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Dial-Up Audio Public Listening Test Opened

Posted by simoniker on from the cha-cha-crackle dept.

CaptainCheese writes "Hydrogenaudio.org's Roberto Amorim just announced the opening of their 32kps multi-format listening test, intended to test the current 'dial-up' quality codecs. From the Announcement: "The formats featured are Nero Digital Audio (HE-AAC+PS), Ogg Vorbis, WMA9 Std., MP3pro, Real Audio and QDesign Music Codec. Lame MP3 is being used as low anchor, and a lowpass at 7kHz is being used as high anchor." These codec tests are unusual in that they adhere to ITU-R BS.1116-1. The test is open until July 11th and all are invited to participate. There's more info in the original test discussion, which indicates the originator is interested in 'testing formats working on dial-up streaming bitrates' - the test page notes: 'The real arena where codecs are competing, and most development is going, is at low bitrates.'"

124 comments

  1. Results may be flawed by Atario · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...since I'm liable to vote for whichever one sounds most like the Centurions from Battlestar Galactica, or the voice communications from THX-1138. Not best quality, not most understandable, just coolest.

    --
    "A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
    1. Re:Results may be flawed by FlipmodePlaya · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Good point. Can a study that will probably have relatively small survey size of an opinionated tech crown likely to exhibit bias be trusted? I don't know too much, admittedly, but wouldn't an automated test that just compared the output of a compressed audio track to the original be more accurate? Or is there more truth than I think to certain frequencies being worthless and inaudible by human ears?

    2. Re:Results may be flawed by Grant29 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yeah, and probably some people have some crappy speakers. Some people would probably even try it with thier on-board speaker...

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      Only 5 Gmail invitations left!

    3. Re:Results may be flawed by RussGarrett · · Score: 1

      Err... if a codec *sounds* closer to the original, who cares whether the actual waveform is closer? The whole point of psychoacoustic compression is that it exploits the weaknesses of the human ear to its advantage.

    4. Re:Results may be flawed by izx · · Score: 4, Informative

      The problem is that "automated comparisons" don't mimic human system responses (the ear, or the eye for video). Take video: the eye would finds grainy VHS tape more pleasing than a digital video that displayed some blocking. The blocked digital video, mathematically, is much closer to the original than the the VHS with its added noise...

      These types of psychovisual (or psychoacoustic) responses are what make automated tools almost useless for judging the perceived quality of any lossy encoder. Perceived, that's the key word....it may not be mathematically up to scratch with the original, but if you PERCEIVE it to be as good as the original, thats what matters (this is of course for CD-quality high bitrate tests).

    5. Re:Results may be flawed by ircShot_guN · · Score: 1

      Any listening test worth its weight in... sound, will not tell the listener which audio codec compressed sound they are listening to,
      but rather, will give the listener, say, 5 different sounds (labeled for example 1,2,3,4 but with no relation to their codec) and ask them to report which one sounded the best.

    6. Re:Results may be flawed by zoeblade · · Score: 2, Interesting

      ...wouldn't an automated test that just compared the output of a compressed audio track to the original be more accurate? Or is there more truth than I think to certain frequencies being worthless and inaudible by human ears?

      The whole idea behind lossy audio codecs is that the human brain and ear aren't that good at what they do :) As was pointed out on the Ogg Vorbis mailing list a looong time ago, technical tests like you're proposing would only tell you what computers would find more pleasant to listen to, not what humans would. So yeah, there's more to certain frequencies being inaudible to human ears :)

    7. Re:Results may be flawed by 0111+1110 · · Score: 1

      I don't know about that. In exactly what direction is the tech crowd biased in favor of? Remember we are talking 32 kpbs here! This isn't going to be high fidelity listening. If it were a slashdot crowd you might see some bias in favor of ogg and against Real and Windows (wma) codecs, but at this bitrate differences are usually extreme. Even just for voice.

      --
      Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
    8. Re:Results may be flawed by 0111+1110 · · Score: 1

      The only problem is that at these low bitrates, signature sounds are quite noticeable. It is pretty easy to recognize one codec or another if you have heard them before. So ideally, at these bitrates, the testers should have never (non-blindly) compared these codecs before. Then it would be truly "blind" testing.

      --
      Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
  2. Get the news out to portable music player by ralphart · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Now if only the companies who manufacture digital players would take a look and see that there is life beyond MP3. Nice that a few are starting to offer Ogg Vobis, but they are few and far between.

    1. Re:Get the news out to portable music player by glassjaw+rocks · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I really think that the mp3 format is going to be around for quite a while, mainly just because of how widely-used it is. Even though I know the wma format is superior to mp3, I still encode all of my cds to mp3, more or less out of habit.

      --
      -gjr
    2. Re:Get the news out to portable music player by 2nd+Post! · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Eww, skip the wma, please, for my sake.

      The less the world is tied to Microsoft standards, the better off we'll all be, I think.

