Topic: What Format Is Best??? (Read 4675 times)

Mouseman · « **on:** April 20, 2002, 08:04:00 am »

HI All
I have nearly 300 albums on my DJ computer and im was wondering about whats the best audio format???
right now im useing WMA in 96 Kbps
but is there a format there is better???

~Mouseman
ICQ: 76171056

zevele1 · « **Reply #1 on:** April 20, 2002, 08:10:11 am »

Anyway NOT the windows format
There is a lot of post about it,just make a seach on this forum

nila · « **Reply #2 on:** April 20, 2002, 08:31:22 am »

DONT use WMA. The whole point of that format is that it has built in security and I'm sure microsoft hasn't published the full details on just what kind of crap they've hidden in it.

You should record them all using VBR with LAME encoder with one of it's high set presets if u want good quality that is in a format that has a lot of support and is highly compatible.

Or otherwise I heard ogg vorbis is meant to be VERY good quality and not take up much space.

I'd recommend mp3 for now though just because of it's huge user base and the huge amount of support for it, both in the forms of hardware and software.

sdcoochie · « **Reply #3 on:** April 20, 2002, 08:38:06 am »

Mouseman stay away from WMA it is terrible. The best lossy format currently is MPC or MP|PLS| or Musepack whatever you want to call it, it is still the same. MPC at a standard setting is better than a higher bitrate mp3 and probably compares to about a q6 or q7 ogg file. If you wanted a good bitrate setting with relatively little loss in quality I would use these;
MPC --standard (about 175 - 200 kbs)
MP3 --alt-preset fast standard (about 180 - 210 kbs)
OGG -q7 (about 175 - 200 kbs)

There are better command lines for all of these encoders but of course you will be making file sizes bigger and bigger. However, an MPC with the --insane setting will still give you a bitrate of far less than an MP3 at 320 kbs and will be superior in all respects.

You can use the external encoder and each encoders exe to accomplish this within MJ. For more info on this you can visit this site;

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?s=a87be12b864d52d04f9bb836bc70145f

Mouseman · « **Reply #4 on:** April 20, 2002, 08:41:44 am »

i only have a 120 GB so i need a format that is good qualty in about 96 Kbps
is there a format that do that??

~Mouseman
ICQ: 76171056

JimH · « **Reply #5 on:** April 20, 2002, 09:03:37 am »

The best quality sound will come from a lossless encoder. Monkey's Audio is our choice. The sound is identical to what you get from a CD.

Compression is only about 2 to 1, but your 120GB drive should store more than 400 albums.

96Kbps is not enough, no matter what the format. Lame VBR (varies, but around 150Kbps) is a minimum for "good" sound.

The best advice I can give you is to try several formats and bitrates, and judge for yourself.

tdillard · « **Reply #6 on:** April 20, 2002, 09:11:21 am »

I agree completely with JimH. Monkey's Audio is THE BEST lossless encoder out there(thank you Matt). I have somewhere between 2&3 thousand files, and over 80% are in the ape format. I also agree with virtually everyone, that WMA is NOT the way to go.

zevele1 · « **Reply #7 on:** April 20, 2002, 10:05:06 am »

IF space is your main problem,in this case keep wma 64kps,it will be better than any other format at 96kps
Another solution is to wait until your birthday.Another 120gd hard disc can be a nice and not so expensive gift

zevele1 · « **Reply #8 on:** April 20, 2002, 10:53:33 am »

Me again
You may have better deal with mp3pro.But you cannot play them with MediaJukebox

Trelane · « **Reply #9 on:** April 20, 2002, 10:55:50 am »

Monkey's Audio will give you the best sound, as it's lossless. The next in line (in my opinion) is MPC. It will provide transparent sound at around 175-200 kbps. It's not very popular, but it's very high quality. Besides, popularity shouldn't matter if you're encoding your own collection and not trading files.

