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Topic: OGG MP? for the fundamentalist free (Read 9992 times) previous topic - next topic
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OGG MP? for the fundamentalist free

The objectives:
Ogg must be the dominant container.
Vorbis must increase in popularity.

My plan:
If we could get MP3's in ogg containers, the radicals could 'transcode' their mp3's without losing quality.
If we got MPC in ogg containers, then ogg has the fastest highest quality encoder out their.

MP3 issue:
-We get better tagging schemes (ID3v1 too little, ID3v2 too much bloat).
-Proponents of Ogg could 'transcode' their whole mp3 collection, without loosing quality.
-People will need something to read Ogg MP3 files, and that something could easily also read Vorbis.
(and Ogg mpc).
-This would give Vorbis a major advantage in it's quest to overtake mp3.
Since Joe Public thinks all quicktimes are the same, and all avi's are the same he will think all ogg's are the same.
That's not a good thing, Joe needs to be educated, but it gives us an advantage.

MPC issue:
Ogg will have equal or higher quality and speed than anything else (please ignore the AAC-MPC debate).
Imagine when when simple PC magazine tests show Oqq beats everything else in quality and speed.
Again its taking advantage of ignorance, but what else is new?
And if Ogg becomes standard, than maybe we will see hardware support for Ogg Vorbis, Speex, Flac and MPC.
(Ogg MP3 hardware support is a technical no brainer)


Let the transcoding begin!

OGG MP? for the fundamentalist free

Reply #1 –
That sounds incredibly stupid in my head.
The goal of Vorbis is to eliminate MP3 and it's patents.
It's also to deliver better quality.
If you wrap an MP3 file up in an ogg-container, you are not getting better compression or getting rid of patents.

Of course, that's just MHO.

OGG MP? for the fundamentalist free

Reply #2 –
That's the idea.

Question:
Why hasn't ogg replaced mp3 yet?

1)Because the market is flooded with mp3, it's the standard.
2) no hardware support, but hardware manufactors don't support ogg because it isn't widely used,
so it's still point 1.

MP3 is legacy, the reason you probably still have parallel ATA and a floppy disk, is because of legacy support.
The stuff is too popular to phase out quickly.

Alot of Ogg enthousiasts still have a old collection of MP3's because transcoding would mean quality loss.
And if the enthousiasts don't convert to Ogg, how will the laymen?

So as a temporary solution make Ogg MP3.
The enthousiasts will convert their old MP3's to Ogg MP3's (and as a side benefit get better tagging) and rip new songs to Ogg Vorbis.
So everything will be Ogg for these people. Ogg market share increases.

Then some people(including me) don't use Vorbis, because MPC\AAC and even APS MP3 is better.
Getting MPC and MP3 in Ogg would make me convert all my old MP3's to Ogg MP3's and encode all my new stuff to Ogg MPC.

This leads to increased marketshare, giving Ogg a better chance to become dominant.

I mean what should I do with all my old MP3's? I won't transcode and loose quality.
So why not just put it in an Ogg and forget the old .mp3 files.
My player will determine when I have a Ogg MP3 or Vorbis or MPC or FLAC file (or even a Speex file)

And what will the ignorant laymen do after we all tell him ogg is better and he sees that lots of people use ogg?
Convert all his old mp3s to Ogg mp3s.
(with a very simple program ofcourse)
Rip new songs to Ogg Vorbis or Ogg MPC (depending on how much he cares about quality).

Nobody would rip new songs to Ogg MP3.
I mean if you (as a layman) could choose between encoding to Ogg, not knowing what the diffrence is between Ogg MP3 and Ogg Vorbis and the encoder gives you an option Vorbis 128 or MP3 128  and the geeks, who fix your pc, tell you to choose Vorbis, I mean to you (as a layman) it's all Ogg, right?

Compare this to the situation now:
layman:I want to encode avril lavinge.
me: use Ogg vorbis, it's better.
laymen: like your mozilla and openOffice? no way dude everyone uses mp3.

