[vorbis] Debian mp3->vorbis transcoding

[Graham Mitchell]

> The Ogg Vorbis community should provide users with a way to transcode
> mp3's into Vorbis. Why?  Because it would give us an opportunity to
> educate the users.

As I see it, the biggest problem with Xiph providing an mp3 -> vorbis 
transcoder is licensing.  Such a transcoder requires having an mp3 *decoder*. 
To my knowledge, since Fraunhofer/Thomson have "clarified" their position 
regarding not-for-profit and open source/free software projects still 
requiring a license, there are currently *no* GPL/BSD decoders which are in 
compliance.

It seems a bit counter-productive for Xiph to write a big check to 
Fraunhofer/Thomson to be able to include a mp3 decoder in some transcoding 
solution, but otherwise any Free transcoder would put them in danger of legal 
action.  And don't you know they'd love such an excuse to sue Xiph.

Maybe it'd be legal to release a transcoding-to-vorbis patch to the ISO 
reference decoder?  But I don't think we want to go down that road again.

Only way I can see is for someone to make a WinAmp plugin that does mp3 to 
vorbis transcoding, as the Nullsoft folks (a.k.a. AOL/Time Warner) have paid 
Fraunhofer/Thomson the licensing fee.  Have the transcoder pop up a dialog 
box saying:

"Note that to actually hear the improvement Ogg Vorbis offers, you must encode 
from an uncompressed source (e.g. CD).  Since this file is being produced 
from an already-compressed source (mp3), the resulting file can sound no 
better than the source, and will probably sound worse (see 
http://www.vorbis.com/faq.psp#transcode).  Are you sure you want to do this?"

        [Yes]		[No]

Of course, like any good UI, there should be a way to turn this warning off, 
but it should be in a preferences menu somewhere, and not as easy as a 
checkbox on the dialog box itself.

And the resulting Ogg would of course be tagged with the TRANSCODED tag.


-- 
Graham Mitchell - computer science teacher, Leander High School
A girl and a boy bump into each other -- surely an accident.
A girl and a boy bump and her handkerchief drops -- surely another accident.
But when a girl gives a boy a dead squid -- *that had to mean something*
	-- S. Morganstern, "The Silent Gondoliers"

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