Posted by
timothy
on from the rollin'-rollin'-rollin' dept.
bdesham writes "Mac OS X Hints has a story about a plugin for QuickTime and iTunes that enables the user to play all of those Ogg Vorbis files that you have sitting on your hard drive, but can't play because of lack of support from Apple."
to repeat a post from macslash
by
Knife_Edge
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Someone on macslash (first post I believe) question why anyone would care about ogg. I think that question bears repeating. What is so great about ogg that would make people want to use it instead of mp3?
Re:to repeat a post from macslash
by
puck01
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
This is a legitamite question. I'm a big fan of.ogg, but most people I know just don't care. MP3 is good enough, and all the hardware they've purchased supports it, not.ogg. This has been said many of times, because its true, and that is if.ogg is going to go somewhere it needs to be supported on hardware just as much or more that mp3. Most people have not been given an obvious reason to switch and unless mp3 starts costing consumers $$, most will never care.
Hell, its damn near impossible to find.ogg files on the p2p apps out there anyway. I tend to share hundreds of them, just to try and spread them around, but hardly anyone ever downloads them compared to any mp3s I'll share.
In any case, the more progress.ogg makes the better, even if it is small steps like this. Hopefully, we'll start seeing some huge steps in the near future with hardware.
puck
ahhh grasshoppers...
by
llamalicious
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
simply use Audion ! Sure it's not an iApp... but it's probably the best audio-player on the mac. Take a look: http://www.panic.com/
DISCLAIMER: The author of this post sure as hell doesn't work for panic. Thankyouverymuch.
Re:I think ogg should have been named ...
by
MyHair
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I think it should've been named "og3" (oh-gee-three) to associated itself a bit more with em-pee-three.
The non geek probably ignores "Xiph Ogg Vorbis" but might pay attention to "og3" and understand what the hell it might be.
Plus ogg is a generic container format and will be used for other Xiph codecs, including video. So calling a Vorbis music file Ogg is shortsighted.
any good P2P progs to find ogg...
by
dfj225
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Wondering if there are any P2P programs that have a lot of users w/ ogg files...I use kazaa but I'm not finding a lot of ogg files.
-- SIGFAULT
Re:Whats the big problem with putting ogg everywhe
by
Kevinv
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
With proprietary software (i.e. MP3 encoders like iTunes has) there may have been all kinds of backroom deals we may never know about. For example Apple may have gotten a super cut-rate deal on the encoder license in exchange for promising thomson to not include Ogg support for encoding or playback.
I could be blowing smoke out my ass too and apple is just really slow to respond to new formats and the next version will include Ogg support.
Or you could use
by
jerrytcow
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
a nice small program that plays both out of the box. I've been using whamb today and it plays.mp3 and.ogg files just fine.
As a bonus it "only" uses 7-10% CPU on my iBook as opppsed to iTunes' 20-30%.
Re:Or you could use
by
MoneyT
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Hmmm, regardless of what the processor meter is reporting, when I ran OS X on my iBook (300 / 192) iTunes played very nicely in the backgroud with other apps, though on a 300 Mhtz iBook, OS X wasn't that speedy to begin with, so maybe I just never noticed it eating up other program CPU time.
-- T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Mac OGG Problem...
by
Shuh
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Why is it that the oggenc on the Mac won't encode if you give it the path:/Volumes/Audio\ CD/Track\ 01.cdda?
I get some sort of volume-is-read-only error. Of course it's read-only! It's the CD! I finally got it to encode after I copied the track from the CD to my HD.
This sux. Anyone have the answer to this?
what took so long?
by
toothfish
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
i have been gleefully ripping CDs and AIFs to OGG for a couple days now, and although itunes seems to choke occasionally, it hasn't been much of an issue. this has been sort of an off and on type project, actually, but this it the most painless method to coerce OGGs to play in itunes so far. oddly enough the qt components page still claims that the component is busted under qt6. i like how the guy learned how to code on a mac on a lark over a weekend.
Re:what took so long?
by
EverLurking
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Man, I think I caused the poor guy to be/.'ed by posting information on his plugin on MacOSXHints. According to the author of the plugin (Jordan):
"The binary I put up was just a bug fix and a small performance enhancement. I posted the bug fix to sourceforge and mailed the author Steve Nicolai, but he was pretty busy and said he wouldn't get to it for some time. I put up the binary in the mean time."
Great job Jordan!!
The plugin is working well for me, aside from a brief delay on starting the playback of Ogg files (about 0.5 -1 sec, depending on CPU load. Due to switching to Quick Time internally to playback?) it is working flawlessly.
iTunes also can successfully read some of the information Tags embedded in the Ogg files as written by Ogg Drop (Track Name, Artist, Album, Genre) and thus organizes the Ogg files properly into your music collection. iTunes lists the file as a Quicktime Movie file rather than a Ogg Vorbis file and is unable to tell the bitrate of the file. Also, during playback, iTunes is unable to sample the sound output of the Ogg file so unfortunately no visualizations.