      --

      GPL Deconstructed
    3. Re:Get the news out to portable music player by pyrrhonist · · Score: 0, Troll
      Now if only the companies who manufacture digital players would take a look and see that there is life beyond MP3. Nice that a few are starting to offer Ogg Vobis, but they are few and far between.

      What does this have to do with the article? Digital players don't use low-bandwidth encodings like the listening test is for.

      Oh, wait, the article mentions Ogg Vorbis. Nevermind...

      --
      Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
    4. Re:Get the news out to portable music player by tcopeland · · Score: 1

      Lots of tools out there for examining Ogg files, too.

      --
      The Army reading list
    5. Re:Get the news out to portable music player by Haydn+Fenton · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Although many people are opposed to any microsoft anything, I have to say that their WMA format is very very useful at low bitrates.

      I can use [a trial] of WMA Workshop to compress music files to as low as 2kbs. That's nothing special within itself, however, what is impressive (no matter how its done, IMO), is the fact that you can hear (and pretty clearly too) both the music AND words to the vast majority of songs. Which makes it perfect for sending my friends ultra-small previews (normally around 200kb in size) of full songs, so they know what they sound like - no doubt we've all told somebody to downl.. *cough* buy a song, but they hesitate because they think it will sound crap.

      Note to members of the RIAA: The above statement is purely fictional. I have never and would never even consider the illegal distribution of music.

    6. Re:Get the news out to portable music player by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you sure your nickname shouldn't be "RubyWanker?" All you seem to post is marginally-topical Ruby advertisements.

    7. Re:Get the news out to portable music player by tcopeland · · Score: 1

      > Ruby advertisements

      Touche, AC!

      --
      The Army reading list
    8. Re:Get the news out to portable music player by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      but they hesitate because they think it will sound crap.

      So you (fictionally) send them a sample that does sound crap?

    9. Re:Get the news out to portable music player by Thing+1 · · Score: 1
      The less the world is tied to Microsoft standards, the better off we'll all be, I think.

      Which is exactly what the Department of Homeland Security said recently: don't use IE.

      --
      I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
    10. Re:Get the news out to portable music player by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      aotuv can do similar for Ogg Vorbis, and also surprisingly well.

      But Vorbis sounds good at high bitrates too, and WMA doesn't.

      And Vorbis is Free, and WMA is not.

  3. Is this a double-blind test? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If it isn't, you'll only find out the most popular format, not the best.

    1. Re:Is this a double-blind test? by sploo22 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      AS a matter of fact, it certainly is. Follow the link at the bottom of the page (to here) and you'll see this information:

      One of the most acclaimed methods of comparing codec quality is by performing so-called "Double Blind Listening Tests". In this sort of test, the participant compares various encoded samples against each other and against an uncompressed reference sample. The blind part means that the participant doesn't know which sample was encoded by which encoder. That guarantees there'll be no psychological bias towards his/her favorite codec, or against the codec he/she dislikes.

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      Karma: Segmentation fault (tried to dereference a null post)
    2. Re:Is this a double-blind test? by TommydCat · · Score: 3, Informative
      On this site there is a useful little utility written by Arny Krugar to let you do your own DBT testing at any bitrate with any codec you want.

      It does take a bit of preperation, but the results are legit. Not really suited for large organized polls, but fine to see your personal tastes and to understand exactly what a double-blind test is and how it works and why it is the only valid way to scientifically test.

      --
      This comment does not necessarily represent the views and opinions of the author.
    3. Re:Is this a double-blind test? by Matchstick · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It only needs to be a blind test, unless you worry that the computer administering the test is biased.

    4. Re:Is this a double-blind test? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It only needs to be a blind test, unless you worry that the computer administering the test is biased.

      My computer kept crashing because I had Windows on it, so I in retaliation I installed Gentoo and immediately emerged Open Office. It hates me now and I wouldn't trust it to be unbiased.

    5. Re:Is this a double-blind test? by OverlordQ · · Score: 1

      Well yes, it says so in the summary:

      These codec tests are unusual in that they adhere to ITU-R BS.1116-1.

      Follow that link and you get:

      Methods for the subjective assessment of small impairments in audio systems including multichannel sound systems which is a fancy way of saying double blind listening tests.

      --
      Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
    6. Re:Is this a double-blind test? by Echnin · · Score: 1

      Well, if the computer doesn't know what sample is which encoder, doesn't that make it a double blind test?

      --
      Lalala
  4. What's the point? by TommydCat · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I personally don't get the goal of a test like this. Listening at that low quality doesn't have as much commercial, and quite frankly, personal appeal as it did back in the 90's.

    I've seen the double-blind tests done at 128kbps and again fail to see the point.

    What I really want to see is a rating of codecs that are able to achieve DBT-proven audible transparency and see them rated in terms of storage space (thus allowing the VBR schemes to finally compete).

