You guys rock

No, you rock. Thanks.

You guys rock

No, you rock. Thanks.

Seconded! Give thanks and praises...

/Michael

Hold the applause until you're listening to a Vorbis file on your Empeg. Then start cheering.

By the way, many thanks to the folks that donated to us! We love you!

You know, it makes me wonder... How come no one else realizes how powerful Empeg owners are? They've already decided that they want to use cool technology, and they're willing to pay for a sufficiently kick-ass application of said technology. People would kill their own mothers for access to that demographic.

Yeah, we are the dream target market, aren't we?

We are just too small. But we are good at converting people. I think you are going to have about 4000 more people promoting this

Could someone toss together a list of features/add-ons/tools that the community has provided? Everything from logo editor, java aps, lenes, button kits, facias, new fonts, bbs, faq, riocar.org, etc etc.... I'm sure I only know of a tiny part of that list.

Wow.

[Deleted due to corrected information later in thread]
g

[deleted due to the fact that Greg corrected his statements]

You're too fast Tony, I don't even have time to get frustrated, then angry, then surprised, then fantasmagorically excited, then kind of sleepy before you're already on the ball with new info ;-)

Greg

"They've already decided that they want to use cool technology, and they're willing to pay for a sufficiently kick-ass application of said technology. People would kill their own mothers for access to that demographic."

Yup. . . Makes the record companies strategy look silly doesn't it? I haven't even heard this before, but I'm definately going to try it now.

This is great news! Thanks for your efforts!

Sean

Thanks for doing this for us!

Peter: looking forward to seeing vorbis in the next public beta ;-)

Sean

/me wonders how long before he starts re-encoding all his stuff in .ogg format..

Well, I bought a few CDs tonight and encoded my first .ogg files. Actually recorded this Neil Finn live album in both Ogg and MP3 - maybe put on the headphones later to see if I can tell any difference.

Actually, since I'm not doing *that* much new ripping and I still have a good chunk of disk space, I have thought about setting Grip to not delete WAVs and encode new rips into both....but then I have double the tag/comment editing...decisions, decisions! I *did* submit a feature request for Grip that would let me switch config files b/w different LAME and vorbis configs.

One question I have is whether Vorbis will potentially improve so much in the next 6 months or year (say in file sizes or something) that I will regret encoding with the current version, but that seems unlikely.

I downloaded one Ogg Vorbis comment editor (vocoditor) and am going to try that out, but it looks pretty basic, and there doesn't seem to be anything out there on the level of something like MP3 Tag Studio.

Any of these temporary issues aside, I'm going to work on learning more about the particulars of Ogg Vorbis and fine-tuning my setup. This remains really fantastic news

Wow. I'm stunned. This is MOST excellent news! Thank you guys so much for making this even a possibility. I feel like I'm living in Disneyland since dreams really do come true...

off to PayPal land....
Tim

In reply to:

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I have thought about setting Grip to not delete WAVs and encode new rips into both....but then I have double the tag/comment editing...decisions, decisions! I *did* submit a feature request for Grip that would let me switch config files b/w different LAME and vorbis configs.

---

You could perhaps configure Grip to use a script of your own as an encoder. Your script would take three input filenames, the first two being the usual WAV input and MP3 output, and the other being the Ogg output. Then you could turn Ogg and MP3 on and off by editing the script, or by using another parameter.

I hear that Ogg Vorbis is better for seamless playback - if so, then I'm interested for that feature...

I'm going to work on learning more about the particulars of Ogg Vorbis and fine-tuning my setup.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that I probably won't be re-encoding everything into this new and wonderful format.

The primary reasons are:

1) I have other devices which are still dependent upon the MP3 format and do not (yet) support Ogg Vorbis. It's more convenient for me to let these devices all share the same set of MP3 files. Obviously, when the time comes that these devices do support Ogg, I will reconsider.

2) The primary advantage of Ogg over MP3 is that it does a better job of encoding at a given bit rate. For instance, a 128kbps Ogg file will sound better than a 128kbps MP3 file. But I already encode my MP3s at a much higher bitrate than 128 and can't tell the difference between the original CD and my encoded MP3s. So the only advantage Ogg would give me is disk space savings, and thanks to products like the empeg and the Jupiter, storage is the least of my worries at this time.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to put down Ogg or anything. I applaud the format and its technological advances, and it's great to think that it may be coming soon to our beloved empeg player. I just don't have a compelling reason to re-encode my entire collection at this time.

I have a question about the Ogg format, though: Does it solve the gapless playback problem we experience with MP3s? If it does, I will likely re-do all of my continuous-track albums in Ogg format.