The situation then:
laymen: I want to encode avril lavinge.
me: use the setting vorbis 128.
laymen: why not MP3 128?
me: vorbis is better
laymen: but I do still get an ogg file, like everyone else has, right?
me: yep

So MP3 will still die out as new music is encoded to vorbis.
All Ogg MP3 does is act as a stepping stone.

Alot of people who buy lindows pc's at walmart think they have windows,i mean it looks like windows, it has internet and email and can play music and stuff, it must  be windows.

Take advantage of their ignorance for the good cause my friend, instead of letting their ignorance make the rip to 64 kbps WMA (it's CD quality!)

OGG MP? for the fundamentalist free

Reply #3 –
That's a very interesting idea... Of course in a perfect world we could just educate the public and they'd actually listen . The problem I see is that if *everything* is .ogg, how would we tell what we're downloading? This wont matter unless you're a pirate of course  but most of the general public with mp3's are. The point I'm getting at is, if an average Joe hops on a file sharing network, sees two ogg files - one 1mb, one 2mb. He's gonna go for the 1mb one will will probably be some sort of "transcoded" xing 128kb file. He's gonna listen and think "this isn't any better than mp3" and go back to downloading MP3s which will still be everywhere.

In a nutshell, this wouldn't do Ogg (Vorbis) any favours. I say keep with the educating and see what happens.

OGG MP? for the fundamentalist free

Reply #4 –

OGG MP? for the fundamentalist free

Reply #5 –
True.
But now on KaZaA (or so i'm told  ) you have files of 1 MB and 2 MB.
The diffrence is right there in the "bitrate" field.
Joe has by now figured out that those small mp3's that say 64 in the bitrate field sound terrible.
So he'll figure it out with Ogg too.
And if he can't see the diffrence, we can't help him, maybe a ear doctor can

Remember transcoding to Ogg Vorbis lowers the quality.
But putting an mp3 in a Ogg container would do nothing to the quality.
And quite frankly it would be nice if all my media files were in Ogg containers.
(The better tags and having one media extension and a media "standard" would be nice)
(or matroska, if it proves to be a good container format)

Now when you have the Ogg file, you still need a decoder.
My idea is that players automatically get you a decoder (ever open avi or quicktime files? windows mediaplayer and apple quicktime auto connect for the right codec).
So then Joe is happy 

I mean Joe doesn't know that quicktime and avi files are just containers, he thinks they are like mp3 and so.
It would be nice if he did know what a container is, but better he uses all oggs than all wma/wmv, right?

And yes JensRex i think it's very disgusting too, but if microshit can use the public ignorance to make them use cd quality WMA files @ 64 K, then we can too use their ignorance to further our cause of freedom.
So does the cause justify the methods in this case? I think so.

And since my MP3 files are here to stay, I would rather have them in a ogg container, it has the only disadvantage of adding a few kilobytes to a 5 meg file, but it would be better IMHO.

OGG MP? for the fundamentalist free

Reply #6 –
Ehm, I wrote some more detailed stuff but decided to bring it down to a few simple words:

Why do you think, Joe Somebody would switch from MP3 to your Ogg MP?

While technical possible, the whole idea is just a sign of plain stupidity.
"To understand me, you'll have to swallow a world." Or maybe your words.

OGG MP? for the fundamentalist free

Reply #7 –
Personally I'd rather not see this happen. I think all formats should easily be recognised as what they actually are, otherwise all it does it confuse people. I for one HATE avi due to the fact that there could have been either of several different codecs used and I don't know which one it was. Have you ever tried to play a DivX file in WMP and have it actually get the codec? I think not.

OGG MP? for the fundamentalist free

Reply #8 –
I reckon we should all distribute mp3 files with someone saying "Uh, download the Ogg version, its more bitrate efficient", then loop it for 4 minutes.

That'd work.