My collection (what I have ripped so far) consists of both APE and MPC files. Great combination if you ask me! Next Page

Mike

NY40Male · « **Reply #10 on:** April 20, 2002, 01:14:47 pm »

i use mp3pro with MJ

zevele1 · « **Reply #11 on:** April 20, 2002, 01:48:37 pm »

Yes you can read mp3pro with MJ,and all others players,but if there is not a pluging.And there is not on MJ,you do not get the mp3pro quality

Darwyn · « **Reply #12 on:** April 20, 2002, 10:00:12 pm »

Mouseman,

From my experiences the best thing to use at 96 kbps is OGG. Most people cannot tell 96 kbps OGG from the original. The fact is when you desire compression at that intense of a level (speaking of greater than 8 to 1) you will be pushing likelihood of defects. You really need to experiment with a few formats yourself to see what you think is acceptable. WMA generally will reveal terrible artifacts at any bitrate and is usually annoying at 96 and under bitrates. MP3 is the choice for compatibility and usually provided satisfactory results at 160 or above. MPC is top dog in quality at the 170 to 235 kbps range.

Darwyn

Xstatic · « **Reply #13 on:** April 21, 2002, 01:59:15 am »

I second that - Ogg would be my choice as well at this bitrate

Mouseman · « **Reply #14 on:** April 21, 2002, 02:09:51 am »

What Can Ogg Do??
Can i include covers, idtag and so on?

~Mouseman
ICQ: 76171056

yannl · « **Reply #15 on:** April 21, 2002, 04:58:50 am »

Hi guys,
I know it's a shame to say that... but I compared WMA (version 8 of course) 128 to MP3 and MP3pro and unless you encode at 320, the quality is a lot better with WM8. And I have no artifacts... playing from my laptop on very good speakers, I would hear them (Yes I'm almost sure that I'm not deaf

Of course there are better formats out there, like OGG or MP , but if you want to use your music on a portable player and reasonable file size, you don't really have choice, it's, as far as I know, MP3 (minimum 256) or WM8 (min 128)... for most players.
And... Micro$oft hiding malicious code in the Wm8 format... Isn'it just paranoia ?
Unfortunately, using WM8 is a problem when you use Linux and Window$. That's true. But I'm sure a few people are working on reverse engineering nowadays

The protection has already been cracked.
Btw, MP3 Pro is disapointing... I though that was finaly an alternative, but song quality is not that good.
I would love a post explaining me that I'm wrong and that I can possibly rip in MP3 with the same quality than WM8 128 with a reasonable file size (more or less the same). Surprise me please.

sekim · « **Reply #16 on:** April 21, 2002, 05:36:56 am »

Mouseman,

You mention playing these files on your, "DJ computer". Are you playing these files in a club, or at home? If it is a noisy club you could posibly get away with alot of the lower bitrate files. If it is at home, where there is a definite difference in acoustics, you should probably stick to some the higher quality formats mentioned above.

I guess location should be a consideration as to what type of format you choose. Anyone can say they hear a difference where it is quiet and you are really concentrating on the music. Don't think that would be the same case after a couple of cocktails at the local pub. People talking, room acoustic footprints, etc., would change the way any format sounds. And posibly hide flaws in lower bitrate files. Good test to try, move the furniture around in your listening room at home and see what a diffrence that makes. Sound gets bounced in different directions now and completely changes the way your music gets to your ears.

Recently, I changed the location of my speakers in the living room. Basically moved them off the floor about 16 inches. WOW!! Had to really turn the bass down. The passive ports, located at the bottom of the speakers, no longer lost their punch due to sound crossing over the carpet. Best guess anyway. Sub-woofer had to be re-adjusted also.

So, we should ask, where and how does your music gets played?

Mouseman · « **Reply #17 on:** April 21, 2002, 06:41:49 am »

Its Home

~Mouseman
Icq: 76171056

Ilmar · « **Reply #18 on:** April 21, 2002, 06:55:39 am »

Hi Mouseman

I tried mp3pro when it first came out, and unless it has radically improved,
I would rather listen to music on a clockwork radio.

The answer is to use the format you are happy with, and gives
you sufficient quality such that your ears can't tell the difference
between compressed and CD!

A VBR (variable bitrate) compression should help reduce wasted disk space and keep quality where it matters.

