[Soundbuff]

I heard the Iriver has discontinued Ogg Vorbis on one of their new HDD models..

What do you think, is Ogg Vorbis going the way of the dinosaurs?

I am trying to decide between ripping my collection in Ogg Vorbis or MP3. I can't hear much of a difference between Ogg Vorbis Q6 and MP3/Lame alt-preset standard (sometimes I think MP3 sounds a little more transparent, but it might just be a mood thing that varies from day to day).

I really like Ogg Vorbis for the file size savings - anywhere from 10% to 30%. That can make a big difference with flash players. On the other hand, I don't want to have regrets later if I have to buy a new player one day and find nobody supports Ogg (or only players that I don't want do).

What do you think? Is it safe to rip with Ogg and still have future support?

 

[blessingx]

Sure. Even if iRiver stopped support, that's only one company. If you want compatibility play it safe with MP3, but Vorbis and AAC I think have quite a future. If you believe MP3 tweaking is nearing its end (or at least LAME style jumps less likely) look to Vorbis and AAC+ to push quality below 100 kbps (course you may have to reencode then anyway).

 

[viator122]

And on that note, after just having completed rip number 2 of my CD collection, I'd say if you can spare the space on your computer (hard drives are cheap these days anyway) you should rip to a lossless format. That way you can convert to whichever lossy format suits you.

 

[Soundbuff]

I am interested in learning more about lossless ripping, but with 250 GB of hard drive space I'm not sure it's going to allow a large collection...maybe another hard drive could be added later.

Is it somehow possible to rip to FLAC, and then rip the files "on the fly" into Ogg Vorbis or MP3 for transferring into the player, or would you need to keep both a FLAC copy and an Ogg Vorbis copy (for transferring to the player) to do this?

 

[Jmmmmm]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Soundbuff Is it somehow possible to rip to FLAC, and then rip the files "on the fly" into Ogg Vorbis or MP3 for transferring into the player, or would you need to keep both a FLAC copy and an Ogg Vorbis copy (for transferring to the player) to do this?

You could transcode on the fly, but it won't work if youre in a hurry. I'd say it takes about 1/2 the time of ripping it from a cd? Maybe a little less. The real benefit is that you can do a bunch at one time. I'd say you could definitely make it work that way. I stored a lot of my flac on dvds; they hold quite a bit of music.

 

[unitnumber43]

Was Ogg ever really alive? It's certainly not common place. I've never seen an Ogg file on someone elses computer. Pretty much the only people that use it are audiophiles or computer tech's.

 

[Soundbuff]

Here's what I'd like to know: is Ogg Vorbis at Q6 better or worse than MP3/Lame at the alt-preset standard setting?

My preliminary conclusion is that MP3 sounds just as good, but I have tweaked the EQ settings of my player so it's hard to tell which one is "better" (more accurate) now...but I seem to get slightly more "ahs" from MP3.

What is the general concensus - how does MP3 alt-preset standard compare to Ogg Vorbis Q6?

 

[Richteralan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Soundbuff Here's what I'd like to know: is Ogg Vorbis at Q6 better or worse than MP3/Lame at the alt-preset standard setting? My preliminary conclusion is that MP3 sounds just as good, but I have tweaked the EQ settings of my player so it's hard to tell which one is "better" (more accurate) now...but I seem to get slightly more "ahs" from MP3. What is the general concensus - how does MP3 alt-preset standard compare to Ogg Vorbis Q6?

Ogg Vorbis is better.

 

[Jmmmmm]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Soundbuff Here's what I'd like to know: is Ogg Vorbis at Q6 better or worse than MP3/Lame at the alt-preset standard setting? My preliminary conclusion is that MP3 sounds just as good, but I have tweaked the EQ settings of my player so it's hard to tell which one is "better" (more accurate) now...but I seem to get slightly more "ahs" from MP3. What is the general concensus - how does MP3 alt-preset standard compare to Ogg Vorbis Q6?

