[vorbis] new MS codecs

[Segher Boessenkool]

Steven Bailey wrote:
> 
> I'll agree with you that MP3's do not sound good at 128.  They've got
> swishy artifacts that are apparent on almost any song with percussive
> instruments.  But WMA's...  Maybe they've made an improvement in their
> latest release, but all the WMA's I've ever encoded at any bitrate sound
> like they've got tape-hiss in the background!  That background static is

I read some of the MS patents which (presumably) relate to WMA last night.
According to it, the hiss is included _on purpose_, so as to be able to
reduce bitrate. They call it "whitening". Misuse of an already defined
technical term, I'd say.

> something I've never been able to get rid of.  I've never noticed it in
> any other format.  Tape-hiss is kind of what got me interested in
> compressed audio on computers in the first place years back, so hearing
> something so similar was a bit of a turnoff.
> 
> I'm surprised to hear from anyone else who likes VQF's.  I don't use

Two years ago, VQF was the best thing at 96kbps stereo music. Note
the two years ago. Oh, and IMHO, of course :-)

> them exclusively anymore because hard-drive space is no longer at a
> premium, but I haven't re-encoded my library yet.  I've been expecting
> .ogg to be the eventual replacement, especially once wavelets get
> incorporated into the code.

I don't think wavelets will reduce filesize by much (on most music);
sharp attacks will be more efficiently encoded, but that's all.

Dagdag,

Segher

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