Ilmar

sekim · « **Reply #19 on:** April 21, 2002, 06:56:53 am »

Mouseman,

That being the case, the ape format is probably best. Lossless compression, but still large files size compared to others. Wish I had a couple of tetra class hard drives for this format. But since the world isn't perfect, and Bill Gates ain't my Daddy, I stick with mp3 at about 192. A decent format that is obviously widespread and compatible with many portable devices. Encoding is fairly fast and the abundance of programs for editing make it a good choice. However, if I could figure out how to get that MPEG plus or MPC going I would consider that also. I just can't seem to get a page that shows where the actual encoder is. ( Hint ). And if it needs to be set as an external. ( Another Hint )

Abe1 · « **Reply #20 on:** April 21, 2002, 09:03:55 am »

Hey 120 GB is lots of disk space. Go for lossles, Monkey's Audio. Its creator Matt is a superman.

Trelane · « **Reply #21 on:** April 21, 2002, 09:09:43 am »

Encoder here:
http://www.uni-jena.de/~pfk/mpp/

Latest MJ plugin here (let me know if you have any questions with it or find any bugs):
http://www.naivesoftware.com

You can set up the encoder as an external encoder by selecting the mppenc.exe file in the external encoder properties. The command line box will be filled with this: "%IN %OUT -v" by default. Change it to "--standard %IN %OUT". Also, change the extension to "mpc" instead of "mp|PLS|". There are a number of profiles, just exchange the following values with --standard. Here they are in order of quality.

--thumb (don't use this one)
--radio (don't use this one)
--standard (good quality, about 160-180 kbps)
--xtreme (excellent, about 180-210 kbps... I use this one, myself)
--insane (excellent, about 220-240 kbps... this one is good if you ever transcode in the future as it encodes the entire bandwidth, but it's overkill for anything else)
--braindead (overkill, about 250-270 kbps)

Charlemagne 8 · « **Reply #22 on:** April 21, 2002, 10:07:15 am »

MachineHead,
The resident MPEG Plus man has spoken. I've tried those steps, they work and the results are quite good. The only problem is that as it's encoding, you get a black & white DOS-like screen. Ugly. Okay, I'm being petty but I like things to look nice. Isn't that how "Windows" came into being ... it LOOKED better than DOS? It certainly didn't perform better. In some cases, it was worse. But it looks like it caught on.

Trelane,
Thanks for your work on MPEG Plus. We appreciate it.

CVIII

zevele1 · « **Reply #23 on:** April 21, 2002, 12:48:12 pm »

120 gb IS NOT a lot of place.Well it is the day you buy it."I will never use it.it is so big"
But few months after......
Mp3 pro has a lot of dynamic and rich trebles.But so weak on bass that the general effect is ..well,SmerdeT....
But you do have 120gb,so try to use mp3 128kps.I,and many others ,think that it is minimun quality,below it...
I never used ORG,so i cannot speak about

RAVMAN · « **Reply #24 on:** April 21, 2002, 01:44:30 pm »

IMO-
At Constant Bitrate MP3:
96K is FM radio quality (tolerable)
128K is cassette quality (good but not great)
160-192K is near CD quality (very good)
192-320 is CD quality (excellent)

For best quality MP3s use Variable Bit Rate (VBR) with the built in LAME encoder at high quality which achieves an average bit rate around 180K but produces the sound equivalent of 192 to 320K range at CBR. This is what I use to rip my CD collection and the results are very good. In the past, (when I didn't know any better) I ripped then encoded at 128K but I plan to re-rip/encode these since the quality is not nearly as good as the high quality VBRs.

Mouseman · « **Reply #25 on:** April 22, 2002, 03:26:02 am »

Hi again

Windows Media Audio v8 (WMA)offers:
Near-CD Quality now at 48kbps
CD Quality at 64kbps

Sorce: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/WM8/audio.asp

~Mouseman
ICQ: 76171056

Trelane · « **Reply #26 on:** April 22, 2002, 04:22:21 am »

Be careful... Microsoft used mono files in their original boasts of WMA's quality. Despite the claims, no format is CD quality at 64 kbps. At bitrates below 160 kbps, I recommend sticking with the tried and true MP3 or trying out Ogg Vorbis. Above 160 kbps, I recommend MPC or lossless.

Alternatively, you could try AAC. But this would be illegal unless you either hand over money to Dolby and friends or live in a country where software patents do not exist.

