

      The problem is, the team had been in contact with Slashdot for more than a week, asking them to wait until everything was ready. There were lots of signs that 1.0 was coming: the code went gold approximately ten days ago (tada! one Slashdot story!), a first release date was announced (tada! one Slashdot story!), then postponed, the Vorbis I Specification was posted to CVS (tada! one Slashdot story!), then they uploaded the sites and binaries (tada! your Slashdot story!) and announced the release to the world (tada! one updated Slashdot story!).

      So really, it's Michael fault here. He approved your story, instead of waiting a bit more. But then, Slashdot has a whole history of, well... slashdotting. :)

  14. Connection refused? by caluml · · Score: 1

    Well, that's one way to deal with the enevitable tide of Slashdotters - turn off your webservers until the story falls off the page....

  15. The march of OSS by BeowulfSchaeffer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Mozilla 1.0, OpenOffice 1.0, now Vorbis 1.0. This year should be considered a watershed year for open source software. It is great to see things coming together like this.

    1. Re:The march of OSS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You forgot: GNOME 2.0, KDE 3.0, Evolution 1.0, Gentoo Linux 1.0, AbiWord 1.0, Apache 2.0, Crossover Office 1.0, Gnumeric 1.0 (01/12/31) .. - and lots more I'm sure. Watershed indeed. Who says open source needs venture capital? (Well, except for Ximian maybe ..)

    2. Re:The march of OSS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, most of the x.0 releases were fairly well deserved. Mozilla, for example, has been tested extensively and can be considered rock stable. Evolution is also deserving of the 1.0 version number, although there are still occasional crashes. KDE 3.0 is a different story, but I guess they didn't want to wait any longer ..

    3. Re:The march of OSS by spottedkangaroo · · Score: 1
      *giggle*

      How is mozilla (for instance) incomplete, unfinished, unoptimized, and untested?

      I wish I could get paid to sling FUD too... *sigh* I have a real job though.

      --
      Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
    4. Re:The march of OSS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      First of all, you need to better understand what 'FUD' means. It stands for fear, uncertainty, and doubt. My post had nothing to do with fear, uncertainty, or doubt. It was a flame, pure and simple. Open source software sucks. It's never better than commercial software, and almost always worse. That's a simple observation, not FUD. Get it right.

      Secondly, I'm not getting paid for this. It's purely a volunteer effort.

      Finally, have you used Mozilla 1.0? It's incomplete because it basically can't be used for DHTML applications. There are too many bugs in the rendering of basic tags like <fieldset>.

      It's unoptimized because it's slower than any other application on my 750 MHz PIII system. My computer is no killer machine, but everything, from Office to IE to Exceed to Acrobat, everything is faster and more responsive than Slowzilla.

      It's untested because... it's untested! Show me evidence of the Mozilla team putting together a testing lab and having a hundred regular people use the application for eight hours. That's application testing, and Mozilla didn't get any of it.

      And it's unfinished because of all the stuff I just said.

      This isn't FUD. These are facts.

    5. Re:The march of OSS by MAXOMENOS · · Score: 1

      Yeah, now if RH could turn a GAAP profit things would be just fabulous.

    6. Re:The march of OSS by doob · · Score: 1

      It's untested because... it's untested! Show me evidence of the Mozilla team putting together a testing lab and having a hundred regular people use the application for eight hours. That's application testing, and Mozilla didn't get any of it.

      How about the thousands (if not millions) of hours spent by people all over the world testing and filing bug reports for all the versions of mozilla up to 1.0 (don't forget the RC versions as well, only bugfixes in those). Doesn't that count for something?

      --
      In the spoon, there is no Soviet Russia!
    7. Re:The march of OSS by CorwinOfAmber · · Score: 1
      Open source software sucks. It's never better than commercial software

      Careful, never is a mighty strong word. As a counterpoint, many people agree that gaim is better than many commercial offerings. You might want to check the recently posted Forbes article as well.

      This isn't FUD. These are facts.

      No, these are highly subjective opinions filled with inaccuracies. Or a troll, take your pick.

      --
      My future's determined by Thieves, thugs, and vermin -- The Offspring
    8. Re:The march of OSS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about the thousands (if not millions) of hours spent by people all over the world testing and filing bug reports for all the versions of mozilla up to 1.0 (don't forget the RC versions as well, only bugfixes in those). Doesn't that count for something?

      Nope, for two reasons.

      First, the people doing that work aren't average users. They're early adopters, or, worse, programmers. Those kinds of people-- I am one myself-- have no insight into user experience, and can't properly evaluate whether Mozilla sucks or rocks. They might be able to find bugs, but they can't uncover flaws.

      Second, that 'testing' wasn't scientific. (I mean that loosely, of course.) There was no process applied, and no data collected except bug reports submitted by the testers themselves. That kind of 'testing' effectively hides negative responses. For instance, if I downloaded Mozilla 0.0.0 RC 0 and decided I hated it, I would simply delete it from my computer. There'd be no feedback to the team at all; I'd be invisible to them.

      Millions of hours spent by people testing and filing bug reports, plus a quarter, will get you a cup of coffee. It won't get you software that's worth a shit.

    9. Re:The march of OSS by GeckoX · · Score: 5, Informative

      Moz unuseable with DHTML?
      Um, stick to the standards dumbass, not the IE standards and you'd be just fine.

      Um, untested...You don't consider 3 YEARS of open public testing and bug tracking to be testing?

      I know you're just flaming, but you're also a fuckwit.

      --
      No Comment.
    10. Re:The march of OSS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree with every last point you've made. Thank you for bringing these very valid points to the public eye. (Too bad they were censored so quickly by the Slashdot communist moderation).

    11. Re:The march of OSS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Um, stick to the standards dumbass, not the IE standards and you'd be just fine.

      Let's talk about the term de facto. It's Latin, and it means 'by the fact of.' In this context, it means that something is true, whether it's legitimate or not. De facto is the opposite of de jure, which means 'by the law.'

      The HTML and CSS feature sets supported by IE is the de facto standard for HTML and CSS. The fact that there's a de jure specification that isn't complete congruent with the de facto standard isn't really that relevant. Mozilla developers, supporters, and advocates love to talk about the de jure standards for HTML and CSS, but the bottom line is that more people use IE than every other browser put together. If a web site works with IE, but doesn't work with Mozilla, then the natural conclusion is that Mozilla is broken. It also happens to be the correct opinion.

      If Mozilla is to be taken successfully, they have to match IE feature-for-feature and bug-for-bug. It'll never be worth the trouble to download and install it as long as it's not 100% compatible with IE.

      This may or may not be 'right' in the normitive since. But it's the way things are.

      Um, untested...You don't consider 3 YEARS of open public testing and bug tracking to be testing?

      (I already posted this in another reply, but it's so true that it bears repeating.)

      Nope, for two reasons.

      First, the people doing that work aren't average users. They're early adopters, or, worse, programmers. Those kinds of people-- I am one myself-- have no insight into user experience, and can't properly evaluate whether Mozilla sucks or rocks. They might be able to find bugs, but they can't uncover flaws.

      Second, that 'testing' wasn't scientific. (I mean that loosely, of course.) There was no process applied, and no data collected except bug reports submitted by the testers themselves. That kind of 'testing' effectively hides negative responses. For instance, if I downloaded Mozilla 0.0.0 RC 0 and decided I hated it, I would simply delete it from my computer. There'd be no feedback to the team at all; I'd be invisible to them.

      Millions of hours spent by people testing and filing bug reports, plus a quarter, will get you a cup of coffee. It won't get you software that's worth a shit.

    12. Re:The march of OSS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not to mention root holes in Apache and OpenSSH.

    13. Re:The march of OSS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If a web site works with IE, but doesn't work with Mozilla, then the natural conclusion is that Mozilla is broken. It also happens to be the correct opinion.

      And the biggest problem with linux is that it isn't MS Windows. Gasbag.

    14. Re:The march of OSS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      GCC 3

    15. Re:The march of OSS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As a counterpoint, many people agree that gaim [sourceforge.net] is better than many commercial offerings.

      As is Ogg Vorbis, which remarkably enough, happens to be the topic of this story.

    16. Re:The march of OSS by Gordonjcp · · Score: 2

      Well, if you've got such shit-hot ideas, why don't you send them to the Mozilla development team?
      Do you extend this attitude to other areas in life? Do you sit around and whine rather than do something constructive *all* the time?

      Stop complaining and do something about it. If you don't like Mozilla, and find it to be too slow, don't use it. DHTML works great for me, and it is faster than IE6 on my Duron 700. It even does anti-aliasing properly, something that Windows XP has only just got (but fsck, ClearType is nice on an LCD monitor. It took Microsoft a long time, but that's one thing they made a good job of).

    17. Re:The march of OSS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      It also happens to be the correct opinion.

      Opinions, by nature, are subjective, and can not be correct or incorrect. You have lost respect with me because:

      • You are too lazy to log in or create an account
      • You are too cowardly to share your real name with us (mine is Sam Trenholme, for the record)
      • You post flamebait like stating that your subjective opinion is an objective fact.
      I do feel that there are problems with Mozilla (see my post in this thread about my Mozilla annoyances); I do not agree with your assertion that your opinions are somehow objective fact.

      Why are you too cowardly to share your real name with us?

      - Sam Trenholme

    18. Re:The march of OSS by Dillon2112 · · Score: 1

      That's an awful lot like saying that that Linux would never be worth downloading unless it matches windows feature for feature and bug for bug. You're making a weak assumption that just because something is used by the majority, it is therefore the best.
      Let's talk about the term opinion. Opinions by definition cannot be correct.
      You are assuming that a lab filled with 100 people telling Microsoft what they feel about their new browser in a "controlled" environment is inhernetly better that a group of beta testers online for evalutating the functionality of the software. Also a weak assumption. You be hard pressed to assert that either group is random, and equally hard pressed to say that the opinion of 100 people in a lab is more vaild than those "prgrammers" on the internet, especially when Mozilla 1.0 is a self-admitted *developer* application.
      Lastly, millions of hours spent by people testing a filing bug reports, plus a $1.25, will get you a cup of coffee, Mozilla 1.0, Openoffice.org 1.01, Linux 2.4.19, and a thousand other perfectly usuable, free programs.

    19. Re:The march of OSS by 0x0d0a · · Score: 2

      Open source software is never better than commercial software

      Take a look at GNU's grep or the Linux kernel. Hell, most of GNU's POSIX utilities are better implementations than, say, Sun's. (For example, I have a shell script that deletes things and lists the things deleted as it goes, using the --verbose flag to rm. Solaris's rm doesn't have --verbose or any sort of equivalent.)

      And try and find a better text editor than emacs (or vi, if that's the way you swing).

    20. Re:The march of OSS by Dwonis · · Score: 2
      Open source software sucks. It's never better than commercial software, and almost always worse.

      I agree with you that a lot of open-source software sucks, but nobody can seriously claim that Microsoft IIS is better overall than Apache, and you have just done so, thereby discrediting you.

      This isn't FUD. These are facts.

      No, it's a troll. Get it right.

    21. Re:The march of OSS by mgblst · · Score: 2

      We could call it year of the non-sequels!

    22. Re:The march of OSS by Eythian · · Score: 1

      Mozilla 1.0, OpenOffice 1.0, now Vorbis 1.0

      This is a worrying trend. Open source projects getting version numbers over 0.9999. I'm worried about this becoming a problem like the y2k bug was expected to be. All of a sudden sourceforge crashes because of the unexpected version numbers!

    23. Re:The march of OSS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't want Mozilla to match IE "bug for bug". If you play the catch-up game all the time, you'll never come out ahead. For me, Mozilla has features that *I* want, and therefore *I* use it. I like to be able to prevent sites from doing idiotic things like pop-ups when I close windows, pop-unders, etc.

      If a page doesn't render properly in Mozilla, I consider the PAGE to be broken, and I move on. I will find my information elsewhere on a page that renders properly on all browsers.

      And your beta testing comment was utterly ridiculous. BIG software companies like Blizzard, ID, and Microsoft routinely give out beta software to the public so that they can test it and send in feedback. Of course some people won't send feedback, that's to be expected and it's accounted for. It also helps the developers a lot, otherwise nobody would be doing it. For you to say that beta testing by the public is worthless, and then turn around to state that the exact same thing done by the commercial software houses is beneficial, is simply hypocritical and nonsensical. Based on this, I think you're just trolling.

    24. Re:The march of OSS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why the HELL is this +5 Informative?

    25. Re:The march of OSS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Why the HELL is this +5 Informative?

      Because it ends with:

      > you're also a fuckwit.

      That's was the informative part of the post.

  16. All servers down - thank you slashdot! by Skuto · · Score: 4, Insightful

    All xiph.org and vorbis.com servers have been taken down to prevent slashdotting untill the mirroring is completed.

    Thank you slashdot, you just ed us.

    --
    GCP

    1. Re:All servers down - thank you slashdot! by jandrese · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Just how long is it going to take to mirror Ogg Vorbis? Last time I downloaded it all three[1] tar.gzs together were less than a meg. It's not like they're mirroring Gnome or Mozilla. Heck, I can CVSup and entire FreeBSD ports tree quicker than these guys are mirroring Ogg.

      [1] libogg, libvorbis, and vorbistools

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
    2. Re:All servers down - thank you slashdot! by Lao-Tzu · · Score: 1

      So the slashdot effect took down your servers, and in the process, nobody got to get the software. In order to prevent slashdotting, which would make it so that nobody can see the site, you took down the site so nobody could see it.

      Is that really useful?

    3. Re:All servers down - thank you slashdot! by realdpk · · Score: 2

      Heh, at least you Ogg guys don't get the gross mistreatment FreeBSD gets:

      FreeBSD 4.5 NOT Released (Updated) by timothy
      FreeBSD v.4.6 (NOT) Released by chrisd
      FreeBSD 4.6 by michael

      It's so nice to have more "not released"s than "released"s - makes FreeBSD look real good eh?

      Go /.!

    4. Re:All servers down - thank you slashdot! by Nameles · · Score: 2

      You're forgetting about the non-*nix binaries/sources/stuff/etc.

    5. Re:All servers down - thank you slashdot! by sporty · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Maybe it's time slashdot doesn't do software announcements since you have to download the software from their site to begin with. And since we have access to all cvs code up to release, this doesn't help.

      Why not let the freshmeat.net handle the software stuff. At least then, it is a matter of the author announcing it and all you have to do is point to freshmeat and say, "look! it's out! see!?"

      -s

      --

      -
      ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only

    6. Re:All servers down - thank you slashdot! by southpolesammy · · Score: 2

      Actually, what I'd like to see /. do is to setup a caching proxy to any site listed in an accepted article and publish a secondary link for that site with a 24-hour TTL. Afterwards, let the cache expire and remove the secondary link. Slashdot almost certainly can handle the load, and the owner's site doesn't get totally hammered everytime /. publishes an article about them.

      Of course, this could only be done with permission from the owner, but overall, it should be a win-win for both.

      --
      Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
    7. Re:All servers down - thank you slashdot! by sporty · · Score: 2

      Yeah, but think of the idiot who says, "Who are you to put a copy of our content on your site to report as news?"

      At least by pointing to freshmeat, it allows developers to say when things are done. When slashdot links to news, it's because the news itself is announced by just being there. When developers put stuff out for public consumption, it's so that opensource contributors and the likes can communicate freely to their developers and beta-testers. Not a crowd of x-hundred people per second.

      --

      -
      ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only

    8. Re:All servers down - thank you slashdot! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How about not mentioning *BSD releases at all? The five people who still use them can get the news another way... asshole.

  17. Bad Quality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I find that when I "rip" music from CDs into OOG Vorbis Format that it has poor playback quality (very crackly).
    I'm wondering if other readers out there experience similar problems. I was thinking this might be some copy protection on CDs similar to that on video cassettes.

    1. Re:Bad Quality by Mr.+McGibby · · Score: 1

      No problems here. Sounds like your setup. I doubt they would be working this long on Ogg if it has audible cracks in standard CD rips.

      --
      Mad Software: Rantings on Developing So
    2. Re:Bad Quality by Kanon · · Score: 2

      Get either a newer version of the encoder (hey 1.0 is out. Aren't you lucky :) or turn the quality setting up higher. I use 3 (The default I think). 0 is 64kbit

    3. Re:Bad Quality by boa13 · · Score: 1

      I have encoded more than 30 CDs into Vorbis without any problems. This problem is really specific to you.

    4. Re:Bad Quality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I "rip" music from CDs into OOG Vorbis Format

      See, that's the problem.
      The OOG format was devised by cavemen who have quite minimalistic tastes. In fact they value hard crackly sounds over those weak female smooth ones.
      Try Ogg Vorbis next time !

    5. Re:Bad Quality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you're ripping under windows, check the ripper's exe and dll's for: Company Name (right click, Properties/Version)- it probably says Microsoft and "Internl Name" - It probably says ogg-killer.

    6. Re:Bad Quality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Do you get crackling when you rip to compressed formats (i.e. ogg and mp3) but not uncompressed formats (i.e. wav)? Could be an artifact caused by the fact that audio CDs lack sector numbering. If the audio compression causes the ripping software to start and stop reading audio CD rather than it reading continuously, there may be gaps and repeats in the resulting data read from the CD, thus causing the source of crackling.

    7. Re:Bad Quality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I also have had this problem.
      I used easy CD-DA extractor, it was fine for 320bps MP3 but bad in OGG 500bps. So there.

    8. Re:Bad Quality by aronc · · Score: 1

      Must be something in your setup or the physical CDs you're using. I've ripped over 100 of my CDs into .ogg (using eac and oggenc.exe) at VBR (target 128) and often can't tell if I'm listening to the cd or the computer.

      --

      jello.
      aka aron.
  18. Question about licensing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have a question about licensing (i am a newbie).

    If I were to write a program that used ogg vorbis to play back sounds to the user, could I commercially sell that program, or would I have to release the program's entire source code as well?

    1. Re:Question about licensing? by Ig0r · · Score: 3, Informative

      Vorbis uses a BSD-style license, so you can do whatever you like with your derivative works.

      --
      Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
    2. Re:Question about licensing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hopefully Microsoft is busy with their own proprietary formats as to avoid an "embraced and extended" version of Ogg.

  19. Ogg Vorbis 1.0 sounds better than ever by boa13 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Try quality 0. Or even -1. Yes, you're under 64 kbps. 'nuff said.

