As readers of Slashdot may have noticed, there is now a fixed point decoder for Ogg Vorbis encoded sound files. This has been the limiting factor for using this file format on the Empeg. Perhaps now some enterprising soul, or perhaps Sonic Blue themselves, will decide to add support for this format?

Check out http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/hardware.html

Slothy gets the gold star for being the first guy to mention the new licensing over on the programming forum... And the response from Peter indicates that at least the Empeg team is aware of this. Now let's watch the gears turn, hopefully.

Is Ogg Vorbis really *that* much better? Is is it just equally good at a much lower bitrate (thus saving diskspace?)

Another question : I know the empeg can be equiped with Ogg decoding since it decodes the audio files in software. But can the same be said for the iPod? Or would that require a hardware upgrade?
I'm guessing most of the portable mp3 decoders decode their files in hardware, or am I wrong here?

The empeg team already should have had a free license for Tremor before it was relicensed anyway.
It's cool though still since the old license was just for the empeg car player and not the Rio central or Rio receiver. So now there is a slightly bigger chance of happening since it can be put into other products as well and not just the EOLed empeg car.

- Trevor

Is is it just equally good at a much lower bitrate (thus saving diskspace?)

I think that's the whole idea. Ogg beats MP3 in 128kbps tests, but who encodes at 128 any more? I don't think it's possible for anyone to tell the difference between a properly encoded high-bitrate MP3 file and an Ogg file. So as I understand it, Ogg is really only useful if you're trying to save some disk space.

Since I'm not yet in dire need of disk space on my player, I'm not that interested in Ogg. Besides, Ogg doesn't have as much of a wide collection of third party tools available for it, and it isn't as cross-platform compatible as MP3. I like the fact that I can use tools like MP3 tag studio on my collection, and that I can put the same MP3 file onto different devices and have it work. Just can't do that stuff with Ogg at the moment.

I'm guessing most of the portable mp3 decoders decode their files in hardware, or am I wrong here?

Many devices do, in fact, have their decoders in hardware or non-upgradable firmware. But it depends on the device, I think, you'll probably find a mix out there at the moment. Dunno about the iPod.

I think the biggest thing in Ogg's favor is that it's royalty-free. Quality is said to be better at a given bitrate with Ogg, but I haven't really seen any conclusive tests showing this. With the MP3 patent-holders going after their piece of the pie, I think the Ogg people are doing this at just the right time.

Ogg is also important to many people for political reasons. If MP3 is controlled by Frauenhofer, the presence of alternative encoding technologies may help to prevent them abusing that position of control ("doing a Microsoft" as I've heard it called).

MP3 Tag Studio will work for ogg too won't it? Just tell it to ignore the extension right? At least it seemed to work like this for flac files ... I haven't tried it on ogg yet.

Greg

In reply to:

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I think that's the whole idea. Ogg beats MP3 in 128kbps tests, but who encodes at 128 any more? I don't think it's possible for anyone to tell the difference between a properly encoded high-bitrate MP3 file and an Ogg file. So as I understand it, Ogg is really only useful if you're trying to save some disk space.

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When Vorbis 1.0 finally came out I said I would go and try it out. I can say that I can definately tell that OGG has higher audio fidelity then MP3 at any bit rate. I personally encode my MP3's using LAME VBR from 96 to 256. However, I riped a few of my cd's in pure PCM, OGG Max Quality, OGG 128Kbit/s, MP3 Max Quality, MP3 VBR, and MP3 128. Using my THX certified sound system, and my Sennheiser headphones, I can tell you that OGG sounded much more like the WAV PCM than the MP3 did. Yes, MP3 loses at higher frequencies, but I could also hear other loses in the low end as well. This occured every time in every type of music I tried.

But, as everyones ears may vary, so does everyones results. This is just my observations, but due to it, I've been reencoding all of my CD's into OGG. I'm not concerned about player space, just the best audio fidelity that I can get.

Quality is said to be better at a given bitrate with Ogg, but I haven't really seen any conclusive tests showing this.

I saw one that showed Ogg as being better. But like I said, it was at 128 and who encodes at 128 any more.

No one does :P hehe

But at higher qualities from my observations it's still much better. I definately like it.

MP3 Tag Studio will work for ogg too won't it?

Will it? I didn't think so. Could be wrong.

Since I'm not yet in dire need of disk space on my player, I'm not that interested in Ogg

I agree. Everything I've ever wanted fits on a 60gig Empeg. If that ever becomes too small, fitting two 40gig drives will solve that. 80gigs should give me more than enough space for years to come!

Also, it would be a big hassle if I was to re-encode all my cd's into OGG. Though it would probably be a good deal for my iPod (that one's only got 20gig), I really don't want to put the effort into this. I think for now I will simply make a 20gig selection out of my 60gig collection. That should enable me to listen to a tune or two.
The good thing about the iPod is that it really is no big deal if I want to flush it entirely and refill it with mp3's. Gotta love firewire.