I don't know about that comparison in particular, but what you can tell a difference in is heavily dependent on your equipment. With, say, my eggos, I had to listen very carefully to tell the difference between a cd I have in flac and in 128 mp3 (maybe I have tin ears too :0). With the 325i's I just got, I didn't even have to listen for 5 seconds before I wanted to turn off the flat, compressed-sounding mp3. So, just because you can't tell a difference doesn't mean there isn't. However, it also means that it's 'supposed' to sound better doesn't mean it will to you. If you plan on upgrading to very revealing equipment, err on the side of caution. However, if what you have is what you're going to stick with, go with the smaller/easier file that sounds as good to you. I'd tend to lean toward mp3 because it's ubiquitous and you won't have a compatibility issues in the future. That said, I still go q7/q8 ogg and keep a flack backup, because I don't like to make things easy.

 

[st5150]

I EQ the ultra high frequencies so I can tell that OGG's high frequency cut off is higher than LAME's standard cut off freq. The bass on OGG files also seems more accurate to me, even though I haven't done extensive testing on on lower frequencies.


I do agree with you that OGG is dying. I heard one of its main developers isn't even on the project anymore. Microsoft is killing it on DAP's with its PLay4Shure, and the Napster to Go conglomerate that is blinding following Bill Gates command

 

[crypt@]

But the same can be said to all free codecs. Lets count how many DAPs actually support FLAC, and compare that to the current fav', MP3s?

The wonderful thing about FLAC is that you can squeeze about 2 lossless albums onto a CD for archival purpose. And if you rip with EAC or similar, you can have an already normalised album with which to transcode to whatever format you so please with.

@Soundbuff: there is no point in saving Vorbis as well as FLAC unless you have space to burn or short of time/SW in repeating the transcode. And if you have space to burn you can always rip to .WAV, right? Massive but lossless and supported by every DAPs that I'm aware of. :> As Vorbis is lossy, you really don't want to use that as the base to transcode, unless of course your original is damaged.

 

[blessingx]

the other half

 

[Soundbuff]

Hehe...doesn't hurt to get multiple feedback...

I'm beginning to change my mind and think Ogg is better than MP3. I've been comparing Ogg Vorbis rips to MP3 and seem to gravitate to Ogg Vorbis as the better sounding format. The file size savings are also good. Is Ogg Q7 about equal in filesize to alt-preset standard?

Of course if I rip my collection in Ogg I will severely limit the options available to me for future players...forget about Ipod, forget about Iriver possibly, maybe only Jetaudio will support it.

 

[halcyon]

Which one is better in terms of audible artifacting?

http://www.rjamorim.com/test/multifo...sentation.html

And the compression field evolves constantly.

Is Ogg Vorbis dead?

Hardly. It's alive and well on most of gamers computers as a compression scheme of choice for sound files in games.

Will the development continue?

All the time, check www.hydrogenaudio.org for info

Are you better off using mp3?

Well, if compatibility is what you are after then most certainly yes. However, there are many reasons for using Ogg Vorbis.

regards,
halcyon

 

[cerbie]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Soundbuff Here's what I'd like to know: is Ogg Vorbis at Q6 better or worse than MP3/Lame at the alt-preset standard setting? My preliminary conclusion is that MP3 sounds just as good, but I have tweaked the EQ settings of my player so it's hard to tell which one is "better" (more accurate) now...but I seem to get slightly more "ahs" from MP3. What is the general concensus - how does MP3 alt-preset standard compare to Ogg Vorbis Q6?

It depnds on your ears, equipment, and music. For the few trakcs that --preset standard couldn't handle for me, I also could ABX the Ogg up to q9, at which point it was larger than the transparent (preset extreme) MP3. Vorbis does some odd stereo stuff, too, compared to simple things like M/S.

I you're specifically going for small file size and low quality, Ogg Vorbis will sound better. It gets warm and muddy, where MP3 gets harsh and tinny.