    Of course FLAC would come in last (considering WAV is the 'source'), but can my high quality VBR LAME MP3 pass for the original and take less space than MPC?

    --
    This comment does not necessarily represent the views and opinions of the author.
    1. Re:What's the point? by Sam3.14 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I agree that there isn't that much point to testing such low bitrates. People are quickly switching to DSL and Cable, And I think that there won't be many Dial-up users in 2010.

    2. Re:What's the point? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thank you for being so obvious.

    3. Re:What's the point? by Nakito · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Testing at low bitrates emphasizes certain weaknesses of a codec. At high bitrates, it takes a more sensitive and trained ear to detect the artifacts and flaws. But as you reduce the bitrate, the differences become apparent. If you've never tried experimenting with it you might find it interesting, because the various codecs produce very different sounds with the same source file when the bitrate is drastically reduced. But I wonder if this is a proper way to evaluate the best design overall, since some of these codecs are certainly not optimized for low bitrates, and I do not know if there is necessarily a correlation between the flaws of a codec at low bitrates and those at higher bitrates.

    4. Re:What's the point? by bcombee · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually, low bitrates will be more important in the near future, as more people use streaming audio over PCS data services. For example, I listen to low-bitrate streams over Shoutcast several times a week on my PalmOne Treo 600, and 32Kbps streams much better than 64Kbps, while higher than that just isn't feasible on Sprint's PCS network. While this isn't as much of an issue for home users, mobile devices on relatively low-speed networks are going to be big.

    5. Re:What's the point? by zerblat · · Score: 1

      A lot of people are still on dial-up, and I suspect it'll stay that way -- especially if you look outside the developed world. Also, as someone mentioned, we'll probably see people streaming music to their cell phones or other wireless devices with limited bandwidth. Besides, regardless of how much bandwidth you have, you might not always want to use up all of it on background music. Lower bitrate audio also means that a server can serve a higher number of simutaneous listeners (assuming bandwidth is finite).

      --
      Please alter my pants as fashion dictates.
    6. Re:What's the point? by Air-conditioned+cowh · · Score: 1

      In a word, video.
      The less bandwidth the audio takes up on a video stream, the more space you have to increase the frame rate and the resolution of the picture.

      Also, I know quite few people at work who won't get broadband because it is still more expensive than a dial up and they don't think they would use broadband enough to justify the expense. Then there are countries where broadband is some way off into the future and when it does arrive only the wealthy elite will be able to afford it.

    7. Re:What's the point? by 0111+1110 · · Score: 1

      Low bitrates are useful too, just not so much for pure music listening. Certain codecs (like realaudio) can do pretty well with voice or a mixture of voice and music at these low bitrates. It can be particularly useful when you want to store large quantities of audio information.

      For instance I have an application where I want to record audio from my TV tuner card 24 hours a day. You can hold a lot more data at 32 kbps than at 128.

      Unfortunately, AFAIK the better low bitrate codecs cannot be natively edited like MP3, and you definitely cannot afford the losses of transcoding at these bitrates. So MP3 is still more practical for these kinds of apps even if it takes twice the bitrate.

      It's also a very efficient way for certain artists to provide samples while severely limiting the fidelity, providing extra motivation to buy the real thing (not all artists are available on P2P networks either).

      --
      Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
  5. Phone line are shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When the best analog quality is achieved by A->D, compression, modem error correction, and D->A, you know something is shit.

    1. Re:Phone line are shit by julesh · · Score: 4, Informative

      Err, no. No matter how good the line is, sending a well-designed lossily-compressed digital signal over it at the maximum bitrate that can be supported by the line is guaranteed to give you a better result than sending an analogue signal over it. Information theory requires it.

    2. Re:Phone line are shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Think about the process. A->D, then compression, then D->A to send over the line, then A->D again, then D->A again.

    3. Re:Phone line are shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry, I'm a nube, but can someone explain this quote from the article?:

      "being used as low anchor, and a lowpass at 7kHz is being used as high anchor"

      What does it mean in this context? Is this anchor thing used in other things communications?

      Thanks,
      donut

    4. Re:Phone line are shit by ambrosine10 · · Score: 1

      I don't think the D->A and A->D to send over the line affects quality. Why should it? That would mean modems couldn't accurately transmit digital data, and we know they do.

    5. Re:Phone line are shit by Nasarius · · Score: 1

      It means they're chopping off large ranges of frequencies, so the most audible frequencies have more of that 32kb/s to use.

      --
      LOAD "SIG",8,1
    6. Re:Phone line are shit by shadow_slicer · · Score: 1

      1. The losses over the phone line don't really count since we're A->D'ing it again (odds are against a distortion significant enough to alter the file), and then performing error-correction (most modems do this). Because of this, the web pages you look at don't look messed up and the Linux iso's you download all match the md5. Media file transfers aren't any different.