  20. Might be a bit off still? by eddy · · Score: 2

    You're sure? According to a post on hydrogenaudio (search for '#vorbis') the release might be a few days off due to updates needed to the specification. I quote:

    "I'm sorry, folks, but we have to wait. We're being very thorough with the spec, and it has inadequately documented areas. Official 1.0 release is soon, days as opposed to weeks. It's my call, and I take full responsibility. See you soon" -- Emmet on #vorbis

    --
    Belief is the currency of delusion.
    1. Re:Might be a bit off still? by boa13 · · Score: 2

      This post is old. Emmett said that on Sunday. And the release is happening now. "Days as opposed to weeks", as he said.

    2. Re:Might be a bit off still? by dschuetz · · Score: 5, Funny

      "Days as opposed to weeks", as he said.

      Yeah, well, if he went by the book, hours would seem like days.

    3. Re:Might be a bit off still? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Or at all"

      so slashdot not only killed them in this battle, but lost them the war?

    4. Re:Might be a bit off still? by Dirtside · · Score: 2

      You lied!

      --
      "Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
    5. Re:Might be a bit off still? by Sloppy · · Score: 1

      He exaggerated.

      --
      As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
    6. Re:Might be a bit off still? by sbergman2 · · Score: 1

      Hopefully thats where the similarity ends. "The turbo-elevators are inoperative below C deck." "Is *anything* working around here, Spock? "Not much, Admiral.."

    7. Re:Might be a bit off still? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Kaaaahhhn!

  21. ALL YOUR BASE IS OGG TO US! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Vorbis at 96kbps is usually somewhere between the quality of a good 112 or 128 cbr mp3, and I and quite a few other are already in the belief, after early testing from 1.0-ish CVS-code, that it is better than wma8 at 64kbps.

    ff123 will be conducting a 64 kbits/s blind listening test where people will send in their results, and that will show how vorbis stacks up against the likes of wma8, mp3pro and quicktime-AAC.

    IMO it doesn't really matter if it is better.. if it is at least comparable, than that should be enough for us to make the switch. Because besides being a flexible codec of high quality, it is open source AND completely free of patents (amazing!).. oh yeah, plus it has that really cool bitrate-peeling feature. Anyway, this is one of the few chances we have to get something right in the computer world (for a change!), so let's not blow it! Spread the word and take your hats off for xiph and vorbis!

    The waiting is over people, at last we can start ogging for real! ^_^

    1. Re:ALL YOUR BASE IS OGG TO US! by great_flaming_foo · · Score: 2, Funny

      The waiting is over people, at last we can start ogging for real! ^_^

      Were we ogging for fake before?

    2. Re:ALL YOUR BASE IS OGG TO US! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why should I care about this?

      All my MP3s work great in iTunes and on my iPod -- and the "royalty" or "free" ness of it don't matter to me at all -- Apple paid them and I don't need to worry about it.

      A portable MP3 player is the "killer app" for me -- and the iPod is the only one that fits the bill for me because it's the only one which is small and light enough (with sufficient capacity) to put in a jersey pocket and not really notice it's there. Re-ripping everything as an OGG won't buy me a thing, except killing a lot of my time.

      I don't see the benefits in the real world -- can someone show me the advantages to this outside of the "hey look I'm a Linux geek and it will run on my Linux machine" world? I'm actually curious.

    3. Re:ALL YOUR BASE IS OGG TO US! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      as of this moment there are no tools to utilize this bitrate peeling function. too bad.

    4. Re:ALL YOUR BASE IS OGG TO US! by Gordonjcp · · Score: 2

      Not everyone wants a portable mp3 player. I'm developing a sound cueing system for radio and theatre, based on a rackmounted PC. You can fire across samples for spot fx and music beds, and for radio you can sequence the advert and ident jingles quickly and easily. I would not be able to do this using mp3 without paying a fortune to Fraunhofer so I could use their codecs. I can do this with ogg quite happily though.

      Frankly, I couldn't care less about portable mp3 players. Being able to compress huge amounts of audio quickly, with good playback, and without unpleasant licensing repercussions is a killer app for me.

  22. Re:Serious question: iTunes by pigpen_ · · Score: 5, Informative

    You can get a beta quicktime component that will allow you to play oggs in iTunes and other quicktime aware apps. The iPod does it's mp3 decoding on hardware and there is not currently a solution for software decoding. I wouldn't expect one any time soon either.

    --
    Zambozay! My brain must've been eatin' a sandwich!
  23. Ogg at Emusic.com by Milo+Fungus · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Yesterday's roundtable disaster on the subject of DRM raised a few good points about pay-per-download services like Emusic.com. Users are free to do whatever they like with medis files they have legally download.

    The problem is that Emusic uses mp3. If they would offer songs in ogg vorbis they would be greatly increasing the quality of their product, giving listeners less reason to pirate and more reason to do legit consumer purchasing. I might even consider joining their service myself.

    1. Re:Ogg at Emusic.com by _Swank · · Score: 1

      i might very well be missing something, but how would emusic's switch from mp3 to ogg give "listeners less reason to pirate and more reason to do legit consumer purchasing?"

    2. Re:Ogg at Emusic.com by Milo+Fungus · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The point was raised in yesterday's discussion that in order to stop piracy, the content industry simply needed to offer a better alternative. Emusic.com was one such alternative suggested. Rather than attempt to hobble piracy with DRM technology, they would be directly competing with pirates. With their financial resources they can easily make their services quick and convenient. Adding ogg would just make it that much better. Media files would not only sound better, but they would also be smaller on average. And Emusic won't have to pay anyone for the priviledge of using them.

  24. Now begins the hardest part... by atcurtis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Adoption.

    Any piece of technology, no matter how open, free or innovative is useless unless adopted and widely used.

    Microsoft uses Market Development Funds to "assist" adoption of their stuff... Such funds are usually in the form of paid holidays to some exotic location for some key executive/manager of companies.

    Opensource usually cannot afford such gimmics and rely solely on the merits of the technology.

    We can hope (and prey for the religeous among us) that the powers that be at the corporations like the BBC, CNN, ITN, News-Corp etc realise what is the best way to go and don't get their decisions bought by a company which is willing to spend millions of dollars on MDF.

    --
    -- The universe began. Life started on a billion worlds...
    -- Except on one where stupidity was there first.
    1. Re:Now begins the hardest part... by Albanach · · Score: 1

      Well, if you want the BBC to support it, read this and then ask for it

    2. Re:Now begins the hardest part... by h0tblack · · Score: 1

      the guys behind the scenes at the beeb were testing ogg vorbis streaming for a while - http://support.bbc.co.uk/ogg/ . Unfortunately the trail is now over although there are people trying to bring the streams back permanently. I really hope they do as the streams are now only in Real formats after Quicktime support was taken down last year.

    3. Re:Now begins the hardest part... by oever · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yesterday, I signed of for beta-testing some hardware: a portable device for playing music from memory or from CD. You had to fill in a form with questions like What kind of environment will you use the apparatus in? - Dry - Wet - Cold - Hot.

      One question was: What is your favourite audio format?

      And, tadaa, OGG was one of the options.

      If you are curious to know which hardware vendor has public beta testing. Heheh, I'm not telling.

      --
      DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
    4. Re:Now begins the hardest part... by qubit64 · · Score: 1

      I hope that the price of this stuff (zero) will also help us, because it seems that the better marketing campaigns usually win.

      --
      "Save me jebus!" - Homer Simpson (btw, I'm probably talkin out of me arse)
    5. Re:Now begins the hardest part... by Darkwalker · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Unfortunately, Microsoft does considerably more than provide paid holidays to execs to assist the adoption of their technology. I work for a company that got millions in M$ dollars (In regards to shared marketing, credits towards other products, consulting hours, etc) to push a certain new technologies. I'm intentionally not going into detail, but when MS does a push, they do a full court press - It's significantly more than just buttering up a single individual.

      Since OGG doesn't have ~$50 billion in the bank to promote itself, it's up to us to tell companies that we want this technologies in our iPods, Rios, or player-du-jour. You can have the best piece of tech in the world, but if there's no consumer demand (Read: Money) behind it, it'll fail.

      Not intended as a troll or flame, just stating facts as I see them.

    6. Re:Now begins the hardest part... by sacrilicious · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Any piece of technology, no matter how open, free or innovative is useless unless adopted and widely used.
      I don't think this is a supportable statement. True, the greater the number of people using vorbis then the greater the likelihood that people will find vorbis-encoded material on the internet... but vorbis also is useful to any number of individuals who use it for either its sound quality or its freedom from patents. I suspect that your post was intended to convey the part about the usefulness of large numbers of users, which I agree with, but to declare vorbis otherwise "useless" seems worth straightening out.

      .

      --
      - First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
    7. Re:Now begins the hardest part... by Tadghe · · Score: 2

      > We can hope (and prey for the religeous among us)

      Contrary to popular belief on /. and some of the popular media, the Religious amoung you really don't prey on you, we might however (depending on one's ethos) Pray for you...

      --
      Bugs Bunny was right.
    8. Re:Now begins the hardest part... by beme · · Score: 1
      It's Philips, for those who don't know:
      http://www.audio.philips.com/

      Typically the beta tests are pretty small. The current one is only 100 people.

      And I wouldn't have said a thing if the parent hadn't said "Heheh, I'm not telling." :P

      --

      -beme
      1971
    9. Re:Now begins the hardest part... by Artifex · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If you are curious to know which hardware vendor has public beta testing. Heheh, I'm not telling.


      Yah, I get the emails from those people, too, only my notice came over a week ago =) Notice how the first questions they ask are about whether you want something that looks good with lots of colors, or something with lots of features? My guess is that since this is a beta step, they've already decided which way the hardware will be, and this is actually a way to cut people from consideration. Also, ironically, they probably only want people for the solid state player who have already got one, based upon their questions... which doesn't make sense. Should they be going after the small segment of the market that already owns players, when they'd have to find some way of convincing them that what they already have sucks, or should they go after the large segment of people who haven't yet found something that appeals to them?

      Oh, and to get this back to topic: I picked only MP3, because there should always be MP3 players around, so that's the format I'm storing everything in. I have lots of gigabytes of space, so I don't care about the best compression. I've already had problems some AVI codecs no longer being supported, and don't get me started on the whole Quicktime for Windows not playing some MOV files mess. =) MP3 is a standard standard, with the only real question being whether a player will support high-rate VBR, which I prefer. Now, if you could get me totally lossless compression of sound, then I'll consider switching...

      OT: Ogg is such a crappy name for a format, anyway. OGG stands for "hi, I'm a geek, I'm going to name what I create after fantasy characters."

      --
      Get off my launchpad!
    10. Re:Now begins the hardest part... by Fweeky · · Score: 2

      > Now, if you could get me totally lossless compression of sound, then I'll consider switching...

      LPAC and FLAC may be worth a look, as may this comparison.

    11. Re:Now begins the hardest part... by Artifex · · Score: 2

      Nifty. It's got a plugin for WinAmp, at least =)

      However, there is a problem with the format not being widespread, yet. There's only codecs for Windows, Linux, and Solaris, so far. But thanks, I'll keep an eye on this =)

      --
      Get off my launchpad!
    12. Re:Now begins the hardest part... by rizzo · · Score: 2

      We can hope (and prey for the religeous among us)

      I assume you mean "pray", and not "prey". Unless your view of religious people is that of carnivorous animals, which I can understand too. ;)

      --

      "More organs means more human." - Zim

    13. Re:Now begins the hardest part... by spitzak · · Score: 2

      I guess you are the geek. I have no idea what "fantasy character" OGG is named after (I believe you, it is just that you would have to be a geek to realize that it is a fantasy character). When I see OGG I think of "egg" which I seem to remember was a major record label at one time, so a lot of people will at least subconciously think of this as something music-related.

    14. Re:Now begins the hardest part... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


      Well, you're wrong. It's the name of a tactic originally developed in Nettrek. Orion ship G (which showed up as Og) was often used for kamikazie attacks against Important Targets.

      In general strategy games, it means to forcefully attack an opponent with the expectation that the resources expended will be renewed faster than the opponent will be able to regain his previous advantage. (Hero Rushing in Warcraft III is an example of ogging, although no one calls it that...)

    15. Re:Now begins the hardest part... by Jucius+Maximus · · Score: 1
      "Since OGG doesn't have ~$50 billion in the bank to promote itself, it's up to us to tell companies that we want this technologies in our iPods, Rios, or player-du-jour."

      In that case I suggest you go fill out the survey related to Philips' forthcoming personal music players and make sure you fill in the fields related to 'favourite format' appropriately. (There is an OGG option for those who are interested.) I, er, can't find the URL right now but I was there last night on a different machine, so I can't check the history either.

    16. Re:Now begins the hardest part... by hyperturbopete · · Score: 1

      Adoption strategy:
      * make sure everyone has the winamp plugin that plays ogg.
      * get windows media player to support it (is it possible to just make a dll for that??)
      * put ogg on P2P :-)

    17. Re:Now begins the hardest part... by Artifex · · Score: 2

      I guess you are the geek. I have no idea what "fantasy character" OGG is named after (I believe you, it is just that you would have to be a geek to realize that it is a fantasy character).

      Well, I'm geek enough to read Slashdot, which has mentioned in past articles that "Ogg Vorbis" has something to do with Terry Pratchett. I just looked up the FAQ at the Vorbis website, which pointed me to this page that confirms that Vorbis is from a character in one of his books, and Ogg is from the old game Netrek.

      --
      Get off my launchpad!
    18. Re:Now begins the hardest part... by pinny20 · · Score: 1

      Adoption strategy:
      * make sure everyone has the winamp plugin that plays ogg.


      Winamp 3 comes with Ogg Vorbis support :)

      * get windows media player to support it (is it possible to just make a dll for that??)

      Check out MediaXW which provides an Ogg plugin for WMP

    19. Re:Now begins the hardest part... by atcurtis · · Score: 1

      Well - it may be useful now but travel a few years down the line ... if it stagnates and goes into bitrot, it becomes useless.

      This has happened to cool technology in the past - such as OpenDOC, CORBA (although it seems to be getting a revival with J2EE)...

      Grrr - mind going blank at 2am. Oh well.

      --
      -- The universe began. Life started on a billion worlds...
      -- Except on one where stupidity was there first.
    20. Re:Now begins the hardest part... by ottffssent · · Score: 2

      OT: Ogg is such a crappy name for a format, anyway. OGG stands for "hi, I'm a geek, I'm going to name what I create after fantasy characters."

      You prefer .MP3, which stands for "hi, I'm an idiot; I don't know it's an MPEG2 file" then?

      We've got .mpg, .mpeg, .mp2, .mp3, and probably several other file extensions for THE SAME STANDARD and you can't think of anything better to bitch about than the fact that ALL OGG FILES (audio, video, what have you) will have the SAME EXTENSION? Sheesh.

    21. Re:Now begins the hardest part... by Artifex · · Score: 2

      You prefer .MP3, which stands for "hi, I'm an idiot; I don't know it's an MPEG2 file" then?

      We've got .mpg, .mpeg, .mp2, .mp3, and probably several other file extensions for THE SAME STANDARD and you can't think of anything better to bitch about than the fact that ALL OGG FILES (audio, video, what have you) will have the SAME EXTENSION? Sheesh.


      Actually, it's MPEG II Layer 3, and is used specifically for audio (have you ever seen an MP3 video?), while .mpg, .mpeg, and .mp2 have all been used for video. And, yes, it's quite confusing to have mixed media formats using the same extension, when not all Ogg players will recognize all media types. Does the WinAmp plugin for Ogg Vorbis have support for the video Oggs, and anything else that may come out? This is going to slow acceptance of the Vorbis format.

      --
      Get off my launchpad!
    22. Re:Now begins the hardest part... by dytin · · Score: 2

      Winamp 2.80 also has built in Ogg/Vorbis support.

    23. Re:Now begins the hardest part... by ottffssent · · Score: 2

      Actually, it's MPEG II Layer 3

      Yup. MPEG2, just like I said. And .mpg and .mpeg and .mpeg2 are extensions I have found on audio-only files, so don't go saying they're video-only. As regards video .ogg files in winamp, did you actually read the press release? OR what you wrote? Ogg VORBIS is at 1.0. The Vorbis codec is for audio, so it naturally wouldn't know what to do with video (though I'll bet it'd play the audio track from an Ogg video stream), much like winamp doesn't know what to do with an mpeg2 video. If you're worried about it, you're welcome to name all your vorbis files with .vorbis (assuming you're using a reasonably modern OS/filesystem) so you don't confuse them with anything else.

      Who are you to say that having one extension leading you to one entity to provide software and support is more confusing than having dozens of extensions (how many native MSOffice file formats have their own extension. All of 'em.) for the same product making things look completely different. Who would guess that .xls and .doc belong to the same product? IF nothing else, I search google for .ogg and get vorbis.com and xiph.org as the top two results. If I search for .xls, I get two pages in the top 200 from Microsoft, neither one telling me what the hell xls is. Searching for .doc gets me nothing from Microsoft in the top 200 results.

      So tell me again, which is more useful, helpful, understandable, benefitial to the user?

    24. Re:Now begins the hardest part... by dublin · · Score: 2

      Of course, any computer program or operating system that is well-designed will not need or require anachronisms like filename extensions to figure out how to use a file. Turning the filename into a database with the last three or four characters determining file type is a BAD idea! The fact that it's common practice doesn't make it any better.

      These are a throwback to the bad old DEC-isms (8.3, extension identifies file type) that made it into DOS and have continued to pollute even Unix-like operating systems since then.

      Old Unix users remember when the "file" command and /etc/magic were the system-wide database that allowed the OS or any application to correctly ID a file format without an extension. They're still there, just not used so much anymore.

      And of course, the Mac keeps the type/creator in the resource fork so again, file names only need contian information that's *useful* to the user, as it should be.

      HELP STAMP OUT FILE EXTENSIONS!

      (Oddly (and sadly), it looks like Microsoft gets this better than anyone - one of the stated goals for the upcoming "Longhorn" OS is that file type/name/location transparency. This is an *incredibly* powerful idea, and it looks like they're taking it several steps further than Apple's resource fork. If Longhorn delivers on half of what it's supposed to, it's the death of every other user-centric OS out there, and MS's desktop/laptop/workstation/tablet dominance will be complete. Longhorn scares me, but it's an exciting concept - if I could buy it today, I'd do so in a heartbeat, because it solves real problems that real users face every day; problems that are not even being thought about by anyone else outside of Apple..)

