[vorbis] Is this just anti-Ogg FUD?

[Monty]

Ugh, this one is so far off that it's almost a troll, but eh, I'll answer.

> Ogg has to this day, fundemental problems with low frequency encoding. 

It did about two years ago.  Since then, these claims have persisted,
yet folks who claim it don't manage to pick it out in ABX testing (or
pick out something unrelated).

> Sometimes refered to as "pre-echo aliasing" ... it is something that is a 
> problem for music (primarly electronic which is why I don't use it) with 
> low end bass and subsonics. If you have the ability to test this on a 
> proper sound system, you will hear it dead out.

I have such a system and cannot, in fact, hear it dead out.  There
are artifacts in Vorbis left to hear, but they don't live in
the low bass. 

Now, preecho *does* exist, but it's in fact least audible in the
range the guy is complaining about.  Most psychoacoustic studies would
suggest preecho perception doesn't kick in in until a few hundred Hz.

> It may sound slightly out of tune, or out of phase.

This has nothing to do with it; an MDCT codec can be neither out of
tune nor out of phase (unless you mean something else by phase).

> phone definitely help, but even high end sony's like the MDR-7506's and the 
> MDJ-700s are only just able to produce the subsonics effectively to hear 
> it.

Uhh.. those are nothing close to 'high end'.  They may be expensive,
but not high end.  They're a notch or so above 'free with walkman'.

> [Ogg is not free from patents.] The entire concept of a phsychoacustical 
> model or a perceptual model for endcoding the material (not just the 
> encoding step itself) is covered under at least 50 different patents by 
> companies world wide, and rightfully so ... Not only can you patent the 
> process of encoding the file, but the principles of how you get there. 

a) "Bullshit" b) Does he have a legal degree and/or opinion rendered
by a qualified patent attourney? c) In that case, I suggest he quits
claiming to be an authority.  

> Because they are novel ideas, and obvious which is what patents are for. 
> They are just "creative enough" to warrant protection by government, and 
> frankly I have no problems with it having patents myself relating to next 
> generation video streaming technology and systems which relate to digital 
> cinema.
> 
> However, the second that someone starts making "serious" amounts of money 
> off of Ogg, you can bet the patent lawyers will be on Xiph faster then a 
> fat kid on a smartie. 

The writer of this makes it sound all very logical, unfortunately
it's all incorrect.  He doesn't have the *slightest* concept of how
patents work.  Even most reporters get it closer than this.

> [Ogg is too little, too late.] There are audio and video encoding systems 
> coming out in the next year that will futher push the envelope without 
> comprimise and many of those are based completely on wavelets which is 
> really where Ogg should have gone in the first place ...

Also bull dressed up in buzzwords he sorta understands.  The technical
details are wishful thinking (for fun, ask him to define what a
wavelet is, I'll bet he can't).  Making it sound good doesn't make it
true, and being an expert in one field (eg, DJing) doesn't make you an
expert in IP law, signal processing, filter design, etc.

The envelope will always get pushed.  This year, we got to push it.
We'll get to push it again even if we trade the lead now and then.

...but I'd not even bother telling him.  He sounds pretty convinced of
himself, and I don't have time to argue with anyone that convinced and
that confused.  It's like the old vinyl/CD fidelity argument, or old
tube/transistor argument or old Ford/Chevy argument.  No amount of
evidence ever changes anyone's mind. 

Monty
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