Topic: Doesn't anybody at all care about MPC ? (Read 4078 times)

Poison Dan · « **on:** February 04, 2002, 03:05:23 am »

I must say, I do get very few (if any) reactions whenever I post an MPC issue (do a search for MPC in this forum). MJ8 build 196 has several issues with MPC files, I will list them here again (number 2 is new):

1. When using the explorer shell extension "Add to playing now" on an MPC file, while another MPC file is playing in MJ, playback stops with an "Out of Sync" error. This bug was not present in previous builds.
2. In the file properties window, the "Format" tab only returns "Input plug-in did not return format information." This was working fine in previous builds (I could see e.g. "SV7, insane").
3. Analyze replay gain does not work with MPC files, MJ8 just skips through the files in the queue. This never worked, but I still haven't heard a formal response if it should work or not.
4. When I open the plug-in manager while MJ is playing an MPC file, select the MP|PLS| plugin, and choose configure, playback stops with an "Out of Sync" error. This is a very minor issue, because I have no need to configure the plugin while playing MPC files. However, I wrote it down because it's still a bug, and it would therefor fit in this list.

I'm wondering how many of you actually use MPC files for their music collection. I guess not many, otherwise I would have read a lot more about these issues on the forum.

All feedback (especially from the J River folks) is appreciated.

Poison Dan · « **Reply #1 on:** February 04, 2002, 03:28:34 am »

And another one:
5. MJ8 doesn't read/display the id3 tags of lots of MPC files. I have to test some more to find out why or when exactly.

I'm suspecting that some of my problems are caused by the latest MPC plugin (based on version 1.7.9e). Does anybody still have the previous version (based on 1.7.9c, IIRC) ?

Cmagic · « **Reply #2 on:** February 04, 2002, 03:53:58 am »

Poison Dan,

Don't worry you're not alone on planet mpc !

1.I do a lot of "Add to playing now" with my heteroclit database of mpc, ape, mp3 files and I have
never noticed that !
Just wondering, what version of the input plugin are you using and what version of the mpc encoder ?

2.I regulary use MJ version 1.07 (based on 1.7.9e) and the format tab does correctly
return the mpc informations (xtreme, insane, etc..). Lately I've tried the last winamp plugin from Frank Klemm (0.90e)
which add support for internal mpc replaygain and ID3V2 tag skip. It works ok in MJ8 except that it does not return
information in the format tab. I think this is because the winamp plugins lacks some methods/functions to return this
info upon MJ request.(Matt, am I correct?)

3. Yep, MJ replaygain analysis does not work on mpc. It would be nice if it woorked but mpc has its own
internal way of storing replaygain informations (see frank klemm page) so I don't know how both
replaygain systems can live together.

4. This bug has been reported in some thread (maybe that was U). I'm now used to stop playback before tweaking the mpc input plugin.

All this id with MJ8.0.196, mpc plugin 1.07 (MJ), all mpc encoded using mppenc v0.90

My personal feeling concerning mpc/MJ : Yes there are some problems as mpc encoders and plugins are still evolving
and also because mpc is not mainstream like mp3 but I think the support of mpc is quite good in MJ.
BTW (this one's for Matt) I've seen on frank klemm page that mpc now support the APETag format, is it really true ?
Do you think it will soon be possible to store the MJ customs info in MPC files in the same way as in APE ?
Bonne Journee,

Master7 · « **Reply #3 on:** February 04, 2002, 04:23:16 am »

And yes, you are not alone...I use mpplus, too.
Rest......, you said it already.

zevele · « **Reply #4 on:** February 04, 2002, 04:44:27 am »

What is mpc?

kitfox · « **Reply #5 on:** February 04, 2002, 04:47:54 am »

>>>>>>>>>>What is mpc?

a lateral move in progress from mp3

Xstatic · « **Reply #6 on:** February 04, 2002, 04:49:57 am »

Posion dan,

I now believe in telepathy. You took my thoughts accumulated over the past weeks and put them in this posting.
I follow you on all points, and it would be appreciated to receive some feedback about the strategy of JRiver.

Re. your point no.3, I don't think it is supposed to work with mpc (yet). The question is whether or not JRiver
will make an effort to make replay gain work with mpc or not.

Another point, which I did get an answer to from Nikolaj and Matt, is the rip and encode simultanously issue with mpc.
This could be done in previous versions (6 & 7) but not in v.8. What I mean here is that the ripper would keep on ripping the
tracks, while the encoder followed along. I doesnt do that anymore. the ripper waits until the encoder is finished with one song,
and then continues.

Regarding this and a few other issues (replay gain, input plugin info, tagging) v. 8 seems to be a degrade, not an upgrade.
Of course this is not true, if JRiver actually plans to improve these things as v. 8 comes closer to final version.