      2. If 2 files of the same recording are available, and are the same size, which sounds better, an mp3 or a wav?
      You aren't going to say that the optimized-for-sound analog-in and speaker out on you sound card are crappy enough to make that much of a difference?

    7. Re:Phone line are shit by sploo22 · · Score: 1

      I gather that they are compression formats of known very low and high quality, respectively. They're used as experimental controls.

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    8. Re:Phone line are shit by Hatta · · Score: 1

      Information theory requires it

      Why?

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    9. Re:Phone line are shit by julesh · · Score: 1

      Because the optimal data rate over the line uses all available bandwidth in it. The lossy compression is optimised to encode the most important information into that bandwidth, which is something a simple analogue channel cannot do. Therefore, while the same amount of information is transmitted in both cases (according to the theory), the information transmitted with well-designed lossy compression is more important information and therefore produces a better quality signal.

      I'm sorry I can't put this in formal terms, my mathematics isn't quite up to it.

  6. Why bother? by TexasDex · · Score: 1, Interesting
    I really have no use for low-bitrate music. I have a nice 1.5Mbit connection. Really, there's no point in listening to a low bitrate music stream because no matter how good the codecs are, 32kb/s music just doesn't cut it.

    BUT...
    Although it wouldn't help for internet music, better low-bitrate codecs could make internet talk radio more feasible. It lets companies save bandwidth on the server side and still maintain quality that at worst is a bit better than the phone connections of people calling in (VoIP notwithstanding).

    --
    The Cheese Stands Alone.
    1. Re:Why bother? by r00zky · · Score: 1

      VoIPo(Dial Up) == cheap phone
      Noone in his sane mind would listen to 32kbps music anyways

      --
      I'm a chainsmokin' alcoholic sociopath, so-ci-o-path
    2. Re:Why bother? by ralphart · · Score: 2, Funny

      Actually, with talk radio, the lower the bit rate, the better, if you catch my drift.

    3. Re:Why bother? by MP3Chuck · · Score: 1

      " I really have no use for low-bitrate music. I have a nice 1.5Mbit connection."

      There's still a large dial-up market out there. How many millions of users does AOL alone have?

      --
      Who doesn't like free music?
    4. Re:Why bother? by evilviper · · Score: 4, Insightful
      no matter how good the codecs are, 32kb/s music just doesn't cut it.

      Damn, this is the kind of crap that gets modded-up these days...

      Codecs continue to get better and better. Vorbis is pretty good even at 48K (artifacts are subtle). And even if this was 1997, and 32K sounded like crap with current codecs, you're statement is just like the famed "640K is enough for anybody", and "there is a world market for maybe a dozen computers". It's absolutely guaranteed to be proven wrong with time.
      --
      Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
    5. Re:Why bother? by geeber · · Score: 3, Funny

      Cancel the Test! TexasDex has no use for low-bitrate music. Since he clearly speaks for everyone, the entire affair is clearly a frivolous waste of time.

      Go about your business, people.

      --
      Download my free songs!
    6. Re:Why bother? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      You might find it useful for:

      - streaming video + sound
      - voice chat while playing a game that is already sucking up a good portion of your bandwidth
      - running a voice-chat server (ex: TeamSpeak), because (a) you're streaming out to multiple people, and (b) your upstream bandwidth is usually the limiting factor since most cable and dsl have shitty upstreams.

      There are probably a lot of other uses but those two just stuck out in my mind.

    7. Re:Why bother? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oops I guess that was three :)

    8. Re:Why bother? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Codecs continue to get better and better. Vorbis is pretty good even at 48K (artifacts are subtle).

      It's pretty good for that bitrate, but I do think the parent has a point. According to the latest 128 kbps listening test, not even Vorbis, who won the test together with Musepack, could be transparent at 128 kbps. Even Roberto Amorim, who is running the test, said that everyone could participate, given the xxbox hueg amount of artifacts in this bitrate range.

      Cya

      PS: "Vorbis is pretty good even at 48K (artifacts are subtle)." => I see deaf people.
    9. Re:Why bother? by evilviper · · Score: 1
      It's pretty good for that bitrate,

      No, it's pretty good in general. It sounds better than 128K VBR MP3 if you ask me, which is 3X the bitrate.

      even Vorbis, who won the test together with Musepack, could be transparent at 128 kbps.

      When did I ever say "transparent"? I said pretty good. I know "transparent" is the holy grail, but it's completely unrealistic in the real world.

      Take a look at records. People still cling to their 35s and 78s, despite the fact that a deaf mute standing behind a jet engine could hear the difference between the record and the original.

      CDs are the first that have promised perfect reproduction, and they don't really deliver on that anyhow... Music has to be compressed, downsampled, etc, to fit it on a CD, so even a CD isn't transparent. In fact, I would desperatly like to see how a CD stacks up against an Ogg compressed from the original, ultra-high-quality source.
      --
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  7. Slashdot Low Bitrate Ethnocentrism by neildiamond · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Wow! I thought people on this site would have been a little more understanding. Believe it or not there are other places in the world (such as Africa) where high-speed Internet is not the norm or even available. Plus if you stream audio, any attempt to lower bandwidth is a plus as it lowers your bills.