      --
      "The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last ./ post
  25. Still no specification by Flarners · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    A reference implementation is great and all, but until they get off their arses and release an exact specification of the Ogg format and codec, it's never going to take off. The reference decoder makes extensive use of floating point math, which is great for desktop systems, but absolutely unacceptable for portable devices of any sort. The only way to get an integer decoder right now is either to pay Xiph for their integer decoder (not bloody likely for most hardware companies; they don't have to pay to implement MP3, why should they pay for Ogg?) or to hack one together yourself. The latter option is infeasible until they get their act together and put out a specification.

    Sure, someone could just work from the reference implementation, but then their decoder inherits any bugs or other faults of the original decoder, and "features" that weren't meant to be part of the specification become standard. This is not good software engineering, and Xiph is ensuring that Ogg will never be used outside of the circles of smelly Linux zealots who use it now.

    --
    "The problem with the French is that they don't have a word for 'entrepeneur'." -George W. Bush
    1. Re:Still no specification by Skuto · · Score: 5, Informative

      >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
      A reference implementation is great and all, but until they get off their arses and release an exact specification of the Ogg format and codec, it's never going to take off.
      >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> >>>

      Vorbis 1.0 comes with a full specification.

      --
      GCP

    2. Re:Still no specification by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's _just a little bit_ inaccurate. 1.0 includes a full detailed specification of the entire format. Next time, don't use a pre-prepared rant without checking that your facts are still correct.

    3. Re:Still no specification by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There's alot of documentation been put into CVS the last few weeks so you'll have to see the docs.

    4. Re:Still no specification by RadioheadKid · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Umm...no, check CVS...module vorbis/docs, there's tons or specs in there for you. I think Monty finished them up last night. So before you jump down their throat, get your facts straight. Monty and the other guys have done a lot of work the past few weeks. Why not say thank you instead of spouting off about things you don't even have all the information on. BTW, Ogg Vorbis 1.0 sounds amazing. Better than an other CODEC out there. WMA is in the dust now.

      --
      "Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -Homer Simpson
    5. Re:Still no specification by rantenki · · Score: 1
      Ummmm, coz mp3 is patent encumbered? You could build a device that en/decodes without paying the $$$ with Ogg. I realize that mp3 decoders are free, but just decoding music isn't going to be enough for long (we are already seeing encoding recorder/players). As for the fp math, CPLDs/ASICs are cheap now. Duh. I like mp3 too (most of my collection is in mp3 format), but the legal aspects have to be considered.
      • The only way to get an integer decoder right now is either to pay Xiph for their integer decoder (not bloody likely for most hardware companies; they don't have to pay to implement MP3, why should they pay for Ogg?)
    6. Re:Still no specification by cmstremi · · Score: 1

      I'd love to use it, but it's impractical for me. When I asked the folks at SONICBlue if and when they'd release a firmware update for my RioVolt that would allow me to play .ogg's, they made it clear that there's not really a chance.

      What about other companies? Will there be any adoption of this format, or will vorbis only be useful on computers?

      I suppose I COULD convert/rerip my music to ogg's and then just convert them to mp3's when I want to burn a CDRW for my RioVolt, but why would I? That's too much trouble.

    7. Re:Still no specification by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yes, they do have to pay to implement mp3
      thats the bloody point

    8. Re:Still no specification by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      . ... This is not good software engineering, and Xiph is ensuring that Ogg will never be used outside of the circles of smelly Linux zealots who use it now.

      Why did you bother with this last bit? You had a good post going there, and then ruined it with an unnecessary attack.

    9. Re:Still no specification by arkane1234 · · Score: 1

      heh.. beg to differ.
      Ogg has the ability to be played under Windows, OS/2, Linux, ... and have easy to use software to encode/decode/listen already.

      Hell, there is even a (admittedly beta) codec for Windows already. Now, stop bitching and just use the damn thing if you want. Other than that, get off the "Oh my god, something else is around, and it can't be better because MP3 rocks" bandwagon. It's ONE hell of alot better, and it takes alot for me to say something like that considering I'm conservative about adopting new standards.

      --
      -- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
  26. Re:Serious question: iTunes by zaren · · Score: 2

    As far as I know, there's no Ogg support for iTunes or iPod at the moment. There's a SourceForge site up with info about an Ogg plugin for Quicktime playback, but that's all I can find so far.

    --
    Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
  27. Re:Serious question: iTunes by Dark+Paladin · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    Cool - somebody mod this guy up. I'll have to check it out later and see if Puffy AmiYumi sounds better in MP3 or Org format.

  28. Use Google, silly by mblase · · Score: 4, Insightful

    from (http://www.nouturn.com/goodies/):

    Goodie #1: Ogg Vorbis QuickTime Component
    This allows the user to play Ogg files in most QuickTime applications. As for iTunes support, this will soon be available. At the moment, iTunes doesn't use the standard QuickTime protocol, so it doesn't automatically take advantage of the component. Bad Apple! Not following your own standards!


    A quick search turns up several iTunes plug-ins for visualizations, but not for audio codecs. I don't think the new iTunes 3 changes this. Developing plug-ins for iPod would be a whole 'nother ball o' wax. So I think you're out of luck.

    1. Re:Use Google, silly by pigpen_ · · Score: 1

      Guess you need to try google again because the NoUturn link is old and not correct. There is a quicktime component that allows ogg files to be played in iTunes, as well as quicktime player. It worked in iTunes2 and it works in iTunes3. The component isn't perfect as it doesn't support vorbis comments but it does work to play ogg files in iTunes.

      --
      Zambozay! My brain must've been eatin' a sandwich!
  29. Re:Woohoo! by xercist · · Score: 2

    The decoder has been frozen for a long time now. The current decoder will be able to play any vorbis file created by any encoder released at any time in the future.

    --

    --
    grep "xercist" /dev/random ...you'll find me in there someday
  30. Re:Serious question: iTunes by John_Booty · · Score: 1, Redundant

    I just want to second your mention of Puffy AmiYumi!

    --

    OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
  31. gcc licensing by MenTaLguY · · Score: 4, Informative

    Programs written in GCC have to be published opensource because they use special embedded "assembler" code. Also look out for programs like bison.

    There's also the basic C runtime stubs (e.g. crt1.o), though I think that's part of glibc.

    However, if you actually bother reading the licenses on the code that gets embedded by bison and gcc, special excemptions are made --

    Thus, code compiled with gcc may be distributed under any license you want. Sorry, thanks for playing.

    --

    DNA just wants to be free...
    1. Re:gcc licensing by Atrus5 · · Score: 1

      However, if you actually bother reading the licenses on the code that gets embedded by bison and gcc, special excemptions are made --

      Thus, code compiled with gcc may be distributed under any license you want. Sorry, thanks for playing.


      I reccomend this FAQ entry for a practical explanation of the LGPL.

  32. Quality? by mgkimsal2 · · Score: 2

    If they would offer songs in ogg vorbis they would be greatly increasing the quality of their product

    How so? MP3 isn't all that bad. I suspect for many casual listeners, the difference between MP3 and Ogg isn't hugely noticeable for most files.

    1. Re:Quality? by Skuto · · Score: 2

      >I suspect for many casual listeners, the difference between MP3 and Ogg isn't hugely noticeable for most files.

      At 128kbps, probably not so easy. But try 64kbps :)

      --
      GCP

    2. Re:Quality? by Mackus+Daddius · · Score: 1
      How so? MP3 isn't all that bad. I suspect for many casual listeners, the difference between MP3 and Ogg isn't hugely noticeable for most files.

      to me, mp3s are like listening to the radio: it's not the best quality, but it's free*. once you start charging money for them, the lossy quality becomes an issue.

      in many ways buying mp3s is like taking a step back from cds to cassettes. with a cd, you have a 1st generation format which you can then make any number of different quality copies of (64k, 128k, 192k, ogg, mp3...). when you purchase an mp3, you're stuck with it in that format. what works well on your 100G home system is probably not the optimal solution for using on that 32M flash player you take to the gym.

      *yes i realize the mp3 format is not free, what i mean by free is that most people's exposure to mp3s has been without payment, either through filesharing, cd ripping, or promo downloads

  33. cdparanoia by ByTor-2112 · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    Great, now they can get back to something I actually care about -- working on cdparanoia for BSD.

    Seriously, I think this could be a huge BUST. There is just too much pressure towards proprietary codecs, and the small market share that will use this is not enough to do anything.

    1. Re:cdparanoia by Geekboy(Wizard) · · Score: 1

      cdparanoid works on bsd, or are you talking about something else?

    2. Re:cdparanoia by Michael+Koepf · · Score: 0

      Well, the market share might be too small, still. Nevertheless I think that in a time where even jpegs get commercialized people will start to estimate the real value of the word "free".

  34. Re:Woohoo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Future OGG players will decode any Vorbis-file.

    Today many (hardware) MP3 players do not play for example VBR-coded MP3-files.

    Maybe there are more MP3-users because Vorbis was released today?

  35. Ogg Vorbis is public domain, BSD, and GPL. by kjoonlee · · Score: 5, Informative

    The Ogg Vorbis format itself is public domain.

    The reference library is BSD-ish.

    The reference tools are GPLed.

  36. Raster Loves Mandrake: chapter 2 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The boinkinh

    Does anyone know a converter from ogg format to mp3 format for the new Itunes 3

  37. Try Speex too by jmv · · Score: 5, Informative

    I thought some of you could be interested in my project Speex (http://speex.sourceforge.net), which is like Vorbis but optimized for speech. Bit-rates ranging from 8 kbps to 32 kbps for good quality speech...

    1. Re:Try Speex too by LWATCDR · · Score: 1

      Is there a windows version?

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    2. Re:Try Speex too by Hieronymus+Howard · · Score: 1

      If it works, then you should try to interest gaming companies. I believe that online multiplayer games will increasingly target broadband connections (Doom 3 MP may be broadband only) and live chat between players will be a killer (as long as anti-asshole measures are in place). But with a 'business-friendly' open-source license, you could really be on to something here.

      HH

    3. Re:Try Speex too by jmv · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I never tested it myself, but many people reported having no problem getting Speex to work under Win32 and even WinCE. Actually, most of Speex is just a pure ANSI C library that can probably compile on about any platform. Then, there's the file-based encoder/decoder that require libogg and gettext, that's all.

    4. Re:Try Speex too by jmv · · Score: 2

      Speex is LGPL, so I'd consider that buisness-friendly...

    5. Re:Try Speex too by swb · · Score: 2

      I'd love in-game live audio chat, especially for FPS that have objective maps. They would greatly benefit from users being able to actually attempt a real strategy rather than the chaos that reigns now.

    6. Re:Try Speex too by Turing+Machine · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I've played with it a little bit under both Windows and Linux.

      One problem that turns up when compiling with Visual C++ is that all the float[] arrays initialized with constants cause the compiler to emit thousands of warnings about casting const double to float. It's not an actual error, of course, but it IS irritating. I could be wrong, but I think the ANSI spec does state that a constant like 1.234235 is considered double by default. It's possible that it's just a M$ thing, though.

      Nice work, though! I'm looking forward to the final version.

      On the patent issue which you (and many others in OSS) are facing: I've often wondered if perhaps these projects might make good projects for law students specializing in intellectual property. You know, the sort of deal where the student does all the work under the supervision of a professor.

      I have no idea if law students do anything like this. It's pretty common in engineering and computer science.

    7. Re:Try Speex too by jmv · · Score: 2

      Maybe the constant warning is a C/C++ issue. I usually compile with gcc and flags -Wall -ansi -pedantic and get no warning so I assumed it was correct ANSI C. Have you tried compiling with a C compiler?

      As for law students having a look at the patents, I'd be really interested if you know one! Unfortunately, I've looked at a coupe US patents online and it seems like you need to be both an engineer and a lawyer to understand what's going on... Descriptions are so obscure that they can make "1+1=2" look like an revolutionary innovation.

    8. Re:Try Speex too by bsane · · Score: 1

      Currently counterstrike has in game 'chat'. Depending on who your teamates are it can help a lot.

    9. Re:Try Speex too by Turing+Machine · · Score: 2

      Maybe the constant warning is a C/C++ issue

      Looks like that may be it. I used the /TC command line option to tell the VC++ compiler to switch to straight C mode and the warnings went away. Thanks!

      And thanks again for working on this project. I'm in the process of creating some software to be used for distance education. Right now I'm using Ogg, but since most of this will be voice conferencing (not music or arbitrary sounds) Speex sounds like exactly what I need. A lot of the students who'll be using this are still on dialup.

      I don't really know any law students even though I eat in their cafeteria a lot (much better food than in CS, EE, or Ed Psych, all of which are limited to vending machines. That says a lot about the nature of the world, I think :-).

      Is there a law school at Sherbrooke? Maybe you could get some help there?

    10. Re:Try Speex too by jmv · · Score: 2

      Cool project. In fact for voice only, Speex should be much more adapted. Last time I checked, I could get the same quality as Ogg with almost half the bit-rate (of course, the opposite is true for music). Also, I think the CPU requirements are lower. As for modem communication, it's quite feasible since you can get intelligible speech with as low as 6 kbps. If you're curious, you can try the CVS version of Linphone which integrates Speex at 8 kbps and 15 kbps.

  38. Lesson Learned... by FortKnox · · Score: 2

    Lesson to be learned here:
    Mirror everything before announcing the release.

    --
    Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
    1. Re:Lesson Learned... by boa13 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Lesson to be learned here:
      Mirror everything before announcing the release.


      Tell that to Michael. The Vorbis team was mirroring everything when he leaked the story. The release has not been announced yet.

    2. Re:Lesson Learned... by geekoid · · Score: 5, Funny

      Lesson to be learned here:
      Mirror everything before announcing the release to Michael.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  39. Blame can lie in any of 4 places by yerricde · · Score: 5, Informative

    I find that when I "rip" music from CDs into OOG Vorbis Format that it has poor playback quality (very crackly).

    Does the same thing happen when you rip from CD into .wav without encoding to .ogg or .mp3? What happens when you look at the .wav in a spectrogram?

    If you hear crackling from the .wav, and you can see it on a spectrogram (it'll look like vertical lines through the whole spectrum), then you're seeing copy protection or some other form of physical CD damage.

    If you hear crackling from the wav, but you can't see it on a spectrogram, check your audio drivers.

    If you don't hear crackling from the wav, then use the reference encoder and decoder (oggenc and ogg123) to turn .wav into .ogg into .wav. If you get crackling from this, then libvorbis is at fault.

    If wav->ogg->wav->player works, but wav->ogg->player doesn't work through the same player, contact the developers of the player.

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
  40. Re:No way. by Idolminds · · Score: 1

    It's just as easy as Fraunhofer...

  41. Re:Depends if you use GCC to compile it by Space+cowboy · · Score: 4, Informative

    " Programs written in GCC have to be published opensource because ..."

    You don't work for Microsoft do you ?

    There are zero, nada, none, zilch, 0 licencing restrictions on code created with gcc. There are specific statements to that effect in the code and licencing. Perhaps you should read them.

    Simon

    --
    Physicists get Hadrons!
  42. think it through for a second by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Case 1: leave the server up to be Slashdotted. Result: no one can see it; mirrors can't get it.

    Case 2: take down servers to everyone but mirrors. Result: no one can see it; mirrors CAN get it.

    Is this starting to make sense?

  43. Yeah, thanks Cmdr ;) by abischof · · Score: 2

    2002-07-15 15:54:22 Ogg Vorbis Goes Gold (articles,announce) (rejected)

    Harrumph.

    ObOnTopic: So, can anyone recommend a good Ogg-friendly CD-ripper for win32? I'm a big fan of CDex (GPLd even!), but I wasn't sure if there was anything better out there.
    --

    Alex Bischoff
    HTML/CSS coder for hire

    1. Re:Yeah, thanks Cmdr ;) by m_chan · · Score: 2, Offtopic

      I agree with you that CDex is very good.

      You probably should also take a look at Exact Audio Copy.

    2. Re:Yeah, thanks Cmdr ;) by NiGHTSFTP · · Score: 1

      http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/

      Vorbis Friendly. Best ripper ever.

      --
      http://www.angryburrito.com/ The best, completely unfinished software review site ever.
    3. Re:Yeah, thanks Cmdr ;) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I recomment exact audio copy (exactaudiocopy.de). I've never had any serious problems with it. Just rip it first then use the ogg encoding program afterwards.

    4. Re:Yeah, thanks Cmdr ;) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I use RipTrax. It's free and seems to work pretty well.

    5. Re:Yeah, thanks Cmdr ;) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://www.poikosoft.com/

      ezcd extractor + other nice utils...... loveit

    6. Re:Yeah, thanks Cmdr ;) by geekoid · · Score: 2

      your story was not accepted because they already knew about it. Michael just choked, again.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    7. Re:Yeah, thanks Cmdr ;) by steveha · · Score: 2

      I know you asked for Win32, but please forgive me: I want to put in a plug for Grip, the GTK-based ripping program.

      Grip includes cdparanoia, tools for reliable extraction of audio data. Another fine xiph.org product!

      I like Grip enough that I do all my CD ripping from Linux now.

      steveha

      --
      lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
    8. Re:Yeah, thanks Cmdr ;) by Uggy · · Score: 2

      I'll second that! I use grip+cdparanoia exclusively and haven't had a problem with my over 700 cd's, some from the early 80's. You can even set the thing to auto-rip on insert. I stick the disk in and forget about it. It downloads the cdinfo, rips, and tags/encodes. Then I'm left with some nice -q 5 ogg's that sound way better than mp3 (for me even better than mp3 at 256, as I can still hear annoying pre-echo in mp3 sometimes)-- that warbley thing

      Anyway, a re-ripping I will go.

      --
      Toddlers are the stormtroopers of the Lord of Entropy.
    9. Re:Yeah, thanks Cmdr ;) by arkane1234 · · Score: 1

      I definately have to agree with you there... the only problem I have with Grip is that it starts to get all sorts of whacky on certain tracks and just sits there constantly reading it. (then after a long while just stops reading and forgets about that track with a 128bit stub file for the mp3)

      but other than that, it's a great peice of software!

      --
      -- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
  44. Re:Serious question: iTunes by pigpen_ · · Score: 1

    The component you linked to works in iTunes.