But we don't have this information. So it would be nice to get these things clarified.
It's better to know what to expect, than to set one's excpectations too high.

I think mp3 will exist in some form or another for eternity (!). But it is a wellknown fact that new formats like mpc and ogg
are expanding to more and more users, not just audiophiles, and thus will the needs and demands for support of these formats also
rise. JRiver seems like the most innovative jukeboxenterprise of them all, so they really should meet this challenge I think, and
continue to be the leading jukebox, also in the coming years.

Personally, I would seriously consider to pay a higher price than mp3 users should pay, to compensate for better mpc functionalities
in MJ. Maybe that would be an option: to have a "special format edition" at x $ above the normal price?

As I understand it, with my close to nonexisting technical knowledge, it takes more programming resources to create the same functionalities with mpc than with mp3. This could be one of the major barriers for JRiver to support this format enough?

regards
Jesper

zevele1 · « **Reply #7 on:** February 04, 2002, 05:04:55 am »

MHorton
sorry,but i still do not understand
Is it a format?

ZEVELE1 · « **Reply #8 on:** February 04, 2002, 05:08:26 am »

It is the 'monkey' format?

kitfox · « **Reply #9 on:** February 04, 2002, 05:15:45 am »

ZEVELE1

mpc is a lossy encoding format like mp3, wma, ogg. Some people swear up-and-down that it sounds better than the others, and the file sizes are supposed to be smaller. Most people that I konw can't tell the difference between it and mp3. So, to me, at this point in its history, mpc is a lateral (sideways, rather than forward) move in encoding progress. It's not the ape format, the ape format is lossless. Just one person's opinion.

Michael

Zevele1 · « **Reply #10 on:** February 04, 2002, 05:33:11 am »

MHorton
You are right.I have my computer plug to ma stereo.I can say a very good one.I had try any format,any kps.On speakers or headphones
I can say if it is a WMA,the sound is a little metallic and at higth level there is the"speakers in the bathroom' effect.For mp3,i do not see any difference from 196kp up to the maximum.I do not see any difference betwen cd=rip=encode and "on the fly"
I do see some very big differences at the players level.MediaJukebox is quite good,but FreeAmp has a fantastic sound.And a neutral one,transparent,ideal for stereo
Anyway ,i have a discman cd/mp3 player and a dvd who plays mp3,so i will stay with mp3 as long as possible

Poison Dan · « **Reply #11 on:** February 04, 2002, 05:35:09 am »

Cmagic:

About the "add to playing now" issue : I'm using the latest MP|PLS| plugin from the MJ8 auto-update command. The "About" box in the plugin manager shows "MP|PLS| plugin v1.7.9e". Remember, it only happens when adding an MPC and playing an MPC (e.g. when you add an MP3 file while an MPC file is playing, no error occurs.

I did try Klemm's (at that time) latest WinAmp plugin in MJ8 a while back (IIRC, when build 164 was out), but I've had several tagging issues with this plugin, so I reverted back to the MJ8-supplied plugin. I could experiment some more with other plugins (does anybody still have the 1.7.9c plugin ?) when I find some time.

About the tagging issue: I didn't mention one thing: one or two weeks ago, I enabled the option "Always support extended tag fields", tried some things on MPC, MP3 and APL files, and disabled it again. When I found out that tagging didn't always work, this was the first thing I thought about. Do you think this option could have anything to do with it ? Like I said, it's disabled now.

About replaygain: Yes, I know a separate replaygain.exe is available from Klemm's website, and I have already used it a couple of times, but this is not compatible with MJ8's replaygain. Maybe I can get it to work if I install Klemm's latest WinAmp plugin again, but I'd really like it if I could use one tool with all my audio formats (MPC, MP3 and APL).

All in all, I just wanted to mention that these MPC issues are a bit frustrating for MPC enthousiasts. I do realise it's still a beta version, but MP3 files and APL files work flawlessly and with many more features in MJ8 (extended tags, replay gain, etc). I guess it's the risk of using a format that is not that well-known. Probably J River puts a lot more effort and dedication to MP3 and APE support, which I can fully understand, because MP3 is much more popular and because the APE author also works on MJ8. Also, since MJ8 supports so many formats, the team at J River has to decide about its priorities.

Zevele: check out these URLs:
http://www.stud.uni-hannover.de/user/73884/audiocoder_eng.html
http://www.uni-jena.de/~pfk/mpp/index.html
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=12

Gatobrit · « **Reply #12 on:** February 04, 2002, 05:36:34 am »

Hi,
I ripped a few albums in MPC (using MJ7) a few months ago and couldn't tell the difference between MPC and MP3 on my system (laptop with Cambrige Soundworks speaker / subwooffer system). The files were marginally smaller.

