ogg worth it?

[mamamia88]

my mp3 player supports rockbox and i was wondering if it was worth it in order to use ogg files?

[dragos240]

Perhaps, rockbox is pretty stable, I doubt you'd have too much trouble with it.

[mamamia88]

yeah i was thinking of installing it anyway to see if i can get my 4gb sd card working which i couldn't in the normal firmware. will there be any difference if i convert a mp3 to ogg? or will i have to re rip to hear the difference

[dragos240]

Besides the format, yes, ogg is set up much differently than mp3, mp3s are basically raw audio crunched together.

[.Maleficus.]

Unless you have a reason to use OGG (like your existing library is OGG) I'd just stick with MP3s. MP3 = lossy, OGG Vorbis = lossy, standard earbuds = no noticable difference, even if one is better.

Besides the format, yes, ogg is set up much differently than mp3, mp3s are basically raw audio crunched together.
Could you explain what you mean by that? OGG Vorbis is lossy compression, not raw... FLAC is lossless compression but that still isn't evn raw.

[dragos240]

Unless you have a reason to use OGG (like your existing library is OGG) I'd just stick with MP3s. MP3 = lossy, OGG Vorbis = lossy, standard earbuds = no noticable difference, even if one is better.

Could you explain what you mean by that? OGG Vorbis is lossy compression, not raw... FLAC is lossless compression but that still isn't evn raw.

I'm saying that mp3 files are raw audio that are very tightly compressed. Raw meaning it isn't formated into a specific format, usually raw audio isn't used because it results in large file sizes, all audio formats are formated raw audio.

[gnomeuser]

I converted my entire collection to Ogg Vorbis (from the FLAC rips - which unfortunately do not fit on my laptop harddrive) after I got my Sansa Fuze. I like Ogg Vorbis better than mp3 so the day when it became possible to use it without transcoding and quality issues or having to settle for a lesser interface I did not hesitate.

As for Rockbox, I unfortunately find the interface unbearably annoying to work with. The project itself has some cool features but they have no put any effort into usability studies and thus the interface seems a lot like an afterthought that isn't really geared towards interacting with media.

[MikeTheC]

I'd love to use OGG, but I don't have any hardware that supports it (that is, portable gear).

Don't get me wrong, I'd rather be using an Open Source solution, but I need the practical capability of using it to justify doing so. C 'est la vie.

[bfc]

Doesn't ogg drain your battery faster since it requires more "horsepower" to decode?

It's something I've heard, not sure how true it is though.

[Giant Speck]

Meh, I prefer mp3s because they are easier for me to work with.

[adamlau]

Never found the need for OV.

[gnomeuser]

Doesn't ogg drain your battery faster since it requires more "horsepower" to decode?

It's something I've heard, not sure how true it is though.

There is a full int. only version of the decoder available which should address this for vendors who want to provide the solution in software. There is also hardware solutions on the market in the DSP realm which will do en/decoding in Ogg Vorbis. It is more flexible to do it in software on a generic low power cpu like the ARM so many players do that.

Regardless on my Sansa Fuze I get, and I have tested this, roughly 24 hours of playback on the battery when using Ogg Vorbis. That I think it very good for a device this size given current constraints of technology and affordability.

[TenPlus1]

I have all my music converted to Ogg Vorbis (64kbps) which is a lot smaller and sounds better than 128kbs MP3's... My Samsung Yepp plays them perfectly...

[WatchingThePain]

Well I can tell the difference between flac and mp3. The low bitrate mp3's sound pretty bad.
AFAIK if you convert a bad mp3 to flack or ogg it will still sound poor because it was sampled badly in the first place.

[gnomeuser]

Well I can tell the difference between flac and mp3. The low bitrate mp3's sound pretty bad.
AFAIK if you convert a bad mp3 to flack or ogg it will still sound poor because it was sampled badly in the first place.

I don't believe anyone was suggesting anything as daft as transcoding one lossy format into another. I don't see where you got that idea from.

[mamamia88]

ok i ripped the same song twice i definitely think the ogg file sounds better but it's almost a full mb larger might be worth to rip future cds to ogg

[iKonaK]

ok i ripped the same song twice i definitely think the ogg file sounds better but it's almost a full mb larger might be worth to rip future cds to ogg
Change the bitrate, or set to 6 quality (i don't know what interface you use)(6 is ~192kbps)
____________
EDIT:
From my experience, ogg is more clear, better sound and smaller size and mp3's at constant high bitrate have a better beat (bass)

[gnomeuser]

ok i ripped the same song twice i definitely think the ogg file sounds better but it's almost a full mb larger might be worth to rip future cds to ogg

Did you ensure that the settings were roughly equal? It sounds like you have the mp3 set at a lower average bitrate than the vorbis file.

