Best Lossy Codec?

[mamamia88]

I'm reripping as much as possible to flac. I am reripping/downloading as much as i can find too flac and ordering cds where i have more than 5 songs in my library from. i want to fit about 1200 songs on a 32gb micro sd card and still have room for expansion. what lossy format would give me the closest to the original but at a reduced file size? btw i'm using rockbox so anything supported by that is acceptable

[click4851]

If your going lossy, can beat .mp3 at 192Kbps constant or variable. I know I can't tell the difference between that and reference.(YMMV)

[doorknob60]

Definitely OGG Vorbis. It has better quality for the bitrate than MP3 does, and it is an open format (MP3 is proprietary), and since you use Rockbox, it will be 100% supported. I use it for all my CD rips, works great.

[Bandit]

MP3 @ 192 is good. But from my experience OGG at 192 is better.
But then again, MP3 is more compatible accross the market. So everything I encode is at 192 as its the best quality for the size for MP3s.

[MadmanRB]

both mp3 and ogg are good, even for a proprietary format mp3 is still pretty good.

[mamamia88]

Which will give best battery life? Also is AAC a good choice? I hear it sounds very good as well.

[doorknob60]

I think battery life on all of them should be the same, particularly in Rockbox. In my opinion, OGG > AAC > MP3. AAC has better quality than MP3, but is still proprietary. Quality wise, OGG and AAC are pretty similar as far as I know. I think unless you plan to use it on like an Apple device or something that won't support OGG, there's no reason not to use OGG. Most things support it nowadays, all Linux media players, Android, Rockbox, many other non Apple players, etc. Even iTunes and Windows Media Player can be made to play them with the right codecs, though I hope you wouldn't need to do that :P

[mamamia88]

I think battery life on all of them should be the same, particularly in Rockbox. In my opinion, OGG > AAC > MP3. AAC has better quality than MP3, but is still proprietary. Quality wise, OGG and AAC are pretty similar as far as I know. I think unless you plan to use it on like an Apple device or something that won't support OGG, there's no reason not to use OGG. Most things support it nowadays, all Linux media players, Android, Rockbox, many other non Apple players, etc. Even iTunes and Windows Media Player can be made to play them with the right codecs, though I hope you wouldn't need to do that :P

cool now just to chose a bit rate. i'm thinking 256 because that's what amazon uses and it sounds pretty good to me

[weasel fierce]

I'd generally go with ogg, though it does depend on what devices you wish to use it on.

[doorknob60]

cool now just to chose a bit rate. i'm thinking 256 because that's what amazon uses and it sounds pretty good to me

Anywhere from 192 to 256 should be good I think, whatever works for the storage space you have.

[Carborundum]

If you use the aoTuV implementation of the Vorbis codec, you can go down to 160 kbps without audible quality loss.

HOWTO: Install aoTuV (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1137670)

[Lars Noodén]

Another vote for Ogg Vorbis here. I've had bad experiences with the quality of MP3 and even the better ones always have sounded distorted to my ears.

[westie457]

Another vote for Ogg Vorbis here. I've had bad experiences with the quality of MP3 and even the better ones always have sounded distorted to my ears.

+1 to this.

To add my 2 cents. Even at high compression/low bitrates .OGG files sound better than MP3 at the same rates.

[evilsoup]

Something to note, though, is that a lot of devices are optimised for playing MP3s, even if they can also play other formats - so MP3s might give you better battery life.

[doorknob60]

Something to note, though, is that a lot of devices are optimised for playing MP3s, even if they can also play other formats - so MP3s might give you better battery life.
That may be true sometimes, but I think using Rockbox that's not the case. I don't think Rockbox can take advantage of that special hardware. Looking at the data in this chart, it seems that battery life MP3 vs OGG is too close to call: http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/SansaRuntime Somtimes MP3 gives more, sometimes OGG, and either way, they're pretty close results, so I wouldn't think it matters much what you use based on battery life, so again, stick with OGG.