[vorbis] microsoft windows media 8 encoder

[Karol Pietrzak]

On 14 Jun 2001, Maik Merten wrote:

> MP3pro at 64 KBit/s sounds equal to a (good) 96 KBit/s MP3 coding.
> MP3pro at 96 KBit/s could be equal to 128 KBit/s MP3 - Vorbis
> does so, too. So I am not afraid that MP3pro could be something
> like a "Vorbis-Killer". :-)

Especially now with pressure from Real Networks and Microsoft 
for market share.  Microsoft also claims CD quality @ 64KB/s and 
near-CD quality @ 48 KB/s.  They even provide samples to listen 
to, available @ 
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/en/WM8/audio.asp . 
 Microsoft seriously wants the low-bitrate / streaming market: 
their encoder (still partially-beta because it's a command-line 
tool) goes all the way down to 20 KB/s, which sounds 
surprisingly well.  At 96KB/s, the audio sounds very similar to 
Vorbis audio with an average bitrate of 96KB/s.  However, even I 
with my really crappy audio equipment can tell that 64KB/s is 
nowhere near CD-quality.  Especially the high frequencies sound 
dulled and "fuzzy", for lack of wording.  One consistency of WM8 
among bitrates 128KB/s and down is a decrease in volume, or some 
reason...

--
noodlez:   Karol Pietrzak
GPG/PGP-KeyID: 0x3A1446A0

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