    --
    Zambozay! My brain must've been eatin' a sandwich!
  45. XMMS Equalizer by mj01nir · · Score: 1, Troll

    Now if only the XMMS eq supported Ogg, I'd be a happy, happy boy. I already use Ogg for all my ripping / encoding needs and I have a 'lil Compaq IA-1 connected to my stereo and LAN to play Ogg files. XMMS eq support would be the final piece for me.

    --
    the no .sig .sig
    1. Re:XMMS Equalizer by SagSaw · · Score: 1

      Check the plug-in directory. I've had no problems playing vorbis files on my computer via xmms.

      --
      Come test your mettle in the world of Alter Aeon!
  46. GOOGLE ISN'T A PLUGIN FOR OGG, YOU TROGLODYTE. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  47. Oh great! by TooTallFourThinking · · Score: 1

    Great! Slashdot killed Ogg Vorbis! Maybe we should post an article about Microsoft, oh wait...

  48. Transcoding == Bad by xercist · · Score: 5, Informative

    Ok, since I see this asked 5x a day on #vorbis, I'm going to tell everyone now.

    If you have an mp3 collection, and want to use ogg instead, please do not convert the mp3s to oggs. It's like faxing a document, then re-faxing the fax. It just gets all unreadable. The result is that people will hear the ogg file and think "Oh my god this sucks! Ogg really blows! I'm not using this format!".

    If you have the original CD, rip it and encode. If you don't, keep the mp3s.

    --

    --
    grep "xercist" /dev/random ...you'll find me in there someday
    1. Re:Transcoding == Bad by jmv · · Score: 3, Informative

      If you have the original CD, rip it and encode. If you don't, keep the mp3s.

      I'd like to add something to that, AFAIK the patents on MP3 only apply to the encoder so if you already have the MP3 file, there's no problem for decoding.

    2. Re:Transcoding == Bad by Prior+Restraint · · Score: 2

      I'd like to add something to that, AFAIK the patents on MP3 only apply to the encoder so if you already have the MP3 file, there's no problem for decoding.

      Actually, the patent is on the file format itself, so it does apply to players, however the patent holder has said that decoders will not have a royalty charged. I still intend to spend a large fraction of the weekend re-ripping my collection just on general principle, though.

    3. Re:Transcoding == Bad by Mals · · Score: 1

      Does this also apply to mp3s that have been decoded to wave and then re-encoded to Ogg?

    4. Re:Transcoding == Bad by r6144 · · Score: 1
      Not always. Sometimes I download MP3s that are 192kbps or more, and since I have only crappy soundcards and such, and the volume is low too, an 64k (or less) Vorbis file is quite enough.

      The quality difference is so high that transcoding doesn't really hurt.

  49. Re:Serious question: iTunes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    yeah that stuff is so mentioned!!!!!

  50. Good! Now they can get back to work on CDParanoia! by Baconator · · Score: 2

    March 27, 2001

    Things on hold for now: No, that doesn't mean the project is dead, just that active development is on hold while we throw all the time we have available to get OggVorbis to 1.0 in a reasonable amount of time. Once Vorbis hits 1.0, we'll get back to Paranoia.

    'Bout damn time! Lossy encoding I could give a rat's ass about, but byte-perfect audio extraction... now that's real software!

  51. RCA still owns MP3 by yerricde · · Score: 2

    hardware companies ... don't have to pay to implement MP3

    THOMSON multimedia, the sublicensor of the MP3 patents in the United States, charges a royalty for decoders, at $15,000 for the first 20,000 annual units and 75c/unit thereafter.

    The latter option is infeasible until they get their act together and put out a specification.

    Wait a few days for the Ogg Vorbis 1.0 release to be finished, and you'll apparently be able to download the specification as part of the libvorbis manual.

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
  52. What a naughty trick by Sloppy · · Score: 1
    Keep saying that it's a year away, making people think that "RC" doesn't really literally mean "Release Candidate", and then -- surprise -- release it! Now everyone thinks you're a miracle worker, ahead of schedule. Kind of like how Scotty doubles his repair estimates.

    I sure fell for it.

    --
    As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
    1. Re:What a naughty trick by atcurtis · · Score: 1


      Scotty quadruples his repair estimates.... If he only doubled, people would think that he was just plain fast ;)

      --
      -- The universe began. Life started on a billion worlds...
      -- Except on one where stupidity was there first.
    2. Re:What a naughty trick by ethereal · · Score: 1

      Double the estimate, and move to the next higher unit of time measurement.

      "Could take weeks, sir!"

      --

      Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and

    3. Re:What a naughty trick by Prior+Restraint · · Score: 1

      Double the estimate, and move to the next higher unit of time measurement.

      Funny you should say that: I had a professor in college who suggested that very strategy for coding estimates. His theory was that until you really learned how to estimate properly, you could do this and still find yourself rubbing up against the deadline.

  53. -q Quality:Bitrate graphs by xercist · · Score: 5, Informative

    I've spent time generating graphs of vorbis 1.0 encoder's output bitrate vs the -q (quality) setting input. They're very cool looking. enjoy.

    http://www.lammah.com/~xercist/vorbis/bitrate-grap h/1.0/

    --

    --
    grep "xercist" /dev/random ...you'll find me in there someday
  54. Offtopic, I know.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How come /. never gets /.:ed? ;-) I mean, thousands of geeks around the world keep refreshing their browser all day to get news from Slashdot. The same amount of people visit the links posted in the news and all of a sudden their website is incredibly slow or unreachable. Is the /. webfarm so much more powerful than the companies who get /.:ed from time to time? Just curious.. :-)

    1. Re:Offtopic, I know.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because their server farm and other infrastructure is set up to handle the amount of traffic they get. Getting 'slashdotted' means getting more traffic than you were ever expecting, or maybe willing to support with enough hardware.

  55. Re:Serious question: iTunes by gslj · · Score: 1

    If you'd like an iTunes equivalent that can play (not yet make) Oggs, try Audion. Version 3.0 just came out days ago. (http://www.panic.com)

    -Gareth

  56. Re:Serious question: iTunes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You're out of luck. This is the main reason that nobody wanted an iPod.

  57. Will Vorbis become Windows Media Audio 10? by yerricde · · Score: 2

    Will there be any adoption of this format, or will vorbis only be useful on computers?

    Serious Sam 2 uses Ogg Vorbis for its background music streams. If more games adopt Xiph.org's technology, Microsoft may add the BSD licensed .ogg codec for WMPlayer to Windows YQ (even Microsoft likes the BSD License, which requires only credit in the manual), possibly calling it "Windows Media Audio 10" or something.

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
    1. Re:Will Vorbis become Windows Media Audio 10? by nsideops · · Score: 0

      Rock Manager uses Ogg Vorbis for ALL of it's music tracks. Whats cool about this is in the game you get to "mix" seperate tracks together to form songs together. The sound quality is great.

      --
      Teach someone to use the net and they won't bother you for weeks; show them Slashdot and you may never see them again.
  58. Quality by _pi-away · · Score: 1

    Speaking as an audiophile and an audio engineer, and strictly referring to sound quality: mp3pro is better.

    --

    "The crows seemed to be calling his name, thought Caw."
    1. Re:Quality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      since noone else is responding to you, Ill be the first. I wouldnt know how good mp3pro is since the encoder isnt free or open source (unless you want low low bitrates)
      1/2 the excitement is that Ogg is opensource and free
      the other half is that its actually pretty fucking good too, rejoice !!

    2. Re:Quality by Skuto · · Score: 2

      >Speaking as an audiophile and an audio engineer, and strictly referring to sound quality: mp3pro is better.

      Current group listening tests contradict this. You didn't state how you arrived at this conclusion either.

      --
      GCP

    3. Re:Quality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      hmmm. appeal to authority isn't a valid argument even if you aren't lying through your teeth :)

      There is real empirical evidence to say you are wrong. Where is your science to back up this assertion?

    4. Re:Quality by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you the same Anonymous Coward posting to 2ch.net?

    5. Re:Quality by _pi-away · · Score: 1

      It's my opinion, i don't need lab results. I'm just stating my opinion.

      --

      "The crows seemed to be calling his name, thought Caw."
    6. Re:Quality by arkane1234 · · Score: 1

      As most audiophiles will tell you, it's not science it's art :)

      Basically boiling down to saying, "I look down my nose at this rubbish! pith, pith.. go away you lossy algorithym, for I deem you unsatisfactory."
      When in actuality you can tell the difference emmensely... in the opposite polarity. It's more than obvious which is better, if you bother to use 1.0 and rip a song or two from a CD then convert it in the different formats. OGG sounds crisper, cleaner, and to top it all off the size is smaller. Even if it wasn't GPL software, this is something to marvel over.

      I just ripped Marilyn Manson's "The Speed of Pain" (has a bunch of ups and downs in the frequency so I can analyze it) and even at -1 quality it's acceptable. At >1 I really couldn't tell the difference between the WAV and the OGG. The song is 5m30s and the MP3 (128kBits, 44.1Khz, Stereo) measured in at approx 5.2mb (5,281,459 bytes). The OGG file (that sounds close to the quality of the MP3) is of Quality 1, and it measures in at approx. 3.2mb (3,162,226 bytes).

      For fairness I did force 128bit with the -b flag of the oggenc utility, and it sounds much better in the highs and lows than the MP3, but measures in at 5.1mb (5,104,675 bytes).

      --
      -- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
  59. BTW: OpenOffice 1.01 is out Re:The march of OSS by randomErr · · Score: 3, Informative

    FYI: OpenOffice 1.01 is out now.

    --
    You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
  60. Re:Good! Now they can get back to work on CDParano by boa13 · · Score: 2

    Unlikely. I'm not related to them expect by hanging around in #vorbis and having continuously listened to Oggs for the last six months, but it seems to me that they'll focus on Ogg Theora once Vorbis 1.0 is released.

  61. Not so fast! by agent+oranje · · Score: 1

    I'm one of those poor bastards who "made the switch" and got an OS X machine. So, at least for the moment, I cannot use ogg vorbis in iTunes, never mind using it across applications...

    I've been a happy member of emusic.com for a lot longer than I've been a mac owner, but I'd cancel my account in a heartbeat if I could no longer listen to the files in my application of choice. I doubt that emusic.com will switch to a new format any time soon, as mp3 has grown into a worldwide standard. Maybe in time, ogg will do the same, but for the moment, I don't even have the option to switch.

    --
    -agent oranje.
    1. Re:Not so fast! by damiam · · Score: 1
      So, at least for the moment, I cannot use ogg vorbis in iTunes, never mind using it across applications...

      Yes you can.

      --
      It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
    2. Re:Not so fast! by Eccles · · Score: 1

      I doubt that emusic.com will switch to a new format any time soon

      They wouldn't have to; just offer both formats. I doubt their storage bill would be that much higher as a percentage of total expenses.

      --
      Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
  62. Radios streaming in Ogg? by mutende · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Could you please point me to your favorite ogg streaming radio? I only know of Radio WOPN and I need some change...

    Cheers!

    --
    Unselfish actions pay back better
    1. Re:Radios streaming in Ogg? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      icecast has a list of stations. All of the stations blow, however.

    2. Re:Radios streaming in Ogg? by arkane1234 · · Score: 1

      the ones on icecast don't tell the compression scheme, so it's hard to tell.

      From the sounds of the stations though, it's definately not OGG :)

      --
      -- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
  63. The sites are back by boa13 · · Score: 3, Informative
  64. Hopefully, R3mix.net will pick this up by miracle69 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'd love for r3mix.net (or a similar site) to analyze the OGG format so I can be ensured that at x bitrate, it is the same as CD-quality. I currently rip mp3s at 256k, using options that r3mix.net recommends, and I must say I've been very happy. However, now that ogg is out, I will switch all future rips to that format.

    Anyone know of any good links?

    --
    Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
    1. Re:Hopefully, R3mix.net will pick this up by Skuto · · Score: 3, Informative

      >I'd love for r3mix.net (or a similar site) to
      >analyze the OGG format so I can be ensured that at
      >x bitrate, it is the same as CD-quality. I
      >currently rip mp3s at 256k, using options that
      >r3mix.net recommends, and I must say I've been very
      >happy. However, now that ogg is out, I will switch
      >all future rips to that format.

      Most of the analysis on r3mix.net is way outdated, and most people involved with LAME left it after it turned out the author wasn't intrested in maximal quality, but just to promote 'his' preset. Most codec developers hang out on hydrogenaudio.org nowadays.

      Ogg Vorbis has by default highly tuned VBR modes, which get to r3mix quality at about -q4 to -q5, so there is little need for 'special' presets.

      --
      GCP

    2. Re:Hopefully, R3mix.net will pick this up by miracle69 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well,
      What is the recommendation for OGG to produce CD-Quality sound - regardless of bitrate?

      Is it still 256k? Is it 192k? Do you tell the VBR to go between 192 and 320? I'm not familiar with the ins and outs of ogg (yet), but I will convert as soon as I find some (or do some) good analysis between OGG and CD audio.

      --
      Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
    3. Re:Hopefully, R3mix.net will pick this up by Skuto · · Score: 2

      >What is the recommendation for OGG to produce >CD-Quality sound - regardless of bitrate?

      >Is it still 256k? Is it 192k? Do you tell the VBR >to go between 192 and 320?

      As I said above, if you used r3mix, then -q4 or -q5 is safe.

      --
      GCP

    4. Re:Hopefully, R3mix.net will pick this up by Hitokage_Nishino · · Score: 2, Informative

      Vorbis bitrate is a secondary function of something called a Quality number(or -q value). What that does is determine exactly how strongly vorbis's VBR model compresses the audio. How high or low the bitrate actually is depends on how much is needed for a certain song at a certain Quality.

      I'm not quite sure as to how effective the 1.0 Quality scale is, but in RC3 many felt that 5-6 was about CD transparent. Personally, I prefered 4.99 because it was as close to 5 as you can get without activating lossless stereo coupling(5 or above)... which gives a nice bitrate spike. This behavior has probably changed, so again... I'm not quite sure.

      Give it a few test runs for yourself and see what you prefer.

    5. Re:Hopefully, R3mix.net will pick this up by DarkVein · · Score: 2, Informative
      I've been using -q5.5 since RC2. This gives you CD quality, and an average bitrate of ~176kbps. I've got some Sennheisser HD580s, and I have yet to make an ogg at this quality that I can distinguish from the actual wav. I have found -q5.5 to be a worthy replacement for LAME VBR and CBR ~256kbps with optimal settings.
      Is it still 256k? Is it 192k? Do you tell the VBR to go between 192 and 320? I'm not familiar with the ins and outs of ogg (yet), but I will convert as soon as I find some (or do some) good analysis between OGG and CD audio.
      Bitrate is a measure of how uncompressed the audio is. You use higher bitrates in MP3 to mask shoddy compression and anomolies. Ogg Vorbis is able to represent the same audio sample more accurately with less information, yeilding a lower bitrate. With oggenc, you use a higher quality setting to pack more descriptive information about the sample, which produces a higher bitrate. Vorbis is also natively VBR. Using fixed bitrates can yeild lower quality vorbis samples. For this reason, the bitrate description is often useless except as a comparsion of bandwidth consumption.
      --

      I'm as mimsy as the next borogove but your mome raths are completely outgrabe.

    6. Re:Hopefully, R3mix.net will pick this up by Eil · · Score: 2


      What is the recommendation for OGG to produce CD-Quality sound - regardless of bitrate?

      My suggestion (and I'm sure I'll get flamed for it) is to simply not use lossy compression at all. Lossy compression can approach (for certain types of audio) but never attain CD-quality audio.

      This is the conclusion I came up with a few months back when I did my own investigation into audio compression. I had some songs in WAV format that had been saved from a software analog synthesizer called ReBirth. These songs have an enormous amount of detail, in all parts of the spectrum, that got completely destroyed when using any lossy audio compression codec. The resulting files sounded dirty and just generally a lot less exciting than the original WAVs no matter what bitrate, frequency, or command-line flags I had set.

      I also tried a few of the lossless compression programs out there. While they sounded fine (true to their design), the resulting file was typically only about 10% smaller than if I were to simply bzip2 the WAV. Far too large for archival purposes.

      True, MP3 and OGG may be "good enough" for swapping pop tracks and streaming internet radio, but if you're looking for CD quality audio (and literally mean CD quality audio), your best bet is still a CD.

    7. Re:Hopefully, R3mix.net will pick this up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My suggestion (and I'm sure I'll get flamed for it) is to simply not use lossy compression at all. Lossy compression can approach (for certain types of audio) but never attain CD-quality audio.

      i won't flame for suggesting but provided that your original media is of higher quality than cd it's trivial to write a lossy format which is both of higher quality and less space consuming. (for example, compressed=pow(original/8388608.0, 0.7)*16384)

  65. Re:Ogg support for iTunes by zaren · · Score: 2

    COol! I just wandered acrossed the site this morning; I don't have a Mac that can run iTunes with me at the moment, or I'd have checked it out :)

    --
    Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
  66. Dare to compare! by boa13 · · Score: 2

    Ogg rules, check it for yourself: http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/listen.html. Don't reply before having read the page and listened to the samples. :)

  67. (don't flame me) Why? by foobar104 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I know this may be an ignorant question, but... why?

    I have about 400 CDs at home, but six months or so ago I ripped 'em all to MP3 at 160 Kbit-- small enough to be reasonable, big enough to sound find through the stereo system I have wired up in my house. They're occupying about 15 GB on my iMac at home, and when I want music I fire up iTunes and play 'em. I can't think of anything about this setup that I'd change.

    What is there about Ogg that I don't know yet that would make me say, ``Yeah, that's way better than MP3?'' Is it technically better, somehow? Can I squeeze that 15 GB music collection into 1 GB with no noticable loss of sound quality, or something?

    I don't mean to detract from anybody's work or achievement, but I guess I just don't understand why this is cool. Somebody please educate me.

    1. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by Laplace · · Score: 1, Troll

      The idea is this:

      Ogg/Vorbis isn't encumbered by patents. This means that anyone can implement a codec without fear of being sued.

      Apparently it is technologically superior to mp3, giving better compression ratios primarily through a wicked variable bitrate encoding algorithm (i.e. the stuff that needs less info to sound good uses less info).

      That said, ogg is dead. Name one portable music player that supports ogg. Name one that will. With all the DRM shit happening anyone who starts to sell a player that supports ogg will be drawn and quartered by the music industry.

