Re: best archiver? (for music)
That's the idea: take telephone/voice @ what? 4kbps? -- it was standard means between 300-3100Hz. often - sounds below 300Hz are now that filtered today. record your voice at 8Khz sampling rate and then compress with speex various options and compare compressed and uncompressed. as long as only speech is recorded, and not too high compression is selected, it tends to improve, not degrade quality esp. when recording is noisy. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: best archiver? (for music)
If you're not an expert you should probably stick with one of the --preset modes. E.g. '--preset medium' or '--preset standard'. That will give you variable bitrate files with good quality. lame -h -V 3 is what i use. The speakers in telephones are tiny. That's probably a large part of it. The codec used to digitize voice signals for current DECT phones, G.726 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.726] dates from 1990, so it was limited to the technology of that time. Modern codecs like speex probably do a better job! MUCH better. record your voice at 8kHz and then try speex. it's REALLY excellent. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: best archiver? (for music)
On Sat, Mar 14, 2009 at 08:51:02PM -0700, Gary Kline wrote: > On Sat, Mar 14, 2009 at 08:26:02AM +0100, Roland Smith wrote: > > On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 08:05:59PM -0700, Gary Kline wrote: > > > > lame -h -V 3 - nobody could tell the difference, it gives <200kbps > > > > bitrate > > > > lame -h -b 192 - as above > > > > lame -h -b 128 - they were able to tell difference, but not on all > > > > music/songs > > > > > > > > lame -h -b 96 - i was able to tell the difference on every song, but it > > > > wasn't really huge deal. > > > > > my hearing is exceptionally good and while call myself an > > > audiophile, having all my tunes right here at fingertips is > > > a major win. having said that, can you point me to a basic > > > tutorial on lame? > > > > man lame > > > GADGOOKS! that's no tutorial, that's *torture*. After i finally > got caught up on miised sleep, a few hours ago I read-thru and > listened-to (kttsd) the man lame. Then surfed around; then came > back to the man page and read the several examples. So: the idea > is that lame ["just"] converts WAV files to mp3. Yep. That's what it does. It's the UNIX philosophy; do one thing and do it well. If you're not an expert you should probably stick with one of the --preset modes. E.g. '--preset medium' or '--preset standard'. That will give you variable bitrate files with good quality. > There is a gnome utility, sound-juicer than turns my CD's from > wave to ogg-vorbis. I'm happy with ogg but would prefer flac > ... but ogg is fine. mp4 is a dontknow. What I've got is good > enough for now. It looks like sound-juicer should be able to make flac files as well: http://www.burtonini.com/computing/screenshots/sj-prefs.png, probably depending on if you have the right gstreamer plugins installed. The freebsd port of sound-juicer depends on the ogg vorbis and flac gstreamer plugins. > > > i've got 1581620 blocks of mp3 @ 128kbit. > > > lectures. when i tried to cut the quality even by a bit it was > > > evident immediately. rar compresses these file to > > > 1482404 blocks very very slowly. it probably makes sense to just > > > burn the mp3 files to a dvd and be safe. > > > > There is a special codec for speech. You'll find it the > > audio/speex port. From the pkg-descr: > > > > The Speex is a patent-free, Open Source/Free Software voice codec. > > Unlike other codecs like MP3 and Ogg Vorbis, Speex is designed to > > compress voice at bitrates in the 2-45 kbps range. Possible > > applications include VoIP, Internet audio streaming, archiving of > > speech data (e.g. voice mail), and audio books. In some sense, it is > > meant to be complementary to the Ogg Vorbis codec. > > > > This might perform better at compressing lectures. > Sounds v promising, thanks. > > Given the availability of compression these days, it makes me > wonder why telephone conversations still sound so 'tinny'. But > then, that's another matter. The speakers in telephones are tiny. That's probably a large part of it. The codec used to digitize voice signals for current DECT phones, G.726 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.726] dates from 1990, so it was limited to the technology of that time. Modern codecs like speex probably do a better job! Roland -- R.F.Smith http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/ [plain text _non-HTML_ PGP/GnuPG encrypted/signed email much appreciated] pgp: 1A2B 477F 9970 BA3C 2914 B7CE 1277 EFB0 C321 A725 (KeyID: C321A725) pgpxE5QBpK2Fy.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: best archiver? (for music)
