[vorbis] Quality & Tags

[fungus]

Moritz Grimm wrote:

> 
> The problem I see is more about what this tag actually would tell us.
> Yes, it says that a tune is encoded in -q 8 for example, but what if the
> encoded song itself totally sucks? Even a "source" tag couldn't explain
> why certain tunes I get to hear sound so very bad. Here's an extreme
> example, with an imaginary standard-tag called "source":
> 
> source=Vinyl
> source=US$ 6 microphone used to record from a grammophone
> source=WMA @ 96kbps
> source=Xing MP3 @ 112kbps (WMA suxxx!!)

<p>Maybe it's just psychological.

Yesterday I received an album in .ogg format and
Winamp says it's at 60-70kbits/sec so I assume they
used the default ogg settings.

<p>It sounds fine to me, I was listening to it all
day yesterday and couldn't hear actually anything
wrong with it, buuut, sixty-odd kbits/sec just
doesn't seem enough. I thought "well, he could
have use a few more bits, I wouldn't have minded".

Silly, I know, but true.

I still say that if ogg is to have any chance of
widespread success then we have to get as far
away from bitrates as possible. If we don't
then people are just going to compare it to
mp3, which it isn't. Even if it sounds perfectly
to them they'll always have a nagging doubt in
the back of their minds that it could be somehow
"better".

I can easily imagine people wasting time and effort
looking fot the bitrate setting then encoding at
128 kbits/sec. just because that's what they're
used to. The files they encodes will be exactly
the same size as the mp3 files they used to produce
so the whole point of using ogg will be lost.

Let them see the resulting file sizes but not the
bitrates (except in tools used for streaming).
I know that file size boils down to the same thing
as bitrate, but the unwashed masses will be fooled.

<p>So, point 1: Just say "no" to bitrates.

<p><p>Another point that somebody made yesterday also
seems to be worth discussion.

The default setting of "3" seems a little bit
low on the scale of one to ten. It makes me
feel that I really ought to be using a higher
setting, even though it would probably be
nothing more that wasted bits.

I'd be in favour of shifting all the settings
up a bit (so the default is five) and putting
a really bad setting in at "q0", just so people
can try it at that setting and reject it.

<p>Point 2: An encoder's lowest quality setting
should sound like crap (*any* encoder, not
just ogg).

<p><p><p>I know these things are just petty psychological
warfare but I think they're important.

<p><p>
-- 
<\___/>
/ O O \
\_____/  FTB.

<p><p><p><p>--- >8 ----
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