[Vorbis] Re: bitrate limits don't work with -q settings?

[Frank Murphy]

> Here are some more tests i did with various combinations.
> 
> oggenc -q 3 sinewave.flac -> Average bitrate: 69.1 kb/s
> oggenc -m 96 sinewave.flac -> Average bitrate: 96.9 kb/s
> oggenc -m 96 -q3 sinewave.flac -> Average bitrate: 69.1 kb/s
> oggenc -q 3 -m 360 sinewave.flac -> Average bitrate: 69.1 kb/s
> oggenc -m 96 -M 360 sinewave.flac ->  Average bitrate: 130.6 kb/s
> oggenc -q 3 -m 96 -M 360 sinewave.flac -> Average bitrate: 0.7 kb/s
> oggenc -q 3 -m 360 -M 360 sinewave.flac -> Average bitrate: 0.7 kb/s
> 
> The last ones are really weird? The file ony has one tick at the
> beginning an after that silence.
> 
> The issue however is when using a -q3 together with a -m 96 oggenc
> kind of ignores the -m 96. Is this normal?

So I also got an iRiver iFP machine because of it's ogg support. I've recently 
discovered its problems with oggs encoded at less than 96kbps (though I'm not 
sure which thing needs to be 96kbps). I saw your posting and I think I've 
discovered the oggenc bug that you're seeing. It seems that when -m and -q 
are used together, the -m takes the number to be bps instead of kbps (or kb/s 
depending on where you look in ogginfo). So in order to get the behavior you 
want, you need to encode with -q 3 and -m 96000. This is all experimental for 
me too, but I think the 96000 isn't enough. I'll be messing with values a 
little higher to avoid any pops.

I haven't seen any official iRiver statement about which bitrates are 
supported, but I've seen hearsay that it accepts only between 96kpbs and 
220bps. But I don't know if that's Average bitrate, nominal bitrate, or what. 
On the website, it talks about how many hours of music can be fit with 64kbps 
ogg files, but that doesn't reflect reality.

Frank