    Get over yourselves please.

    By the way, did you ever notice the lack of multimedia even on this site? Why might that be? Hmmm...

    1. Re:Slashdot Low Bitrate Ethnocentrism by GregChant · · Score: 3, Funny

      By the way, did you ever notice the lack of multimedia even on this site? Why might that be? Hmmm...

      Because high bandwidth multimedia has no place on this type of news site; because it's unbelievably annoying; ...

    2. Re:Slashdot Low Bitrate Ethnocentrism by DAldredge · · Score: 1

      Perhaps you should stop seing everything on the basis of race?

      ethnocentrism
      n : belief in the superiority of one's own ethnic group

    3. Re:Slashdot Low Bitrate Ethnocentrism by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 1

      It's also useful for things like VoIP, wireless, gaming, and so on. Just because you have a large connection, doesn't mean you want all, or even most, of it devoted to audio. Like game communication. You generally recieve one stream for each person talking. Well if each stream were 256k, that would nail your connection right quick. If each stream is 32k, not such a problem. There is, of course, the server end too, which much send one stream for each user speaking to each client listening. I'd rather not need a DS-3 just to run a little TeamSpeak server.

    4. Re:Slashdot Low Bitrate Ethnocentrism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      It's not even available in some places in Sydney (and other major Australian cities), because of the short-sightendness of our telecommunication companies in the 1980s and 1990s. They decided it would save money to multiplex the phone lines using a system called "pair gain". Now, anybody who has had this done to them can't get DSL.

      A technician from the telco told me that we will get DSL in my area "some time after hell freezes over".

  8. hm... the days of dialup by vmircea · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I remember back when I had dialup, it totally sucked, it took me absolutely forever to download ANYTHING, I would read a magazine while I used the computer because it would take so long for pages to load... when I got broadband at home it was a very happy day... but lots of people I know still don't have broadband in their area, which is why I think it is nice for people to do things like this, but also I think you could use this for voice over ip... just my two cents

    1. Re:hm... the days of dialup by eeg3 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Satellite is available anywhere there is uninhibited view of the sky, which is most places that don't have cable or DSL. However, satellite is expensive to set up... $500 installation fee from DirecTV last I checked.

      Secondly, dial-up is not that bad, and it's definitely not as bad as your exaggeration. It's not comparable to broadband, but it's not unbarable. To further speed up dialup browsing, one should use a web cache, which is very helpful.

    2. Re:hm... the days of dialup by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I do not think the value-add for satellite broadband is there. And I subscribe to DirecTV, and live in a DSL-free, CableTV-free zone.

    3. Re:hm... the days of dialup by YankeeInExile · · Score: 2, Informative

      Spot-beam satellite (i.e. DirecTV's offering, the British company whose name escapes me) is not available anywhere there is an uninhibited view of the sky. If you look at the contour maps for those products, you will see they are pretty tightly focused on their target market. I suspect it's even more of a problem on the uplink side -- those systems are running with really tight link budgets, and I don't think you're going to get an acceptable uplink BER if your antenna is 10dB off boresite.

      While there are VSAT products that are available virtually anywhere, they are orders of magnitude more expensive. (For E1 speed in, say, Nigeria, figure $45K US per month, plus hardware costs in the several-kilobuck range.)

      There is also an Intelsat data product, that last time I checked was about USD $7 per minute for DS0. A subrate option was available (9.6k) for about USD 2 per minute.

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    4. Re:hm... the days of dialup by vmircea · · Score: 1

      yeah i do agree with that, but dialup can be really extremely slow, sometimes it will work just fine, and be nowhere comparable, but other times it will be excessively and nastily slow, not to bash on dialup or anything, but definitely what this article is talking about (the dialup friendly codecs) is a good thing, because however not bad dialup may be, it still ends up being awful at downloading media such as big images, and definitely audio / video.

    5. Re:hm... the days of dialup by Thing+1 · · Score: 1
      I too used to read a magazine, when I had had both cable and DSL (cable is generally faster, by about 3x), and went back to dial-up for a year and a half.

      Thankfully I'm back on cable. But I did get to read more. ;-)

      --
      I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
    6. Re:hm... the days of dialup by Thing+1 · · Score: 1

      This sounds like a business opportunity. We got any venture capitalists in the audience? Let's put together a team to do this at much cheaper rates. We'll still make money of course, but it looks like there's a lot of wiggle room.

      --
      I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
    7. Re:hm... the days of dialup by EpsCylonB · · Score: 1

      This sounds like a business opportunity. We got any venture capitalists in the audience? Let's put together a team to do this at much cheaper rates. We'll still make money of course, but it looks like there's a lot of wiggle room.