Yes, vorbis files have sample granularity, so it won't introduce any gaps that don't exist in the original wav.

Depending on the music you listen to, vorbis files can sound better than even higher-bitrate mp3s. This is especially true for classical music, but if you give it a test drive you might notice it on other music too. But your point #1 is particularly valid for people with multiple portable players.

Jon

The more I think about it, the more I realize that I probably won't be re-encoding everything into this new and wonderful format.

The primary reasons are:

1) I have other devices which are still dependent upon the MP3 format and do not (yet) support Ogg Vorbis. It's more convenient for me to let these devices all share the same set of MP3 files. Obviously, when the time comes that these devices do support Ogg, I will reconsider.

I have some of the same issues, but fewer of them I think. I have been using XMMS in place of Winamp, but even Winamp includes .ogg support now (new in the v3 beta?). With the docking station at home, virtually all of my playback is out of the Empeg, so if Ogg support materializes there, then I'm good to go. The one gap is a portable player for airplane travel.

I'm fairly certain that MP3 will remain more prevalent for some time to come given that most of the file sharing is in MP3 format. However, since virtually all of my listening is ripped from my collection, that kind of popularity doesn't matter to me.

To me, it's the same old "Chicken or the Ogg?" conundrum. I'm going to work progressively more with Ogg, 'cause it creates the opportunity for me to send e-mails (like I did this morning to the author of MP3 Tag Studio) asking politely if Ogg might be supported in future. What the folks at Xiph have done is awesome. I'll endure some inconveniences if it will help them succeed in the long run.

2) The primary advantage of Ogg over MP3 is that it does a better job of encoding at a given bit rate. For instance, a 128kbps Ogg file will sound better than a 128kbps MP3 file. But I already encode my MP3s at a much higher bitrate than 128 and can't tell the difference between the original CD and my encoded MP3s. So the only advantage Ogg would give me is disk space savings, and thanks to products like the empeg and the Jupiter, storage is the least of my worries at this time.

Yes. Just for fun, though, I have thought about enlisting a friend to help me with a "real-world" listening test. Encode 5-10 well-known song snippets in MP3 and Ogg at a variety of base bitrates, blindly randomize the various encodings of each snippet into pairs, put on some headphones and conduct "which is better? A.....or B....?" listening tests. Run this rerandomized 4 or 5 times to see if I can figure out the point at which my sorry old ears can tell the difference, then pick the notch above that as my new encoding standard. Save 0.01 GB at least!

.... I just don't have a compelling reason to re-encode my entire collection at this time.

For functional reasons (space, sound quality, convenience) reasons, neither do I at this time, but for long-term political, licensing, and technical reasons, I slowly, progressively will.

I have a question about the Ogg format, though: Does it solve the gapless playback problem we experience with MP3s? If it does, I will likely re-do all of my continuous-track albums in Ogg format.

Isn't this one of the killer advantages of Ogg? Heh. A search just found a version 1 of a Windows player (VUPlayer ) that "Version 1.0 introduces gapless Ogg Vorbis playback & comment editing" (I'll have to check it out). Perhaps this is implementation-specific, but it sounds like it's out there. Great for live stuff and soundtrack (Oh, and some Rush albums!)

[edit: I expanded my second to last paragraph. I looked at it and realized that somebody might look at the post and wonder why the heck -- in general terms -- I would switch.]

Aren't the Rio Central and the empeg very similar in hard ware? I assume that if the empeg team is going to provide Ogg support because they are getting the license for free, they may be able to pursuade the bean counters to pay for Ogg on the Rio Central (because the license would be the only cost - they've already done the needed in house developement!)

Seems like this format would really kill in the portable market. Yet WMA has some of the same advantages.

Yeah, but WMA is a Microsloth codec. For that reason alone I won't use it.

I agree. I'm with you on that. While I'm not a big "anti-MS" guy, I hate the digital restrictions they built into the format. A few years back, WaxTrax! records released many wma's free on their site. I spent most of the day downloading them at work. I owned nearly all of the cd's but didn't have any ripping program at the time (2000). After I was done, I went home for 2 weeks (I was able to spend all day DL'ing because it was the last day before Christmas vacation). When I came back after New Year's, they had all expired. Nice.

Tony, I think the main reason people see Ogg gaining importance is the licensing/royalty situation with MP3. I think that issue is overplayed a little bit, and nobody from Fraunhofer is going to chase us down and ask us to pay them a quarter for each of our MP3's. But in this open source world we all adore, people like the idea of getting away from proprietary formats, even if "the cat is out of the bag."

