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Poll

What VBR setting do you use?

-V0 (.XXX) (--[alt-]preset [fast] extreme)
[ 128 ] (28.3%)
-V1 (.XXX)
[ 18 ] (4%)
-V2 (.XXX) (--[alt-]preset [fast] standard)
[ 173 ] (38.3%)
-V3 (.XXX)
[ 44 ] (9.7%)
-V4 (.XXX) (--[alt-]preset [fast] medium)
[ 24 ] (5.3%)
-V5 (.XXX)
[ 52 ] (11.5%)
-V6 (.XXX)
[ 7 ] (1.5%)
-V7 (.XXX)
[ 0 ] (0%)
-V8 (.XXX) or -V9 (.XXX)
[ 1 ] (0.2%)
Other
[ 5 ] (1.1%)

Total Members Voted: 613

Topic: Which LAME VBR settings do you use? (Read 132628 times) previous topic - next topic
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Which LAME VBR settings do you use?

Reply #75
I go with Lame 3.98, -V2. The distribution of the votes so far though, almost seems to suggest to me that V2 is migrating towards being 'standard' in name, but not actuality?

Which LAME VBR settings do you use?

Reply #76
What you mean? almost 40% use V2.

Which LAME VBR settings do you use?

Reply #77
What you mean? almost 40% use V2.

I was looking mostly at the 25% that had shown up in V0; I had expected that there would've been like 70% on V2, and then most of the rest of it distributed somewhere below that.

Seeing these results is different than what I was anticipating. Basically it looks as if most people who didn't choose V2, tended to step up to V0, rather than step downwards. My question would be: Did those 25% of people that chose V0 do so "just to be safe", or was it because they were able to ABX artefacts with V2 that they weren't able to find in V0?

Which LAME VBR settings do you use?

Reply #78
I'm sure 95% just to be safe

No abx to prove

Which LAME VBR settings do you use?

Reply #79
... I made ABX-Tests and the outcome is that ABR clearly sounds better. ...

Do you use 3.98?
I've been an ABR advocate for a long time before 3.98 came out (maybe I still am at very high bitrate ABR 250...300, but it's not very relevant to me any more).
With 3.98 however I can hardly imagine samples where ABR is clearly better than VBR in your bitrate range though ABR certainly is fine too.


OK, the tests were back in Jan.2008 and I used 3.98beta. Maybe things turn out different with 3.98.2 - I haven't tested that.
So THX for the hint, maybe I should repeat the tests based on the lastest stable version (I guess it's 3.98.2).



Which LAME VBR settings do you use?

Reply #80
Did those 25% of people that chose V0 do so "just to be safe", or was it because they were able to ABX artefacts with V2 that they weren't able to find in V0?


Usually when LAME fails miserably at ~192kbit/s it will fail up to 320kbit/s. That's why I wouldn't go above Quicktime TVBR 127 (~192kbit/s) or Nero q 5.5. The codec either gets it (most of the time) or it fails anywhere up to 320 kbit/s CBR. This "just to be safe" nest egg is often worthless.

Which LAME VBR settings do you use?

Reply #81
... I made ABX-Tests and the outcome is that ABR clearly sounds better. ...

Do you use 3.98?
I've been an ABR advocate for a long time before 3.98 came out (maybe I still am at very high bitrate ABR 250...300, but it's not very relevant to me any more).
With 3.98 however I can hardly imagine samples where ABR is clearly better than VBR in your bitrate range though ABR certainly is fine too.


OK, the tests were back in Jan.2008 and I used 3.98beta. Maybe things turn out different with 3.98.2 - I haven't tested that.
So THX for the hint, maybe I should repeat the tests based on the lastest stable version (I guess it's 3.98.2).


Coming back to my own posting I'd like to add this:
I finally made some new ABX-tests with lame 3.98.2. The outcome again is that with the same bitrate ABR sounds slightly better than VBR. Possible explanation is: With ABR I can effectively use the -q0 switch, which is ignored(!) when using VBR (-V2 is always q=2, -V3 is always q=3 etc., even if -q0 is specified    ). Although the encoding time significantly increases with -q0 compared to -q2 or less, I don't care, because on my machine encoding is still fast enough. What counts is that I get better quality at the same bitrate resp. more qualtiy with lower filesize.

Cheers
Gene

 

Which LAME VBR settings do you use?

Reply #82
Possible explanation is: With ABR I can effectively use the -q0 switch, which is ignored(!) when using VBR (-V2 is always q=2, -V3 is always q=3 etc., even if -q0 is specified    )


In fact, it's the other way round: if you specify "-V2 -q2",  LAME 3.98 will use "-V2 -q0" settings.

Which LAME VBR settings do you use?

Reply #83
Possible explanation is: With ABR I can effectively use the -q0 switch, which is ignored(!) when using VBR (-V2 is always q=2, -V3 is always q=3 etc., even if -q0 is specified    )


In fact, it's the other way round: if you specify "-V2 -q2",  LAME 3.98 will use "-V2 -q0" settings.