Ruairi
rc55.com - nothing going on

OGG MP? for the fundamentalist free

Reply #9 –
Quote
I reckon we should all distribute mp3 files with someone saying "Uh, download the Ogg version, its more bitrate efficient", then loop it for 4 minutes.

That'd work.

Ruairi

Sounds like a better plan to me.
"To understand me, you'll have to swallow a world." Or maybe your words.

OGG MP? for the fundamentalist free

Reply #10 –
Joe Somebody will switch when all the more 'computer experts' switch.
(computer experts would be you, me and the other dudes that know how to solve most computer problems.
the guys that Joe somebody calls when his pc malfunctions or wants to know how he can make mp3's)

The experts don't switch, mostly because:
1) transcoding their mp3's is stupid.(quality loss)
2)Because Vorbis ain't there with MPC\AAC\--alt-preset mp3's when it comes to quality.

(and because:
-of lacking hardware support,
-It's use is not widespread
but once the masses use vorbis, these issues get cleared up, and the masses will use it when the experts use it)

Ogg mp3 solves (1)
Ogg mpc solves (2)

Why will the experts should switch:

pros:
Better (standard) tagging that surely beats ID3.
One replaygain implementationfor all ogg files.
promote Ogg. (and thus vorbis)

cons:
You have to add some kb's to your multiple MB mp3's
You have to wait a hour while a small program puts all the mp3's in your ogg container

It breaks the step mp3-> Ogg vorbis, into:
mp3 ->Ogg mp3 -> Ogg vorbis.

Ogg is a good container, why would anyone not want to put their mp3's in a good container?
One container is a good thing.
Why do we put FLAC, Speex and vorbis files in Ogg containers?
It's just a good container.

Quote
I for one HATE avi due to the fact that there could have been either of several different codecs used and I don't know which one it was.
Have you ever tried to play a DivX file in WMP and have it actually get the codec? I think not.


Get ffdshow.It'sgot all the codecs in a nifty package.

Second with ogg, we won't have MS endorsing some formats and not others.
With decentralized servers you could be sure that all codec's are available.
And some dude will release something like ffdshow,so that you have all codecs installed all of the time.

And you can always see what codec is actually used in an avi file (usually just by clicking on properties), so it's not like you don't know what codecs are used.


But since everyone thinks i'm a crackpot 

Anyway I only found out about matroska after originally starting this thread.
Who knows if matroska is succesful and becomes the standard container we will all use that.

OGG MP? for the fundamentalist free

Reply #11 –
Quote
MP3 issue:
-We get better tagging schemes (ID3v1 too little, ID3v2 too much bloat).

The ogg container has no tag support at all. Vorbiscomments are implemented in flac, speex and vorbis codecs.

If you want better tag support in mp3 files, use APE2 tags.

OGG MP? for the fundamentalist free

Reply #12 –
I can implement APE2 in mp3?
I didn't know that, guess I need to do some digging in the forums...

And I thought Ogg supported  tags on its own... 

Maybe I should learn a little more about Ogg containers before I advocate them. 

I'll dig the forums now 

OGG MP? for the fundamentalist free

Reply #13 –
And another quote that shows you should know at least something about technologies before advocating them.
Quote
Get ffdshow.It'sgot all the codecs in a nifty package.

It's not a Codec Package (like the one of Nimo, which will most likely blow up at least something), but an all-in-one DirectShow filter, which uses routines of ffmpeg and XviD.

dev0
"To understand me, you'll have to swallow a world." Or maybe your words.

OGG MP? for the fundamentalist free

Reply #14 –
Quote
I can implement APE2 in mp3?
I didn't know that, guess I need to do some digging in the forums...

And I thought Ogg supported  tags on its own...  

Maybe I should learn a little more about Ogg containers before I advocate them.  

I'll dig the forums now 

Technically you can use ape2 tags with mp3 just as well as you can use id3-tags.
Problem is that only (AFAIK) foobar2000 supports reading these tags from mp3 files.