      I too use iTunes, and it works great for me. My only problem is that I have a 10 gig HD in my iBook. Is it possible to upgrade the iBook hard drive?

      --
      The middle mind speaks!
    2. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by FooBarWidget · · Score: 4, Informative

      There are several reasons why Ogg Vorbis is cool.

      - Quality & File Size
      Ogg Vorbis files sound better than MP3s at the same bitrate.
      Or, if you don't care about quality, think it as this: Ogg Vorbis with the same quality as MP3s are smaller. Which means that Ogg Vorbis can save you a lot of space.
      You can probably squeeze your 15 GB music collection down to 10 or 8 GB, while preserving the same quality.

      One thing you must NOT do is convert MP3s to Ogg Vorbis! Both MP3 and Vorbis are lossy audio codecs, which means that the codec throws away information in order to make a file smaller. MP3 throws away information, Vorbis throws away other information, and throws it away differently. The end result is a file that sounds worse than the original MP3.
      What you should do instead is rip the CD directly to Vorbis. CD -> Vorbis = good; CD -> MP3 -> Vorbis = bad.
      Think CD->MP3->Vorbis as sending a fax, then fax the fax. You lose quality.

      Other reasons:

      - The file format is more flexible. Ogg Vorbis can be easily streamed. Perfect for Internet radios. Vorbis has a flexible tag system; in MP3s, all you can speficy is the name, year, type of music, and some other comments. Vorbis however supports freefield tags. You can add *any* information you want, and it can be as big as you want.

      - It's open source (BSD-style license), which means that you can do anything you want with it (including using it in your commercial programs).

      - It's not patented. No need to pay $$$ to patent holders.

    3. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by FooBarWidget · · Score: 2

      > That said, ogg is dead.

      Rediculous. Ogg has just been born and you already declare it dead just because not many people use it yet?

      Ogg is far from dead. Until the last developer dies, and the last user deletes his Ogg files, *Ogg Vorbis is still alive*! It's as simple as that. DOS is still alive because people still use it.

      > Name one portable music player that supports
      > ogg. Name one that will.

      I'll name 2. iPAQ and Zaurus.

    4. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by Skuto · · Score: 2

      >That said, ogg is dead. Name one portable music
      >player that supports ogg.

      iPAQ. Zaurus. Oh sorry, thats two.

      >Name one that will.

      NDA, sorry :)

      --
      GCP

    5. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by foobar104 · · Score: 2

      My only problem is that I have a 10 gig HD in my iBook. Is it possible to upgrade the iBook hard drive?

      Absolutely! I've bought a few drives from Other World Computing, and I've been blissfully happy. You can get 2.5" drives for your iBook for about $100 for 20 GB all the way up to 60 GB for almost $400.

      Their web site is at macsales.com. Don't let their crappy site put you off; they're worth doing business with.

    6. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by foobar104 · · Score: 2

      - Quality/Size

      That sounds cool and all, but I don't think a 2:1 savings in library size is a good enough reason for me to spend hundreds of hours re-encoding my CD collection. 10:1 might be, but 2:1 isn't a big enough deal to me.

      - Flexible

      I'm listening to an MP3 stream right now. (Limbik Frequencies at 128 Kbps, if you're curious.) I haven't heard a skip or a blip for at least three hours. So I don't see how Ogg could make it easier to stream audio over the Internet.

      And as for free-form tags goes, that's also not very interesting to me. I mean, I can't think of any metadata that I'd want to store that I can't already. Can you give me a good example of a practical use for free-form tags?

      - Open Source

      Doesn't matter to me one bit. I listen to music; I don't write software. (Actually, I do write software. But not audio software. And that's not my point, anyway.)

      - Not Patented

      I didn't have to pay anybody when I downloaded iTunes from apple.com. It's free. It encodes and plays. So this doesn't affect me, either. I know some people have strong opinions on patents and make decisions based on principle, but I'm just not one of 'em. If it doesn't affect me, I'm hard-pressed to care.

    7. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by FooBarWidget · · Score: 1, Interesting

      > That sounds cool and all, but I don't think a 2:1
      > savings in library size is a good enough reason
      > for me to spend hundreds of hours re-encoding my
      > CD collection. 10:1 might be, but 2:1 isn't a big
      > enough deal to me.

      10:1 isn't even possible (well not now anyway; perhaps after 10 or 20 years). Ogg Vorbis is one of he BEST codecs out there. Nobody has ever achieved to create a format that is 10 times smaller than MP3.

      > I'm listening to an MP3 stream right now.
      > (Limbik Frequencies at 128 Kbps, if you're
      > curious.) I haven't heard a skip or a blip for
      > at least three hours. So I don't see how Ogg
      > could make it easier to stream audio over the
      > Internet.

      Error detection and bitrate peeling.
      Especially bitrate peeling is interesting. That means Ogg Vorbis files can be 'peeled' to a lower bitrate (not the same as transcoding to a lower bitrate). The result is a file that sounds as if it was encoded at that bitrate in the first place. This makes it *a lot* easier to provide different bitrate version of the same file.
      The actual peeling tools don't exist yet, but the files created with the current encoder can be peeled using future peeling tools.

      > And as for free-form tags goes, that's also not
      > very interesting to me.

      It doesn't have to be interesting to YOU. But it is interesting to a lot of other people. They can now sort their files by language, country, company, price... you know, ANYTHING.

      > Doesn't matter to me one bit. I listen to
      > music; I don't write software. (Actually, I do
      > write software. But not audio software. And
      > that's not my point, anyway.)

      But it DOES influence you! Open source means freedom and low cost. Companies are more likely to accept a high-quality open source codec than an expensive commercial codec with all kinds of restrictions. And the amount of companies (think creators of portable players, etc.) supporting have a direct influence on you!
      And being open source also means that it's very unlikely that the format will contain any copy protection. You, as a CD ripper, is also directly influenced by that.

      Don't think that open source is irrellevent just because you're not a programmer.

      > I didn't have to pay anybody when I downloaded
      > iTunes from apple.com. It's free. It encodes
      > and plays. So this doesn't affect me, either. I
      > know some people have strong opinions on
      > patents and make decisions based on principle,
      > but I'm just not one of 'em. If it doesn't
      > affect me, I'm hard-pressed to care.

      You're just lucky that Fraunhofer doesn't sue home users. But you're actually a criminal because you didn't pay for an MP3 license.
      Yes, there are people in this world who DO care about the law.

    8. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by Shabazz · · Score: 1

      > Quality & File Size
      > You can probably squeeze your 15 GB music >collection down to 10 or 8 GB, while preserving the >same quality.

      I call bullshit on this. I use lame with the r3mix setting which tends to encode stuff between 150 and 200k, I just don't believe that Ogg will sound just as good at a third less space.

      Maybe if your point of reference is CBR from a bad MP3 encoder then Ogg will do better, but there are decent MP3 encoder's out there. Any link that shows Ogg trouncing well encoded MP3's would be appropriate and would force me to crawl back from where I done come from.

    9. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by Turing+Machine · · Score: 2

      I agree with most of your points, but I'd be very, very surprised if Apple hadn't licensed MP3 from Fraunhofer.

    10. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by saarbruck · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think in your case, you've got a slick setup that works, so why change it?

      Some of us are a little more nuts, and don't mind re-ripping a couple hundred CDs when the Next Best Format comes along. Maybe it's cool, maybe it's a little bit better quality, maybe there's a certain satisfaction in disassociating yourself from a format that's not open (MP3, Real, Windows Media). When you get down to nuts and bolts, they're all pretty darn impressive compression schemes with a host of bitrate options and quality settings.

      Once upon a time, I had my entire CD collection encoded as RealMedia, because I was going for space-saving over quality and Real was perceptibly better at low bitrates at that time. But I got so tired of the way their software takes over your desktop, keeps processes running in the background that you can't easily disable, and especially the constant bickering between Real and Microsoft about who broke whose compatibility. So I switched to MP3 because the hassle of re-encoding my collection was easier to bear than using products from annoying companies.

      So, I'm like you... I think Ogg's great, and in fact I'm using it in a side project of mine for playback, but my entire CD collection is now MP3 and I don't intend to re-rip it unless there's a compelling ease-of-use reason.

      To each his or her own. Don't let it bake your noodle.

      s.

      --
      I am the very model of a modern major general!
    11. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by FooBarWidget · · Score: 1

      Try www.ff123.net. Ogg Vorbis is even better than VBR Lame MP3s.

    12. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by foobar104 · · Score: 2

      Bitrate peeling does sound cool, but that only matters to broadcasters. If broadcasters used Ogg, I'd be interested in getting an Ogg player. But I'm asking from the perspective of me, the average user person.

      Same thing with free-form tags. Again, they sound neat in the abstract, but they don't really give me the ability to do anything that I want to do but can't. Once again, I'm average-user-guy.

      And as for 'freedom and low cost,' it's already here! I have iTunes 3.0 running on my iBook right now. It's 100% free. Anybody can download it and run it, straight from the Apple web site. No strings attached. Even if Apple stopped giving away iTunes, I'd still have my copy, and I'd still be able to do everything that I can do today. I'm not dependent on anybody for anything in that respect. So I'm afraid you're mistaken. Open source is 100% irrelevant in this instance. If iTunes and/or the MP3 codec were open source, my life wouldn't change a bit.

      And finally, I don't think you're right when you said, ``you're actually a criminal because you didn't pay for an MP3 license.'' I got iTunes from Apple, and Apple doesn't seem like the kind of company who would turn their users into criminals. I have absolutely no reason to think that anything I'm doing is anything less than perfectly legal.

    13. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by steveha · · Score: 2

      I have about 400 CDs at home, but six months or so ago I ripped 'em all to MP3 at 160 Kbit

      You basically asked two questions: why is ogg cool, and why it is worth the effort for you to re-rip 400 CDs.

      You got lots of answers for why ogg is cool. I'll go ahead and answer the second question:

      If you are happy with your 160 Kbit MP3 collection, then you shouldn't go to the effort to re-rip and re-encode 400 CDs. If you were to re-compress your collection using ogg, it would sound better... but if you are already content, there isn't much need for you to change anything.

      You might want to consider using ogg for future additions to your collection, though. It really is better, and it has a bright future.

      steveha

      --
      lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
    14. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by Steveftoth · · Score: 1


      - The file format is more flexible. Ogg Vorbis can be easily streamed. Perfect for Internet radios.


      Do you actually know that this is so? I know that one of the goals of the MP3 design is streamed play in fact that's pretty much how it works so I would say that this claim is bogus. They are probably about the same, with OGG slightly better if you consider that it probably takes less bandwidth to get the same quality, but even then it's debatable.

      I'm got the same problem, all my music is in MP3 because that's what was available at the time. I'm happy with it, but I do wish that I had one of those mp3 hard drives with a 20+ gb storage.

      (OT) Is it only me, or would other people pay for a device that is slightly larger then a normal IDE HD and plays mp3s. The kind of device that you would run off your desk, but would still be portable. Then you could get 160 GB of storage, for movies as well.

    15. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by DarkVein · · Score: 1
      What is there about Ogg that I don't know yet that would make me say, ``Yeah, that's way better than MP3?'' Is it technically better, somehow? Can I squeeze that 15 GB music collection into 1 GB with no noticable loss of sound quality, or something?
      A legitimate question! :D What the Vorbis codec can do for you is more accurate accoustic representation in less space. This isn't a 20:1 reduction, more like 256kbit->176kbits. Vorbis is able to represent tonal quality far better, and, unlike MP3, is able to literally carry a tune! :D By that I mean that Vorbis doesn't have the horrible warbling that MP3 does in delicate musical pieces.

      If you listen to any delicate music, like classical, you will notice a severe improvement with violin and flute solos.

      The Ogg container is very neat, being designed for streaming and VBR, and able to contain a whole mess of almost any sort of information. OGM (ogg that happens to contain video) is starting to suppliment AVI, because OGM do not suffer from the audio sync and seeking problems of AVI. As OGM are designed for streaming, you can view a partially downloaded OGM.

      Vorbis is an open standard, unencumbered by patents from the developer. Vorbis still sounds decent at 64kbps; better than MP3 (even LAME) at this bitrate. Vorbis is released under a BSD-like license to promote acceptance, allowing anyone to take the code into their personal projects and not have to release source.

      The FAQ answers better than I do, I think.
      --

      I'm as mimsy as the next borogove but your mome raths are completely outgrabe.

    16. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by FooBarWidget · · Score: 1

      > Bitrate peeling does sound cool, but that only
      > matters to broadcasters.

      Then it matters to broadcasters. There are enough broadcasters in this world.

      > Once again, I'm average-user-guy.

      You are certainly not an average-user-guy. Joe Average doesn't rip CDs and certainly doesn't visit Slashdot!

    17. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by SomeOtherGuy · · Score: 2

      iPAQ. Zaurus. Oh sorry, thats two.

      Well unless I can get 10-15 Hours on 2 AA's in an Ipaq or Zaurus, I would not consider that an option. However -- If I could get OGG support for my Nex II or my ChromeX then I will be ripping my CD's to ogg yesterday. Until then I don't want to be tied down to my computer --- or limited to listening to music on a $500+ PDA that eats batteries for breakfast.

      --
      (+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
    18. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by DarkVein · · Score: 1

      I'd like to rub the tonal accuracy again. It's not so obvious if you listen to techno, but rock, gothic music, choir, solo guitar, etc. all sound MUCH better in Voribs.

      I'm listening to an MP3 stream right now. (Limbik Frequencies at 128 Kbps, if you're curious.) I haven't heard a skip or a blip for at least three hours. So I don't see how Ogg could make it easier to stream audio over the Internet.

      Technically not easier for you, the listener. For the home viewer, all we've got is improved audio quality. 64kbps Vorbis usually sounds as good as 128kbps MP3. Especially tonal quality. For the streamer, Ogg Vorbis streams can be downsampled to lower bitrates on the fly for negligable CPU cost. The lower bitrate samples sound exactly the same as if they were encoded at that bitrate. It's just a mater of dropping bits. The result is that your average Digital DJ with all his music ~176kbps can stream his music at a maximum bitrate of 64kbps, without re-encoding. The result is higher quality downsampled streams.

      - Not Patented

      I didn't have to pay anybody when I downloaded iTunes from apple.com. It's free. It encodes and plays. So this doesn't affect me, either. I know some people have strong opinions on patents and make decisions based on principle, but I'm just not one of 'em. If it doesn't affect me, I'm hard-pressed to care.
      Pardon me for sounding ominous, but it will. Right now it's good buisness to allow everyone to go apeshit with frauf's technology. In the near future, these technologies will be going through various phases of lockdown. It is concievable that you may not be able to play your old MP3s, and especially not be able to create new ones, due to DRM. Ogg Vorbis keeps the formula for the digital paper in the hands of the composers and readers.
      --

      I'm as mimsy as the next borogove but your mome raths are completely outgrabe.

    19. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I just applied to beta test a new Phillips "Portable Digital Music Device" one of the boxes I had to select was perfered format.
      Ogg was one of the choices.

    20. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by Keith+Russell · · Score: 2
      • Quality/Size: Inertia sucks, eh? :-) Personally, I've been going in the opposite direction: Re-ripping to FLAC. Yeah, the files are bigger, but I have a lossless master that I can convert to whatever space-efficient lossy format I need, anytime I want, with the proverbial Small Shell Script. Besides, FLAC sounds better on the home theater. :-)
      • Flexible: It's easier for servers. One clever property of an Ogg stream is that, instead of transcoding or storing separate dial-up and broadband versions, you can lower the bitrate on-the-fly by truncating the packets of a higher-bitrate file. The whole thing for the lucky guy with the T1, or the first n bytes for the poor old sod with 56K. Free-form tags prevent old ID3v1 problems like:
        Artist: U2
        Album : All That You Can't Leave Behin
        Title : Stuck In A Moment You Can't Ge
        Any good MP3 software will support ID3v2, but Ogg makes it a moot point. And being able to add your own tags creates all sorts of auto-playlist possibilities. (Once media players support custom tags, that is.)
      • Open Source, Not Patented: I'm combining these because they both serve the same purpose: Freedom from risk. There will be no threat from submarine patents, sudden license fees, or forced Digital Rights Molestation.
      --
      This sig intentionally left blank.
    21. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by foobar104 · · Score: 2

      It is concievable that you may not be able to play your old MP3s, and especially not be able to create new ones, due to DRM.

      I'd be fascinated to learn how, exactly, somebody could climb inside my computer (which isn't even connected to the Internet, at least at the moment) and make iTunes 3 and my MP3s suddenly not work any more.

      Of course, it's conceivable that somebody might pass a law that makes playing previously encoded MP3s on previously bought or otherwise legitimately acquired software illegal... but that's not likely.

    22. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by foobar104 · · Score: 2

      Freedom from risk. There will be no threat from submarine patents, sudden license fees, or forced Digital Rights Molestation.

      I already posted this point elsewhere. I hope I'm forgiven for repeating myself. I can't imagine any rights management scheme that would make my current collection of MP3s unplayable on my current computer using my current software. I mean, unless I have a deep misunderstanding of how computers work, it's just not possible to flip a switch and suddenly stop iTunes from working any more.

      Am I missing something here?

    23. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by Keith+Russell · · Score: 2

      Not really. You're right that nothing can make MP3's retroactively "secure". I was think of companies like Real or Microsoft releasing new versions of their encoders that won't allow non-DRM encoding, or make it more effort than it's worth to the average user. (See also: Tying a browser to the OS) And there's always the worst-case-scenario where RIAA puts down enough pressure for the common players (WMP, RealOne, Quicktime, maybe even Winamp) to "un-support" the MP3 format. Drastic. And futile, since it will just drive MP3 players underground. But not out of the question given the consumer-hostile rhetoric we've heard from Big Media in the past.

      --
      This sig intentionally left blank.
    24. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by Jahf · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      Why should we take the time to educate you?

      Everything doesn't have to be cool to everyone ... if it were it wouldn't be as "cool".

      If you're happy with your 160K MP3s, keep them ... if you're happy with your MP3 encoding solution, make more MP3s with it.

      If not ... then look into it. Some people, myself included, have held off doing a full digitization of our CDs until we had a product we liked to do it ... now we have it ... so to use this is cool.

