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Topic: Winamp FhG AAC encoder with gapless fix (Read 117797 times) previous topic - next topic
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Winamp FhG AAC encoder with gapless fix

Reply #100
The first one is pretty clear, the second one is already very quiet, and after that I hear nothing at all.

I guess that's not really good, isn't it?

That's a common misconception here on HA. You listened at normal levels (i.e. not cranking up the volume), so your performance is perfectly normal, maybe even above average for your age. At normal levels I get the same result as you. Bottom line: you might have heard artifacts below 16 kHz, so I'm not going to put more bits into high frequencies.

Is this "issue" a show-stopper for you? Apparently this was very hard to ABX. Can you live with the encoder's current performance on this item? Or are you really looking for utmost transparency?

Chris


Good question. I'm a kind of lossless-junkie so I would more tend to "yes", but of course these kind of issues don't turn the encoder to "completely awful" for me. So in conclusion it would be cool if it got "fixed" as it would make the encoder pretty flawless, but I wouldn't throw Winamp off the computer if not.

Winamp FhG AAC encoder with gapless fix

Reply #101
Gainless,

It would makes sense to see how  other AAC encoders perform on this sample to see if it's quite normal behavior for the entire AAC format or it's only one particular encoder.
Let say to see how perform Apple and Nero. Previously Replaygain should be applied for Apple encoder (or to all encoders as well) as it changes volume noticeably.

Winamp FhG AAC encoder with gapless fix

Reply #102
Gainless,

It would makes sense to see how  other AAC encoders perform on this sample to see if it's quite normal behavior for the entire AAC format or it's only one particular encoder.
Let say to see how perform Apple and Nero. Previously Replaygain should be applied for Apple encoder (or to all encoders as well) as it changes volume noticeably.


Judging from the ABX'ing I've done yet it's even more noticeable with Quicktime AAC at TVBR 95 (has 13 kbps less on average though), but can't prove it already, I'll upload a log later.

Winamp FhG AAC encoder with gapless fix

Reply #103
Then it's not only FhG.

Can You try CVBR, Nero and FhG all together in ABC/HR? With this http://ff123.net/abchr/abchr.html

Winamp FhG AAC encoder with gapless fix

Reply #104
Then it's not only FhG.

Can You try CVBR, Nero and FhG all together in ABC/HR? With this http://ff123.net/abchr/abchr.html


Should be no problem at all, but this will take very long with at least 30 listenings. Btw, have you already tried to ABX the sample? It would be great to hear some other views on it.

Winamp FhG AAC encoder with gapless fix

Reply #105
Btw, have you already tried to ABX the sample? It would be great to hear some other views on it.

Sorry, I have no time right now. Will try it later.  I mention the ABC/HR because it can be useful for Chris to see if there is any other AAC encoder that can handle this sample better, hence there will be still room for improvement.

Winamp FhG AAC encoder with gapless fix

Reply #106
Where can I find a list of available parameters that can be used with this FhG AAC encoder?

I'm looking for a parameter that would allow me to automatically create a "Tool" tag for each file being converted with FhG.  This "Tool" tag just needs to say "FhG AAC version x.x.x.x" so that I know what encoder was used to create a particular file.  Nero and LAME (and probably many other encoders) add this tag by default.

Thanks!

Winamp FhG AAC encoder with gapless fix

Reply #107
Fraunhofer's AAC encoder does not add such a "tool" tag at the moment, and I don't think Winamp offers a switch for this either. But I'll keep in mind that there's interest in such metadata.

Chris
If I don't reply to your reply, it means I agree with you.

Winamp FhG AAC encoder with gapless fix

Reply #108
Thank you, Chris!

Winamp FhG AAC encoder with gapless fix

Reply #109
Fraunhofer's AAC encoder does not add such a "tool" tag at the moment, and I don't think Winamp offers a switch for this either. But I'll keep in mind that there's interest in such metadata.

Chris

Yes, this would be really nice. Although I would like to see in addition to the encoder and version, the parametres used to create the file, just like Nero AAC and Quicktime does.

Winamp FhG AAC encoder with gapless fix

Reply #110
I should be able to add this in the next version.

Winamp FhG AAC encoder with gapless fix

Reply #111
Hey,

Late to the party here... I have 2 questions about this DLL:

1) Is there any API documentation anywhere?
2) Is there a 64-bit version somewhere?