      Set up a sattelite system, and charge people for using it to access the internet, yeah sounds real simple...

  9. Still too bandwidth intensive to be useful? by Wild+Bill+TX · · Score: 3, Interesting

    No matter how optimized it is, won't it will still use too much bandwidth for dial-up users who actually want to do something else with their connection? All of the streams I ever tried to listen to, including the 8kbps ones, gladly used all of my available bandwidth. I don't know about anybody else, but I'm not interested in only getting a fraction of my 2 KB/sec max for browsing, using chats, or other tasks.

    --
    Audioscrobbler
    1. Re:Still too bandwidth intensive to be useful? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All of the streams I ever tried to listen to, including the 8kbps ones, gladly used all of my available bandwidth. I don't know about anybody else, but I'm not interested in only getting a fraction of my 2 KB/sec max for browsing, using chats, or other tasks.

      2 KB/sec max on a dialup connection? Either you're on a really old modem or you live in Texas ... I see that the latter is true.

      People with real phonelines can get 4-5KB/s.

    2. Re:Still too bandwidth intensive to be useful? by computer_chacham · · Score: 1

      I think you're getting confused between Kbits and Kbytes. A 56 Kbit/s modem is 7 KBytes per second (4-5 more realistically.) The test is for 32 Kilobits/sec, or 4 KBytes/s , easily achievable (with some buffering) on dial-up.

  10. Audio on Dialup? by epsalon · · Score: 1

    Why don't you just USE THE PHONE?

    Yes, I know there are applications for this, like doing some other thing while listening to audio, and the prohibitive internatioanl call rates, but still..

    --

    Make even shorter URLs - 8LN.org

    1. Re:Audio on Dialup? by 26199 · · Score: 1

      Because audio over the phone is like (roughly) 56kbits uncompressed. It's optimised for the frequencies associated with speech, but it's still a lousy way to send audio.

      Compare a 56kbit wav to a 56kbit mp3 and you'll hear a huge difference...

    2. Re:Audio on Dialup? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      who the heck gave you a two?

      Audio on a phone is typically only up to 4kHz. Anything higher is cut out. NOTE HOW THERE IS NO BITS IN THAT NUMBER. Audio over a phone is not digital. Perhaps you are thinking of ISDN at 64kbit/s per channel?

    3. Re:Audio on Dialup? by 26199 · · Score: 1

      Ever heard of a 56kbit modem?

      That means you can get 56kbits of information over a phone line. QED.

      Actually it's not that simple because you can only send 56kbits in one direction due to the data loss involved in analog-to-digital conversion... but the comparison isn't an exact one anyway. Happy now?

  11. Interesting results by sploo22 · · Score: 3, Informative

    I just took the test with sample 9, one of the speech ones, and it's amazing how much variability there is in the various codecs. One of them was so good I could only reliably hear the difference after a dozen repeated listenings, and another sounded like a cellphone in a tunnel. I'll be interested to see the results in a week or so.

    --
    Karma: Segmentation fault (tried to dereference a null post)
    1. Re:Interesting results by ambrosine10 · · Score: 1

      I think the "one that was so good" is the high anchor, low-passed at 7 kHz. The other 7 are the actual 32kbps codecs.

    2. Re:Interesting results by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd say it isn't. 7 kHz lowpass is easy to detect by ear, while some artifacts aren't. It might sound a bit bad on music rich in high frequencies. I think you can get up to about 7 kHz through the phone line with high quality wiring.

  12. Dial-Up... by Afromelonhead · · Score: 1
    When I first read this story's title on this, I immediately thought of They Might Be Giants' infamous Dial-A-Song program, which can incidentally be reached at (718) 387-6962.

    Something, though, tells me that this test isn't going to apply to this sort of dial-up audio.

    --
    Procrastination sucks.
  13. Re:Typical Slashdot Article by over_exposed · · Score: 1

    doubtful...

    --
    "The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his." - Patton
  14. More interested in 32kbps speech by Dr.+Spork · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I am in the process of starting a project which needs accurate speech encoding at 32kbps. For now we're going with LAME at --alt-preset -b 32 -a --resample 22 --lowpass 6 -Z based on informal tests we did (ideas also came from here), but I'd love to see something more formal.

    Notice all the different non-standard switches I had to use, which together help noticably. That's the sort of stuff you need to do to LAME before it produces acceptable results at very low bitrates. It is optimized only for 44.1KHz, so we should keep that in mind when we see the results. Notice now that none of these switches are being used for this test, so I'm almost certain that LAME will come out looking much worse than it is.

    I would love for there to be a LAME-based encoder that is optimized for speech, low bitrates and sample rates. If it is made, I am prepared to re-encode all the readings that are (and are about to be) posted on my site.

    1. Re:More interested in 32kbps speech by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We already have speex. Personally I'd just use plain vorbis, but...

