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Poll

--standard
[ 132 ] (48.2%)
--xtreme
[ 77 ] (28.1%)
--insane
[ 37 ] (13.5%)
--braindead
[ 18 ] (6.6%)
other (reply)
[ 10 ] (3.6%)

Total Members Voted: 337

Topic: What commandline do you use with MPC? (Read 34113 times) previous topic - next topic
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What commandline do you use with MPC?

I want to find out the average commandline of the MPC users, I expect it to be around 6.
The choices are the above HQ modes.
--standard = --quality 5
--xtreme = --quality 6
--insane = --quality 7
--braindead = --quality 8
If you use something else, please comment on what is used.
Examples:
--thumb
--radio
--quality 1-4.99
--quality 8.01-10
tweaked or bla. bla. 

What commandline do you use with MPC?

Reply #1
How about this:

--xtreme --xlevel

?

(The "--xlevel" part is to avoid internal clipping, works in most cases.)

What commandline do you use with MPC?

Reply #2
Quote
Originally posted by kjempen
How about this:

--xtreme --xlevel

?

(The "--xlevel" part is to avoid internal clipping, works in most cases.)


thank you

Read this btw.

What commandline do you use with MPC?

Reply #3
Quote
Originally posted by MTRH

Read this btw.


I think Frank is a little overcautious about --xlevel's backwards compatibility. One one hand it's understandable, on the other hand it should be safe to use, given that one uses a reasonably up-to-date decoder / Winamp plug-in.

From the information i could gather, --xlevel expands the range of usable scale factors with relative addressing (without --xlevel, 6 bit scale factors are used). In the SV8 test versions, 7 bit scale factors are used for a possible dynamic range of 190 dB. I don't know the advantages of the SV8 method, maybe Frank can explain that. But i'm pretty sure that --xlevel doesn't decrease sound quality. It seems to be just a compatibility concern: Andree's old decoders are not compatible (but they're also more than a year old).

What commandline do you use with MPC?

Reply #4
--quality 10 for me...alittle overkill I assume But I can spare the hardrive space.
Plus I have to assume that this is the highest quality possible Lossy.  My files seem to average 295Kbs - 355Kbs.  If  am assumeing wrong PLEASE someone fill me in as to why my thinking is wrong.
What if the Hokey Pokey....is What it's all about?

What commandline do you use with MPC?

Reply #5
Quote
Originally posted by smg
--quality 10 for me...alittle overkill I assume But I can spare the hardrive space.
Plus I have to assume that this is the highest quality possible Lossy.  My files seem to average 295Kbs - 355Kbs.  If  am assumeing wrong PLEASE someone fill me in as to why my thinking is wrong.


Hm yeah, it's overkill... i don't even think you're getting much theoretical improvements above --quality 8. Audible improvements already become negligible above --quality 6 for most people.

What commandline do you use with MPC?

Reply #6
I was using --extreme for my own CDs ; but after experimenting some *little* problems on castanets like samples, I am now using --insane (the new one, --quality 7). It's overkill, I know it, but, 240 kb/s are not a problem for me. It is just for a maximal security.
But I am using --braindead too, and even --quality 9, for foreign CDs.


What commandline do you use with MPC?

Reply #8
--standard for mppenc 1.02 [for a few albums --standard --ltq fil where --xtreme sounds aggressiv in high frequencies]

--quality 6 for mppenc 1.1 [--standard is not enough on most albums because 1.1 sounds complete different than 1.02]

for daily use on work and home.

CDDA for archiving byed cds, FLAC for archiving all other things like lended cds or own music.

Dezibel

What commandline do you use with MPC?

Reply #9
Quote
Originally posted by Dezibel
--quality 6 for mppenc 1.1 [--standard is not enough on most albums because 1.1 sounds complete different than 1.02]
??? Can you ABX a difference with "--standard" on most of your albums?

What commandline do you use with MPC?

Reply #10
...nope.

i don't did any abx tests. the results are just from on the fly hearing using xmms.
so don't rate my results.

Dezibel


What commandline do you use with MPC?

Reply #12
Quote
Originally posted by Dezibel
--quality 6 for mppenc 1.1 [--standard is not enough on most albums because 1.1 sounds complete different than 1.02]

Interesting. I find --standard to be improved (albeit in tiny ways) in 1.1 over 1.02.

With mppenc 1.1, I am using --standard --ltq 30. That's a very insensitive ATH curve in extreme HF, but I'm deaf in that region anyway.  Even with +30dB@20KHz, the #30 ATH curve still encodes frequencies over 18KHz or so, if they are strong enough. I find this arrangement plenty sufficient and cannot ABX between --ltq 30 and --ltq 35.

Since I want to burn all my MPCs to CD-R, I'm leaning toward bitrate savings over the last word in transparency. --standard generally does a superlative job so I don't want to "invest" disk space for --xtreme and above.

What commandline do you use with MPC?

Reply #13
mppenc --braindead --quality 10 --ms 15 --forcewrite --verbose --verbose %1.wav %1.mpc

Note: --braindead is now redundant with 1.1, I guess

What commandline do you use with MPC?