However, there were occasional pops and clicks in the files that I generally don't hear with LAME encoded MP3's. Also, when I want to do anything with the files (copy to a handheld etc.) I need to convert them to MP3.

At the moment, if you're hard drive challenged (I have a laptop with a 20Gb hard drive and 12Gb of MP3s) then MP3 still seems the way to go - IMHO.

If I had a much larger hard drive available then APE would be it for me (say encoding to a desktop at home) - except for it's poor streaming performance.

That's my 5 cents worth for what it's worth.

Matt · « **Reply #13 on:** February 04, 2002, 05:42:19 am »

We'll try to address these issues by release time.

However, it may be better for the hardcore mpc fans if the actual author(s) took over development of the Media Jukebox 8 mpc plugin. Have them contact us (matt @ jriver.com) if they're interested.

-Matt

kitfox · « **Reply #14 on:** February 04, 2002, 05:52:37 am »

Poison Dan and Cmagic

oh, and I didn't mean to in any way imply that the MJ team shouldn't get this feature up to par with the rest of MJ (they should) when I answered zevele's question.

zevele1

>>>>>>>>>>>I do see some very big differences at the players level.

I do too--it is, perhaps, the primary feature (among many possibilities) that makes MJ my favorite. For some reason, to me, MJ's sound quality is better than its competition. On the other hand, others say they can't hear any difference among the top players. Oh well . . .

zevele1 · « **Reply #15 on:** February 04, 2002, 06:54:03 am »

MHorton
If you play music on the"all plastic made in china" speakers from you computer,there is maybe not any difference and ,because of it you can read the BIG nonsense"Winamp has the best sound" on many posts
But if you play on your stereo ,there is differences,and not small ones
I still cannot give a winner for best sound between FreeAmp and MediaJukebox,but-after hard work on settings-i have MediaJukebox as my default
player.Except for mp3.com streamings.With FreeAmp,you get Artist and song info and you can rip on the fly the music on your hard drive in mp3 format

To the mpc heads:i will have a try and tell you

Poison Dan · « **Reply #16 on:** February 04, 2002, 07:09:01 am »

Matt,

Thank you for your reply. I will try to get Klemm or Buschmann to contact you.

MHorton and Gatobrit,

I don't want to turn this thread into a discussion about the quality of audio codecs (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org is the perfect place for that), but I do want to comment on your posts about MPC.

MPC IS more transparent (i.e. sounding exactly the same as the source) than MP3 (at bitrates approximately between 160-200). This has been confirmed so many times by so many people (and by my own listening tests), that I don't think there can be any doubt about it.

The question is: do you need anything that is more thansparent than MP3 ?

I cannot answer this for anyone, it depends on too many factors: hearing abilities, quality of audio equiment, kind of music being encoded, etc. So everybody has to decide for himself. Do some listening tests.

Basically, if you don't hear any differences between MP3 and the audio source, stick with MP3. If you do, MPC is a viable alternative.

I would like to warn you, though. Maybe you don't hear any difference right now, but it might change if you get better quality audio equipment, or when you start to encoder some harder to encode material. I can provide you with samples where you can clearly hear the difference between the MP3 file and the original source, even at 256kbps (while MPC is transparent with these samples). Been there, done that.

Gatobrit, if you hear pops and clicks on your MPC files, then something went wrong during ripping or encoding. This has got nothing to do with the MPC format.

Of course, you are absolutely right about the hardware support: for compatibility reasons, we still need MP3, because there are no hardware MPC players available. Fortunately, converting from MPC to MP3 is easy enough with MJ.

zevele1 · « **Reply #17 on:** February 04, 2002, 07:48:54 am »

Poison Dan
I do hear a difference between any format and the original source.As i hear a big difference between lp and cd
What i would like is a format neutral,transparent.Let say like my stereo:
play a lp,a cd on an amp who have only a volume button
I understand that mpc is a steep on this way,and will try it.Format not the only part ,soundcard,player are also of importance
Anyway,thank you for the teaching us

KingSparta · « **Reply #18 on:** February 04, 2002, 08:12:50 am »

>Doesn't anybody at all care about MPC
No

Poison Dan · « **Reply #19 on:** February 04, 2002, 08:29:26 am »

Well, duh...

I completely uninstalled MJ8, and installed it again, and guess what ? Issues numer 1, 2 and 5 are solved !

I have no idea what actually caused these problems (maybe this "extended tag" stuff I enabled in the past), but I'm happy anyway.

I checked the version of the MPC plugin I have now, and it's exactly the same as before (1.7.9e).

The only things on my MPC wish list now are replay gain support and support for extended tags in MJ8.