[mamamia88]

Did you ensure that the settings were roughly equal? It sounds like you have the mp3 set at a lower average bitrate than the vorbis file.

don't know man i just used the default settings in sound juicer and ripped it once to mp3 and once to ogg

[Dragonbite]

I would be willing to use ogg more if my iPod Shuffle (the older, square version) could handle it.

On my work laptop I installed the plug-in so Windows Media Player can play ogg files. Kinda handy.

[K.Mandla]

I only use ogg. I bought a specific brand and model of music player largely because it supported ogg.

[s.fox]

I don't use ogg at all. I always use mp3. This is because non of my mp3 players can play ogg files. If ogg had more hardware support then I would.

[WatchingThePain]

I don't believe anyone was suggesting anything as daft as transcoding one lossy format into another. I don't see where you got that idea from.

Nobody did, I thought I would add that though as it may be useful.

[kinematic]

don't know man i just used the default settings in sound juicer and ripped it once to mp3 and once to ogg

So you don't even know what your doing when comparing the two....

I also only use .ogg. I bought a Cowon Iaudio specifically because it supports .ogg and because of the great sound quality.

[Dragonbite]

So you don't even know what your doing when comparing the two....

I also only use .ogg. I bought a Cowon Iaudio specifically because it supports .ogg and because of the great sound quality.

Has anybody compiled a list of available .ogg compatible players?

Pre-modification, I mean, since iPods can (or at least could be) modified to run Linux instead and I'm sure it could have run .ogg files.

For that matter, now I am interested in seeing if any DV editors can save as ogg-vorbis video files, but that's another subject...

[NightwishFan]

I always use Ogg as well. Mp3 (other than lame which makes mp3 sound about equal to ogg) has a definite "warble" sound under 160kbps. My music is generally in 96kbps OGG and it sounds better by far. (Except the ones I converted from MP3) Some people argue that MP3 and OGG are equal above 200kpbs or so, and if that is the case I might as well use FLAC. I use ogg to save space. Besides it is free software. :guitar:

[logos34]

ok i ripped the same song twice i definitely think the ogg file sounds better but it's almost a full mb larger might be worth to rip future cds to ogg

try a lower q setting--like 4 or 5. q5 (~160kbps) is roughly the equivalent of lame -V 2 (~192) at a smaller size. (the aoTuV tuned version is especially good in the mid- to lower q settings, so use that if you can)

The general rule is to avoid whenever possible lossy-to-lossy transcoding (mp3 to ogg), as you asked in post 10.

I think the battery drain issue of decoding ogg is exaggerated.

I prefer ogg vorbis over mp3--smaller file for roughly same quality settings, supports gapless encoding (a big plus if you listen to lots of live albums), and it's free. Less noticeable artifacts too than mp3.

If anyone is interested there's a OGG page over at the Free Software Foundation with links to pages on hardware support, among other things. (--> link my signature below)

good luck

[Polygon]

I converted my entire collection to Ogg Vorbis (from the FLAC rips - which unfortunately do not fit on my laptop harddrive) after I got my Sansa Fuze. I like Ogg Vorbis better than mp3 so the day when it became possible to use it without transcoding and quality issues or having to settle for a lesser interface I did not hesitate.

As for Rockbox, I unfortunately find the interface unbearably annoying to work with. The project itself has some cool features but they have no put any effort into usability studies and thus the interface seems a lot like an afterthought that isn't really geared towards interacting with media.

this is exactly what i think of rockbox. The only good looking thing is the main screen, since you can theme it, but doing anything else (like playlist, browsing music) is a nightmare.

I like my cowon d2, but even that has a horrible UI. When are they going to make a simple UI like the ipod has? it really is not that hard.

[gnomeuser]

I like my cowon d2, but even that has a horrible UI. When are they going to make a simple UI like the ipod has? it really is not that hard.

To use those oh so famous words: Patches welcome.

Rockbox is part of Google Summer of Code and one of the proposed projects is a usability study of the interface with suggestions for improvements. It thus seems they are aware that their default interface is not geared towards my mother and hope to be able to do something about it.

If no student picks this task perhaps you could start the process?

[artir]

Go to your music folder and run mp32ogg --verbose --delete ~/Music
and it'll go folder by folder converting everything to ogg.

[Miguel]

Never, ever, convert from ogg to mp3 or viceversa.

Since both use different psychoacoustic models, they will supress a different part of the spectrum. So ogg supresses one part of "useful" information and then mp3 supresses another. The end result is a file as large as the original ogg (or mp3) but with more noise.

Never, ever, convert from mp3 to ogg. You will lose quality.

BTW: The folks at hydrogenaudio doing ABX tests with good setups and with trained ears prefer, at the same size (~192 kbps) ogg to mp3. This is comparing the latest aoTuV and variable bitrate mp3 (which is much better than cbr mp3). Ogg is the best or close to the best codec at that bitrate. So if your player supports ogg, it can be worth it ripping your CD's to ogg. Furthermore, you are supporting free software. My music is ogg. On my grado sr-125 headphones it sounds great.