On Sat, Mar 14, 2009 at 09:42:25PM -0700, Gary Kline wrote: > On Sat, Mar 14, 2009 at 08:36:25AM +0100, Wojciech Puchar wrote: > > > > > >There is a special codec for speech. You'll find it the > > >audio/speex port. From the pkg-descr: > > > > actually i use it with asterisk - at about 15kbps (VBR) there are audible > > differences between this and standard 64kbps a-law - but the differences > > are POSITIVE - speech sounds clearer! > > > > There's something I've been wanting to ask and a web search > hasn't told me very much. What is the "mp4"? Is it == to "aac" > or "aacPlus"? Some online stations carry the acc format and it > seems better than mp3. I can't really tell. It's quite complicated. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG4 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding Roland -- R.F.Smith http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/ [plain text _non-HTML_ PGP/GnuPG encrypted/signed email much appreciated] pgp: 1A2B 477F 9970 BA3C 2914 B7CE 1277 EFB0 C321 A725 (KeyID: C321A725) pgpeZz22xuOIM.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: best archiver? (for music)
On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 05:18:06AM +0100, Wojciech Puchar wrote: > > listened-to (kttsd) the man lame. Then surfed around; then came > > back to the man page and read the several examples. So: the idea > > is that lame ["just"] converts WAV files to mp3. There is a > > as every good unix tool - it does exactly what is supposed to do. > > nobody forbids you to make your script that do what you want with lame and > say cdda2wav > > > Given the availability of compression these days, it makes me > > wonder why telephone conversations still sound so 'tinny'. But > > then, that's another matter. > > > with right configured speex codec phone talks sounds actually better than > uncompressed :) That's the idea: take telephone/voice @ what? 4kbps? -- it was something very narrow bandwidth so the phone companies could squueze more speech into each wire. Anyway, given 4k or whatever bits/sec, built in a single chip into each new phone to compress and uncompress. And up the quality of the speaker! -- Gary Kline kl...@thought.org http://www.thought.org Public Service Unix http://jottings.thought.org http://transfinite.thought.org The 2.23a release of Jottings: http://jottings.thought.org/index.php ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: best archiver? (for music)
On Sat, Mar 14, 2009 at 08:36:25AM +0100, Wojciech Puchar wrote: > > > >There is a special codec for speech. You'll find it the > >audio/speex port. From the pkg-descr: > > actually i use it with asterisk - at about 15kbps (VBR) there are audible > differences between this and standard 64kbps a-law - but the differences > are POSITIVE - speech sounds clearer! > There's something I've been wanting to ask and a web search hasn't told me very much. What is the "mp4"? Is it == to "aac" or "aacPlus"? Some online stations carry the acc format and it seems better than mp3. I can't really tell. anybody? gary -- Gary Kline kl...@thought.org http://www.thought.org Public Service Unix http://jottings.thought.org http://transfinite.thought.org The 2.23a release of Jottings: http://jottings.thought.org/index.php ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: best archiver? (for music)
listened-to (kttsd) the man lame. Then surfed around; then came back to the man page and read the several examples. So: the idea is that lame ["just"] converts WAV files to mp3. There is a as every good unix tool - it does exactly what is supposed to do. nobody forbids you to make your script that do what you want with lame and say cdda2wav Given the availability of compression these days, it makes me wonder why telephone conversations still sound so 'tinny'. But then, that's another matter. with right configured speex codec phone talks sounds actually better than uncompressed :) ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: best archiver? (for music)
