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Poll

WHAT IS YOUR FORMAT OF CHOICE?

MP3
[ 48 ] (21.9%)
OGG VORBIS
[ 43 ] (19.6%)
MUSEPACK / MPC
[ 104 ] (47.5%)
AAC/MP4
[ 24 ] (11%)

Total Members Voted: 265

Topic: What format are you using most? (Read 24736 times) previous topic - next topic
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What format are you using most?

Reply #50 –
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@ScorLibran, I don't have many CDs with me right now, but I'll give you a report on various q levels if you'd like.

Thx!  But don't go to trouble just for me.      Trying a few different bitrates, though, may provide some valuable info concerning the capabilities of the Neuros with Vorbis playback.

Here are some specifics that I ran into with Vorbis decoding on extended tests with the Kenwood Music Keg using the Tremor decoder libs (HA and LA).  Among my test tracks, a couple that "broke" at the lowest nominal bitrates were Fatboy Slim's Kalifornia (surprise?) and Acid 8000.  When encoded with fractional quality levels above 4.00, these tracks would begin to skip and suffer from serious pitch distortion as the playback buffer emptied and a moment passed until it filled again, repeating every couple of seconds.

And just last night me and my g/f were about to get out of the car and before I turned off the stereo, The Crystal Method's Trip Like I Do had the same problem, (encoded at -q 4.25).  I have my high-accuracy decoder threshold set to 132000, so I think setting it down to 130000 or 128000 would solve that one without having to re-rip and re-encode.

If you intend to try a couple of test tracks encoded with different -q settings, watch the meter first when they play in fb2k or Winamp.  The ones encoded at, for instance, -q 4.00, that have bitrate spikes up to ~200kbps (or higher) are ones that could cause such skipping/distortion problems on a portable player.  Just some things to watch out for.   


[Sorry for being slightly OT from the original post.]

What format are you using most?

Reply #51 –
Quote
hmmm it seems that ipod will only play aac if you have a mac. there goes that idea...

Nah, that's not true (at least not for the current one's - I got mine yesterday - might be true for older one's I suppose?).

I transcoded some mpc's to aac using Foobar (0.71) with the nero aac plugin (you'll need a copy of Nero as well to do this) and then transfered the files using vPOD (0.53). iPOD picks up the tags fine and plays them fine 

You do seem to need the latest versions though - I had issues with earlier versions of vPOD which didn't pick up all the tags correctly.

What format are you using most?

Reply #52 –
Quote
Quote
hmmm it seems that ipod will only play aac if you have a mac. there goes that idea...

Nah, that's not true (at least not for the current one's - I got mine yesterday - might be true for older one's I suppose?).

I transcoded some mpc's to aac using Foobar (0.71) with the nero aac plugin (you'll need a copy of Nero as well to do this) and then transfered the files using vPOD (0.53). iPOD picks up the tags fine and plays them fine 

You do seem to need the latest versions though - I had issues with earlier versions of vPOD which didn't pick up all the tags correctly.

what kind of tag is it? i seem to be really confused when it comes to tagging and aac.
i figured out how to tag with nero but it was missing the "year" portion.  if i add the year into the tag using foobar do you think it will work with the ipod.

one more question. how is the battery life? i like the way nero transparent preset sounds but will it eat up too much power?

What format are you using most?

Reply #53 –
Quote
what kind of tag is it? i seem to be really confused when it comes to tagging and aac.
i figured out how to tag with nero but it was missing the "year" portion.  if i add the year into the tag using foobar do you think it will work with the ipod.

You should be able use Foobar's tagging to update your files, but make sure you have an up to date version, as I think it's ability to tag AAC files is a fairly recent addition.

I also found that the software that transfers the music onto the iPOD needs to understand the tags as well (I guess it has to write it into the iPODs database or something) - the first version of vPOD I tried lost a few tags here and there, but the latest worked ok.

I don't know about Year, but the album / artist / genre all seemed to come across ok. My iPOD doesn't seem to display Year, but I might be missing something there? As I said, I only got it yesterday so I'm still playing ...