OGG MP? for the fundamentalist free

Reply #15 –
It's true, I know nothing about ffdshow.
All i know is, I install it and all my avi files play, no matter what codec.
It has a whole list of supported codecs, and the guy that gave it to me said it's a package of codecs.
I also got that nimo thing.
For me the video codec scene is simply too much to get involved.
And since hollywood produces crap (IMHO) the only video i watch are some streaming videos (sadly wmv or real)  and I got some music videos (usually mpeg) 

But may the record show I wasn't actively advocating ffdshow, just recommending to a guy who hates all these diffrent codecs in avi files a simple way to get them to play.

Anyway look at what I stumbled across:

Quote
OK, since only about half of the mail we get is about the name 'Ogg Vorbis', it's clearly time to karma-whore a popular subject and open this can of worms one more time.
Our "The Name Sucks!"/"The name Rulez!" mail ratio is about 50/50. Some of you have threatened to kill us if we change the name, some of you have threatened to kill us if we don't. So you're gonna hear what I think about it. I'm not going to waste the opportunity my minor fame gives me for a healthy round of peer-mockery.

<tongue-in-cheek>
<neeneer-neener>
I Like The Name. I Wrote the Software. The Name Stays.
</neener-neener>

But there's more to this story than 'nyah nyah'. The 'rename Ogg!' forces have provided me with some of my favorite mail ever. I recall fondly the guy who went on, in great detail, why 'Ogg Vorbis' sucks, and that I must adopt 'a cutting edge, truly kick-ass name like "FreeMP3"!!!!!'

As for 'Ogg Vorbis', I hadn't really meant the 'Vorbis' part to get tacked on. The name of the format is Ogg. Just Ogg. Vorbis happens to be the first codec. Had 'Vorbis' been perhaps one more syllable (like, say 'Sorensen'), we wouldn't have this problem. People would just call it 'Ogg' like God (that's me) intended. Of course, particularly obsessive people *do* occasionally say 'QuickTime Sorensen', but they don't get invited to parties much, and when invited, they are shunned. 'Course they're usually just arguing with the punch bowl so shunning is easy.

I don't want my users to be shunned at parties, so I'm gonna help you out here. Just call it 'Ogg'. Ogg is a good, simple, very satisfying word.

It makes a good noun, a better verb and can even be used effectively in a curse. It is a real word and contains no numbers. It has only two unique characters, making it simpler than mp3. It is only one syllable, making it shorter to say than mp3. If you still can't handle it, try reboot-reinstall.
</tongue-in-cheek>

Monty
xiph.org


Heh if all mp3 and mpc users put their files in Ogg containers it would boost Ogg, and according to Monty the end-users don't need to know which codec as long as it's an ogg file.
So my idea certainly helps the cause.

All I want is Ogg to have three characteristics:
1) transparent audio at optimum bitrates(Which MPC would provide)
2) Acceptable quality at 128 K (Which Vorbis provides)
3) Backwards compatibility with MP3 (which ofcourse mp3 would provide)

OGG MP? for the fundamentalist free

Reply #16 –
Dude. Wrapping an MP3 file up in an Ogg container does not create backwards compatibility, it creates incompatibility. MP3 players are most likely not going to recognize the MP3-stream inside the Ogg file.

Your idea is as good as that guy who suggested Xiph should rename Ogg Vorbis to the cutting edge "FreeMP3".

OGG MP? for the fundamentalist free

Reply #17 –
It does create backward compatibility.
All you need is a simple codec.
Putting a file in a ogg container and getting it out is easy.
And we already have mp3/mpc codecs, so putting an ogg around them and  extracting them is very easy.

Backwards compatibility is:
Stepping over to a new format.
Being able toplay the old format.

