[vorbis] Format comparison

[Aleksandar Dovnikovic]

"Craig Dickson" <crdic at yahoo.com> wrote:

> The average listener can't tell the difference in quality, and the size
> difference, as of Vorbis B4, isn't terribly significant if you encode at
> the same average bitrate (and remember that the masses have been
> brainwashed to think that MP3 at 128k is CD-quality -- which it might as
> well be, since the average listener's PC audio hardware is incredibly
> bad).

Yes, but Vorbis will deliver (with joint-stereo) the same quality
that MP3 @ 128kbps has, using only 80kbps. Average
user might not notice the difference between 128kbps MP3 and
128kbps Vorbis (since MP3 already sounds good enough to him),
but he will obviously see a difference in size between 80kbps and
128kbps file.

> The average listener hasn't noticed. If you take a CD of songs with
> silence between them (the usual pop-music format), and rip it into a
> bunch of MP3 files, the silence gaps are not a problem, because the CD
> had silence between the songs anyway. Unless you're referring to
> something else entirely that I haven't even noticed; if so, then this
> must be a really esoteric problem, in which case, again, the average
> user hasn't noticed and doesn't care.

I am talking about songs that flow into one another, like they are
one song. Good example are live albums or conceptual albums
where songs look like they are just parts of one big song.
 
> The average listener probably never edits tags, or looks at any of them
> other than artist name, album and track name, and maybe track number or
> genre. That ID3 is a hack is not a concern for the average listener.

Yes you are right, most people don't bother to use tags, but those
people who do use tags will benefit.

> > and also gives us bitrate peeling that removes the need for
> > reencoding.
> That's an attraction for stream providers more than for listeners. Some
> technically-inclined listeners (who are probably a small minority) will
> like it; the average listener will continue to have no clue. And if the

Not necessarily because you can peel down the file so that you can
put more songs, for example, in a portable player or to make it
more appropriate for downloading.

> average listener (using Windows Media Player or WinAmp) doesn't have
> Vorbis playback capability (WMP doesn't, and WinAmp doesn't by default
> -- you have to add the plugin yourself), that far outweighs any
> conveniences that the format might offer to the stream providers.

WMP MP3 sucks anyway, and I expect it will be crippled even more
in WinXP. As for WinAMP, I think that the plug-in developed by
PP will be included in the WinAMP distribution (since Peter works
for Nullsoft).

> > How's that for solving some problems for the consumer?
> Pretty lame.

I said some problems, I didn't mean that those features are
good enough to wipe out and eradicate MP3.
 
> issues. Vorbis has a serious uphill battle to win listener interest. I

No doubt about that.

> kid ourselves. To the average listener, who is perfectly happy with 128k
> MP3 and doesn't (yet) have to pay anything for it, Vorbis doesn't really
> offer any compelling reasons to switch over.

As I said, if the next version gives us 128kbps MP3 quality at only
80kbps, I think it is a compelling reason. Probably not compelling
enough to replace MP3 completely, but enough to gain wider
acceptance.


---
Aleksandar @ Vorbis Xtreme | http://solair.eunet.yu/~aldov
Ogg Vorbis is the free, open source alternative to MP3

--- >8 ----
List archives:  http://www.xiph.org/archives/
Ogg project homepage: http://www.xiph.org/ogg/
To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to 'vorbis-request at xiph.org'
containing only the word 'unsubscribe' in the body.  No subject is needed.
Unsubscribe messages sent to the list will be ignored/filtered.