On Sat, Mar 14, 2009 at 08:26:02AM +0100, Roland Smith wrote: > On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 08:05:59PM -0700, Gary Kline wrote: > > > lame -h -V 3 - nobody could tell the difference, it gives <200kbps bitrate > > > lame -h -b 192 - as above > > > lame -h -b 128 - they were able to tell difference, but not on all > > > music/songs > > > > > > lame -h -b 96 - i was able to tell the difference on every song, but it > > > wasn't really huge deal. > > > my hearing is exceptionally good and while call myself an > > audiophile, having all my tunes right here at fingertips is > > a major win. having said that, can you point me to a basic > > tutorial on lame? > > man lame GADGOOKS! that's no tutorial, that's *torture*. After i finally got caught up on miised sleep, a few hours ago I read-thru and listened-to (kttsd) the man lame. Then surfed around; then came back to the man page and read the several examples. So: the idea is that lame ["just"] converts WAV files to mp3. There is a gnome utility, sound-juicer than turns my CD's from wave to ogg-vorbis. I'm happy with ogg but would prefer flac ... but ogg is fine. mp4 is a dontknow. What I've got is good enough for now. > > > i've got 1581620 blocks of mp3 @ 128kbit. > > lectures. when i tried to cut the quality even by a bit it was > > evident immediately. rar compresses these file to > > 1482404 blocks very very slowly. it probably makes sense to just > > burn the mp3 files to a dvd and be safe. > > There is a special codec for speech. You'll find it the > audio/speex port. From the pkg-descr: > > The Speex is a patent-free, Open Source/Free Software voice codec. > Unlike other codecs like MP3 and Ogg Vorbis, Speex is designed to > compress voice at bitrates in the 2-45 kbps range. Possible > applications include VoIP, Internet audio streaming, archiving of > speech data (e.g. voice mail), and audio books. In some sense, it is > meant to be complementary to the Ogg Vorbis codec. > > This might perform better at compressing lectures. Sounds v promising, thanks. Given the availability of compression these days, it makes me wonder why telephone conversations still sound so 'tinny'. But then, that's another matter. gary > > Roland > -- > R.F.Smith http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/ > [plain text _non-HTML_ PGP/GnuPG encrypted/signed email much appreciated] > pgp: 1A2B 477F 9970 BA3C 2914 B7CE 1277 EFB0 C321 A725 (KeyID: C321A725) -- Gary Kline kl...@thought.org http://www.thought.org Public Service Unix http://jottings.thought.org http://transfinite.thought.org The 2.23a release of Jottings: http://jottings.thought.org/index.php ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: best archiver? (for music)
I use ape :) ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: best archiver? (for music)
For the same reason, you do not convert between lossy formats. Each might give different kinds of artifacts that you do not want to combine. (Of especially true with mp3 and ogg Are you sure you can hear the difference between your flac originals and "--preset standard" lame encoded mp3? Consider a "double blind" test. i'm almost sure he can't. I have never tested if I can hear the difference between an mp3 that come from the original or an mp3 that comes from a higher bitrate ogg. Actually, I for me - hearing the difference between mp3 @ 128kbit CBR (compressed with lame) and uncompressed is on the edge of detection. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: best archiver? (for music)
Gary Kline wrote: > my hearing is exceptionally good and while call myself an audiophile, [...] > lectures. when i tried to cut the quality even by a bit it was > evident immediately. rar compresses these file to If you care for quality (and call yourself an audiophile), you should read up on what you are doing before you start it. To compare different compression rates, you have to do both from the original. Applying lossy compression twice -- even with the same codec -- might give you artifacts that will not appear with just one run. For the same reason, you do not convert between lossy formats. Each might give different kinds of artifacts that you do not want to combine. (Of course, this does not really contradict the suggestions you got to try speex if you want to do a major reduction of bitrate for your voice mp3 files to save space.) The difference between lame with good settings and a bad mp3 encoder is probably bigger than between some better codec and mp3. Considering that, you should always stick to some "--preset *" options with lame, if you do not know better. Are you sure you can hear the difference between your flac originals and "--preset standard" lame encoded mp3? Consider a "double blind" test. This is probably all in