Will it? I didn't think so. Could be wrong.

No, I don't think it does. I actually had some e-mail with Magnus Brading about it. He said if I could find some Ogg tag specs he would look at it. I didn't get very far on that (I'll have to revisit) and there's no guarantee that he'll be able to integrate it, but he didn't reject the idea.

Yes, I want OV mostly for political reasons, but I'll take any quality improvements, too! (As my new DIG-C interface gets loaded on the UPS truck!)

FWIW, I e-mailed the Apple "switch" folks and asked them what their plans were for OV support. No, OV isn't in enough products today, but it is the same old Chicken-or-the-Ogg issue.

but it is the same old Chicken-or-the-Ogg issue.

*groan*

You were just waiting for a chance to use that, weren't you?

We're taking a look at it. There are some documentation anomolies to resolve first.

Rob

FLAC uses the ID3v2 spec for tagging, but Ogg does not, so MP3TS won't work. In fact, IMHO, this is the one area that Ogg lags in. Its tagging spec is not very complete, in either documentation or number of tags, again, IMHO.

And to respond to other comments, here's my ``why you should care about Ogg Vorbis'' post, and an important follow-up.

There has been a fixed point ogg decoder available for a while, that is based on the reference decoder. I have been using it to play oggs on my empeg for a while now.

It's not going to be quite as fast as the Xiph release, but it certainly works perfectly for me...

Check out ftp://ftp.arm.linux.org.uk:/pub/linux/arm/people/nico/vorbis/

Its tagging spec is not very complete, in either documentation or number of tags, again, IMHO.

Yes. The open-ended (no fixed tags) nature of the comment structure is touted as an advantage, and I suppose it is, but it doesn't give a potential developer much practical information to go on -- say if you wanted to add Ogg comment support to your popular ID3 tag editor.

I've been looking through the Xiph forums to see if I can get any more background on "comments". It would seem like it would be good for someone to come up with a mini treatise on this migration issue to help with evangelism. Don't think I know enough to approach the subject. Perhaps I'll hint around on the Xiph advocacy forum.

The empeg team already should have had a free license for Tremor before it was relicensed anyway.
It's cool though still since the old license was just for the empeg car player and not the Rio central or Rio receiver. So now there is a slightly bigger chance of happening since it can be put into other products as well and not just the EOLed empeg car.

Yes. Xiph's offer of a free Tremor licence for the car-player was extremely generous of them, and we (developers) were very grateful. However, any licence like that, even a free one, would have to go through Sonicblue's legal team etc., all of whom have had other things on their hands more commercially important than handing out free upgrades to discontinued products! So now that we can just download it and get on with it, Ogg has indeed become a more likely proposition.

I can fairly safely say it won't be in 2.0 final, but I'm still hoping it will show up in some kind of beta or technology preview after 2.0.

Peter

Isn't Ogg naturally gapless? If so, that's the reason I want it for my empeg. I've got tons of mix CD's and those little click between tracks bug the hell outta me. Sometimes I can't tell, but most of the times it's very audible. The second the Empeg supports it, I'm off to re-encode like 20+ discs.

later,
ajay

Ah!
IF and only if this is possible (and I just think you might be right), I would definitely reconsider re-encoding my mixed CD's. There aren't too many of them to begin with and if it would finally provide gapless playback it would definitely be worth it.

Hadn't thought of that one! Thanks!

Isn't Ogg naturally gapless?

Yes.

The second the Empeg supports it, I'm off to re-encode like 20+ discs.

Word.

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FLAC uses the ID3v2 spec for tagging

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I should clear this up since it's not currently clear from the docs.

FLAC is neutral with regard to id3 v1/v2 tags. The reference decoders are aware of them and the plugins can read them but the spec doesn't require all implementations to do so.

There is now a metadata block type for Vorbis-style comments. which is becoming a preferred method for tagging. You can't use vorbiscomment to tag FLAC files, but the flac distro comes with a similar utility called metaflac that can be used to add/edit/delete Vorbis comments in FLAC files.

There is also a metadata interface in libFLAC (the C library) and libFLAC++ (the C++ library).

Josh

Any particular reason you're preferring Vorbis comments over ID3v2?

In reply to:

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Any particular reason you're preferring Vorbis comments over ID3v2?

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Not me personally, I mean users in general. For my collection I use a custom metadata DB and only store the primary key, which is usually an SHA-1 160 bit hash of the raw CD TOC.

I still plan to support id3 v1, v2, and Vorbis comments in libFLAC and the plugins.

Josh

I have been using it to play oggs on my empeg for a while now.

I know the thread has been quiet for a short while now, but I was thinking about two things. I've been checking on ogg here and there and now that it's 1.0, I'd rather be using that instead of mp3. So...

