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Ogg Vorbis Portables On The Way
Emmettfish writes "According to this release on Xiph.org, it looks like the Neuros player will support Linux users, and also give them the ability to play back Vorbis files on the move, starting in late May. Go Ogg! Remember, donating a few bucks to Xiph may not make the world a better place, but it'll definitely help it
sound a lot better." For those of us craving a portable that plays from cheap CD-Rs rather than flash media or a hard drive, Emmett says by email that an agreement for development of firmware for a CD-based Ogg player is in the works, too.
Well this is obviously good for ogg, but even if this does gain some momentum a big name portable mp3 player manufacturer will simply put it in their player and way underprice these guys.
I am not saying it isn't a good idea at all, but don't you think they could get shut out of business really quick?
make sure the players support upgradeable firmware for future codec upgrades and I'm set - tho the specification does claim that all future Ogg Vorbis files will be decodable by the current decoder, it may miss out on improvements and enhancements.
The CD-based player is a good idea for those of us with massive disc collections but just cannot be bothered to transfer the songs - much easier with a change of disc.
Speaking of which - one of Ogg Vorbis' strongest selling points is bitrate peeling - you can "peel" a 192 kbps file to 128 kbps and the resulting file will sound just as good as if it were encoded directly off the original CD/wave file.
But there is no tool yet. When can we expect to see one?
Thanks for all the great work.
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
I find the fact that Ogg Vorbis is an open format more important than the small gain in audio quality.
-- Cheers!
What this means for me is that I can play my oggs in my friend's car without the aid of any doohickey cable or any other crap like that. All he needs is an FM receiver. A truly useful [and I do not use the word lightly here] innovation. Wonder why no one ever thought of it before...
I really wouldn't worry about the RIAA here - more likely is the FCC who dictates frequency spectrum allocation, but the transmitting range should be short enough to satisfy their requirements.
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
This is a Good Thing for sure, but keep in mind that the important thing is to help the average Joe see the benefits of Ogg. Sending your mom the CD you ripped in ogg format is way more useful than preaching benefits of ogg on slashdot.
I love my Rio SP250. I have a fairly large CD collection, and I love being able to just switch CD's and have a different portion of my collection.
.ogg files off of CD (vs. my RIO which plays mp3 off of CD)?
But my question is, why would I want to make a lateral move to something that plays
What I would really like to see is a DVD +/- R solution. Then I could have 4.7GB vs. 700MB of music ready to go.
Am I just dreaming, or is there a market for this besides me?
I thought FLAC was a lossless format so one could record and edit sound files, not for listening
Yup. You can certainly listen to it though.
Do audiophiles really notice the difference between a high quality ogg/mp3 and FLAC?
Not with a portable player and earbuds, they don't.
Is the FLAC file smaller?
No. It's much larger. At the bitrates I usually feel comfortable with, FLAC tends to be over five times as large as ogg. FLAC on this player would be more a gimmick than a useful feature.
May we never see th
I was thinking - this is pretty cool. Then I saw it connects to your computer via usb 1.1. Who in their right mind would develop a new product with a 20GB harddrive and stick a measly USB 1.1 connection on it? There's no way that's going to work without frustrating every user
It should be pointed out that the notion that Ogg Vorbis is provides better quality audio is not universally accepted. Audio quality is incredibly difficult to quantify as it is subjective. Even if you ignore all the different variables (CBR vs VBR, quality of audio equipment, etc.) one person may make very different judgements from another (especially with Vorbis and Mp3 being so close).
And most tech reviews I have read seem to indicate that the different compression formats (Vorbis, Mp3 and WMA) all have different strengths when it comes to particular types of music.
As a long time follower of the different audio encoding technologies, I have to agree with you on your point that the quality of the different formats seems to be quite subjective, but personally, I'm one of the many (few?) whose ears are overwhelmingly in favor of Ogg.
I can't STAND WMA at all... it has a high end ringing screech at pretty much any bitrate, while at the same time, some people swear by WMA. WMA also boosts the volume of the encoded material to give the listener the impression that it's better quality, which is bad form, IMO.
MP3 is pretty impressive nowadays, with all of the work that has gone into LAME... Even 128kbit VBR is passable. But as I said, to my ears at least, they all bow before Ogg. That same passable quality you get at 128kbit with LAME you get at 96kbit with Ogg. And the artifacts are also much less offensive to my ears, but again, that is a matter of opinion.
Anyway, I hear too much completely uninformed Ogg bashing, and I wish everyone would do some objective testing of their own. Go read up on blind ABX testing, and do some yourself. If Ogg isn't the one you think sounds best, that's fine, but just don't say it's crap without giving it a shot!
There is no such thing as 'CD-quality' when dealing with a lossy encoder like mp3 or Ogg Vorbis. True CD quality can only be attained with a lossless encoder, like FLAC or Shorten.
If you think Ogg Vorbis sounds better than mp3 at comparable bitrate or lower, then it's safe to say that you consider Ogg Vorbis representative of "better audio," or better reproduction of sound. If you do find this to be true, then you're in good company; Large amounts of double-blind testing agrees with you.
Bitrate is never irrelevant. Bitrate multiplied by time equals size, and anyone who has ever filled a hard drive could probably tell you about how some things can look very large indeed from far away, but hit their limit of usefulness in a curiously small amount of time.
Emmett Plant
CEO, Xiph.org Foundation