      --
      It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
    25. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by Shabazz · · Score: 1

      Right, better. But does better = 1/3 lower bitrate?
      I don't think so. People generally say that q4 or a5 on vorbis is the equivalent of r3mix on Lame, and that the Ogg bitrates are between 160 and 192 at those quality settings. That's not too different from where Lame comes out.

    26. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      your tonal accuracy claims are almost purely the result of the placebo effect (which is very common in the field of musical reproduction). do some abx testing and you will see the light like so many others before you have. until then, stop spreading fud.

    27. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 2
      What is there about Ogg that I don't know yet that would make me say, ``Yeah, that's way better than MP3?'' Is it technically better, somehow? Can I squeeze that 15 GB music collection into 1 GB with no noticable loss of sound quality, or something?

      You'll get lots of technical information about why Ogg is better. Here's one non-technical reason:

      Unless you paid up for your encoder (and maybe you did, but many do not) you broke the law.

      In theory, whenever you encode an MP3, you're supposed to pay for it. Ditto for streaming radio. If you use a free encoder, you violated Thomson Multimedias patents, and you're in violation of the law.

      If you did pay for your encoder (and for all I know Apple did a bulk deal so if you use iThing it'll be ok), this still sucks because you just paid to create something in what is supposed to be an open standard. Open standards are not supposed to have intellectual property licenses. Period.

    28. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by FooBarWidget · · Score: 1

      Why don't you try it for yourself? Everybody has different ears and hardware.

    29. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > Why should we take the time to educate you?

      Since you didn't want to, why did you bother replying and waste the space with your flame?

      (Score:2)? Sheesh.

    30. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by Shabazz · · Score: 1

      Now you're just being silly. Someone made the statement that it will cut down that guys MP3 collection from 15 to 8 or 10 GB. I call bullshit, because I don't believe that to be the case. If he really thinks it can make that big a difference (which he must because he bothered to include it in a response) than he should stand behind the statement and provide some backup support. Until I hear otherwise, I'll assume he was just pulling numbers out of the air for advocacy's sake.

    31. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by 0x0d0a · · Score: 2

      Why on earth did you use CBR? VBR MP3s get a significantly better quality/size ratio. I'd rerip.

      I can't figure out why *anyone* still uses CBR except the shoutcast/icecast people, who need a constant bitrate for streaming.

    32. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by Jamie+Zawinski · · Score: 2
      I can't figure out why *anyone* still uses CBR except the shoutcast/icecast people, who need a constant bitrate for streaming.

      Well, that's exactly why -- I ripped all of my CDs, and I only listen to the MP3 versions, but so that I can listen to my home CDs at work, without having to carry hard drives around with me, I listen to them via icecast. That would be impossible had I ripped them in VBR, which is why I didn't.

      I suspect a lot of others had to make the same decision.

    33. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by MajroMax · · Score: 2
      Do you actually know that this is so? I know that one of the goals of the MP3 design is streamed play in fact that's pretty much how it works so I would say that this claim is bogus. They are probably about the same, with OGG slightly better if you consider that it probably takes less bandwidth to get the same quality, but even then it's debatable.

      This is true when we're talking about entire files -- a 160kpbs mp3 file will take just as much bandwidth as a 160kpbs ogg file, even if the ogg file has higher effective quality.

      However, we're not talking about the entire file, with regards to streaming. After all, streaming is a realtime application limited by bandwidth -- this is why we don't see many 160kps mp3 audio streamers lying around all over the place; streaming is only effective at a bandwidth that your listeners have, which is why we see a proliferation of 128kpbs stremers (for broadband), or even sub-56k streamers for modem compatibility.

      This bandwidth crunch presents us with a dillema -- the audio files are best stored at a high bitrate, to preserve whatever quality they may have had in the first place (coughSpearscough), but they're best streamed at low bitrates, so people can actuall hear the music. For the mp3 format, the most common way around this is called "re-encoding" -- literally, a piece of software reencodes the 160/whatever kpbs mp3 into the desired streaming format. It works, but it's an ugly solution -- even if there isn't any extra quality loss due to double-encoding (I'm not informed enough on the details of the mp3 format to tell), the reencoding process is quite CPU intensive. Lower-end systems cannot manage it in realtime, and higher-end systems can only do one or two encodings at the same time, preventing a single system from effectively serving a stream at 160 and 128 and 64 and 32kps versions, let alone multiple streams at all those bitrates.

      Enter ogg. The ogg format supports peeling of the stream, because of the way data is stored. IIRC, the most important data is stored at the beginning of the audio frame (which is on the order of a fraction of a second in length), so with only minor processing it's possible to truncate the rest of the frame and get a perfectly servicable, albeit quality-reduced, ogg file at the lower bitrate of your choice. With marginal processor overhead, our theoretical streamer could probably support dozens of streams at arbitrary bitrates (capped by the initial quality of the file), without any overhead of the reencoding process that mp3's need.

      There's only a couple minor flaws. Firstly, there's no set of tools out there that supports this peeling. Secondly, there's only marginal software out there that even supports ogg streaming -- so far as I know, we're limited to an alpha version of ices2, whose ancestor (ices1) is a mp3-streamer for their (Xiph's) icecast server.

      Hopefully with 1.0 now out, we'll see some work on these tools may well be vital for ogg adoption.

      --
      "Evil company X is threatening to restrict our rights! Let's all get together to stop--OOOH! SHINEY!!!" -- AC
    34. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by foobar104 · · Score: 2

      Open standards are not supposed to have intellectual property licenses. Period.

      I think I understand your point-- you believe that ``open standards'' (whatever that means) should not have IP licenses-- but I'd still appreciate a smidgen of clarification. Are you suggesting that there's some rule or standard or principle that supports your opinion?

      I'm not arguing. I'm just curious.

    35. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by foobar104 · · Score: 2

      I wasn't scientific about it, but I did a quick test. I encoded a song with VBR and again at CBR at 160 Kbps. I could hear encoding artifacts with VBR, and not with CBR. For me, that was the end of the matter.

    36. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by Jamie+Zawinski · · Score: 2
      a piece of software reencodes the 160/whatever kpbs mp3 into the desired streaming format. It works, but it's an ugly solution -- even if there isn't any extra quality loss due to double-encoding (I'm not informed enough on the details of the mp3 format to tell), the reencoding process is quite CPU intensive. Lower-end systems cannot manage it in realtime, and higher-end systems can only do one or two encodings at the same time, preventing a single system from effectively serving a stream at 160 and 128 and 64 and 32kps versions, let alone multiple streams at all those bitrates.

      It's not as bad as you make it out to be.

      I stream the same audio in six different resolutions (128k stereo, 96k stereo, 64k stereo, 48k mono, 32k mono, and 24k mono). The bottom 5 are downcoded versions of the 128k stream: there are five processes decoding the 128k stream, re-encoding them at a lower resolution, and feeding them back into Icecast. This is all happening on a ~700MHz Linux box (hardly state of the art these days!) which is also running a web server and various other services, and its load average stays steady at around 2.8.

      So downcoding is intensive, but it works just fine on low end machines like the one I'm using (it was a beefy machine three years ago, but today it's about the slowest thing you can still buy...)

      The perl scripts I use for downcoding are here.

      The Ogg software may (I haven't looked) make downcoding more convenient to do, but I doubt the CPU savings will actually matter to anyone. CPU is cheap. Wait - it just got cheaper. Wait - there it goes again.

    37. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by MajroMax · · Score: 2
      The Ogg software may (I haven't looked) make downcoding more convenient to do, but I doubt the CPU savings will actually matter to anyone. CPU is cheap. Wait - it just got cheaper. Wait - there it goes again.

      True, but I'd shudder to think of you trying to serve something like every bitrate from 30 up to 160, in 5kbs increments. :) I'd also imagine that something like what you're doing would be rather difficult on an old P1 laying around as a router; you're still using a relatively beefy system for this.

      Secondly, and unfortunately, these tools aren't out there yet. The file format supports them, but unfortunately there isn't even a good production quality streamer yet (with icecast2/ices2 still in CVS alpha only), which I fear is hurting the adoption significantly among the people best suited to push it. Even new versions of winamp ship with an ogg decoder, I hear, so the switch could be done near-seamlessly if the tools were there. (You hearing this, Xiph? :))

      --
      "Evil company X is threatening to restrict our rights! Let's all get together to stop--OOOH! SHINEY!!!" -- AC
    38. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by FooBarWidget · · Score: 1

      > Someone made the statement that it will cut down
      > that guys MP3 collection from 15 to 8 or 10 GB. I
      > call bullshit, because I don't believe that to be
      > the case.

      and a little further:
      > Until I hear otherwise

      Hello? Didn't I just tell you to *try* it?

      If you don't believe that Ogg Vorbis sounds better than a LAME MP3 with the same bitrate, and you don't believe the numbers either, then *test it for yourself*. Hear it with your own ears and judge it for yourself.
      What part of that didn't you understand?

    39. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 2
      Not especially any particular rule, it's just a viewpoint held by me (and many others). Look at the fuss caused by the W3C looking at RAND for one example.

      Open standards are meant to be agreements between people on a common way of doing things, that is available to all. That is their purpose and nature. If all those people now have to pay in order to use that agreement, then by definition it is not open to anybody, as some people may not be able to afford the licensing fees. Is there a license for the internet? No, and that's why it could take off so fast.

    40. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not that it makes any difference, but while iTunes is "free", it is essentially a component of the operating system it runs on, which is not free.

      Non-Apple players on MacOS X are not free.

      Note that I'm not trying to imply that there is anything wrong with iTunes or MacOS X, I'm using both right now - but I do wish that the stream I'm listening to were Ogg and iTunes supported it; a lower bitrate could be used with decent quality. The station I'm listening to doesn't offer a 128k stream, so the quality improvement for Ogg should be noticable.

    41. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by Shanep · · Score: 2

      Is it possible to upgrade the iBook hard drive?

      Yes it is. I want to put one of these bad boys in my old clamshell iBook.

      What I'd like to know is if I can upgrade the internal memory soldered onto the board, from 64MB to 256MB in addition to my 256MB SODIMM to give me 512MB.

      That said, ogg is dead.

      Huh? I've got 16GB of MP3's, my whole CD collection and my girlfriends encoded with LAME at 256kbit CBR. I am now going to go through the hassle of re-encoding all of them again because I can get the same quality in about half the HDD space. I've been aware of Ogg for ages, but I've been avoiding it until it hits 1.0 and when I can compare it. NOW I feel I can switch I will be, because as far as I'm concerned, Ogg has just been born.

      The finest quality, most efficient codec that is not encumbered with patents, etc is not going to just die. Sure it may take a while for the general public to stop thinking "mp3 player", but plenty of people will use it to keep the interest going. Especially people who actually care about sound quality outside of listening to pure raw audio formats.

      --
      War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
    42. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by Shabazz · · Score: 1

      It's you who seems to misunderstand. When you make a claim, you should back it up. It's as if I had said "run your car on shampoo, and you'll get 200 miles per gallon. now go try it." Get a clue, or move along.

    43. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by FooBarWidget · · Score: 1

      I did some tests. I encoded some classical music from C to a 128k LAME MP3 and a 64k Vorbis RC3 file, and I couldn't hear any difference. Same story for pop music (Britney Spears). How do you want me to proof that? I can't transfer my memory to your brains.

      I can give you a link to a double-blinded listening test. But you said that you don't believe numbers. So what other backups do I have left?

      (in case you want to see the listening test anyway, go to www.ff123.net, scroll down to section "Various Listening Tests")

      1. You won't believe what I have heard with my ears because they aren't your ears.

      2. You don't believe listening tests.

      3. What option is left?

      And, Ogg Vorbis is a *lossy* codec, just like MP3. Everybody has different ears. If somebody says a Vorbis file sounds twice as good as an MP3 file, then that's an *opinion*, based on what he can hear with his ears and hardware. There's no true way to determine how good a lossy codec is, because it's lossy.

      The only way to determine how good a lossy codec is to *you*, is to test it yourself, like I've said!

    44. Re:(don't flame me) Why? by Shabazz · · Score: 1

      I've done some tests too. I've encoded a variety of music that I listen to using Lame with r3mix and --alt-preset standard. This results in bitrates of around 175k (+- 25). I've compared them to stuff encoded with Vorbis 1.0 an q4.5 and 4.95. Everything sounds great, and I have a pretty decent stereo. The difference in bitrates is significant, but more to the tune of 10% than 35-50%.
      It's possible that my experience is unique, and that there are other ways to tweak performance to achieve these huge gains. I haven't seen 'em, hence my previous comments.

      Comparing 128k MP3's encoded on a crappy CBR encoder to well done vorbis VBR is not accurate. You gotta compare apples to apples. I believe that LAME VBR is such an apple.

  68. god damit! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny
    Calc. Stop wasting your time on /. and get back to work on those kde3 debs!

    Just kidding man, thank you for all the kde3 packaging work. ; )

  69. Re:first post and such by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Children, I know who you are.
    And you know who I are.
    And we both know who The Who are."

  70. Not slow. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 1

    Using Mozilla on Win XP to post this. It's as fast as Opera or IE and has some features they don't.

  71. Need recommendations re: encoding software by Tarindel · · Score: 1

    I just recently encoded my entire CD collection (about 300 CDs) into 192kbit .mp3. I'm now interested in converting over to .ogg. What I'm looking for is a decent Windows-98 compatible front end that will allow me to put in the CD and press "go", have it grab all the track names from CDDB, DAE the tracks, and create filenames to my liking. Audiocatalyst did a wonderful job of this for .mp3s, but it won't do .ogg. Oh, and of course I'd like to be able to plug in the latest version of the .ogg encoder.

    Any recommendations? TIA.

  72. MD5 Sums by boa13 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Here are the md5sums of the files I downloaded from a mirror. * indicates md5sums that have been confirmed by insiders at Xiph.Org.

    b1422a6ff7f58131921b9f2fabe2295c libao-0.8.3.tar.gz *
    7d4fbdc48b443109618e9739648302bd libao-0.8.3.zip *
    6e840822cf8d6a680917383444afe361 libogg-1.0-1.i386.rpm
    c0f08ce15f1b0fe44539facc8dd0108a libogg-1.0-1.src.rpm
    382a7089f42e6f82e7d658c1cb8ee236 libogg-1.0.tar.gz *
    b0cb84b5f03321eb0fbe2c07350205e9 libogg-1.0.zip *
    f5f8e08a0afbc3e0196955c4aa73b78a libogg-devel-1.0-1.i386.rpm
    c461acec225454aeca034eeca7ecf62e libvorbis-1.0-1.i386.rpm
    daec58d8a9d550889391f3f971c9840b libvorbis-1.0-1.src.rpm
    d1ad94fe8e240269c790e18992171e53 libvorbis-1.0.tar.gz *
    d300b3e50b97a4f4c14ceab8124db539 libvorbis-1.0.zip *
    941621aee4865417f4c34b571b74f04a libvorbis-devel-1.0-1.i386.rpm
    08090c4f17f531fc9b815b09d9d53a50 oggdropXPd.zip
    5e81e5bff436dbe122531db0b63a053e oggvorbis-macosx-libs1.0.tar.gz
    7ac318eb6ab3551059fa7232618be2ea oggvorbis-win32sdk-1.0.zip
    d956ed3e3af7e0c8623142256f4d331d vorbis-tools-1.0-win32.zip
    c0a9fee54835e9c5b32d1f42c02964c9 vorbis-tools-1.0.tar.gz *
    e745ccaf378aeb6d057327b391803150 vorbis-tools-1.0.zip *
    4ed76d186209fe2eafa5e77854e5d6d8 vorbis-x86linux-libs-1.0.tar.gz

  73. Why the equalizer is fluff. by 7-Vodka · · Score: 2
    If you have decent speakers and a decent soundcard, you shouldn't need to touch an equalzer.

    The people who produce these songs are usually working out of hundred thousand dollar studios with better equipment and ears than you. They probably do a much better job of equalizing than you so just leave it alone. If you have crap speakers tho, then you might need to adjust to correct for them.

    --

    Liberty.

    1. Re:Why the equalizer is fluff. by mj01nir · · Score: 2

      If you have decent speakers and a decent soundcard, you shouldn't need to touch an equalzer.

      In general, you're right. However, I have alot of ...um, "semiprofessionally recorded live shows" that sound better with some tweaking. Also, there are a few other factors that come into play, such as room acoustics.

      --
      the no .sig .sig
    2. Re:Why the equalizer is fluff. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Except for those in the population who might have hearing problems and may well need to amplify certain ranges in order to hear them. Different people have different sensitivities to different ranges. Just because you might not see a reason for people wanting to mess with an equalizer doesn't mean that no one has reason to want to.

    3. Re:Why the equalizer is fluff. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      fag.

    4. Re:Why the equalizer is fluff. by aderusha · · Score: 1

      the people who recorded it are indeed working with $100k+ sound equipment - you and i however are not. an eq can flatten the response curve to compensate for your consumer grade sound card, speakers, and the resonances of your listening room.

  74. an mirror! by fredan · · Score: 1

    go to my site and you will find the source files here. vorbis slashdoted

  75. mp3pro vs ogg, and fees by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As far as I can see, the mp3pro format is still better than ogg. And at 75 cents per decoder, I am willing to pay that to play my $10,000 music collection.

    1. Re:mp3pro vs ogg, and fees by FooBarWidget · · Score: 1


      You're right, the fact that MP3Pro doesn't support any bitrate but 64k, which is equal to the crappy-sounding 128k MP3, really makes MP3Pro better than Vorbis.

    2. Re:mp3pro vs ogg, and fees by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      not true. MP3Pro supports 96K in MusicMatch.

      What encoder did Xiph use on their website ( http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/listen.html )for their MP3pro demo?

    3. Re:mp3pro vs ogg, and fees by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

      So you're listening to your $10k collection of CD's recorded at 96K?

      --
      "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    4. Re:mp3pro vs ogg, and fees by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "So you're listening to your $10k collection of CD's recorded at 96K?"

      ROFL
      the fucking stupidity.....

    5. Re:mp3pro vs ogg, and fees by FooBarWidget · · Score: 1

      > the fucking stupidity.....

      So you say, an Anonymous Coward...

    6. Re:mp3pro vs ogg, and fees by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't suppose you have listened to MP3Pro at 96K. That's the equivalent of 192K standard MP3, which is what most people consider CD quality.

