LAME MP3 support

[Walker]

This is rather pointless. The more formats that are supported, the better. However I feel that you are missing a few points brought up by that article.

With the maximum parameters both coders give practically identical sounding of the original CD.

In the mode of the maximum similarity with an original (320/350 Kbit) both coders perform excellently.

In the ABR 256 Kbit mode the LAME better reproduces highs, and the OGG works better with middle frequencies. I would rather recommend the OGG, but it hasn't solid advantage as far as compatibility is concerned.

Compatibility is his only issue with it and its hardly an issue when you are distributing it with a program (game) that plays it.

In case of 160 and 128 Kbit the OGG is an obvious leader.

You also reference the spectrogram for the highest bitrate and then talk about a low bitrate. And you're right, the graphs do not tell the whole story, far from it in fact.


Although Ogg does drop some frequencies that LAME doesn't, personally I find high frequencies in 256kbit and even 320kbit LAME to sound horrible, metallic and distorted - I would actually prefer to not hear them at all and take Ogg's improved mids.

In conclusion, use FLAC.  :lol:

[Ashenwraith]

This is rather pointless. The more formats that are supported, the better. However I feel that you are missing a few points brought up by that article.

Compatibility is his only issue with it and its hardly an issue when you are distributing it with a program (game) that plays it.

You also reference the spectrogram for the highest bitrate and then talk about a low bitrate. And you're right, the graphs do not tell the whole story, far from it in fact.

Although Ogg does drop some frequencies that LAME doesn't, personally I find high frequencies in 256kbit and even 320kbit LAME to sound horrible, metallic and distorted - I would actually prefer to not hear them at all and take Ogg's improved mids.

In conclusion, use FLAC.  :lol:

I'm not missing any of the points of the article. I linked the article for people to note the differences and do their own experiments because it is THE ONLY article on lame vs ogg that has graphs.

And why is it you accuse me of trying to distort what the article says by mentioning two different things and then you do the same and go even worse basing your conclusion on 256kb tests?

If you want to compress 160kb and below you are better off just using mono-channeled at 192kb VBR or  going to voice compression/something else. So... 160 and below for OGG is pointless.

This whole metallic sounding stuff also sounds bogus. This article was made in 2001 with LAME v3.88 it is now 2010 and LAME is now at v3.99

There is also a new VBR algorithm that is much better than ABR for quality. I forgot about that and mixed up ABR with VBR. OGG also eventually developed their own version of VBR.

Like I said, I have done many, many, tests/work with the latest OGG/LAME and can see that LAME has better power of sound for the compression level vs OGG. OGG Vorbis's compression philosophy and algorithms are different than LAME's.

So to recap what I originally said in my earlier post: YOU CANNOT COMMENT ON LAME'S QUALITY IF YOU HAVE NOT USED LAME

Download and use it, don't just read an outdated article and act like you found the secret truth.

[Walker]

I'm not playing this game with you. Enjoy your thread.

[Ashenwraith]

I'm not playing this game with you. Enjoy your thread.

It's a 'game' to actually use a product before you review it?

I don't even know what you're angry about. A plug-in audio system is great idea and since...

"Today, LAME is considered the best MP3 encoder at mid-high bitrates and at VBR, mostly thanks to the dedicated work of its developers and the open source licensing model that allowed the project to tap into engineering resources from all around the world. Both quality and speed improvements are still happening, probably making LAME the only MP3 encoder still being actively developed."

I think it's at least worth testing if you are a serious developer or care about your audio compression and this makes it a great candidate for plug-in support.

Also, consider the fact that most audio is already in MP3 and converting it to ogg will further degrade the quality. If you cant find a wav or something lossless you are already better off not using OGG.