What format are you using most?

Reply #54 –
Quote
one more question. how is the battery life? i like the way nero transparent preset sounds but will it eat up too much power?

Can't tell you too much about the battery life let, but I'm using Nero's transparent setting so time will tell so to speak ...

What format are you using most?

Reply #55 –
were can i get the nero aac plugin? i can't find it anywhere!

What format are you using most?

Reply #56 –
Quote
hmmm it seems that ipod will only play aac if you have a mac. there goes that idea...



You are wel catered for on the PC, I suggest you try a few see which you like best - if you want to Rip straight from an Audio CD to an iPod and have it in AAC (mp4) and correctly tagged then try this (install all to the same location):

Install Sveta Portable Audio here:

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/beta/SvetaPortab...udio-r4b4.1.exe

and the mp4 codec here:

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/beta/dBpowerAMP-...codec-mp4b5.exe

and finally the iPod Sveta Driver:

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/bin/svetadrivers...A-SvetaiPod.exe

After installing the last it will ask to connect the iPod, do so. Then start 'Audio CD Input' insert a CD, select Rip Menu >> Rip To  and select 'Apple Ipod', select Rip Menu >> Compression Settings  and set the format to use as mp4. That is it, any existing files (especially lossless) can be converted by installing the correct dBpowerAMP Codec from 'Codec Central' then right click on the File(s) >> Convert To >> Apple iPod. Simple!

What format are you using most?

Reply #57 –
I'm still using mp3 -- lame 3.92 --alt-preset standard. I don't find the need to use higher bitrates because my ears find this setting good enough.

I've been looking at Vorbis for a long time now... but still haven't made my mind to take the plunge yet....

What format are you using most?

Reply #58 –
Quote
Thx!  But don't go to trouble just for me. 

Eh... not to worry, because I was curious to find out myself.  Unfortunately, I updated my firmware first (or maybe that's a good thing).  I updated to the most recent Ogg Vorbis fixes.  Then I encoded a few Bryan Adams songs at -q 8.  At this setting most of the songs are consistantly above 200 kbps.

I'm happy to report that there seemed to be no serious flaws in the playback.  This is a relief because this morning, I thought I heard a skip on a -q 3 encode of Live's Horse.  That was with older firmware though.

For those keepin score on their own versions of the Neuros, I WAS using the one available at Open Neuros Audio, which is version 1.40A.  Available here: http://www.tobiasly.com/neuros/updates/ is versions 1.41, 1.42, and 1.43.  I switched to 1.42 and did the -q 8 testing on that.

What format are you using most?

Reply #59 –
Quote
Quote
hmmm it seems that ipod will only play aac if you have a mac. there goes that idea...



You are wel catered for on the PC, I suggest you try a few see which you like best - if you want to Rip straight from an Audio CD to an iPod and have it in AAC (mp4) and correctly tagged then try this (install all to the same location):

Install Sveta Portable Audio here:

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/beta/SvetaPortab...udio-r4b4.1.exe

and the mp4 codec here:

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/beta/dBpowerAMP-...codec-mp4b5.exe

and finally the iPod Sveta Driver:

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/bin/svetadrivers...A-SvetaiPod.exe

After installing the last it will ask to connect the iPod, do so. Then start 'Audio CD Input' insert a CD, select Rip Menu >> Rip To  and select 'Apple Ipod', select Rip Menu >> Compression Settings  and set the format to use as mp4. That is it, any existing files (especially lossless) can be converted by installing the correct dBpowerAMP Codec from 'Codec Central' then right click on the File(s) >> Convert To >> Apple iPod. Simple!

That works great! Thanks.

I can't rip directly to my IPod yet because I don't have one. But I'll just rip to my harddrive now and send it to the IPod when I get it.

What format are you using most?

Reply #60 –
I chose AAC/MP4 as it is my fav at the moment.  But I have to say, I mostly use mp3 because of my portable player