[vorbis-dev] vorbis.com/faq.html

[Segher Boessenkool]

                           What is Ogg Vorbis?

                           Ogg Vorbis is a new audio compression format.
It is roughly
                           comparable to other formats used to store and
play digital music,
                           such as MP3, VQF, AAC, and other digital
audio formats. It is different
                           from these other formats because it is
completely free, open, and

                           unpatented.

...and sounds a lot better at comparable bitrates.

                           Licensing

                           If there aren't any licensing fees, how are
you going to make money
                           off the format? Will you charge fees later,
after Vorbis becomes
                           popular?

                           The benefits of a patent-free, license-free
format outweigh the
                           concerns of making money directly from the
format. Vorbis will always
                           be free and in the public domain. No one
needs to place intellectual
                           property restrictions on Vorbis in order to
benefit from it. 

You could make a remark about _not being able to_ charge for the format
(or the
library) at a later time, because of the (L)GPL.

                           Audio Quality

                           Does Ogg Vorbis sound better than MP3?

                           Since Vorbis uses very different mathematical
principles from MP3, it
                           has different challenges when compressing
music. In current
                           listening tests, Vorbis and MP3 files encoded
at the same bitrates
                           have similar sound quality.

Naah, Vorbiws sounds _much_ better :-)

                           How fast are the encoders/decoders?

                           Right now the encoder is about as fast as
some of the commercial
                           audio encoders, but not nearly as fast as
some others. Since we are

                           using unoptimized beta code, this is to be
expected. As the vorbis
                           tools mature they will become faster. The
decoding is roughly the
                           same complexity as MP3 decoding, and once the
Vorbis decoding
                           tools are optimized, they should decode at
similar speeds. Decoding
                           speed has increased 3-4x over the first beta
already, after the first
                           stage of optimization.

How about mentioning my name? Here or anywhere else, but I'd like to be mentioned
_somewhere_. I'm not doing this stuff for nothing, you know ;-)

Cheers,

Segher

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