    7. Re:mp3pro vs ogg, and fees by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      no it's not. it's equivalent to 128-kbps mp3 (properly encoded). mp3pro uses hi-fi band replication based on data in the low-fi spectrum. it is not suitable where consistent quality is a major concern.

      geez, folks. just stick to the standard that is mp3 and stop the insanity.
      admitedly, mp3 requires a bitrate of 112 kbps or greater for optimal performance. and, of course, if comparing to something like ogg, which is inherently vbr, use vbr with the mp3 files you are comparing (even ogg's "cbr" is actually abr, which is a less flexible vbr algorithm)!

  76. wtf? 80th time ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    mod: fucking redundant

  77. Re:Serious question: iTunes by evangellydonut · · Score: 3, Informative

    Can you point me to the technical papers that states iPod uses a hardware mp3 decoder? To my understanding, Apple states that the iPod can handle multiple audio formats with a simple firmware upgrades, which suggests to me that it uses software for mp3 and other forms of decoding. (When building my MP3 player for an EE class project, one of the TAs did a CPU cycle count and found that MP3 decoding can be done on an 9Mhz 80188 chip, along with a basic UI.)

  78. They do by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Their MySql database goes down quite often.

  79. Re:Need recommendations re: encoding software by TargetBoy · · Score: 1

    MediaJukebox is fantastic.

    http://www.musicex.com/mediajukebox/

    Supports OGG, along with pretty much every other audio format.

  80. Last Week's News by penguinboy · · Score: 2
  81. SUBJECT LINE TROLL? HI THERE! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  82. "prey" or "pray" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    (and prey for the religeous among us)
    Don't you mean "pray".

    Actually, "prey" fits too.

  83. CDex only good on 98 by foo+fighter · · Score: 2

    CDex does not work well at all on Windows 2000 or XP (Home or Pro).

    Slow encoding, random crashes, etc. plague it.

    I've tried it many, many times using different configurations of Win2k and XP and various aspi drivers to the same effect.

    This is using 1.40 release.

    --
    obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
    1. Re:CDex only good on 98 by Kanon · · Score: 2

      I've never had a single problem with any version of CDEX on Win2k or XP.

      I used to use the Adaptec aspi drivers (From the adaptec website) with Win2k and with XP I don't need any.

      Why not try the latest beta? It's running fine on my XP box.

      Sounds like your setup is faulty to be honest.

    2. Re:CDex only good on 98 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      OTOH I have had good results on Windows 2000 using that version and the ASPI drivers linked to from the CDex site.

  84. I'mSorryThatIsIncorrect by sulli · · Score: 1

    5: Police, Synch 2

    --

    sulli
    RTFJ.
  85. The OFFICIAL release-announcement! by Per+Wigren · · Score: 2


    Subject: [vorbis] Vorbis 1.0 released
    Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 13:10:37 -0400
    From: xiphmont@xiph.org (Monty)
    To: vorbis@xiph.org, vorbis-dev@xiph.org

    Nothing much else to say. Vorbis 1.0 is officially out. Have at.

    Monty

    --- >8 ----

    --
    My other account has a 3-digit UID.
  86. What about portables? by ih8billy · · Score: 1

    Hey, I love the concept of Ogg and think it sounds great! All I'm waiting for is a portable player that plays OGGs. Are there any out there (especially hard drive based)? Come on hardware manufacturers, save some money! GO OGG!

    I'm sticking with my mp3 collection until then.

    1. Re:What about portables? by FooBarWidget · · Score: 1

      iPAQ and Zaurus.

  87. Attention Mod... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    You can just mark this "-1, Flamebait" without reading it, if you want to save time.

    "Mozilla 1.0, OpenOffice 1.0, now Vorbis 1.0"

    Gee. A web browser, an office suite, and a compressed audio file format.

    Forgive me for raining on enthusiasm for OSS, but honestly, what's to be so excited about? Open Source software basically amounts to copycat versions of relatively old ideas. Usually the Open Source version is high in quality, if lacking in ease of use/implemenation. And of course it's free. But free web browsers are nothing new. Same with mp3 software. And while people technically "pay for" MS Office (excluding piracy) it ends up being irrelevant when it's bundled with Windows and preinstalled on new computers.

    Still, yes; choice is good, genuinely free is good, open is good. But still, those are just clones of Netscape, Office and the mp3 format... Dispute that on a technical level all you want; the fact remains that Open Source has yet to produce a truly significant innovation in actual product functionality. When/if that happens, then you can call it a "watershed year."

    1. Re:Attention Mod... by mobets · · Score: 1

      Office is not bundled with new computers, Works is. If you want your new computer to have office, you have to pay extra.

      --

      It was me, I did it, I moved your cheese
  88. Linux source mirror by JohnA · · Score: 2
  89. Re:Serious question: iTunes by pigpen_ · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The iPod uses a PP5002B-C chip made by PortalPlayer. It decodes as well as encodes MP3, WAV, and AIFF. Too bad Apple didn't include a sound in jack. AnandTech did a review of the iPod. Now Apple could always code a nice ogg decoder and flash it to the firmware. This would involve codnig an integer decoder for vorbis and would also likely decrease the long battery life the iPod gets. Like I said before, I don't see ogg coming to the iPod anytime soon. And considering the fact that apple is putting all their weight behind Mpeg4 and AAC, I bet we see AAC on the iPod before we see ogg.

    --
    Zambozay! My brain must've been eatin' a sandwich!
  90. Unfortunatly there is no hardware (appliance) by markalot · · Score: 1

    I can't put them in my DVD player and play them, I can't put them into my RIO Volt and play them, so better or worse doesn't matter. Hopefully someone will 'sell' this idea to the commercial masses and support will appear in more usable equipment, without that I think its pretty dead.

    Example, my wife puts in a CD of James Taylor and hits the random button on our Toshiba DVD player and listens to hours of music. She doesn't care that those are 192K MP3's I ripped from the individual albums and put on one cd, I just tell here all his albums are on this CD, play it.

    That's progess! :) My DVD player only cost $130, so much for oppresive MP3 fees.

    mark

  91. Available in car stereos? by PurplePhase · · Score: 1

    So what's the easiest path to getting this new software tech into a consumer product I'm currently in the market for? I've just started looking and though Sony has a CD/R/RW changer which claims MP3 ability, what do I look for to choose a changer and stereo that'll make adoption (or immediate use) of Ogg easiest?

    Thanks,
    :PP

  92. Any significant API changes? by Turing+Machine · · Score: 2

    I'd be very surprised if there was anything significant, but as it happens I'm working on some Ogg software right now.

    Should I go ahead or take the day off and wait for the /. effect to die down? :-)

    1. Re:Any significant API changes? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There are substantial API additions on encode, but
      those are all optional - you need them if you want
      to provide access to the new features in 1.0, but for most purposes you won't.

  93. What about for high quality? by drix · · Score: 2

    I have not been following the development of this project but I seem to recall a time when it was touted as an audiophile-quality, free replacement for MP3. Now, from their benchmarks, then seem to be targeting the low-bitrate segment of the market. Has anyone done any technical comparisons with LAME (the undisputed king of HQ mp3 encoding) at higher bitrates? I'm ripping basically every DVD I rent at Blockbuster to DivX nowadays, and I'd love to start doing the soundtracks in .ogg if I wouldn't have to sacrifice quality or space. One step closer to freedom.

    --

    I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
    1. Re:What about for high quality? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      one step closer to jail is more like it.

  94. Donations? Yeah, right, that's going to make a lot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    .

    Donations? Yeah, right, that's going to make a lot. They need to patent and license, the fools do. Donations? Haha! Making me laugh, it is.

    .

  95. You sound like the MAD guy. You be he? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You sound like the MAD guy. You be he? Or just mad?

  96. ding ding by iomud · · Score: 1, Troll

    if this were an answer on jeopardy the question would be "what is crap that will never penetrate the market?"

    1. Re:ding ding by arkane1234 · · Score: 1

      and the answer?

      Palladium :)

      --
      -- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
  97. Those must be some short CDs... by orbital3 · · Score: 2

    I know when I was going to rip my CD collection, it was going to take alot more than 15 gigs... if you really ripped all 400 of your CDs to 160kbit mp3s, that would make the average length of your CDs about 31.25 mins long each. I dont know about you, but mine probably average twice that.

    That said, the advantage of Ogg would be either A) far better quality at the same size or B) I could get similar quality while using far less space... closer to that 15 gig mark than the 30 gigs it would take to mp3 my similarly sized CD collection at that bitrate. 15 gigs is nothing to sneeze at...

    1. Re:Those must be some short CDs... by foobar104 · · Score: 2

      The number 400 is a bit of a round-up. I don't remember exactly, but I believe I have about 3,900 separate MP3s. Of course, about 20% of my collection is classical music, where each CD has as few as two or three tracks.

    2. Re:Those must be some short CDs... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you're a fucking moron if you think vorbis has sonical quality equalling properly encoded mp3 at half the bitrate.

      lame continues to improve, but even at this point in time it is a better encoder for archival purposes at ~200 kbps [think --alt-preset standard -Z and --alt-preset extreme -Z; for reduced encode times and smaller file sizes at the cost of slightly reduced consistency, the standard is --vbr-mtrh -q1 -V3 -b96 -Y, which yields an average bitrate of ~155 kbps, and features perceptibly better sonics than vorbis -q4.99; note that this line is not adequate for archival purposes for those capable of hearing beyond 18.25 khz.].

      extensive testing has been performed over time to objectify the above (vorbis 1.0 has been gold for almost two weeks now).

      up until a few months ago, vorbis was indeed a generally one-man project. times are (slowly) changing, and now we are seeing other individuals picking up certain code-level roles (at the time of this type only "uiver", i believe, who is specializing in time-domain noiseshaping, with some good work on antiodotal aids for pre-echo). still, "monty" is largely the head of this beast we call vorbis. for some time now he has been hyping improved qualitiative performance with the advent of "wavelets". this would affect all bitrate ranges, he claims, effectively allowing for increased efficiency with respect to bit management, and enabling the pyschoacoustics to scale better at higher bitrates, making vorbis a better choice for archiving. people who know about wavelets and their possible application with respect to lossy audio compression are very skeptical of this hype, but we shall see come vorbis 2.0 in a little over a year's time.

      a note about hardware adoption of vorbis: xiph has a restriction on integerized decoding (much better performance than the floating point counterpart); companies will have to purchase xiph's model not unlike they already do with mp3. this "recent" voicing came after vorbis employment became considerable.

      having said all of this, vorbis is an impressive format with much potential for growth. its performance all-around is quite solid, and its open nature (though the project is a lot less open than is presented to the general public) are just two of the reasons you should consider migrating. as for me, lame-mp3 accompanied by lossless compression (generally for exceptional situations; i prefer optimfrog, http://ghido.shelter.ro/) is where it is at. to each his own.

  98. Possible improvement in later shrinkage by SuperKendall · · Score: 2

    From reading done a long time ago, I had thought (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong) that it was trivial (as in almost no CPU cost) to take an OGG of a given bitrate and get a lower bitrate feed.

    The advantage I see here is that you could encode all of your CD's at a very high quality level, then when transferring to something like an iPod or other player automatically reduce the bitrate to 128k to fit more on - basically adjusting the quality to maximize use based on size and possible output quality considerations.

    Personally, I wish iTunes supported OGG and then and a means of converting to MP3 for transfer to an iPod (even though I know how lossy it would be) - though that would give up all the speed advantage of firewire.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  99. Integer decoder? by steveha · · Score: 2

    I want to buy portable music players that can play back Vorbis-encoded music. Realistically, that won't happen until there are integer-math decoder libraries.

    Is anyone working on this right now? Do we have any estimate of when it might happen?

    Note to computer science students: this would make a great student project.

    steveha

    --
    lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
    1. Re:Integer decoder? by damiam · · Score: 1
      There was an article about this on kuro5hin a while ago. I believe that Xiph has a private integer decoder, which they are seeking to license to hardware companies. After all, ogg is under the bsd license, and anyone can make their own proprietary implementation. Xiph has to survive somehow.

      If this is the case, I really hope Xiph can be more agressive about pitching this to hardware companies.

      --
      It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
  100. Re:well shut me down! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    2) Vanilla Ice - Ice, Ice baby
    3) Tenacious D - Tribute

  101. YES by WD · · Score: 2

    Yes... it's really the same thing. If your original is MP3, then it's already lost quality. Converting to OGG (or any other lossy format) will further amplify the quality loss.

  102. Where is the source code? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can see libraries for XMMS, but where is the source so I can compile and audit and develop my own implementation for my projects?

  103. Re:Need recommendations re: encoding software by Ziviyr · · Score: 1

    Drop in the right .dll and CDex should do the trick.

    --

    Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
  104. Woohoo! Specs! by Dr.Dubious+DDQ · · Score: 2

    I'm one of those obsessed nerds that keeps a local copy of CVS for projects that I am interested in (just to use, typically, not as a developer), and updates them from time to time just to see what's changing (and whether or not I want to recompile to see it).

    In the last couple of days, a bunch of spec documents have been added to CVS for vorbis and ogg...

    Hopefully now they'll get going on the Ogg Theora project. I wonder, though - how much of it will appear in the VP32 module and how much in the Ogg module? I imagine they were putting off dealing with "video in Ogg" until the 1.0 release...

  105. Re:Need recommendations re: encoding software by Ralphus+Maximus · · Score: 1

    Audiograbber supports Ogg, MP3, and the Free version of CDDB. Insert a CD, click a couple of time, and off you go.

    The only downside is it's win32 only.

    http://www.audiograbber.com-us.net/

    RM

    --
    Nobody's as dumb, as I appear to be
  106. Holy Shit by JohnA · · Score: 2
    Oh my goodness... this is simply the most amazing codec since the release of WMA8. I have compressed some of the most difficult samples available at 48kbit and it sounds just as good as 128kbit MP3.

    AMAZING job, guys.

    1. Re:Holy Shit by Cardhore · · Score: 2

      I agree. It's amazing!

  107. more importantly by commodoresloat · · Score: 3, Funny

    What is the sound of one jpeg clapping?

  108. better yet.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    skip all these lossy formats and move over to shorten(.shn) files. How can you people listen to mp3s and such, there pollution. See www.etree.org.

    1. Re:better yet.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      FLAC is another lossless format, but the compression ratio is horrid compared to mp3/ogg/wma/etc...

      For maintaining exact archives, though, it is a good thing.

  109. How about CDex by niboan · · Score: 1

    CDex supports Ogg Vorbis.

    From the 3rd party software page at the Ogg Vorbis site:

    "CDex is an open source, full-featured Windows app that rips audio CDs directly to Ogg Vorbis format."

    And I also checked, it's really there.

    --
    niboan

  110. Interview about Vorbis 1.0 Release by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Check out this interview with Emmett Plant - he offers some more details here about what they have planned, etc.

    http://www.systemtoolbox.com/bfarticle.php?conte nt _id=74

  111. AAC by SideshowBob · · Score: 2

    Someone should get to work on an open implementation of AAC (the audio codec for MPEG-4).

    1. Re:AAC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      PsyTEL-AAC
      ----------
      infermation
      http://www.ps ytel-research.co.yu/
      binary source
      http://www.inf.ufpr.br/~rja00/aac.html
      en joy the finest lossy audio coder, man
      literally blows oggie away, hey

    2. Re:AAC by kyhwana · · Score: 1

      Uh, doesn't AAC have patent restrictions? I recall a story about a GPL AAC decoder having to be taken down because of it?

      --
      My email addy? should be easy enough.
    3. Re:AAC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://www.audiocoding.com/
      ever heard of FAAD (now FAAD2)?

  112. libg++ != glibc by MenTaLguY · · Score: 2

    Ah, I wasn't thinking of C++ development, but thank you. It's a good link.

    What I said is easily true of C development, but anyone concerned with C++ should definitely read that FAQ entry as the libg++ licensing situation is a little more complex (though not too bad; it's just important to know what to link with).

    --

    DNA just wants to be free...
  113. Now that Ogg 1.0 is out.... by Newer+Guy · · Score: 2

    Manufacturers and developers will begin to take Ogg seriously, especically since it's sound quality is better (or at least as good as MP3). This is a good Friday..a very good Friday indeed....

  114. No WMP support - Media XW is dead by W2k · · Score: 2

    Since I normally use Windows Media Player, I went looking for DirectShow filters to let me play OGG files in WMP. I was somewhat surprised to find that the only such filters are part of Media XW, an abandoned SourceForge project. The latest files are three month old development files which, according to the site, "can damage your whole DirectShow system and probably requires a complete Windows reinstallation". The latset non-dev release is from sept -01.

    If adoption is what we want, someone should get on the job of coding proper DirectShow filters for OGG, and fast. I installed WinAmp just for the OGG support, but I doubt that everyone who uses WMP regularly will be so tolerant. If I didn't have so many OGG files already, I never would have bothered.

    --
    Quality, performance, value; you get only two, and you don't always get to pick.
  115. VC++ warnings by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    1.234235 is indeed of type double, not of type float. 1.234235f is of type float.

    VC++ is the only compiler on the planet I've heard of that creates these annoying warnings. And indeed in all cases, they've been nothing but annoying -- no use whatsoever. If I were you I'd just try to find a way to shut them up.

  116. Re: FLAC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    While I'm at it, from the FLAC FAQ (say that 3 times fast):

    # The currently implemented compression methods in the reference encoder yield streams smaller than shorten (emphasis mine)

  117. any problems? by ycarroll · · Score: 1

    I just tried encoding track 14 (Everloving) from Moby's Play cd and the ogg introduces some rather nasty errors even at level 10. Has anybody else noticed problems? Encoded with oggdropXPd 1.1 from a wav
    played winamp

  118. Re:Serious question: iTunes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
    This would involve codnig an integer decoder for vorbis
    The Vorbis guys already have a fixed point implementation. They are licensing it (but not giving it away for free) in an effort to generate some money for the Ogg project. This fixed point version is ideal for portable players, and although it has license fees, it is most likely cheaper than the fees Fraunhofer charges for an MP3 decoder license. Also, Vorbis doesn't come with the same patent strings attached as MP3, as far as I know.

    -Neo

  119. Re:Good! Now they can get back to work on CDParano by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah except that the so-called "jpeg" patent we saw on /. actually pertains more to video than still-pictures. That means Ogg-Theora is likely encumbered by a patent. I wouldn't be surprised if they have some legal wrangling to do before that project ever gets off the ground.