So we step over to Ogg (which includes all the codecs: vorbis, flac, speex and if I have my way mpc and mp3).
We do these two things to step over:
Run a program that puts all our mp3's\mpc's in ogg containers.
Configure EAC\cdex to rip new songs to Ogg (be that vorbis, flac or mpc (not mp3, it's inferior))

Now since our Ogg players play all the Ogg's (vorbis,flac...) we just play all our old and our new files.

We stepped over, and we can still play our old files.
voila! backwards compatibility.

And when a new codec comes along that people would want to use, put it in Ogg!

And we can live in a world where our mediaplayer is called OggAmp and plays all Ogg files.
(Including the Ogg mp3 files we ripped in the '90s)
And our great grand children will think: Ogg = digital music.

The other option is living in a world where we have a MediaPlayer that can play:
Ogg files,
MP3 files,
MPC files,
New codecs.

You see the idea behind Ogg is (like the letter from monty that I quoted) everyone plays Ogg, and nothing else.
And the codecs are banned to HA.org where they can be discussed and ABX'd to death so that we can tell end-users which 'settings'(codec) they should use when creating music (read Ogg) files.

Ogg will be King har har har.  (w00t)  (w00t)  (w00t)

Edit:

My idea may suck (and it probably does, I just want to have the Ogg container be King in a zealous way).
But it is nothing like renaming Ogg to FreeMP3.
Renaming mp+ to musepack, living audio is more comparable

OGG MP? for the fundamentalist free

Reply #18 –
I disagree with salt28 about placing mp3 in ogg containers. As stated before, this in itself would not make ogg "backwards compatible" with mp3. It also creates patent issues, which defeats the main goal of ogg to begin with... "completely open, patent-free, professional audio encoding and streaming technology with all the benefits of Open Source".

However, I do think salt28 brings up some valid ideas. As far as I can tell, hardware support for ogg is lacking, if not invisible. I'm sure it's just a matter of time before this is no longer the case. Either hardware manufacturers will directly support ogg with updated firmware, or general purpose handheld devices will become compact enough that they will alleviate the need for specific "digital audio players". Until that time comes, wouldn't it be in the interest of the lesser-known open-source formats to join forces with ogg, which has the greatest chance of becoming popular? Don't get me wrong, I know that mpc currently may have some patent issues itself, and even if it didn't, I'm not really sure how feasible it is to wrap mpc into an ogg container. But I hardly think you can just pass off salt28's idea as "stupidity". Feasibility aside, I DO wish that the best of the open source formats could join forces SOMEHOW, so that when a manufacturer does decide to implement a new decoder into their hardware, playback of other formats becomes a reality too. Like I said though, "feasibility aside".
You smell.

OGG MP? for the fundamentalist free

Reply #19 –
Anyone wishing is welcome to delete this post 

OGG MP? for the fundamentalist free

Reply #20 –
Yes that doesn't seem to be a good idea to me either. But if you advocate for switching to Matroska as the default container for Vorbis as well as other codecs then I think that could eventually be better.
The object of mankind lies in its highest individuals.
One must have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

OGG MP? for the fundamentalist free

Reply #21 –
Quote
Yes that doesn't seem to be a good idea to me either. But if you advocate for switching to Matroska as the default container for Vorbis as well as other codecs then I think that could eventually be better.

I am sure this will encourage hardware support.

So in order to implement FLAC hardware support, you need to support:

Normal FLAC
OggFLAC
MatroskaFLAC
FLAC in MP4
FLAC in AVI
FLAC in whatever

Like that is going to happen.

OGG MP? for the fundamentalist free

Reply #22 –
Quote
I am sure this will encourage hardware support.

I agree. I think projects like MPC / Vorbis / Flac / Wavpack / Monkey's Audio could encourage the use of Matroska by making it their default container format (Wouldn't SV8 be doing that as planned?). MP4 / MP3 / Mp3Pro are industry driven and they usually don't care for the best technology/consumer friendliness but DRM and other corporate control benefits, so I wouldn't expect them to do such a switch unless Matroska becomes very popular.

