[vorbis] Vorbis determined to be as good as MPC at 128 kbps!

[noprivacy at earthlink.net]

From: "Jack Moffitt" <jack at xiph.org>

> In any case, we're trying to improve in this area.  Garf never said
> anything to me about his frustration, but then again, there have been
> periods where I haven't monitored the lists or IRC.  I hope he's not
> gone for good.

That's what he says.  He wont touch Vorbis again.  I read on it
HydrogenAudio.

Until I read it there, I had just basically assumed he was taking a break or
waiting for Xiph to do something, or something, but apparently not.
Apparently he just got frustrated by Xiph's / Monty's lack of response to
his work that he just gave up on it completely.

A few months back when somebody tried to merge oggenc 1.0.1 with his
tunings, I think he made a few comments about the tunings he did, but I
don't think he did any coding or helping.  (Eventually that project was
abandoned, but that wasn't due to Garf.)

<p>> > It's been commented officially too many times that Xiph expects other
> > to develop their own versions & tunnings, and that those 3rd party
> > improvements will not be put into the official encoder.
>
> Please provide references of these official notices.  We expect others
> to do some work here and there, but I think the plan (as with any open
> source project) is always to fold back in changes that make sense.

It'd have to be either in these mailing list archives, or in messages posted
at HydrogenAudio.  Either direct messages or chat snippets being posted or
comments about pesonal communications with Xiph people, etc.  Comments made
by xiph people, but perhaps not as official policy.

So maybe "officially" was the wrong word, but I had to have gotten that
impression from somewhere, but otherwise I would definetly not thought of it
myself, since I'm not a developer or involved in any tunings myself.

(I'm not going to spend days going through all the archives and messages
I've read to try and hunt it up.  So I'm willing to say that I was wrong and
shouldn't have said that, and that I should have said "I've gotten a strong
feeling about that, based on what I've read here and in HA.")

<p>> Optimizations beyond a certain level don't belong in a reference
> encoder.  That's about the only thing I can think of where we've refused
> to accept major work, and I think there's a good reason to do this.  I
> don't think we've (ie, Monty or I) have ever said anything with regards
> to tunings.

The encoder is definetly the key area.  It is the hardest part.

<p><p>> > It's more than a little unrealistic to expect that Monty is going to
manage
> > to develop his own tunings that just happen to be the best, and do so
> > without any help from any other people.
>
> Everyone is agreed on this point.  Monty is mortal and human just like
> the rest of us.

It is easy to get more than a little frustrated at him, but he has indeed
done a massive amount of work.  There's no denying that.

<p><p>> > Not every change they make will be better, no.  But there needs to be a
> > willingness by Xiph to fold the real improvements into the reference
> > version, and a process by which developers can submit potential
> > improvements.  Xiph has neither.
>
> We have the same process every open source project (or most every) has.
> Send patches via email, which will be discussed, etc.  Many patches have
> made it into Vorbis from a wide variety of people in just this fashion.

Bug fixes, minor changes, etc.  But that's not quite the same thing as
significant tunings for the encoder.

<p>> What we don't have is any kind of 'keep track of progress' or real
> feedback mechanism for non-code changes.  Tunings fall into this
> category.  How should this work?

Don't know.

<p>> > And that's why so many people tend to call these other versions "forks"
> > because they tend to feel that those improvements will never ever be put
> > into the official code.
>
> I'll put on my official hate and say "We do want third party
> contributions to be folded in where appropriate."  Goods tunings I think
> are such an instance.  Let's try to do what we can.

How about going over to HA and talking with the people doing the tunings.
They might have a few comments and suggestions for improvements, etc.

<p><p><p>> > Maybe things have changed.  If so, Xiph and the Voribs team have a lot
> > developer relations damage to undo.
>
> I'd like to think we haven't 'damaged' anything.  But anyway, we want to
> improve in this area.  Suggestions?

Coming up with some way that all the developments in the vorbis encoder
could be worked into the official encoder would be a good start.

Might be a good idea to go over to HA (where the independant vorbis
development is going on) and discuss it with them.

Perhaps Xiph could have two oficial encoders?  One is the reference design
and the other is the more highly tuned community developed version?

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