ZylonBane on 25/4/2007 at 20:48
LAME is available in a variety of forms. Originally it was just a command-line utility but it's since been repackaged as a DLL, an ACM plugin, and probably a few other things.
MysteryDev on 26/4/2007 at 00:24
Quote Posted by BR796164
For example LAME is such a great encoder it has output of awesome quality even at 128kbps, with additional options to put emphasis either on quality or encoding speed, full stereo instead of joint stereo and more.
For the sake of information, I ripped the CD to .wav files first, then encoded them in LAME (using the RazorLAME frontend).
I used the latest version of the encoder and set it to normal stereo, 320 and q0, plus flipped the "Quality" flag under Optimization.
So yeah, as far as mp3 files go these are super high quality; I'm not sure what settings I could have used to get even higher quality, actually. It took forever just to encode them, and the file size is pretty damn big compared to a lot of 256-range VBR settings.
Bjossi on 26/4/2007 at 00:30
I think WinLAME first extracts the songs I want to rip to a temp folder, and then encodes them like I had configured. (of course 320k, heh)
Phyre on 26/4/2007 at 03:01
Thank you MysteryDev!
I'm listening to the cutscenes now, makes me want to play through SS2 again.
Hmmm...
MorbusG on 26/4/2007 at 05:43
Quote Posted by ZylonBane
You clearly have a very shaky grasp of this subject.
No, I really don't.
AAC means basically "rip with iTunes" for me, since it's the best free m4a/aac/mp4/however the fuck you'd like to put it, encoder around.
LAME means basically "make an mp3" for me, since it's the best free mp3 encoder around.
Friggin' language puritan.
Muzman on 26/4/2007 at 08:03
Quote Posted by MorbusG
What continues to puzzle me, though, is that when I choose variable bit-rate for AAC, the file-sizes go up :confused:
Why wouldn't they go up? My understanding is it's dynamically assigning more data to areas of perceptually larger frequency ranges above a minimum bitrate. Ergo; generally bigger files than those compressed to a constant bit rate (where the constant rate is equal to the VBR minimum, certainly).
But its been while since Ive read about this stuff.
Rogue Keeper on 26/4/2007 at 08:39
Quote Posted by Bjossi
Mp3 supports 48 kHz, not sure if it'd do any good ripping with that sampling rate though.
That's called oversampling, but if your CDs aren't pure DDD recordings or you aren't ripping sound from newer native 48kHz formats like miniDV, DAT or DTS theatre system and DVDs, I doubt it would have much meaning.
More on oversampling : (
http://www.earlevel.com/Digital%20Audio/Oversampling.html)
Quote:
I don't hear any artifacts at all when ripping my (unscratched) CDs, and I have expensive headphones along with 24bit crystalizer enabled. I'm gonna try out AAC sometime
That just means your hearing isn't good enough to hear the artifacts you just can't hear. Afterall human hearing is far from perfect. Uncompressed audio CD has a bitrate of 1411.2 kbps, so even if you are encoding at 320kbps, you have theoretically a significant loss of audio information - which are generally considered as unnecessary for human hearing. In this aspect the small difference between most common bitrates of 128/192/256/320 seems to be rather ridiculous. But then again, it depends on what encoder people are using. I've heard that LAME is able to encode even at 640kbps after some modification, but apparently manufacturers of most players available on the market consider this bitrate as unnecessary, since very few people with refined hearing could notice a difference on that particular sound system and stock speakers/headphones.
Your CDs also don't need to be scatched to contain artifacts. Don't think your CDs are completely unscratched, just most of the thousands of barely noticeable microscopic scatches don't cause problem for the laser to read the medium properly. Physical damage of the medium, artifacts already present in the mastered recording and artifacts produced by encoding procedure are three entirely different things, you know.
Nameless Voice on 26/4/2007 at 09:54
Well, I do always encode MP3s at ultra-high quality (which takes quite a while...), and in any case have a preference for ogg these days, but I'm still saying that I usually can't hear the difference between 128K MP3 and the original track. They all kind of blur together after a while of listening to the same clip of two different versions over and over, trying to hear some small amount of difference... :sweat:
It also depends on what you're listening to. Something with a lot of complex instrumentation will sound noticably worse at 128K, whereas something that was maybe not the best quality recording to begin with will have no noticable difference. It's also quite possible that I just have bad ears and/or equipment.
ZylonBane on 26/4/2007 at 13:58
Quote Posted by BR796164
I've heard that LAME is able to encode even at 640kbps after some modification, but apparently manufacturers of most players available on the market consider this bitrate as unnecessary...
It's got nothing to do with what manufacturers consider necessary or not. 320kbps is the highest legal bitrate allowed by the MP3 standard. Any MP3 with a higher bitrate than that is non-conformant.
MysteryDev, I hope you're not put off by all this nitpicky prattling on our part. The sudden addition of such a significant artifact to our little SS2 reliquary has us all a bit excited.
Rogue Keeper on 26/4/2007 at 14:35
Quote:
Non-standard bit rates up to 640 kb/s can be achieved with the LAME encoder and the --freeformat option, but few MP3 players can play those files. Gabriel Bouvigne, a principal developer of the LAME project, says that the freeformat option is compliant with the standard but, according to the standard, decoders are only required to be able to decode streams up to 320 kbit/s.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3#_note-3)