I think that issue is more important to a lot of people than the bitrate, etc. I think we all agree that disk space is (almost) irrelevant, and modern encoders (LAME especially) are doing such a great job of squeezing out quality per bit anyway.

Saying that OGG only offers quality/size ratio over MP3 is understating things a bit... Bitt even said in the other recent Vorbis thread that OGG doesn't suffer from the gap between tracks. That's definitely an advantage, no need for special LAME tags or whatever.

I'm no huge Ogg torch-bearer, but if it evolves sufficiently, there are compelling reasons to switch besides the marginal quality/size improvements.

Points taken.

so, do they have the source yet??
when does the 24 hours start ticking??

Holy Cow, check out this thread!!!

OMG, if we get ogg support on the empeg I will be one happy earthling. Emmet, you da man. Hats off to ya.



OK, one question regarding ogg for the gallery...

Would it be harder, easier, or about the same to implement a crossfade for it...?

(Yeah, I'm still on that tip...)

Because a crossfade feature would happen after the audio was already decoded, the type of decoder is irrelevant to crossfading.

For example, if they were going to implement a crossfader in the current software, they would have to make it work with WAV, MP3, MP2, and WMA files crossfading over each other. So whether or not OGG gets implemented has no bearing on it whatsoever.

Yeah, I kinda figured that part...

The reason I asked, is because I'm guessing the actual decompression of the files will take different amounts of cpu cycles, depending on the format, and I'm not sure where ogg is compared to mp3. Will it take more or less cpu power? I have no idea, but I know we only have so many spare cycles to play with on the unit for extra stuff, like crossfading, so I was just wondering if ogg files would give us more, less, or about the same headroom.

If ogg files take less cpu cycles, than that might be another point in their favor. If they take more, it might be a point against.

And of course, if the hit is negligible, and we have plenty of cycles left over no matter what the format, than Woo-Hoo! Fun for the whole family.

I'm just curious...

Initial tests on a Sharp Zaurus shows that the fixed-point decoder works its magic with a significantly lower amount of CPU overhead than mp3's, but your mileage may vary.

I don't know which mp3 decoder theKompany uses in their tkcPlayer app, but on that unit, the Vorbis fixed-point decoder took about 25-35% usage, while mp3's took 35-45%. That's on a 206Mhz StrongARM, but you may get different results. We'll see. My educated guess is that it'll take less firepower to decode oggs than mp3's on the Empeg, but it's just a guess.

A follow-up to myself...

I got a very pleasant, appropriately noncommital e-mail back from Magnus Brading, the author or MP3 Tag Studio, about Ogg Vorbis support. MP3TS is basically an extended hobby of his, and he said that Ogg Vorbis isn't something he knows much about or had given much thought to.

A fair chunk of the goodness in MP3TS is in tools to rectify ID3 version differences and such. If adapted to Ogg Vorbis, the functionality would be reduced, it seems, simply because some of the ID3-specific problems/functions do not apply. Still, it seems like there is a lot that would still be useful such as mass and recursive tagging.

I volunteered that I would try to assemble some information for him regarding Ogg comment structures and ID3-->Ogg mapping. I found the Ogg comments spec on xiph.org and also found some perl modules on sourceforge. Recycling some of this prior art may be complicated by the fact that they are open-source and MP3TS is proprietary shareware, but it's worth gathering the info anyway.

One probable complication for a gent who has been working pretty strictly within the ID3 tag context is that Ogg comments are so purposely free-form. i have been looking to see if there are any efforts to develop an ID3 mapping standard that would be usable. I found one suspicious-looking metadata effort here , but if anybody else has any pointers or any more inside info on trends in tag-->comments mapping, I'd be interested to hear about it.

Hope that makes some sense. Not sure if this is something that will make it into Mr. Brading's stack, but I figured it's worth trying to help move it along.

Side note: As a registered user I got this e-mail, but others may not have....he has released a new version of MP3TS that, registered or unregistered, is adware-free. Good for him.

I just encoded some songs in both ogg format and mp3. Ogg at 128 and mp3 at 192 and using my crappy SBLive Platinum sound card and Sony DJ headphone the ogg songs sounds better. Not a night and day difference but detectable. I ripped a CD that my high school band(PC: Wind Ensemble) made( We we like the best in the country). I guess Ill be re ripping my entire CD collection again.

Jim, this is why I've gone to FLAC ... only have to rip and tag just once. Every other encoder is just a script run away.

g