you missed something, though. encode your 128Kb/s mp3 and encode again at 64Kb/s in MS Audio and compare the sound quality. i've done a lot of side-by-side tests of this myself, ripping wav files and encoding the same wavs into mp3, MS Audio, and G2 audio. i personally think the 64K MS file isn't *quite* as good as mp3, but the next step up, 80Kb/s i believe, is as good as mp3, and still smaller. with G2, you have to go higher yet, to 96Kb/s, to get close to mp3-quality sound.
but what i think the true benefit of this is, is that at 20Kb/s stereo, there is no other 20Kb stereo compression out there that even comes close to comparing to the new MS codecs. mp3 at those low bitrates sounds awful (worse than older MS or RealNetworks codecs).
Cross-platform RealPlayer my foot. The RealPlayer 5.0 for Linux was not very well done, and they have yet to release a G2 player for Linux. Their Mac player is in Beta, and so is the Windows Media Mac player. Their server software is cross-platform, but not the player yet.
i don't know about MS, but Real has claimed that their 96k codec sounds as good as mp3 at 128k. i personally haven't done any side-by-side comparisons, but you can get encoders for each for free if you feel like doing the test yourself.
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you missed something, though. encode your 128Kb/s mp3 and encode again at 64Kb/s in MS Audio and compare the sound quality. i've done a lot of side-by-side tests of this myself, ripping wav files and encoding the same wavs into mp3, MS Audio, and G2 audio. i personally think the 64K MS file isn't *quite* as good as mp3, but the next step up, 80Kb/s i believe, is as good as mp3, and still smaller. with G2, you have to go higher yet, to 96Kb/s, to get close to mp3-quality sound.
but what i think the true benefit of this is, is that at 20Kb/s stereo, there is no other 20Kb stereo compression out there that even comes close to comparing to the new MS codecs. mp3 at those low bitrates sounds awful (worse than older MS or RealNetworks codecs).
Cross-platform RealPlayer my foot. The RealPlayer 5.0 for Linux was not very well done, and they have yet to release a G2 player for Linux. Their Mac player is in Beta, and so is the Windows Media Mac player. Their server software is cross-platform, but not the player yet.
i don't know about MS, but Real has claimed that their 96k codec sounds as good as mp3 at 128k. i personally haven't done any side-by-side comparisons, but you can get encoders for each for free if you feel like doing the test yourself.
Sickboy