Hey, I'm happy, it was free after all. Maybe it is time to pull down the patch from Sourceforge and see if we can get the visualizaitons working?
DaveC
-- There are no stupid questions...just stupid people.
What about Windows Media Player?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
What about Windows Media Player?
Can you play OGG in that somehow?
Vorbis vs mp3
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
One, if you ask me, vorbis sounds much better than mp3. Even at high bitrates mp3s still have a lot of artifacts, over-ringing, what have you. Vorbis encodings don't have that, and therefore makes the quality drop much less noticeable.
Second, the people who work on vorbis spent a lot of time on low-bitrate encoding, which translates into very decent sounding low bitrate vorbis, as compared against low bitrate mp3.
Third, vorbis supports a much wider range of mean encoding bitrates, which is useful if you find the perfect bitrate for you that balances size and quality.
Fourth, vorbis supports 2^8 - 1 (255) different channels of audio. Say it with me: surround sound, and then some.
Fifth: Vorbis is free as in beer and in speech. People who make players/devices won't have to pay royalties to produce said players/devices. That translates into a (possibly) cheaper car stereo player that supports vorbis.
One counterpoint I'd like to respond to is vorbis' appetite for CPU time. I will admit that vorbis does require more cpu time than mp3 does to decode. This is not that big of a problem for two reasons: One: vorbis isn't nearly mature yet. It's getting there, but there is still a lot of room for improvement, including CPU time. Two: prices of micro-controllers are falling. Car stereos have had gienormous [sic] microprocessors for quite a while, displaying all of those silly screen savers that everybody must have. Also, because of mp3's current ubiquity, there are already tons of players that already have the architecture required to play compressed digital audio, therefore many players will require only a few tweaks in order to support vorbis.
One last point: yes, I know that mp3 is already here, and that for many purposes it will settle. Does that mean you should settle for less when a much better alternative is available?
-Kevin
WHO CARES I WANT MP4/AAC
by
mstrjon32
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I don't care about Ogg. I want MP4 support for the iPod (tada 5 gig model goes from 1000 to 2000 songs) and support built into iTunes. MP4/AAC is the next big thing. Apple already has a decoder/encoder working and in Quicktime 6, now just implement it already!
Common sense, people
by
acoustiq
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
...enables the user to play all of those Ogg Vorbis files that you have sitting on your hard drive, but can't play because of lack of support from Apple.
Whose bright idea was it to download "all of those Ogg Vorbis files" that you couldn't play?
Or, for those of you who don't download...
Why did you rip all your CDs into a format you couldn't read?
--
-- I romp with joy in the bookish dark
Tag Support?
by
cappadocius
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
The following song information tags in the Ogg files are correctly recognized in iTunes: Song Title, Artist, Album and Genre
So will my ratings, play counts and last played features work with.ogg's? I find more and more that iTunes dynamic playlists are a cool thing, and most of mine rely on these tags.
--
omnia tua castra sunt nobis
Re:Tag Support?
by
luphus
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Yep - they should. I keep my tunage on a readonly nfs mount and my dynamic playlists, ratings, and playcounts work just fine. I think all that wonderful metadata is stored in the iTunes prefs somewhere.
That said, I'm having trouble to get the plugin to work (either that or the encoder on that site). Not sure what's going on yet...
-nwp
95% of the population doesn't even know about OGG
by
mitchell_pgh
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I feel, as a well informed computer user, that there are various reasons to choose Ogg over MP3. The major issue facing Ogg is that almost nobody knows about the format and almost nobody really feels the legal/$$ issues associated with MP3.
A typical Mac/iTunes user receives a free encoder and decoder with their computer system so for the end user, MP3 is essentially free (actually, Apple picks up the bill on that one -- Thanks Apple!). The argument of superior sound quality is moot then most computer users can't tell the difference between an MP3 and a raw music file (I'm saying most because their are defiantly some that can, but many don't care). I also feel that the if the MP3 people were trying to limit the availability of the encoders/decoders we would have issues, but they really aren't.
There is no motivation for the end user to switch from MP3 to Ogg.
Any desktop computer made in the last 5 years should be able to play oggs files, I would assume.
Apple's 5 year old desktop is the PowerMac 7300/200 (released February 17, 1997). Yes, you can play MP3s on that machine, but only just barely. It will work, but don't plan on doing anything else with the CPU.