(I've emailed FHG licensing too)

Winamp FhG AAC encoder with gapless fix

Reply #112
They got back to me that licensing their object code would be "about the price of an expensive car. Still interested?". That's kind of a dick answer hey? I was requesting specifics.

Winamp FhG AAC encoder with gapless fix

Reply #113
Little update for my ABXing claims:
I don't really know why, but the more I ABX, the worse results I get. I've tried the sample with Nero, Quicktime and FhG today again, and couldn't achieve anything far below 50%. Seems like the difference to the lossy files is not significant enough to be noticeable for me anymore. I'll try it later again, but I'm not too optimistic to get better results...

Winamp FhG AAC encoder with gapless fix

Reply #114
Quality-wise, we are not planning any huge updates, at least not for stereo and mono. But if there is a significant interest in other VBR modes, we will consider adding those.


Certainly yes. Different people will have a different threshold of bitrate and quality, due to most different reasons. May it be just to "feel safe". Your quality steps are quite coarse, so there may be people (like me) who feel like VBR preset 5 "wasting size", but preset 4 "sparing quality".

As an example, one may compare with other formats, like MP3 or Ogg Vorbis: MP3 should have around 192 kbps, preferably VBR (e.g. lame -V 2), and because it is less efficient than the current generation of encoding algorithms, AAC with a comparable quality may need only 75-80% of the MP3 bitrate, or about the same as Ogg Vorbis at -q 5, so the target for a VBR AAC encode would possibly be around 160 kbps.

QuickTime uses discrete steps too, but they are finer. Their --tvbr [<=]91 seems to be similar to your --vbr 5, but the next lower step, --tvbr [<=]82, appears to give results quite close to oggenc2 -q 5 or ~80% of lame -V 2.

Winamp FhG AAC encoder with gapless fix

Reply #115
Quality-wise, we are not planning any huge updates, at least not for stereo and mono. But if there is a significant interest in other VBR modes, we will consider adding those.

Certainly yes. Different people will have a different threshold of bitrate and quality, due to most different reasons. May it be just to "feel safe". Your quality steps are quite coarse, so there may be people (like me) who feel like VBR preset 5 "wasting size", but preset 4 "sparing quality".

As mentioned here, it seems Winamp 5.63 has been released, with an updated AAC encoder version which now includes a VBR mode 6 (roughly 256 kbit/s stereo on average). VBR mode 5 should now have a slightly lower average bit-rate than in older versions (closer to 192 kbit/s stereo).

Chris
If I don't reply to your reply, it means I agree with you.

Winamp FhG AAC encoder with gapless fix

Reply #116
Quote
New: [enc_vorbis] Ogg Vorbis Encoder (based on aoTuV)
I like this!

Winamp FhG AAC encoder with gapless fix

Reply #117
As mentioned here, it seems Winamp 5.63 has been released, with an updated AAC encoder version which now includes a VBR mode 6 (roughly 256 kbit/s stereo on average). VBR mode 5 should now have a slightly lower average bit-rate than in older versions (closer to 192 kbit/s stereo).


Okay, but...

The gap between mode 4 (~128 kbps) and 5 (~192 kbps) is too large for my taste. I'm hoping for a mode 4.5 (~160 kbps).

Winamp FhG AAC encoder with gapless fix

Reply #118
Is this the same implementation as is used in Winamp?
Quote
Fraunhofer FDK AAC code from Android.

Winamp FhG AAC encoder with gapless fix

Reply #119
Any news about HD-AAC encoding?  Are Winamp devs still considering to adding it or they dropped it because of the lack of interest?

Winamp FhG AAC encoder with gapless fix

Reply #120
Sorry to resurrect this old thread, but according to Winamp 5.63 version log, FhG AAC is 3.2.4, whereas at the encoder settings window in Winamp, it says FhG 3.02.11. Previous versions had matching log and "inside" version info (i.e. 3.2.2 vs 3.02.02 and 3.2.3 vs 3.02.03).

Any idea why is that and what does it mean?

Winamp FhG AAC encoder with gapless fix

Reply #121
Sorry to resurrect this old thread, but according to Winamp 5.63 version log, FhG AAC is 3.2.4, whereas at the encoder settings window in Winamp, it says FhG 3.02.11.