Reply #14
Quote
Originally posted by audiophile
mppenc --braindead --quality 10 --ms 15 --forcewrite --verbose --verbose %1.wav %1.mpc

Note: --braindead is now redundant with 1.1, I guess

Holy sweet jesus... :eek: :jawdrop: that's like... killing baby jesus
what are you trying to accomplish?

and the KITTENS!! don't forget the KITTENS!
God kills atleast one kitten everytime you encode something like that...:evil:
  :cry2:

What commandline do you use with MPC?

Reply #15
Quote
Originally posted by MTRH

and the KITTENS!! don't forget the KITTENS!


The kittens will survive, he's effectively using --quality 10 --forcewrite --verbose --verbose. Still overkill though..

What commandline do you use with MPC?

Reply #16
default (standard or quality 5)

What commandline do you use with MPC?

Reply #17
Quote
Originally posted by Dezibel
...nope.

i don't did any abx tests. the results are just from on the fly hearing using xmms.
so don't rate my results.


*sigh*

<RANT>

I certainly won't.  Please don't bother posting results though if you're not going to attempt to verify them in any fashion (sample or abx).

It's simply useless.  It wastes people's time chasing problems that possibly don't exist, and increases the likelyhood of  spreading misinformation and rumours.

Sorry, but we really have enough of this "well I must have superhuman hearing, I can differentiate MPC in all these circumstances, BUT... I won't abx/don't believe in abx, etc, etc, etc" kind of ideology.  It seems to be on the rise to, which is disturbing, because the whole point of HA is to try and be the 1 at least remotely objective site out there where actual useful measurements are performed, and tests have some meaning.

Just one last bit to add, if so many of you guys can supposedly pick out MPC so well even well beyond --standard (and I'm not talking about 4 samples, I'm talking about all the time like some seem to claim or imply), how come you aren't doing something useful by helping Frank to tune the codec and fix these alleged "problems"?

</RANT>

What commandline do you use with MPC?

Reply #18
I have recently converted from my heathen MP3 ways and have graced the MPC format

I have never tried an ABX, but I think I will certainly try one in the near future once I have some free time. I am using --standard, and --xlevel since many of my encodes report internal clipping errors. So far I have one track that reported clipping with xlevel turned on, so I did it again using the recommended --scale.

Anyway, I am very satisfied with MPC. I didn't have any problems with --alt-preset fast standard on Lame, but I find that the Muse encoder is on average twice as fast as Lame with the settings I was using, and the files are 10-20% smaller.

Also, I must say that the APE2 format is far superior to the ID3v2 hack.

The one thing that is slowing me down from re-ripping my cds and using Muse is that I have a really great general-purpose plugin for WinAmp called EAR... it reads ID3 tags and displays the information in the MiniBrowser. The format of the output is customizeable using XML. It can display file information on MPC files (bitrate, streamversion, encoder, ...), and displays ID3v1, but doesn't support APE tags. So I have turned EAR off, and am slowly trying to get over it. Perhaps I will find a replacement in the future.

Just for anybody who is curious, I wrote a small software in C++ that creates a batch file for encoding ripped wavs. I originally wrote it for my Lame settings, called it Blame (batch lame) ... encoding settings are completely hardcoded, so if anybody wanted to use it, they would have to tinker with code and recompile.

The way it works is that you tell EAC to use a user-defined encoder, and pass the title, artist, album, year, and track information as command-line arguments. The program uses the arguments for several things... it finds and writes the file names using my naming convention, and also uses the encoder's built-in tagger. It generates a batch file which can be run later on. This is helpful because your cpu isn't being used to encode files while it is trying to rip cds. Also, it allows you to rip many cds during the day, then run a single batch file at night, requiring no extra work later on.

Today, I rewrote Blame so that it would encode mpc for me also, and named it Amuse (auto muse) ... heh i'm having fun with these names.

What commandline do you use with MPC?

Reply #19
Ahoy fellow batch file user! I made this one awhile back. It only works with 8.3 format filenames.

Code: [Select]
@ECHO OFF

DIR /B *.WAV > FILES.LST

FOR /F %%F IN (FILES.LST) DO MPPENC --standard --forcewrite %%F

REPLAYGAIN --auto *.MPC

DEL FILES.LST


Your solution is probably better, but I like keeping everything simple

What commandline do you use with MPC?

Reply #20
Quote
Originally posted by Dibrom


*sigh*

<RANT>

I certainly won't.  Please don't bother posting results though if you're not going to attempt to verify them in any fashion (sample or abx).

It's simply useless.  It wastes people's time chasing problems that possibly don't exist, and increases the likelyhood of  spreading misinformation and rumours.

Sorry, but we really have enough of this "well I must have superhuman hearing, I can differentiate MPC in all these circumstances, BUT... I won't abx/don't believe in abx, etc, etc, etc" kind of ideology.  It seems to be on the rise to, which is disturbing, because the whole point of HA is to try and be the 1 at least remotely objective site out there where actual useful measurements are performed, and tests have some meaning.