    2. Re:More interested in 32kbps speech by sahonen · · Score: 1

      Speex.

      Sound great on 8 and 16 khz material, even up to 22 khz, but sounds terrible in its "super wideband" mode. Another recommendation is Ogg Vorbis, though so far it's ending up near the bottom of the quality scale for my ears in this 32 kbps test.

      --
      Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
    3. Re:More interested in 32kbps speech by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But can you edit speex without transcoding?

    4. Re:More interested in 32kbps speech by Dr.+Spork · · Score: 1

      Nooo! On the tradeoff between quality and compatibility, I'll take compatibility any day. Lame is already good enough to be useful. Students load their assignments in their ipods, on CDs they play back in MP3-aware cd-players (or dvd players), and a million other things. For any audio book project, it's mp3 or nuthing. I'd be stupid to use anything else.

    5. Re:More interested in 32kbps speech by Dr.+Spork · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry, I think that if it's not as universally compatible as mp3, it's worthless for my purposes. If speex at 32kbps sounds as clear as a properly optimized mp3 at 48 kbps, I'd take the mp3 anyday! A project like mine would be doomed from day one if it used any file that didn't play in ipods, dvd players, and mp3-aware car cd players. I'd much rather see the speex developers take the lessons they learned and modify the LAME codebase to improve mp3 quality.

  15. fonts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hey, there is too much spacing in between the fonts. I am having difficulty reading your post.

  16. As always, this is rigged by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


    As always, this is rigged !!

  17. This sounds terrible!!! by rice_burners_suck · · Score: 2, Funny

    I just listened to this, and I can tell you that it sounds totally like crap. Here at home, I have a sound room with a bitchen 100% analog system... Vacuum tube amplifiers, gold wiring, the works. I play my records on this thing and they have that wonderful warm sound. But this 32 kps sound sounds like garbage.

    1. Re:This sounds terrible!!! by sahonen · · Score: 1

      It's 32 kbps. What did you expect? We are testing which quality gets the most bang for its buck when being streamed over a dial-up connection. If you want good sound, go with high-bitrate lossy or lossless.

      --
      Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
    2. Re:This sounds terrible!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You stupid ignorant, we all enjoy warm sounds asshole, not everybody got that bucks to spend on such rooms and you know it, plus there's third-world countries where a 24kbps stream is gonna work just great as an alternative broadcast solution to nothing at all on slow or amateur built networks. So stick your phreaking stuff in your expensive backroom and enjoy your money in silence you stupid ignorant. That wasnt even meant for your use lameass muthafucka. this is incredible... people should shut up when they got nothing interesting to say.

    3. Re:This sounds terrible!!! by Daneurysm · · Score: 1

      It's obviously because you aren't using oxygen free cables...duh. Everything must sound like sludge.

  18. What's the point?-"Trade" barriers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Also don't forget that there are various setting for a codec that can affect the output. How to minamize all the variables say one, and have a meaningful comparison?

  19. Horror-vision. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "By the way, did you ever notice the lack of multimedia even on this site? Why might that be? Hmmm..."

    Because we don't need the whole holographic, 5.1 stereo, touch sensitive, Goatse.cx experience.

  20. Dial-Up..."Keep on burn'in" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "When I first read this story's title on this, I immediately thought of They Might Be Giants' infamous Dial-A-Song program, which can incidentally be reached at (718) 387-6962."

    Oh lovely. We Slashdotted the phone company. If you stand out on the balcony, you can see the telco going up in flames.

  21. So let's say I want to play a game by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 1

    Maybe, say a MMORPG. Let's then say that I juin a team/guild/association. And let's say that, while we play and collarbate, we all want to chat. Well what if we were to use the phone system as you suggest? First we'd need to get a teleconferencing centre to conference the calls, which isn't free. Then we'd all have to call long distance, and pay per minute. Those in other countries would have to pay a LOT per minute. So for a game that we pay less than $20/month to play, we'd each be paying anywhere from $5-$100 per hour to talk to each other. Hmmm, am thinking NOT.

    But what if we were to get a member, that has a big line, or has access to one, to setup a voice server, say TeamSpeak. We then all connect to that, and both voice and the game comes over the same line. Thus we pay nothing to chat. Seems to me like this is the answer people will opt for.

    Indeed, in the MMORPGs I've played, it WAS the answer we opted for. We happily chatted away on TeamSpeak and played Galaxies, all over the same Internet connection. The wonders of TCP/IP, you can run more than one service on the same line at the same time. And yes, with a low bitrate speech codec you CAN play an MMORPG (they don't use much bandwith) and talk at the same time.

  22. I bet none of you help out. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Apparently in the 128kbs the figures 50gig of data was leeched, and there were no extra submissions of test data. I wonder how it'll work out this time...

  23. MOD PARENT UP! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ROFL.

  24. Low bitrates other than on dial-up by tepples · · Score: 1

    Listening at that low quality doesn't have as much commercial, and quite frankly, personal appeal as it did back in the 90's.