1) Will the ogg tag information get loaded into the empeg database when I upload ogg files, and thus display the same way as the information from mp3s?

2) If the answer to 1 is yes, then what would I need to get ogg running on my empeg? Would a guy like me (4 years training in IT at a trade high school; almost no knowledge of programming and very limited knowledge of networking) be able to handle that procedure, given proper instruction?

I didn't think there was any way of playing ogg files on the empeg software yet. Its been done with a 3rd party player, though. Don't waste your time reencoding everything.

Don't waste my time? Have you ever heard of gapless encoding? Better than 50% of my CD collection has tracks that blend together. Ogg Vorbis is naturally gapless, whereas with LAME, although it's possible, it requires more work and isn't perfect. Also, if you had been reading carefully, you would have noticed that ltd, the person whom I responded to, claims to have been running an Ogg decoder on his empeg for a while now. So if he can give me instructions that aren't too difficult to follow, I'm all over it. I have already begun re-encoding my collection.

I read ltd's post. He's using a seperate decoder and software, not the empeg software. So if you want to lose all the empeg's well thought out interface and features, then go ahead and install another player software such as rioplay. I'm not knocking rioplay, I tried it and used it a few times to play tunes from my pc's rio receiver server. It worked fine. Greg did a good job getting it to work on the empeg and read its database format as well.

I am someone who has been asking for ogg for a while now, and maybe it will be implemented in the empeg software at some point if time allows. I know what the advantages are, I have tons of trance cds that would benefit from gapless encoding. I have also struggled to get gapless encoding working with lame, but I don't think its going to happen as long as I'm trying to use VBR.

All I'm trying to say is that if you are encoding tons of oggs for the sole purpose of putting them on the empeg soon then you are "pissing in the wind" ;-) It takes some trickery to get the files on the empeg and then the empeg software won't play them at all unless the ogg decoder is built in by empeg. On top of that, monty is constantly tuning and improving the ogg encoder, so the quality is getting better over time. If you think oggs sound fine now, then all you are wasting is hard drive space.

Sean

Well, I'm not wasting space, obviously, because Ogg sounds better than mp3 at lower bitrates. But, like I said, gapless is a big deal to me. Currently, though, when I run music at home, it's right from the computer's hard drive, and not from the empeg, because I don't really have a place to put the empeg yet (home dock). When that changes... then I'll want Ogg on my empeg even more.

Since you say it's not an easy process and it can't (yet) be put into the empeg's official software, then I'll obviously have to wait, like anyone else who wants Ogg on their empeg. But that's not going to stop me from saving some space and having better audio quality on my computer at home.

I'm with DeadFire here. Ogg has great gapless support, MP3 requires you to jump through hoops when ripping and encoding to get good gapless output. I hope we see Ogg support soon, at which point I'll hole myself up at work and rip my collection again.

A friend of mine who runs mp3 from his Alpine CD/MP3 player in his truck finds himself wishing for a way to run Ogg instead. He still wants to start encoding that way, anyway, to save space. He has a laptop and a 120GB external drive, and a much larger music collection than I.

I was told there wasn't a downside to the Ogg Vorbis format, and so far that's mostly true. It's the wait that's killing me.

Ogg has been working on our internal build for several weeks, but so far we haven't been able to find the time to fix the other (non Ogg related) bugs to release this to the alpha team. We have two huge projects on right now.

The Ogg codec requires our totally redesigned audio filter network which is a trunk (post 2.0) feature, so I'm not sure when we can release this more widely. I guess I need to take a close look at the stability of the trunk and make a call on that.

Sorry, I know it's frustrating. I really want to release this!

Rob

Sorry, I know it's frustrating. I really want to release this!

Hey, c'mon - look how patient people have been about the tuners. For an eol product, we sure get a TON of attention!

It's true, we do. I'm rather grateful it's being worked on at all. While I'm waiting I can re-encode my collection, and thus have it ready for that wonderful day.

You're right. Rioplay works okay for a hacker, or at least someone very unix savvy. Sadly it's not quite in the position of being a sole source of entertainment from the empeg.

The original Rioplay developer has other obligations, and I'm uncomfortable with making additional modifications to his code for fear of getting too far off the reservation, if you get my drift.

It needs some pretty serious attention before I'd be comfortable ditching the factory software in order to get ogg and flac support in my car.

For the house, on the other hand, it's pretty good. I've got rioplay up and running on my empeg playing oggs/flacs over the network and from the local drive, as well as shoutcast streams from the comfort of my home entertainment center (wirelessly).

The bits of rioplay that need the most attention are the a) keypress code: It feels pretty chinsy, not up to any standard of functionality really, and b) scanning through a given track: non-functional and I'm at a loss as to getting this working.

All in all, until it's received significant developer attention, I wouldn't feel comfortable having it in my car just yet.

By the time this happens, the Cambridge guys will already have it released to the public in their more mature code base.

Greg