the lame FAQ or similar sources. I do keep flac files after ripping CDs, too, but not because I think I can hear the difference between them and the ogg vorbis files I produce. I rather like the option to go to a different lossy format someday. (I must admit that I have never tested if I can hear the difference between an mp3 that come from the original or an mp3 that comes from a higher bitrate ogg. Actually, I doubt it.) I really do not see the point in saving one or two percent space by applying lzma/7z, rar, or similar compression. The savings in electricity by not doing that are better invested in a new hard drive. ;-) BTW: lzma is the default compression of 7z. GNU tar offers lzma, too, but without the 7z container. If you look at archivers/gtar history, you will see that it seems not to have finalized on the library (and format?): http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/ports/archivers/gtar/Makefile.diff?r1=1.63;r2=1.64 I am not an expert at all. You better read the lame (and ogg, speex, ...) manual and FAQ yourself that is hopefully written by some "expert". Cheers, Jan Henrik ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: best archiver? (for music)
There is a special codec for speech. You'll find it the audio/speex port. From the pkg-descr: actually i use it with asterisk - at about 15kbps (VBR) there are audible differences between this and standard 64kbps a-law - but the differences are POSITIVE - speech sounds clearer! The Speex is a patent-free, Open Source/Free Software voice codec. Unlike other codecs like MP3 and Ogg Vorbis, Speex is designed to compress voice at bitrates in the 2-45 kbps range. Possible applications include VoIP, Internet audio streaming, archiving of speech data (e.g. voice mail), and audio books. In some sense, it is meant to be complementary to the Ogg Vorbis codec. This might perform better at compressing lectures. Roland -- R.F.Smith http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/ [plain text _non-HTML_ PGP/GnuPG encrypted/signed email much appreciated] pgp: 1A2B 477F 9970 BA3C 2914 B7CE 1277 EFB0 C321 A725 (KeyID: C321A725) ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: best archiver? (for music)
On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 08:05:59PM -0700, Gary Kline wrote: > > lame -h -V 3 - nobody could tell the difference, it gives <200kbps bitrate > > lame -h -b 192 - as above > > lame -h -b 128 - they were able to tell difference, but not on all > > music/songs > > > > lame -h -b 96 - i was able to tell the difference on every song, but it > > wasn't really huge deal. > my hearing is exceptionally good and while call myself an > audiophile, having all my tunes right here at fingertips is > a major win. having said that, can you point me to a basic > tutorial on lame? man lame > i've got 1581620 blocks of mp3 @ 128kbit. > lectures. when i tried to cut the quality even by a bit it was > evident immediately. rar compresses these file to > 1482404 blocks very very slowly. it probably makes sense to just > burn the mp3 files to a dvd and be safe. There is a special codec for speech. You'll find it the audio/speex port. From the pkg-descr: The Speex is a patent-free, Open Source/Free Software voice codec. Unlike other codecs like MP3 and Ogg Vorbis, Speex is designed to compress voice at bitrates in the 2-45 kbps range. Possible applications include VoIP, Internet audio streaming, archiving of speech data (e.g. voice mail), and audio books. In some sense, it is meant to be complementary to the Ogg Vorbis codec. This might perform better at compressing lectures. Roland -- R.F.Smith http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/ [plain text _non-HTML_ PGP/GnuPG encrypted/signed email much appreciated] pgp: 1A2B 477F 9970 BA3C 2914 B7CE 1277 EFB0 C321 A725 (KeyID: C321A725) pgpaSmqhF33K3.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: best archiver? (for music)
lame -h -b 96 - i was able to tell the difference on every song, but it wasn't really huge deal. hm. oh, yeah, my new box has to have a superior soundcard. and i'll pony up for even better speakers too. (so when i'm ready, i'll ask what's best. maybe find something on ebay.) my hearing is exceptionally good and while call myself an audiophile, having all my tunes right here at fingertips is i don't call myself audiophile (rather opposite, but i have normal hearing), just wanted to point out how much is really enough. do use -h -V 3 when compressing. a major win. having said that, can you point me to a basic tutorial on lame? i've got 1581620 blocks of mp3 @ 128kbit. lectures. when i tried to cut the quality even by a bit it was evident immediately. rar compresses these file to 1482404 blocks very very slowly. it probably makes sense to just burn the mp3 files to a dvd and be safe. -- Gary Kline kl...@thought.org http://www.thought.org Public Service Unix http://jottings.thought.org http://transfinite.thought.org The 2.23a release of Jottings: http://jottings.thought.org/index.php ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: best archiver? (for music)
