Before you don't provide ABX results your findings are pretty worthless (AFAIK lame itself provides are rather minimal ABX tool - look at the source archive). You're welcome to discuss them at Hydrogenaudio.org though.
For fuck's sake read my reply. The ITU standard implies a reference and a hidden reference (=> double blind):
Take a look at this to get an idea about what the test looked like.
LAME developers themselfves discourage the use of CBR and I doubt you have done any ABX tests to back up your claim that 192kbps CBR sounds better than one of the VBR presets?!
Those numbers are just plain wrong. Take a look at the detailed result page to see the correct ones.
Additionally the encoder settings were tested on gigabytes of material to ensure they averaged at about 128kbps.
That's the beauty of using a VBR codec: It can allocate bits where they are needed. (That's also the reason for LAME's phenomenal performance)
It was a double blind test (ABC/HR) adhering to ITU-R BS.1116-1. Read more about the methodology in the initial announcement.
In addition to being double blind results were also encrypted so manipulation is very unlikely.
Any non-blind listening test is just laughable.
It's embarassing that people still think they can judge audio quality by just listening to the files in Winamp.
How about giving some more information about your testing method?
Was your test double blind (ABC/HR or ABX)? How many samples did you use? How many people did participate?
HydrogenAudio is not trying to create new standards. It's merely a place to discuss the current formats and help the developers by providing listening tests and input. A lot of developers hang out there and discuss their ideas with the users (e.g. Ivan Dimkovic and Menno Baker - Ahead Nero AAC codec; Josh Coalson - FLAC; J.M. Valin - Speex; G. Bouvigne - LAME).
Just a couple of things to make some things clear to the slashdot crowd:
1. HydrogenAudio is/was the No. 1 place on the net regarding the development of audio codecs and other audio related tools. Think of it as "the bugtraq of audio". Several developers of open- and closedsource codecs participated regularly in the discussions and the community helped by providing blind test results (some of them appeared on slashdot even), problem-samples and ideas/general input. It was the center of development of the widely used lame --alt-presets, which brought a new level of quality to MP3 and the foobar2000 audio player.
2. No legal problems whatsoever are connected to the closing down.
3. HA is going to come back shortly (= some days).
Except for learning and using the MS tools (Active Directory, IIS, ACLs etc.), making yourself a home is the best thing you can do.
Most *nix Software has been ported either directly by the developers (Emacs, Vim, nmap etc.), MinGW or CygWin. Insecure.org's tool list gives a nice overview over the essential networking programs and ActiveState has Ports of your three favourite scripting languages already.
After installing all these tools, Win2k becomes a pretty usable OS.
As you can read in the pre- and post-test discussions at ff123's 64kbps listening test, which used a similiar set of samples).
There were no speech samples included, because the tests focused on music (which is what most people will use AAC for) rather than on speech. However Rjamorim (guy behind the Hydrogenaudio.org tests) said he might do a speech codec (including Xiph's Speex and others) test, after the cross-format test is done.
Re:WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU....
on
Phish Moves To FLAC
·
· Score: 3, Informative
You bring up some good points and yes, most people wouldn't be able to perceive the difference between a properly mastered liveset encoded lossy and lossless. But by providing a lossless version the consumer is given the freedom to choose what lossy codec to use for his portable/DVD-player (be it Vorbis, MP3 or even MPC). And there already is hardware playing FLAC files.
How many people could even tell the difference between a FLAC encoded live concert and a properly encoded 128-192kbs AAC/256kbs MP3 via LAME with the advice of r3mix.net/whatever the hell settings you ogg guys use for archival quality.
r3mix.net, which has been spreading misinformation about MP3 and audio in general for a long time, has been dead for over a year now. The --r3mix setting has been deprecated by the code-level tweaked --alt-presets, which provide a way better sound quality tuned in many blind listening tests (ABX). For more information visit www.hydrogenaudio.org
It has been discussed to replace the outdated lossless codec shn in the bootleg community etree.org, since it offers better compression and the possibility to compress higher resolution (24bit) and/or multichannel files.
Non castrated RedHat...
on
Ark Linux
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Seems like a nice idea to me:
Take the good base of RedHat and replace their castrated Desktop with a working one. Since Bero is responsible for this it might even turn out pretty good...
Slashdot Mirror
Before you don't provide ABX results your findings are pretty worthless (AFAIK lame itself provides are rather minimal ABX tool - look at the source archive). You're welcome to discuss them at Hydrogenaudio.org though.