Oh, and zevele1, if you can hear the difference between the MPC files and the source, using profile insane (parameter --insane), with blind listening tests (http://www.pcabx.com), then you must have very, very sensitive ears. If this is true, please provide samples and ABX results on the Project Mayhem board (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org).

zevele1 · « **Reply #20 on:** February 04, 2002, 08:35:17 am »

Poison Fish
I hear difference between any format I KNOW
and original
I asked what is mpc few posts before,so i still have to try it.It is the first time i hear about it

kitfox · « **Reply #21 on:** February 04, 2002, 10:31:53 am »

Poison Dan said: I don't want to turn this thread into a discussion about the quality of audio codecs

Fair enough, but I just wanted to clarify: I said that many people that I know (myself included) can't tell the difference between mp3 and mpc, not between mp3 and the original source. I don't care for mp3s, because I notice the difference between an mp3 and the CD in the type of music to which I listen. I've tried mpc and found it suffers from the same types of quality loss as mp3. I only listen to ape, but, I convert every song that I rip into mp3 into a separate folder for Music01 streaming and for my wife to use in her portable mp3 player (but I'd use mpc for these purposes if I could as the files are smaller). I can understand why some people prefer mpc to mp3, just as some people prefer wma or ogg to mp3.

Michael

Cmagic · « **Reply #22 on:** February 04, 2002, 12:10:05 pm »

Matt
thanks for caring about MPC

Poison Dan
If you contact one of the author I'm sure things can move.
Frank Klemm is pretty responsive.

Mhorton
I agree, the differences between mp3 (bitrate > 192kbps) and mpc are difficult to catch
except in some clips (fatboy for instance). But there is one situation in which the
difference is tremendous it's for gapless recordings (concerts, Dark side of the moon, Sgt Peppers...) mp3 cannot handle gapless recording where mpc is a lot better (so is ogg).

ZEVELE1 · « **Reply #23 on:** February 04, 2002, 12:15:38 pm »

dans ce cas
using Totalrecorder to rip on wam a concert.
I will get better results if i convert to mpc instead of mp3?

kitfox · « **Reply #24 on:** February 04, 2002, 12:16:46 pm »

thanks Cmagic and Poison Dan -- I think I'll start paying closer attention to the progression of this format

Cmagic · « **Reply #25 on:** February 04, 2002, 12:27:40 pm »

Bonjour zevele, ou plutot bonsoir,

I don't know about totalrecorder. Is it something that allows you to record
directly from the Soundcard wave out ?
If so, when you record a concert from a DVD for example, you end up with a big
wav file that you must cut in tracks (saucissoné quoi !) and thencomes the encoding.
If you use mp3 you will hear a click or pop at the track junction.
If you use mpc, ogg you will just here "clap, clap, bravo, une autre !"

zevele1 · « **Reply #26 on:** February 04, 2002, 12:37:34 pm »

With TotalRecorder you can also record streaming concerts from the web.The version i have cancels the Real re-buffering problem.There is a new one who do the same for WindowsMedia
Unlike many,i do not wish to cut tracks.In fact i would like to rip a full cd as one song.Like this i will have 11 songs on my mp3 encoded cd.Each song=one record.Much more easy with an mp3/cd dicsman
Un ex-St George/Pigalle

Xstatic · « **Reply #27 on:** February 04, 2002, 12:47:41 pm »

Poison dan,

I followed Matt's proposal and emailed F.Klemm and Buschel.
Don't think it would harm if you (and other interested mpc & MJ users) did the same...

regards
Jesper

Poison Dan · « **Reply #28 on:** February 05, 2002, 04:06:32 am »

Xstatic,

I also e-mailed Frank and Andree. We'll see what happens.

Cmagic,

Thanks for mentioning the (important) gapless playback issue. I wanted to mention it before, but I didn't want to elaborate too much on MPC.

Anyway, I want to add my own experience about this: as you mentioned, you can't have gapless playback with MP3. One thing I have tried in the past is using aggressive crossfade with 0.4s. This solves the problem somewhat, but it can cause timing problems (the music might not sound synchronised anymore, if you understand what I mean).

With MPC, I can use gapless output with great results. About 90-95% of my live/mix CDs sound perfectly gapless, but for a small minority of songs I do notice a very slight, very subtle "pop".

To conclude: MP3 can't do gapless, MPC can do *almost* perfect gapless.

I don't know about OGG, but I think you have to use lossless compression in order to get 100% perfect gapless playback in all cases. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

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Author Topic: Doesn't anybody at all care about MPC ? (Read 4078 times)

Master7

zevele

kitfox

Xstatic

zevele1

ZEVELE1

kitfox

Zevele1

kitfox

zevele1

zevele1

zevele1

kitfox

ZEVELE1

kitfox

zevele1