Just one last bit to add, if so many of you guys can supposedly pick out MPC so well even well beyond --standard (and I'm not talking about 4 samples, I'm talking about all the time like some seem to claim or imply), how come you aren't doing something useful by helping Frank to tune the codec and fix these alleged "problems"?

</RANT>


ok... don't be annoyed. i will say nothing more about codec quality in future. i just use what sounds good for me and be happy with the good work from frank klemm and co.

the reasons for me not doing any abx tests are:

- have not much time to make aby tests and play with tweaked commandlines
- short abx samples says nothing about sound quality for me. only hearing a whole album on a real player let me enjoy the music or even not when sounds quality sucks

i can listen to lame --aps songs without having problems with quality. they sounds a little bit warm, a little artifact here and there, but the quality is listenable. i can listen to mppenc 1.02 --standard songs without any problem. i can listen to mppenc 1.1 --quality 6 without any problem. sound is very good. but i can't listen for example oggvorbis at any bitrate. anything disturbs me. can't discribe it.

tuning and listening tests are your job. i can't make expressive listening tests so i don't do them.

can't translate this without be misunderstood:

Ich wäre froh es würde nicht jedes Wort von mir auf die Goldwaage gelegt und meine Höreindrücke lediglich als Erfahrungen eines normalen Anwenders gesehen. Ich würde mich gerne an der Entwicklung bzw. tuning des ein oder anderen Encoders beteiligen. Allerdings fehlen mir die passenden Kenntnisse sowohl im Audio Coding, als auch im Programmiertechnischen Bereich dazu. Ich als Hobbymusiker "höre" sowieso "anders" als normalsterbliche, und wäre damit im tuning Bereich eh Fehl am Platz. mppenc 1.1 mit --quality 6 bringt für mich die beste Qualität bei akzeptabler Dateigrösse die man beim lossy-coding bekommen kann. Allerdings Fehlen hier und da noch ein paar Minimalitäten um wirklich "transparent" zu sein wie Ihr es nennt. Die Änderungen von 1.02 zu 1.1 die gemacht wurden gingen definitiv in die richtige Richtung. Ein klein bischen mehr tuning und das Teil klingt nahezu perfekt.

Ausserdem bin ich der Meinung dass die ganzen Qualitätseinstellungen unnötig sind. Wenn der Encoder laut Entwickler und Testhörer bei --quality 6 stabil arbeitet, d.h. gute Qualität bringt, warum dann nicht diesen Level als Standarteinstellung einrichten, und die übrigen Optionen nur den Entwicklern und Testhörern zur Verfügung stellen? Damit kämen auch nicht mehr diese hirnlosen Bemerkungen der Anwender wie: --standard sounds good for me but i using --braindead just to be sure! Unnötiger Ballast der dem Anwender wie dem Entwickler abgenommen werden könnte.

Lediglich meine Meinung zum Thema lossy Audio-Coding.

Dezibel

What commandline do you use with MPC?

Reply #21
Quote
Originally posted by Dezibel

- short abx samples says nothing about sound quality for me. only hearing a whole album on a real player let me enjoy the music or even not when sounds quality sucks


I'm working on a small ABX-style file copier/randomizer program, in order to allow those type of tests. Don't know when I'll have it ready, though.

What commandline do you use with MPC?

Reply #22
Quote
Originally posted by paranoos

The one thing that is slowing me down from re-ripping my cds and using Muse is that I have a really great general-purpose plugin for WinAmp called EAR... it reads ID3 tags and displays the information in the MiniBrowser. The format of the output is customizeable using XML. It can display file information on MPC files (bitrate, streamversion, encoder, ...), and displays ID3v1, but doesn't support APE tags. So I have turned EAR off, and am slowly trying to get over it. Perhaps I will find a replacement in the future.


For instance I use only ID3v1.1 (in EAC) and there're no problems for me... I don't see why you won't choose it over APE.

What commandline do you use with MPC?

Reply #23
Quote
Originally posted by Dezibel

Ausserdem bin ich der Meinung dass die ganzen Qualitätseinstellungen unnötig sind. Wenn der Encoder laut Entwickler und Testhörer bei --quality 6 stabil arbeitet, d.h. gute Qualität bringt, warum dann nicht diesen Level als Standarteinstellung einrichten, und die übrigen Optionen nur den Entwicklern und Testhörern zur Verfügung stellen? Damit kämen auch nicht mehr diese hirnlosen Bemerkungen der Anwender wie: --standard sounds good for me but i using --braindead just to be sure! Unnötiger Ballast der dem Anwender wie dem Entwickler abgenommen werden könnte.
I don't know. I think the quoted statement is more honest than stating that --standard is completely insufficient without providing evidence of this. It doesn't say anything is wrong with the codec and thus is not leading people to stay away from certain settings without good reason ("standard can't be enough, because it's only standard").

What commandline do you use with MPC?

Reply #24
Quote
Originally posted by lucpes


For instance I use only ID3v1.1 (in EAC) and there're no problems for me... I don't see why you won't choose it over APE.


Most of the artists are trunca
--  Frank Klemm