Mike

yannl · « **Reply #27 on:** April 22, 2002, 05:52:49 am »

RAVMAN: I'm trying to test Lame MP3 VBR, but what do you suggest as good settings ?
MJ in the advanced options has high speed, high quality or normal. I choose High Quality
Then, below the encoder line is again a "quality option": from low to customer. I choose high quality again.
And then I try to rip. I want to make a test with my favorite test file: Hotel Californîa Live from The Eagles
And I'm still waiting... it's running for more than 15 minutes for one song.
So I guess I don't know the settings to use ?
What do you suggest ?

sdcoochie · « **Reply #28 on:** April 22, 2002, 04:08:10 pm »

Yannl
You could use the custome option of MJ's MP3 VBR encoder. Select custom then press advanced and try the tried and tested alt preset commands. These are the best command lines for Lame and are under constant developement by the Lame team and others.
These commands are as follows;
--alt-preset insane (overkill but the best about 300-320kbs)
--alt-preset extreme (very good about 220-300kbs)
--alt-preset standard (probably the best all round size quality choice)
--alt-preset fast standard (the one I use good quality a little faster about 210
You could also use examples like these;
--alt-preset 140 (which would net you about 140kbs but a fine tuned ABS 140
--alt-preset 180 (which would net you about 180kbs.........)
And so on. The developer of these command lines is one of the ipso facto guru's of Lame. But even he uses MPC as his lossy choise. However, for MP3's there is no better way to go and if you are interested in learning more vist hydrogen audio (just do a search for this I can't remember the exact address).

yannl · « **Reply #29 on:** April 27, 2002, 05:40:25 am »

sdcoochie:
Sorry answering that late.
Thanks for the info.
I'm now converting my wm8 to mp3 vbr standard, but it takes a very long time... about 2 day (~45 hours) for ~2gigs up to 25... very slow....
Any idea to speed this up ?
(slow machine, PIII 800, 512 RAM, ATA100... slow but not THAT slow .-)
BTW: A good reference for a real MP3 VBR - WM8 comparison (not a "I don't like Micro$oft one") ?
The better reason I have today to move to VBR is my Linux partition, and I'd love to say it's also a quality reason. I compared both formats and see not difference, but I would love to have this proved

Thanks again !

sekim · « **Reply #30 on:** April 27, 2002, 05:55:25 am »

yannl,

I wouldn't exactly call a PIII 800 machine slow. I think the VBR format takes more cpu cycles versus CBR format to complete the same thing. Anyone? However, quality VBR vs CBR is dramatically different. Been playing around with some rips, may have to change my mind on which mp3 format is best. Thank you RAVMAN and sdcoochie Next Page

. Still have to acknowledge that ape files are THE reigning king of formats though.

Peter A · « **Reply #31 on:** April 27, 2002, 06:36:40 am »

I think most DVD-videoplayers with support for mp3 does not support VBR. So if you'r planning to put your mp3 files on CD:s and play in a videoplayer then VBR may not be so good (?).

UdoS · « **Reply #32 on:** April 27, 2002, 06:44:36 am »

If you just talking about quality, you can run a simple test yourself. Take a .wave file of white noise, decode it using various decoder, convert it back to .wav and look at the spectrum. It should tell you at least the diffrence in bandwith e.g.

Udo

sdcoochie · « **Reply #33 on:** April 27, 2002, 03:05:50 pm »

Good things come to those who wait. However, if you do insist on mp3 and not a bad idea compatability wise, you may want to try the fast standard setting. This will speed things up a bit without loosing too much. Then some of the alt presets ie --alt-preset 160 I think uses abr instead of vbr which will also speed things up big time. You may want to do a little more investigating of this at http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?s=a87be12b864d52d04f9bb836bc70145f
the link I was mentioning they will have a forum for mp3 mpc and ogg. You will get all the info there you need to net you the best quality in any of these formats. Good luck in your hunt for excellence.

INTERACT FORUM

Author Topic: What Format Is Best??? (Read 4675 times)

Mouseman

zevele1

nila

sdcoochie

Mouseman

tdillard

zevele1

zevele1

NY40Male

zevele1

Darwyn

Mouseman

yannl

sekim

Mouseman

sekim

Abe1

zevele1

RAVMAN

Mouseman

sdcoochie

sekim

Peter A

UdoS

sdcoochie