The ultimate music format, and I ain't talking mp3s...

[vegeta1215]

Two words...Ogg Vorbis.

Ogg Vorbis is a compressed audio format similar to mp3, but much better. Version 1.0 was just released and it's gonna rock the computer industry.

Even at low encoding rates, songs encoded with Ogg Vorbis can have a much smaller file size than ordinary mp3s and sounds just as good, if not better. And, because it's open source, Ogg Vorbis won't be affected by anything the music industry and computer industry does to the proprietary mp3 format.

Read the article and listen for yourself: http://people.mandrakesoft.com/~gc/html/oggvorbis-final.html

Also, check out http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/ for more info, and links to where you can download encoders etc. (btw, most media players like Winamp can already play this audio format)

Enjoy :D

[Beldaran]

SWEET Thanks Vegeta:thumbsup:

[Rijuhn]

I have to take my hat off to them, and maybe my shirt too. This is by far the best audio compression format ever. I downloaded that 30 second clip and the .ogg is not only clearer in quality but it's smaller in file size. If this gets enough publicity I think it'll piss off the record companies.

I list to music, I don't know, about most of my computer time. Here's what I can tell.

2 files, one .ogg and the other .mp3 were both the same file size (200k) but when I saw the quality that they were playing at.

MP3: 64 kpbs, 22 kHz
OGG: 77 kpbs, 44 kHz

They were both the same file size!!! The 77 kbps of the OGG sounds as clear as a 192 kpbs of an MP3. I love it.

[MottZilla]

Mp3 encoders are free aleady. You don't have to pay anyone to use them.

[Cyclone]

Hmm.

I hope it does well. Because if this works, the record companies won't be able to do anything to stop it.

Cyclone

[vegeta1215]

Originally posted by Mottzilla
Mp3 encoders are free aleady. You don't have to pay anyone to use them.

Sure, right now you don't have to pay to use them, but who knows what will happen in the near future.


Originally posted by Cyclone
I hope it does well. Because if this works, the record companies won't be able to do anything to stop it.

Exactly! The people who write open source software stand behind their principles, they'd never sell out to someone. And I hope it gets popular too. Of course giving it a try and telling people what you think of Ogg Vorbis is an excellent start.

btw, anyone who's curious should definitly read the Ogg Vorbis faqs: http://www.vorbis.com/faq.psp - The faqs cover alot of questions you might have. They even have a section to answer questions for different types of music lovers, such as artists: http://www.vorbis.com/faq.psp#artist (definitly check that out Beldaran ;))

I tried out the encoder earlier. I took a song from a cd, encoded it to a wav, then made a
-128kb/s mp3
-128kb/s ogg
-64kb/s ogg

The two 128kb/s files sounded alot alike (it's hard to tell the difference through laptop speakers). The ogg was sligthly smaller in file size. The 64kb/s file was half the size of the other two, and I honestly could not tell the difference between it and the ones encoded at higher bit rates. Very impressive.

[MottZilla]

Well, it'd be neat if it took off. However I don't have any probs with my mp3s now.

Edit: Something we should all see.

Can I convert my MP3 collection to the Ogg Vorbis format?

You can convert any audio format to Ogg Vorbis. However, converting from one lossy format, like MP3, to another lossy format, like Vorbis, is generally a bad idea. Both MP3 and Vorbis encoders achieve high compression ratios by throwing away parts of the audio waveform that you probably won't hear. However, the MP3 and Vorbis codecs are very different, so they each will throw away different parts of the audio, although there certainly is some overlap. Converting a MP3 to Vorbis involves decoding the MP3 file back to an uncompressed format, like WAV, and recompressing it using the Ogg Vorbis encoder. The decoded MP3 will be missing the parts of the original audio that the MP3 encoder chose to discard. The Ogg Vorbis encoder will then discard other audio components when it compresses the data. At best, the result will be an Ogg file that sounds the same as your original MP3, but it is most likely that the resulting file will sound worse than your original MP3. In no case will you get a file that sounds better than the original MP3.

Since many music players can play both MP3 and Ogg files, there is no reason that you should have to switch all of your files to one format or the other. If you like Ogg Vorbis, then we would encourage you to use it when you encode from original, lossless audio sources (like CDs). When encoding from originals, you will find that you can make Ogg files that are both smaller and better quality than MP3.

So converting over/ditching mp3s is not the thing to do. Just when encoding wavs it'd be better to encode in vorbis.

[AtmaWeapon]

I'm glad I didn't pay an extra $60 for the car stereo that plays MP3s.

Help this lazy man out, though. You can probably rip from CD>Ogg, but does any burning software do from Ogg->CD?

[Gerudo]

there must be something im not doing right, cuz the 'drag & drop' crap didnt work... id try the command line stuff... but it looks too complicated...

[obi]

Originally posted by AtmaWeapon
I'm glad I didn't pay an extra $60 for the car stereo that plays MP3s.

Help this lazy man out, though. You can probably rip from CD>Ogg, but does any burning software do from Ogg->CD?

wELL, IF YOU WANT OGG TO cd YOU COULD ALWAYS GO OGG -> WAV THEN WAV->cd


(damn caps lock, to lazy to re-type)


That shouldn't cause any loss in quality....

[DukenukemX]

What bitrate does it take for OGG to get CD quality sound? I know mp3 needs 128 and WMA needs 64.

If OGG can use less bitrate and still have near CD quality audio that would be very cool.

[AtmaWeapon]

I took a 192 kbps mp3 from a CD. Filesize: 7.7 MB. I used CDex to make an ogg vorbis (it seems to have an encoder included). Filesize: 16.6 MB. Perhaps I just did something wrong. It did sound much better than the MP3, though.

[DemoQuestFan]

I was just looking this kinda stuff up last night, about Vorbis being associated with Mp3s, just like BeOS (Wants to try BeOS for the media compatibility)

[vegeta1215]

128kb/s is fine for near cd-quality ogg files. Any higher encoding is just a waste. But, anything from 64-128kb/s sounds excellent. So you could probably get away with a bitrate in the 80s and 90s, and still have excellent quality, with a much smaller file size. And if your the kind of person who rips alot of songs from cds, those little size differences add up.

An Atma, I think your using the prog I tried, the OggDropXPd or something? It won't let you drag and rop cd files but you can drag and drop wavs and ogg files (for decoding). I'm sure there's a program out there that does CD->WAV then WAV->OGG in one step though.

[theplustwo]

The second I saw the author of this thread I knew it was going to be ogg vorbis ^_^

[Ich]

The problem with OV is it needs to catch on to annoy the record industry, and a name like Ogg Vorbis inhibits the catching on.

[vegeta1215]

Originally posted by fmehmobile
The second I saw the author of this thread I knew it was going to be ogg vorbis ^_^

I'll take that as a complement! :D

Open Source rules! In fact, my bro just got a new Dell PC with Windows XP, and I loaded Mozilla for him. Man, I tell you what, Mozilla is really nice...


Originally posted by ICHBINDASWALROSS
The problem with OV is it needs to catch on to annoy the record industry, and a name like Ogg Vorbis inhibits the catching on.

I think it's a cool name :)

I will say it does take a while to encode ogg files, but the product is worth it I think.