Format War: Your Favorite Lossless Format

Cal has been banned from the thread.

I'm never going back to .APE again. MAC's faulty integration with Explorer managed to completely lock up my CPU a few times, and honestly, encoding .FLAC at normal compression isn't much slower. FLAC lags considerably less than APE too.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

The only thing APE has going for it is slightly smaller file sizes. The thing is though, if you are going to go lossless anyway, you might as well use FLAC for it's better implementation and support. So you are using slightly more HDD space, the pros outweigh the cons...

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Question then: If there are people who think that even at 'perfect MP3 quality' (as in, 320 kbps) MP3 can be rubbish, why do we have 90% of proper quality VGM albums, plus game rips, only in MP3 format and not in a better lossy or lossless format?

It baffles me that a smart community that purports to care about game audio and quality thereof doesn't really give a shit whether they have a file in 128 kbps Mp3 or FLAC or high quality OGG or whatever. There are differences, it's been proven time and time again, just go to Hydrogen Audio.

Of course, if you own a Sound Blaster card, then get 64 kbps Mp3 files and who cares. (Kidding.)

Regards,
- Spike

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Simple answer: everyone uses mp3. How many digital music players don't support mp3 (very few)? Now list the number that don't support Ogg, Musepack, AAC, or WMA; you'll notice the number to be significantly higher. I think that until multi-terabyte iPods become common, you won't see the majority of scene rips being lossless.

On top of that VBR mp3s encoded with LAME 3.97 sound very good, other formats may have gotten around mp3's limitations, but LAME has proven mp3 still has room to improve.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Well, I know that. VBR MP3 to most people isn't a big deal. But my point is, although we're starting to get VBR rips, most simply AREN'T- they're 128, 160 or 192. Which to me is not great.

So it's kind of unfair to say, most people don't care if it's VBR, because the fact is most rips are done in 128 kbps, a far cry from VBR LAME MP3.


But anyway. iRiver playes support OGG and are cheap.

I also personally think that if you have an ipod and crappy headphones, you can't tell the difference between much. But personally, I record VGM as a hobby, and good quality is important to me. Besides, (in my opinion), if you settle for second or lower best, your ears adapt and you lose you discernment and real ability to tell quality and basically hear as well. To me that would explain all the people who have been listening to crappy MP3's for years and saying "I don't hear the difference between 128 kbps MP3 and FLAC" or whatever.

Anyways, I'm getting a little thereotical. But it does piss me off that people harp on about wanting good quality audio yet most rips are done badly and also then converted to 128 kbps MP3 files. To me that's a sad reflection on a very intelligent group of fans who should care about music quality.

And I'm trying not to be a quality nazi, but seriously. It's not fucking hard to rip a quality 7 OGG file instead of using a MP3, or alternatively rip both the OGG and MP3 soundtrack, or FLAC and MP3 if you want. People have huge shares online anyway (think: VGM Central).

I think we need proper guidelines and 'best practice' guidelines. To me, everyone doing whatever and everyone else having to put up with that isn't good enough, since every fan doesn't have time to rip all the audio they want (hence, being stuck with bad gamerips if that's all that's available). Like me, and I hate that.

Anyway, enough ranting.

- Spike

Double Post:
Update:

Just so I don't sound entirely like a dumbass ranting person who makes stuff up, here's some comparisons. (You'll have to copy/paste into your browser since I don't have enough posts for URL's, or whatever stupid rule it is.)

The game is Ys 2 (Eternal version), and the track is "Ice Ridge of Noltia" (note that any track could have been used to prove the point, the logic applies to all, I just like this one best ).

Anyway. Ys 2 has WAV files on the game CD/DVD, right? So originally it sounds like this:
smc.sq7.org/assorted/12ys242.wav

Then, I converted it to OGG, quality 7 (which has been proven to my satisfaction to be about as close as you can get to CD quality without going lossless):
smc.sq7.org/assorted/12ys242.ogg

Finally, here's the MP3 rip (don't know who did it), which is in most people's VGM shares:
smc.sq7.org/assorted/12ys242.mp3

It's in 160 kbps.

Can you hear the difference?

.. No, seriously.

- Spike

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I guess the link to the mp3 should be: smc.sq7.org/assorted/12.%20Ice%20Ridge%20of%20Noltia.mp3

I don't know what happened to that mp3 but the soundstage is much narrower than the ogg. It's encoded with Fhg instead of LAME. Although the fhg enocder is worse than lame, I don't believe the Fhg encoder gives such bad mp3s as this one. So i think the source wav was just not the same.

If you encode your wav with Fhg or lame @160cbr the soundquality will be much better and much closer to that ogg.


But still VBR is better than CBR, although the difference is not as big as your example.

FELIPE NO

Well, you could be right. The difference was the WAV file I used was from the YS 1/2 Eternal DVD, and the Mp3 was from those games' "Original Soundtrack". Not sure if the soundtrack was separate. If so, I don't see why they would be so much worse!

I'll try and find a different file and see.

Either way, I think there should be a requirement (or really, a 'best practice suggestion' that people adhere to) that people who encode using MP3 use VBR LAME MP3, or whatever the best proven codec is (MP3 isn't my field of knowledge, since I don't use it).

- Spike

Most amazing jew boots

Well, Spikey, there is a "best practice suggestion" as you mention: http://www.gamingforce.com/forums/be...3-ripping.html

It's just that a lot of people tend to do it their own way, regardless. *shrugs* You can't expect everyone to be as enthusiastic about high quality VBR MP3 / Ogg Vorbis files as you are. And Vorbis isn't exactly a miracle format, either. You can encode Ogg Vorbis files so that they sound just as terrible as low-bitrate MP3s.

How ya doing, buddy?

Many albums were just ripped and uploaded by an anonymous person back in 1998 or so and those rips are circulating ever since. Since these albums can be rare, hard to find, out of print, etc., no one did a better quality rip ever since. Compression technologies improve day by day, what was considered a good quality mp3 (at, say, 160k) may not be considered equally good nowadays. Thats pretty much why many albums are only available in lower bitrates.

Most amazing jew boots

Originally Posted by evilboris

Since these albums can be rare, hard to find, out of print, etc., no one did a better quality rip ever since.

Speaking of rare/OOP albums that are encoded in great MP3 quality... www.slightlydark.com ^_^

Oh, and to be actually on topic, I support FLAC over the rest. It has great support on all sorts of platforms, is efficient in CPU usage, and supports ReplayGain (a must for me). While Monkey's Audio and some other codecs may have higher compression ratios, it's usually only by a slight percentage. Plus FLAC is now integrated natively into the latest versions of Winamp, my PC media player of choice.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.