And we at least know Matroska has distinct advantages as a container format over the others. It wouldn't be for the sake of domination only then but for the best use of technology.
The object of mankind lies in its highest individuals.
One must have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

OGG MP? for the fundamentalist free

Reply #23 –
salt28: think of the Ogg container more like a zip file. You can place stuff inside and get it back out + extras. Now if your player supports reading from zip files, that just means it can get the data you stuffed in the container back out. That doesn't mean the player has any idea what to do with the data it just extracted. It may recognize it as Vorbis audio and load the Vorbis decoder. Because the author of the player software didn't implement mpc support, you can't play the mpc even if you correctly extracted the mpc audio data from the container. Where is the increase in compatibility

If you download (legally of course) an Ogg file today, you can be pretty sure that it uses Vorbis audio. You also know that your player can play this format (Vorbis audio). If what you propose happens, you won't know what your getting beforehand! Confusing!

I can't follow your argumentation how pros would influence Jow Average. If the pros tell him to use Ogg Vorbis, he won't listen, but if the pros tell him to use the Ogg container for his mp3s, he will?

Other issues:
Philosophy: Ogg will no longer be fully patent free
How does fooling the dumb user encourage freedom?
How can you promote Ogg's quality, if there could be 128 Xing mp3s inside?
The need to implement dozens of codecs will make hardware support much harder.

OGG MP? for the fundamentalist free

Reply #24 –
Quote
So in order to implement FLAC hardware support, you need to support:

Normal FLAC
OggFLAC
MatroskaFLAC
FLAC in MP4
FLAC in AVI
FLAC in whatever

Like that is going to happen.


Well iTunes when putting mp3's on the iPod strips off the tags and puts that in a special DB file.
Then the raw file is written to the disk.

Why couldn't the same be done with all of the above?
Have the pc rip off the container before putting it on the device.

I know my suggestion makes no technical sense.
But remember, consumers don't make technical sense either.
If you read the title, it implies using consumer ignorance to further the Ogg format.
Technically it shouldn't be real hard.
Technically it doesn't need to be real smart.

Hardware support doesn't come because it's easy or logical or free to implement.
It comes when consumers want it.
And consumers will want devices that play Ogg when everything around them is Ogg.
And unless we rename those .mp3's to .ogg, all they will see around them is .mp3.
Let creative, apple, iRiver and Archos worry how they will provide this ability to play all Ogg files to consumers.


Quote
Philosophy: Ogg will no longer be fully patent free
How does fooling the dumb user encourage freedom?
How can you promote Ogg's quality, if there could be 128 Xing mp3s inside?


Ogg will be patent free, just like 7zip is a free zip format. The media in it won't have to be patent free.

Fooling users doesn't encourage their freedom. manipulating them is what i'm actually proposing.
But it's manipulating them to make them use free software.
I give my friends mozilla, openOffice, 7zip, exodus IM , Red hat Linux, Debian and other software.
Not because mozilla is better for them than IE, but because I need "commoners" to support free software so that I'm not the only one stuck with it.
And I happily support them when they use my software.
Not everyone is going to embrace Free software, it's up to those who do to motivate the others.

And about Ogg's quality:
You say:"Making mp3's from your Ogg's doesn't improve their music quality (much  )
Ripping cds with your Ogg encoder set to "vorbis qX" will improve the quality and set to "mpc qX" will give even better quality"
Very easy and straightforward to understand.

Quite frankly this is all about aggresive marketing, not technical utopia.
I see AAC becoming tomorrow's standard,and I don't like it.
I'd much rather have vorbis and mpc be tomorrows standard, but if we aren't willing to aggresivly promote it,
then the laymen will follow the MS sales rep's who will without a blink claim 64 K WMA is cd quality.

Anyway matroska is more promising than Ogg as the standard container.
But since nobody likes my idea of having all media files in a standard container,i'll let this thread die.