  120. PEELING (Re:(don't flame me) Why?) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting
    Bitrate peeling is, by itself, a reason to start thinking about Ogg. Although the 1.0 encoder does not have a built-in peeling utility, my understanding is that the files it generates are, in fact, peelable (and there may be a standalone utility to do that).

    This means that you can archive your entire collection of CDs onto your hard drive at, say 192kbps or something, and then directly derive lower-bitrate versions (say 64kbps) to put on a portable (player, storage device, etc.) without having to re-encode from the originals.

    I know, I know, there currently isn't a mass-market portable Ogg player. But most players claim that they are "firmware upgradeable for future audio formats" (or some such language), and the Vorbis guys license a fixed-point Ogg decoder (very useful for portable players), so that functionality is (hopefully) not too far off.

  121. My Mozilla annoyances by Kiwi · · Score: 2
    I understand where you are coming from. My current mozilla annoyances:
    • You lose the contents of a form if you accidently hit the back button or the backspace key (or have your four-year-old neice throw something at the keyboard which does the same thing); hitting forward again restores the contents of the form in Internet Explorer. It does not restore the contents of the form in Mozilla.

      I just lost ten minutes of work today because the Mozilla developers can not even get something basic like this right. Yes, I will submit a bug to bugzilla when I calm down enough to do so; I just lost the work under an hour ago so I am still rather pissed.

    • Real-world example of the DHTML problems. Go to www.gatorade.com , and click on one of the product listings. There is some DHTML which causes a scroolbar to appear in the middle of the screen so that one can scrool down to see all of the products listed. This scrollbar does not work in Mozilla; it does work in IE.
    Mozilla's advantages are that it has pop-up surpression technology, and that it is available for Linux and other non-mainstream desktop OSes.

    - Sam

    --

    The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.

    1. Re:My Mozilla annoyances by 0x0d0a · · Score: 2

      Frankly, I don't *like* forms saving fields. Major security issue on web kiosks and the like.

    2. Re:My Mozilla annoyances by dublin · · Score: 2

      * Real-world example of the DHTML problems. Go to www.gatorade.com [gatorade.com] , and click on one of the product listings. There is some DHTML which causes a scroolbar to appear in the middle of the screen so that one can scrool down to see all of the products listed. This scrollbar does not work in Mozilla; it does work in IE.

      [rant]What a horrible site - way too much bloat - I'm getting *really* tired of waiting too long for code bloat (Java, J/Java/ECMAscript, or the worst offender, the dreaded Flash) to load even over a very fast inet link.[/rant]

      Even so, it may not work in Mozilla, but it works perfectly in Netscape 7.0 beta 1, on W98SE, which is what I'm running at the moment. Either this is a byug which was fixed by Netscape and not the Mozilla crowd, or it's platform-related (you don't say what your're running it on.) I know it may not be popular to say so here, but I've found Netscape 7.0b1 to be *considerably* more stable than Mozilla, which wants to create 4 TB bookmark files if given the chance...

      --
      "The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last ./ post
  122. How to read patent claims by SurfsUp · · Score: 2


    Reading and Understanding Patent Claims

    How to infringe a patent and get away with it

    Patent Claim Interpretation

    --
    Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
  123. Re:No WMP support? Check out OggDS... by RadioheadKid · · Score: 2

    Well here's the answer to you problem:
    Check out the OggDS project, their filters work fine.

    --
    "Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -Homer Simpson
  124. R3Mix and abandoning compression by neibwe · · Score: 1

    > Hopefully, R3Mix.net will pick this up

    R3Mix's has retired from his online audio test management/documentation. It's disappointing, I was looking forward to them doing major quality comparisons on Ogg audio encoding as well.

    > Lossy compression can approach (for certain types of audio)
    Can approach what?...

    > is to simply not use lossy compression at all.

    Well you said "[bzip2'ed WAV]" files are just "too large for archival purposes"
    I think compression is for attaining practical file sizes at the highest quality possible.

    If transparency, indistinguishable quality, cannot be achieved on all equipment and all music, then at least people should try to form guidelines so that users can (1) see what quality is available and (2) select an appropriate quality.

    You have a good point with your tests, I think that information could be useful for the maintainers of Vorbis and other researchers that don't have gobs of research money like AT&T, Fraunhauffer, etc. :) The differences are hard to discount as pathological, abnormal and extremely unlikely, test cases, as I'm confident that electronic music needs synthesized sounds.

    Ideally, the compression could give warnings that certain passages in music are not-transparently encodable --perhaps switching over to lossless encoding for those.

    As a counterexample, a majority of pictures we see online and all DVD movies are lossy encoded because to do otherwise would be impractical, like saving a whole DVD in it's native format (4+ Gigabytes) is impractical for a home video jukebox, hence MPEG4, Divx etc. --maybe we'd use it for future audio formats too(if "fair use" rights aren't taken away by then)[1]

    __________
    [1] Maybe, one day, we may see Ogg encoded 24bit/192khz songs saved at CD bitrates. From a quality standpoint we could get CD bit rate Vorbis(?) files for even higher quality. Such that a 24/96 or 24/176 DVD could be saved onto a CD, or saved onto a hard drive, If each DVD audio disk were 600 MB, our 120GB Hard drives could store 200 disks.

  125. Why even use lossy codecs anymore? by neoshroom · · Score: 0
    Hard drives are approaching 200 gigs. Processors are so fast we don't know what to do with them. Internet bandwidth and broadband is at an all time high. And yet, people are still using lossy codecs...why?

    When you have 200 gigs of space its not like you are going to run out any time soon. I personally have more than 250 albums, and 5000 songs sitting on my hard drive right now -- nearly all lossless. How much do they take up? About 50 gigs, but I have another 150 or so left to spare. And sure transfering them over the internet takes a bit longer, but it is well worth it for the improved sound.

    Some say they can't hear the difference. Some said the same thing about CD's verses cassettes. Likely you have a poor pair of speakers, or in some cases a poor set of ears. Or maybe you don't care, thats a valid reason. But if you don't fall into those catagories I'd recommend moving to lossless compressed codecs. Compression for lossless tracks has come down to about double a 320 mp3, which is pretty darn good.

    Check out Monkey's Audio or FLAC, two of the best, -- your ears will thank you.

    (now all I need is a iTunes-compatible OS X port...anyone?)

    --
    Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
  126. Freenet by 0x0d0a · · Score: 2

    If Freenet isn't significant, innovative, and open source, I don't know what is. Some amazing ideas there.

    Most software (including closed source) fits into established genres. What particularly amazing closed source project were you thinking of?

  127. Re:Good! Now they can get back to work on CDParano by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I hope they could break the copy protections.

  128. Don't compare against mp3enc, compare against LAME by elan · · Score: 1

    "The best Fraunhofer products are less accurate than the Lame products."

    This was the conclusion drawn by the infamous http://r3mix.net website. Wanna make Ogg look better than it really is? Don't compare it to the highest quality MP3 encoder.

    -elan

  129. webcasters won't use it until icecast works by Jamie+Zawinski · · Score: 3, Informative


    There is currently no way for one Icecast daemon to serve both MP3 and Vorbis streams. You have to run two versions of the server, on two different ports. Aside from being inconvenient to administer, this also means you can't do total-bandwidth-usage new-connnection throttling: you have to assign half of your bandwidth to one server, and half to the other, instead of letting the usage determine it.

    I'd like to start streaming Vorbis at DNA Lounge, but I won't do it if it has to be a "flag day" where I tell the users "today you have to stop using MP3 and start using Vorbis." The only way I (and, I suspect, just about everyone else) will start streaming Vorbis is if it is convenient to give people a choice of whether to listen to MP3 or Vorbis versions of the stream. As you can see on our audio page, we stream in many different bitrates, by having the "master" stream be downcoded into various lower resolution streams. Until I can do exactly that with Vorbis, there's no way I'll use it.

    The way to encourage adoption of Vorbis is to make it be an option without shutting out existing MP3 users. As the number of Vorbis users grows, you can then think about phasing out support for MP3. But a flag day will never happen unless they give us a convenient upgrade path.

    The new version of Icecast has been an even bigger vaporware disappointment than Vorbis has been (weren't the both targetted for release by the end of 2000?)

    (Not to mention that the current releases of Icecast still have completely broken metadata streaming, and are (again) incompatible with Shoutcast's directory services.)

  130. Using OGG to Stream/Simulcast Radio? by redGrant · · Score: 1

    I'm the Program Director of WNUR, a college station in Chicago. I'm one of the few staff members with computer know how. We currently stream in Real and WMA, but I'd like to convince everyone at the station that OGG is the way to go (not just because of good sound quality, I want the station to support OSS). I'm just worried that there's no real "mainstream" app out there for encoding/stream OGG. Sure, there's ICECAST, but that's obviously has a long way to go. I don't have a problem downloading and compiling the ICECAST server, but no one else will know how to support it with out me (especially after I graduate). So, is there anything else in the works? It's a shame that more good radio stations aren't streaming in OGG... -marc flury WNUR Program Director

  131. cat somepicture.jpg > /dev/audio by theCoder · · Score: 1

    Sounds like static to me :)

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  132. Audiograbber by grappler · · Score: 2

    Anyone know if there is a 1.0 version of the vorbis dll for Audiograbber? And if there is, where it can be downloaded?

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  133. Ogg Vorbis, now with more Irony! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Doesn't it strike anyone as odd that this so-called "Free" software project is asking for donations?

    So, if the project is going to fail without *someone* coughing up dough, can we stop this dumbass notion of calling it "Free"? Howabout "SympathyWare" or something?

    Yeah, free software can sustain itself. sure.

    1. Re:Ogg Vorbis, now with more Irony! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Right on my brother!
      OGG and MANDRAKE, you won't ever have my support. DIE as you would without my support.

  134. We used both MP3Enc and LAME by xiphmont · · Score: 3, Informative

    We *are* comparing against LAME.

    The first sample on the demo page is encoded using MP3Enc, because that demo is actually drawn from a larger test being done by an independent party. It also shows Ogg competing against a commercial encoder.

    All other MP3 samples on the demo page (the 'Heavy Hitters' section) were encoded using LAME. If you check the auxiliary data in the samples you'll see that.

    I'll go mark the samples as such to avoid furhter confusion.

    Monty
    xiph.org

  135. and yet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    open source 1.0 tends to make more stable ptroducts than microsoft. so youre statement makes microsoft look even more pathetic.

  136. same tactics as the king by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    hey bud. OSS is using what microsoft has proven to work.copy often. all the innovators seem to get crushed by MS. time to give bill gates a taste .

  137. Score -1, Arrogance by L.+J.+Beauregard · · Score: 1
    Just because higher sound quality in reduced file size, freedom from patents, etc. are not important to you doesn't mean they're not important to someone else.

    Just because something offers no advantage that you care about doesn't mean that it shouldn't be done.

    If you don't want to be flamed, then lose the arrogant attitude. Your needs and wants are not necessarily the same as mine.

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    1. Re:Score -1, Arrogance by foobar104 · · Score: 2

      Gee whiz. Talking of arrogance. I asked, very plainly and calmly, why Ogg would be important to a guy who doesn't broadcast and who isn't affected by patents. I'm sure there are more people out there like me than there are like you. I heard last week that 14 million people have downloaded iTunes since Apple released it.

      My point is just that it's kind of disappointing that people would spend their time and energy working on an audio codec that's not necessary and that doesn't offer significant advantages over existing codecs. They could have been working to improve MP3 instead, or on something new that we don't have yet. Instead, they just decided to reproduce work that's already been done. That's disappointing, because it smacks of wasted opportunity.

    2. Re:Score -1, Arrogance by nathana · · Score: 1

      My point is just that it's kind of disappointing that people would spend their time and energy working on an audio codec that's not necessary and that doesn't offer significant advantages over existing codecs. They could have been working to improve MP3 instead, or on something new that we don't have yet. Instead, they just decided to reproduce work that's already been done. That's disappointing, because it smacks of wasted opportunity.

      You may be happy with the corporately paid-for and supplied iTunes, and all the more power to ya. Apple of course must have some sort of license agreement with Fraunhofer in order to supply its users with a program that can encode and decode MP3s. Apple is not stupid, and is not going to trample over other companies' IP rights, at least not so overtly. As you pointed out, it is not likely that they would supply their users with software that the mere fact of owning and using would make them criminals.

      At the same time, however, you must need to recognize that Ogg Vorbis scratches an itch, and a fairly large one at that. An itch for a higher-quality codec with features not availible in the MP3 world (such as have been pointed out to you by others in this thread at different times). Now, you may not care about these features, but surely others do.

      It's obvious from the above quote of yours that you recognize the need to continually advance media compression technology, and lament the fact that the resources that were dumped into the Ogg Vorbis project weren't put to better use, such as "working to improve MP3 instead". What you fail to realize is that, as I said earlier, Ogg Vorbis is an attempt to scratch an itch, and it is an attempt to scratch an itch in a legal manner. My dear boy, if they could avoid re-inventing the wheel and instead build their improvements to audio compression technology on top of other people's work, don't you think they would do it? Because of the patents on MP3 technology, though, "underground" projects such as the LAME encoder (which is, seemingly, now the most widely used MP3 encoder engine, bar-none, and which is a project that does exactly as you suggested -- throw resources at improving MP3) are essentially illegal. LAME did not pay Fraunhofer a license, and they don't pay Fraunhofer licenses for every copy they distribute. People who are using LAME are technically lawbreakers.

      So, you see, they had no choice but to "reproduce work". And, once that was done, they had an open standard that they could then work on improving, without legal blockades and restrictions. In addition, because of its openness (used in both the un-patent-encumbered-ness and the open-sourceness sense), anyone can build improvements on top of it without fear. Thus, it lays the foundation for a truly promising future codec.

      In the future, I would not be surprised to see a version of iTunes released by Apple which supported Ogg. At that point, it probably won't seem like such a "wasted opportunity" to you, will it?

  138. Speed! by Sloppy · · Score: 2

    Is it just my imagination, or did oggenc get a hell of a lot faster?

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    1. Re:Speed! by xiphmont · · Score: 3, Informative

      Oh... um... yeah, we forgot to mention that in the press release. About 50-60% faster when using -q. We're aiming for greater than a full factor of two over rc3 by next release.

      Monty
      xiph.org

  139. Re:Serious question: iTunes by xiphmont · · Score: 2

    The only serious problem with using Ogg in iTunes and having it work 'out of the box' is that iTunes, believe it or not, would *only* use Quicktime playback for certain extentions.

    Ogg works with quicktime. ....but ogg was not one of those extentions.

    If you install the Ogg Quicktime components, and rename all your Ogg files to .mov, they play. Naturally, this is a royal pain in the ass and we don't seriously expect anyone to do this.

    We have high hopes that iTunes 3 solves this problem. The Mac hackers are on it now.

    As for the iPod, we have all the code needed to make it work. Actually using it can't happen without a blessing from Apple, however.

    Monty
    xiph.org

  140. YES by sl3xd · · Score: 2
    Another way to look at it:

    Decoded MP3 is still missing ~90% of the original sound. It's just that human ears have physical limitations that make this possible. (Things like the eardrum moves 'in' faster than it moves 'out')

    Transcoding is trying to force Vorbis to work with its hands tied; a decoded wav is still missing 90% of the original signal.

    The result is somewhat like a cook-off.

    The task: Create a low-fat chicken parmesean recipie that tases as good as a specific high-fat chicken parmesean recipie

    (Wav->MP3) Chef 'A' uses his methods to prepare a low-fat chicken parmesean.

    (Wav->OGG) Chef 'B' uses his (different) methods to prepare a low-fat chicken parmesean.

    In both cases, either chef may choose from the available ingredients of his/her choice to make the best-tasting meal. In this case, chef B wins easily.
    But MP3->OGG is like:

    Forcing Chef 'B' to take the meal Chef 'A' created, 'un-cook' [decode] it, use the ingredients Chef 'A' used, and create a better meal.

    Chef 'B' has to 'start' with the amounts Chef 'A' finished with.

    Chef 'B' would have used an entirely different recipie to create his low-fat dish; but since he's limited to what Chef 'A' 'served', he has to make do.

    It doesn't matter if Chef 'B' is a much better cook. He's not able to use the ingredients of his choosing. Chef 'B' is essentially limited to modifying Chef 'A's recipie, and therefore he's not able to achieve his potential.

    --
    -- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
  141. Re:Need recommendations re: encoding software by doug363 · · Score: 1
    Exact audio copy (EAC) is good, and it's what I use. You may have to fiddle with some options the first time that you use it, but it is very configurable. It works with freedb/CDDB, does custom filenaming schemes, and is very good at avoiding errors (jitter etc.) unless the CD is horribly scratched.

    Anyway, to get EAC to work with Vorbis 1.0, download the Ogg Vorbis tools from the Vorbis web site or a mirror, and then extract the EAC program and oggenc.exe. Run EAC, and in "Compression options", choose the "External compression" tab (the libVorbis codec option doesn't seem to work for me...), choose Ogg Vorbis as the parameter passing scheme, and set up the path to the encoder. The resulting Ogg file is correctly tagged (with an Ogg tag) if you choose "add ID3 tag".

    HTH.

  142. LAME CBR 256kbit vs. Ogg? by Shanep · · Score: 2

    My whole collection, is encoded with LAME CBR @ 256kbit because I read an article, pointed from /. long ago, that showed this to be about the best option and listening to the resulting MP3's have shown that I cannot hear a difference with my headphones between the CD and the MP3's. Occasionally I hear a click, pop, warble or ringing and I think "Ah huh!", so I then check the CD only to find that the same noise is on the CD.

    If I can get my collection down from 16GB without loosing any quality or even gaining quality I would.

    So can Ogg 1.0 provide better quality than LAME CBR @ 256kbit while saving space?

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  143. PS by FooBarWidget · · Score: 1

    Those listening tests are quite old. There are no listening tests for Ogg Vorbis 1.0 yet. But sound quality in 1.0 has improved because everything in the Vorbis spec is now implemented.

  144. Re:Good! Now they can get back to work on CDParano by arkane1234 · · Score: 1

    hell, I haven't even hit any copy protection yet... and I buy cds all the time.

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  145. Re:Donations? Yeah, right, that's going to make a by arkane1234 · · Score: 1

    Ohhh yeah...
    Somehow I see that as being a redundant road....

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