This I can not verify. When encoding with -V2 lame always reports VBR(q=2), no matter what the switch -q specifies. I've tried this with different lame-compiles (from bakerweb and from Rarewares) and it always turns out this way. Then, which lame.exe are you using?

Which LAME VBR settings do you use?

Reply #84
while I stick to AAC for my primary lossy format, I do encode to LAME mp3 from time to time, and when I do I use v. 3.99a (since after testing, I haven't been able to distinguish a difference between it and v. 3.98.2, and it encodes approximately 25-30% faster on my MacBook)... as for the quality settings, I'm a pretty die-hard -V2 fan, though I'll occasionally drop down to -V3 for stuff in my library that I won't need nearly as high a quality setting for (less complex stuff).  and no, I don't use floating point (though that's only because I've never looked into it).
Archive- FLAC (-v 8)
Portable- QuickTime AAC (True VBR/-q 77)

Which LAME VBR settings do you use?

Reply #85
I switch between v0 and v2 for music, depending on the style and how much I like the music.

Voice, books, etc. v2 at best.

I think I'm still using 3.97 *shrug*

Which LAME VBR settings do you use?

Reply #86
I actually regularly use V0 and V2, one for classical or orchestral, the other for everything else, so I just put V2 since that's the one I use the most (a majority of my classical has already been ripped).  I have 3.98.2, though I've been playing around with the 3.99.a1 LAME a bit.  I don't use floating point, seeing as I don't really know what it is or what it does.

Which LAME VBR settings do you use?

Reply #87
I don't want to bump for its own sake, and this information has been posted several times on the forum, but this exchange needs clarification:
Possible explanation is: With ABR I can effectively use the -q0 switch, which is ignored(!) when using VBR (-V2 is always q=2, -V3 is always q=3 etc., even if -q0 is specified    )


In fact, it's the other way round: if you specify "-V2 -q2",  LAME 3.98 will use "-V2 -q0" settings.


This I can not verify. When encoding with -V2 lame always reports VBR(q=2), no matter what the switch -q specifies. I've tried this with different lame-compiles (from bakerweb and from Rarewares) and it always turns out this way. Then, which lame.exe are you using?

--vbr-new effectively has only 3 -q settings: Values from 0 to 3 are equivalent, as are 4-6 and 7-9 respectively. Also, in all modes, -q3 is now default, with -h equivalent to -q2.

Which LAME VBR settings do you use?

Reply #88
LAME has become surprisingly good in the last few years. Its current pre-echo robustness is amazing (3.98.4 -V0 and -b 320 have caught up to Vorbis aoTuV b4 -q5 according to my experience, which is unbelievable considering the limitations), and the psy-model is really efficient at spending bits. Hats off to Gabriel, Robert and the rest of the team!

Sometime ago I decided to encode all music for my own portable needs at ~150–160 kbps, because I found it to be the perfect bitrate at which a high degree of transparency can be achieved, thus my codecs of choice nowadays are LAME 3.98.4 at -V 3.5 for artifact-robust music, and either Vorbis aoTuV post-b5.7 -q 5 or Musepack 1.3.0 SV8 -q 5 for the rest, depending on the resulting bitrate.
Infrasonic Quartet + Sennheiser HD650 + Microlab Solo 2 mk3. 

Which LAME VBR settings do you use?

Reply #89
Sometime ago I decided to encode all music for my own portable needs at ~150–160 kbps, because I found it to be the perfect bitrate at which a high degree of transparency can be achieved, thus my codecs of choice nowadays are LAME 3.98.4 at -V 3.5 for artifact-robust music, and either Vorbis aoTuV post-b5.7 -q 5 or Musepack 1.3.0 SV8 -q 5 for the rest, depending on the resulting bitrate.


If I get it right, you use a 3-phase process with your transcodes:
1. Encode to mp3 (LAME)
2. Check whether you can catch some artifacts in the result files, and if you can:
3. Encode to ogg and mpc and choose the filess with appropriate bitrate.

I wonder, why don't you skip the first two phases, though? You will save time and you will make the process more error-proof. Otherwise, you should check carefully every mp3 file and even then it is possible to omit some artifacts.

Which LAME VBR settings do you use?

Reply #90
Actually it's somewhat easier. If I know an album isn't prone to pre-echo (pretty much the only artifact I can easily distinguish at the bitrate range I've chosen), or I'm not sure, or I don't care much, I'll encode to all three simultaneously and see which one results in the lowest bitrate. If that happens to be LAME, I'll quickly check if I'm bothered by quality, and if I'm not (which is what happens most of the time), I'll take it.

However, if I know an album is prone to pre-echo — and a lot of the music I listen to is like that — I'll just encode to Vorbis and Musepack, skipping LAME, and see which one results in lower bitrate. Otherwise these two are pretty much identical for my purposes, and I can't distinguish between them.

It requires slightly more time, but the methodology is pretty simple and a satisfying result is ensured.

Infrasonic Quartet + Sennheiser HD650 + Microlab Solo 2 mk3.