    Not every location is set up for wireless broadband Internet access. Can you get affordable broadband on your mobile phone? GSM mobile phones receive and transmit voice at 13 kbps using the GSM RPE-LTP codec; one often has to pay extra just to get 32 kbps data. Also think about digital radio; lower bitrate for a given perceptual quality allows for more music choices in the same frequency, possibly reducing the number of actual stations that Clear Channel needs to own. Another application of low bitrate audio is in handheld video games; I've written a program to encode music at 30 kbps and then play it back on the Game Boy Advance, a machine thought not to be able to handle the mathematical complexity of MP3.

    What I really want to see is a rating of codecs that are able to achieve DBT-proven audible transparency

    If you're looking for transparency proven with ABX double-blind testing, you know where to find it.

  25. A mobile last mile by tepples · · Score: 1

    DSL and cable work only as far as the cord can reach, and fixed wireless is just as fixed. Audio over a mobile last mile currently requires a low data rate codec, as bcombee pointed out. And zerblat wonders: can one get affordable broadband in developing countries?

  26. Yeah, Iagree, I like ruby a whole bunch... by Ayanami+Rei · · Score: 1

    but I could do without all the stupid bullshit. Maybe copeland secretly hates ruby and wants it to look more astroturfy than someone pitching C# and the MSDN.

    --
    THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
  27. Go Rush! by tepples · · Score: 1

    I have a nice 1.5Mbit connection.

    Which can feed 7 listeners at 192 kbps or 46 listeners at 32 kbps, as you seem to recognize with talk radio. Wideband Speex, an audio codec designed for talk radio and telephony, sounds listenable even at 12 kbps (listen). However, more listeners for talk radio does mean a bigger audience for conservative spokesmen, whether you agree with them or not.

    32kb/s music just doesn't cut it.

    Have you actually tried listening to a recent codec at 32 kbps? Sure, it's not transparent, but often it'll do in a rather noisy environment such as while riding your bike or the city bus. If you want to try, grab a few 32 kbps Ogg Vorbis files from this page.

  28. ever heard of mu-law? by tepples · · Score: 1

    Audio on a phone is typically only up to 4kHz. Anything higher is cut out. NOTE HOW THERE IS NO BITS IN THAT NUMBER.

    Many parts of the PSTN go over a digital connection similar to an ISDN channel. This runs at 64 kbps.

  29. Comparing 64 kbps PCM and MP3 by tepples · · Score: 1

    Compare a 56kbit wav to a 56kbit mp3 and you'll hear a huge difference...

    To save Slashdot readers the trouble of going in and encoding it yourself, I've done it for you. Hear it here.

  30. Making it painfully explicit by tepples · · Score: 1

    If 2 files of the same recording are available, and are the same size, which sounds better, an mp3 or a wav?

    If you can't predict the answer yourself, then here are some test files.

  31. one use: books! by timothy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    A lot of people are complaining here that low-bitrate recording is useless / stupid / so 1988 etc. Fine for them :) I'm glad that people are fanatic about sound quality and that storage prices make it reasonable for many people to use nothing but lossless codecs etc., and to care about the difference between 192kbps and 256kbps MP3s. Lossless is certainly a good storage answer for the long term, as the file can be inflated and re-squashed with the latest n' greatest lossy codecs as appropriate.

    However, there are reasons and times where the lossy stuff, even hugely lossy stuff like this listening test focuses on, makes a lot of sense and has no big downside. For me, squashing audiobooks is this way. I can fit about 30 hours of book into one CD-R size chunk of hard drive as a series of (extremely listenable) quality zero mono ogg vorbis files. Beats carrying 30 CDs around.

    timothy

    --
    jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
  32. my own tests by 0111+1110 · · Score: 1

    In terms of voice I did some testing of my own a while back and actually (as much as I hate to admit it) realaudio came out ahead in most of my voice tests right down to below 24 kpbs testing. I think it really helps when you've specifically designed your codec for these ultra-low bitrates. IIRC, WMA didn't do that bad at these low bitrates either.

    For 16 kbps and lower, it was pretty tough to find anything that sounded ok. This is where speex starts to look a bit better (although it didn't fare well in my testing).

    --
    Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
    1. Re:my own tests by Daneurysm · · Score: 1

      I have been a proponent of RealAudio's codecs from day one. Especially in the face of WMA and low-bitrate mp3's.

      I'm very informed when it comes to audio, pre/post production, etc...but I never got into codecs, the types of codecs, and how they work. (aside from a basic understanding of the frouenhoffer algorithm).

      RealAudio, seriously, sounds quite good. Alot smoother, far less top-end aliasing, and when you start cranking up the bitrates it just gets better.

      I was always disapointed that it didn't come out on top, at least over WM.

      Now, the RealPlayer--however--is an entirely different story.