It's my understanding that OGG needs quite a bit more CPU power than MP3 for decoding, so I'd think you probably COULDN'T play OGG on a 5 year old Mac.
Why Tremor won't always help
by
yerricde
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Well, [decoding Vorbis on DSP chips] is already taken care of with the release of the BSD-licensed "Tremor" integer decoder.
Three reasons why it may not help:
1. Some players decode MP3 audio with an ASIC that isn't LBA-complete[1]; they take MP3 on one pin and produce WAV on the other, and they cannot be reconfigured for any other audio format.
2. Though the iPod player, uses a pair of ARM processors for decoding the audio and running the menus, and those ARM processors can be upgraded in firmware, the flash chip may not have enough storage to hold both the MP3 decoder and the Ogg decoder.
[1] "LBA-complete" denotes a machine that can run any algorithm that fits into RAM, that is, a general purpose computing device. It's a weaker form of Turing-completeness which cannot be achieved because it requires infinite storage; a Linear Bounded Automaton restricts the available memory to a multiple of the size of the input.
Re:Why Tremor won't always help
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
2. Though the iPod player, uses a pair of ARM processors for decoding the audio and running the menus, and those ARM processors can be upgraded in firmware, the flash chip may not have enough storage to hold both the MP3 decoder and the Ogg decoder.
incorrect. The iPod doesn't use flash ROM for storing the firmware image. Why on earth bother with that, when there's an N-Gb hard drive sitting around? If you want Ogg on iPod, then ask Apple to support that format.
As to point #3, this has nothing to do with the realities of the industry. The royalty is nearly insignificant, and no major consumer electronics company is likely to hobble themselves that way. Especially when the market leader (Apple) already supports multiple formats and can be expected to add more support as time goes onwards.
Re:This is great
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
YOU ARE A MORON. You don't know what you are talking about and are spouting off on some problem that is a pure invention of your mind.
The facts are that:
OGG decoding requires only 75% of the CPU power that MP3 decoding does. So decoding OGGs instead of MP3 gives you longer battery life.
This is using the "Tremor" integer-only decoder that is meant to be used in embedded devices.
So am I. I ripped all of my CDs to oggs about a year ago.
The first portable ogg player gets my money. I don't care if it doesn't do mp3, I can always re-encode 'cos I can live with the loss of quality if I can take them anywhere.
Slashdot Mirror
So when is Ogg coming to the iPod?
Enough said!
Now people can shut the hell up with the "but does it support ORG" posts... Nearly annoying as bewolfs!
Tournament Management Online &
Someone on macslash (first post I believe) question why anyone would care about ogg. I think that question bears repeating. What is so great about ogg that would make people want to use it instead of mp3?
simply use Audion !
Sure it's not an iApp... but it's probably the best audio-player on the mac.
Take a look: http://www.panic.com/
DISCLAIMER: The author of this post sure as hell doesn't work for panic. Thankyouverymuch.
I think it should've been named "og3" (oh-gee-three) to associated itself a bit more with em-pee-three.
The non geek probably ignores "Xiph Ogg Vorbis" but might pay attention to "og3" and understand what the hell it might be.
Plus ogg is a generic container format and will be used for other Xiph codecs, including video. So calling a Vorbis music file Ogg is shortsighted.
Wondering if there are any P2P programs that have a lot of users w/ ogg files...I use kazaa but I'm not finding a lot of ogg files.
SIGFAULT
With proprietary software (i.e. MP3 encoders like iTunes has) there may have been all kinds of backroom deals we may never know about. For example Apple may have gotten a super cut-rate deal on the encoder license in exchange for promising thomson to not include Ogg support for encoding or playback.
I could be blowing smoke out my ass too and apple is just really slow to respond to new formats and the next version will include Ogg support.
As a bonus it "only" uses 7-10% CPU on my iBook as opppsed to iTunes' 20-30%.
Why is it that the oggenc on the Mac won't encode if you give it the path: /Volumes/Audio\ CD/Track\ 01.cdda?
I get some sort of volume-is-read-only error. Of course it's read-only! It's the CD! I finally got it to encode after I copied the track from the CD to my HD.
This sux. Anyone have the answer to this?
i have been gleefully ripping CDs and AIFs to OGG for a couple days now, and although itunes seems to choke occasionally, it hasn't been much of an issue. this has been sort of an off and on type project, actually, but this it the most painless method to coerce OGGs to play in itunes so far. oddly enough the qt components page still claims that the component is busted under qt6. i like how the guy learned how to code on a mac on a lark over a weekend.
What about Windows Media Player?
Can you play OGG in that somehow?
One, if you ask me, vorbis sounds much better than mp3. Even at high bitrates mp3s still have a lot of artifacts, over-ringing, what have you.