For fuck's sake read my reply. The ITU standard implies a reference and a hidden reference (=> double blind): Take a look at this to get an idea about what the test looked like.
LAME developers themselfves discourage the use of CBR and I doubt you have done any ABX tests to back up your claim that 192kbps CBR sounds better than one of the VBR presets?!
Those numbers are just plain wrong. Take a look at the detailed result page to see the correct ones.
Additionally the encoder settings were tested on gigabytes of material to ensure they averaged at about 128kbps.
That's the beauty of using a VBR codec: It can allocate bits where they are needed. (That's also the reason for LAME's phenomenal performance)
It was a double blind test (ABC/HR) adhering to ITU-R BS.1116-1. Read more about the methodology in the initial announcement.
In addition to being double blind results were also encrypted so manipulation is very unlikely.
- Official APEv2 Spec (written by Frank Klemm of MPC fame)
- Tag - sources include APEv2 reader/writer
- Apetag - *nix cmdline. APEv2 tagger
- fb2k SDK - includes reader/writer code (BSD-licensed)
Formats currently supporting/using APEv2: MPC, WavPack, APE (Monkey's Audio), MP3Any non-blind listening test is just laughable. It's embarassing that people still think they can judge audio quality by just listening to the files in Winamp.
How about giving some more information about your testing method?
Was your test double blind (ABC/HR or ABX)? How many samples did you use? How many people did participate?
Not true. ABC/HR encrypts the results and only encrypted results are accepted by Roberto.
HydrogenAudio is not trying to create new standards. It's merely a place to discuss the current formats and help the developers by providing listening tests and input.
A lot of developers hang out there and discuss their ideas with the users (e.g. Ivan Dimkovic and Menno Baker - Ahead Nero AAC codec; Josh Coalson - FLAC; J.M. Valin - Speex; G. Bouvigne - LAME).
Just a couple of things to make some things clear to the slashdot crowd:
1. HydrogenAudio is/was the No. 1 place on the net regarding the development of audio codecs and other audio related tools. Think of it as "the bugtraq of audio". Several developers of open- and closedsource codecs participated regularly in the discussions and the community helped by providing blind test results (some of them appeared on slashdot even), problem-samples and ideas/general input. It was the center of development of the widely used lame --alt-presets, which brought a new level of quality to MP3 and the foobar2000 audio player.
2. No legal problems whatsoever are connected to the closing down.
3. HA is going to come back shortly (= some days).
Except for learning and using the MS tools (Active Directory, IIS, ACLs etc.), making yourself a home is the best thing you can do.
Most *nix Software has been ported either directly by the developers (Emacs, Vim, nmap etc.), MinGW or CygWin. Insecure.org's tool list gives a nice overview over the essential networking programs and ActiveState has Ports of your three favourite scripting languages already.
After installing all these tools, Win2k becomes a pretty usable OS.As you can read in the pre- and post-test discussions at ff123's 64kbps listening test, which used a similiar set of samples).
There were no speech samples included, because the tests focused on music (which is what most people will use AAC for) rather than on speech. However Rjamorim (guy behind the Hydrogenaudio.org tests) said he might do a speech codec (including Xiph's Speex and others) test, after the cross-format test is done.
You bring up some good points and yes, most people wouldn't be able to perceive the difference between a properly mastered liveset encoded lossy and lossless. But by providing a lossless version the consumer is given the freedom to choose what lossy codec to use for his portable/DVD-player (be it Vorbis, MP3 or even MPC). And there already is hardware playing FLAC files.
How many people could even tell the difference between a FLAC encoded live concert and a properly encoded 128-192kbs AAC/256kbs MP3 via LAME with the advice of r3mix.net/whatever the hell settings you ogg guys use for archival quality.
r3mix.net, which has been spreading misinformation about MP3 and audio in general for a long time, has been dead for over a year now. The --r3mix setting has been deprecated by the code-level tweaked --alt-presets, which provide a way better sound quality tuned in many blind listening tests (ABX). For more information visit www.hydrogenaudio.org
It has been discussed to replace the outdated lossless codec shn in the bootleg community etree.org, since it offers better compression and the possibility to compress higher resolution (24bit) and/or multichannel files.
Seems like a nice idea to me:
Take the good base of RedHat and replace their castrated Desktop with a working one. Since Bero is responsible for this it might even turn out pretty good...
dev0