Maybe Chris can answer this.

My recent encodes show: "Tool fhgaac v03.02.11;VBR=5" and I was under the impression this was the latest version

Winamp FhG AAC encoder with gapless fix

Reply #122
Quote
Winamp 5.623   [Dec  9 2011]
* Updated: [enc_fhgaac] Fraunhofer AAC Encoder v3.2.4

Winamp FhG AAC encoder with gapless fix

Reply #123
My recent encodes show: "Tool fhgaac v03.02.11;VBR=5" and I was under the impression this was the latest version

Jup, that's what's in Winamp version 5.63. V03.02.04 was contained in Winamp 5.623, like lvqcl wrote.

Chris
If I don't reply to your reply, it means I agree with you.

Winamp FhG AAC encoder with gapless fix

Reply #124
My recent encodes show: "Tool fhgaac v03.02.11;VBR=5" and I was under the impression this was the latest version

Jup, that's what's in Winamp version 5.63. V03.02.04 was contained in Winamp 5.623, like lvqcl wrote.

Chris


Quote
Winamp 5.63   [Jun  28 2012]
* New: Hungarian and Indonesian installer translations and language packs
* New: [enc_vorbis] Ogg Vorbis Encoder (based on aoTuV)
* Improved: Shift+F10 app key support in the Media Library
* Improved: [enc_fhgaac] Added VBR mode 6, plus other minor quality improvements
* Improved: [in_flac] Producer metadata support
* Improved: [in_mod] Refactored, simplified and threadsafe memory allocation
* Improved: [ml_history] Save playcounts when updated instead of only on exit
* Improved: [ml_local] Increased search query buffers from 512 or 1024 to 2048 bytes
* Improved: [gen_hotkeys] Added manual advance and visualization specific actions
* Fixed: Embedded album art not working in some scenarios
* Fixed: Video window reopening after being closed when editing mp4 tags
* Fixed: [aacdec] Memory leak when re-syncing to AAC stream
* Fixed: [bmp] Bounds checking in TSCC decoder
* Fixed: [bmp] Heap overflow issues (thanks: Secunia)
* Fixed: [in_avi] Divide-by-zero and NULL pointer issues (thanks: FuzzMyApp)
* Fixed: [in_mod] .IT memory & heap corruption issues (thanks: Jeremy Brown, MSVR)
* Fixed: [ml_local] Crash in MLDBAPI::SetField cache
* Fixed: [pmp_android/usb] Genre and Year metadata edits writing to Disc# field
* Fixed: [vis_milk2] Presets not reacting to music in localized installs (Milkdrop v2.25)
* Misc: More general tweaks, improvements, fixes and optimizations
* Updated: [aacdec] Fraunhofer AAC Decoder v1.762.208
* Updated: [in_vorbis] libogg 1.3.0 & libvorbis 1.3.3
* Updated: [lame_enc] LAME 3.99.5
* Updated: [png] libpng v1.5.10
* Updated: [vp8] libvpx v1.1.0
* Updated: [xml] expat v2.1.0
* Updated: [zlib.dll] zlib 1.2.7

Winamp 5.623   [Dec  9 2011]
* Fixed: mp3 decoding errors at end of file (should fix reported CD burning errors)
* Fixed: [aacdec] Detection of parametric stereo for AAC files made with older encoders
* Fixed: [enc_fhgaac] MP4 encoder not always closing on errors or aborted transfers
* Fixed: [in_avi] Crashing with certain malformed AVI files
* Fixed: [in_flac & in_mp4] Memory leaks
* Fixed: [in_mod] Bounds check for comments parsing
* Fixed: [pmp] Multithreaded race condition (now supports thread-safe transfers)
* Fixed: [pmp_android] Embedded album art being deleted on transfers
* Misc: More general tweaks, improvements, fixes and optimizations
* Updated: [enc_fhgaac] Fraunhofer AAC Encoder v3.2.4
* Updated: [gen_jumpex] JTFE v1.2.5


I think the missing "Updated enc_fhgaac..." line in the 5.63 version info mislead me to thinking that 5.63 was still using 3.2.4 (though it said it was upgraded and improved, so even more confusing). Anyways, 5.63 has 3.2.11 and that's that. Thanks for your answers.