Vorbis encodings don't have that, and therefore makes the quality drop much less noticeable.
Second, the people who work on vorbis spent a lot of time on low-bitrate encoding, which translates into very decent sounding low bitrate vorbis, as compared against low bitrate mp3.
Third, vorbis supports a much wider range of mean encoding bitrates, which is useful if you find the perfect bitrate for you that balances size and quality.
Fourth, vorbis supports 2^8 - 1 (255) different channels of audio. Say it with me: surround sound, and then some.
Fifth: Vorbis is free as in beer and in speech. People who make players/devices won't have to pay royalties to produce said players/devices. That translates into a (possibly) cheaper car stereo player that supports vorbis.
One counterpoint I'd like to respond to is vorbis' appetite for CPU time.
I will admit that vorbis does require more cpu time than mp3 does to decode. This is not that big of a problem for two reasons:
One: vorbis isn't nearly mature yet. It's getting there, but there is still a lot of room for improvement, including CPU time.
Two: prices of micro-controllers are falling. Car stereos have had gienormous [sic] microprocessors for quite a while, displaying all of those silly screen savers that everybody must have. Also, because of mp3's current ubiquity, there are already tons of players that already have the architecture required to play compressed digital audio, therefore many players will require only a few tweaks in order to support vorbis.
One last point: yes, I know that mp3 is already here, and that for many purposes it will settle. Does that mean you should settle for less when a much better alternative is available?
-Kevin
I don't care about Ogg. I want MP4 support for the iPod (tada 5 gig model goes from 1000 to 2000 songs) and support built into iTunes. MP4/AAC is the next big thing. Apple already has a decoder/encoder working and in Quicktime 6, now just implement it already!
Whose bright idea was it to download "all of those Ogg Vorbis files" that you couldn't play?
Or, for those of you who don't download...
Why did you rip all your CDs into a format you couldn't read?
--
I romp with joy in the bookish dark
So will my ratings, play counts and last played features work with .ogg's? I find more and more that iTunes dynamic playlists are a cool thing, and most of mine rely on these tags.
omnia tua castra sunt nobis
I feel, as a well informed computer user, that there are various reasons to choose Ogg over MP3. The major issue facing Ogg is that almost nobody knows about the format and almost nobody really feels the legal/$$ issues associated with MP3. A typical Mac/iTunes user receives a free encoder and decoder with their computer system so for the end user, MP3 is essentially free (actually, Apple picks up the bill on that one -- Thanks Apple!). The argument of superior sound quality is moot then most computer users can't tell the difference between an MP3 and a raw music file (I'm saying most because their are defiantly some that can, but many don't care). I also feel that the if the MP3 people were trying to limit the availability of the encoders/decoders we would have issues, but they really aren't. There is no motivation for the end user to switch from MP3 to Ogg.
Apple's 5 year old desktop is the PowerMac 7300/200 (released February 17, 1997). Yes, you can play MP3s on that machine, but only just barely. It will work, but don't plan on doing anything else with the CPU.
It's my understanding that OGG needs quite a bit more CPU power than MP3 for decoding, so I'd think you probably COULDN'T play OGG on a 5 year old Mac.
Well, [decoding Vorbis on DSP chips] is already taken care of with the release of the BSD-licensed "Tremor" integer decoder.
Three reasons why it may not help:
1. Some players decode MP3 audio with an ASIC that isn't LBA-complete[1]; they take MP3 on one pin and produce WAV on the other, and they cannot be reconfigured for any other audio format.
2. Though the iPod player, uses a pair of ARM processors for decoding the audio and running the menus, and those ARM processors can be upgraded in firmware, the flash chip may not have enough storage to hold both the MP3 decoder and the Ogg decoder.
3. What if the player maker got a sweeter unit royalty deal with RCA, the U.S. sublicensor of the MP3 patent, for pledging to keep the device MP3-only?
[1] "LBA-complete" denotes a machine that can run any algorithm that fits into RAM, that is, a general purpose computing device. It's a weaker form of Turing-completeness which cannot be achieved because it requires infinite storage; a Linear Bounded Automaton restricts the available memory to a multiple of the size of the input.
Will I retire or break 10K?
YOU ARE A MORON. You don't know what you are talking about and are spouting off on some problem that is a pure invention of your mind.
The facts are that:
OGG decoding requires only 75% of the CPU power that MP3 decoding does. So decoding OGGs instead of MP3 gives you longer battery life.
This is using the "Tremor" integer-only decoder that is meant to be used in embedded devices.
So am I. I ripped all of my CDs to oggs about a year ago.
The first portable ogg player gets my money. I don't care if it doesn't do mp3, I can always re-encode 'cos I can live with the loss of quality if I can take them anywhere.