On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 09:31:50PM +0100, Wojciech Puchar wrote: > >- The general archivers can compress the wav somewhat without loss, but > > none do as well as the dedicated lossless compression program flac. > >- Trying to compress mp3, ogg and flac files further is a waste of time. > >- If you want smaller files, use lossy compression like mp3 or ogg > > vorbis, and pick the lowest quality level that sounds acceptable to you. > > i did actual hearing blind-tests with 4 people that title themself > "audiophile", on their hardware THEY tell have excellent sound output > (actually it was really good for me). > > results > > lame -h -V 3 - nobody could tell the difference, it gives <200kbps bitrate > lame -h -b 192 - as above > lame -h -b 128 - they were able to tell difference, but not on all > music/songs > > lame -h -b 96 - i was able to tell the difference on every song, but it > wasn't really huge deal. hm. oh, yeah, my new box has to have a superior soundcard. and i'll pony up for even better speakers too. (so when i'm ready, i'll ask what's best. maybe find something on ebay.) my hearing is exceptionally good and while call myself an audiophile, having all my tunes right here at fingertips is a major win. having said that, can you point me to a basic tutorial on lame? i've got 1581620 blocks of mp3 @ 128kbit. lectures. when i tried to cut the quality even by a bit it was evident immediately. rar compresses these file to 1482404 blocks very very slowly. it probably makes sense to just burn the mp3 files to a dvd and be safe. -- Gary Kline kl...@thought.org http://www.thought.org Public Service Unix http://jottings.thought.org http://transfinite.thought.org The 2.23a release of Jottings: http://jottings.thought.org/index.php ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: best archiver? (for music)
- The general archivers can compress the wav somewhat without loss, but none do as well as the dedicated lossless compression program flac. - Trying to compress mp3, ogg and flac files further is a waste of time. - If you want smaller files, use lossy compression like mp3 or ogg vorbis, and pick the lowest quality level that sounds acceptable to you. i did actual hearing blind-tests with 4 people that title themself "audiophile", on their hardware THEY tell have excellent sound output (actually it was really good for me). results lame -h -V 3 - nobody could tell the difference, it gives <200kbps bitrate lame -h -b 192 - as above lame -h -b 128 - they were able to tell difference, but not on all music/songs lame -h -b 96 - i was able to tell the difference on every song, but it wasn't really huge deal. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
Re: best archiver? (for music)
On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 12:15:24PM -0700, Gary Kline wrote: > > guys, this is for any compression experts on-list. my main > desktop is nearly full. i'm looking for the best means of > compressing [mostly] audio files. mp3, ogg, and .flag. All of these are already compressed. Trying to compress them further is a waste of time. See below. You can make smaller mp3 or ogg vorbis files by encoding them at a lower bitrate or quality setting. I did a test on compression some time ago. I started with a track ripped from CD by cdrecord. I used 'lame -V 2' to convert to mp3, 'oggenc -q 5' to convert to ogg vorbis, and 'flac -6' to convert to flac. File sizes were (in kilobytes, using 'du -k'): 20256 track01.flac 4592track01.mp3 3792track01.ogg 37584 track01.wav The mp3 and ogg files are small because they employ 'lossy' compression. On the other hand, flac is lossless compression. I tried several (obviously lossless) archivers. First I compressed them all with 'gzip -9': 20240 track01.flac.gz 4560track01.mp3.gz 3760track01.ogg.gz 33840 track01.wav.gz As you can see these sound files don't compress well. The first three because they are already compressed, and the wav file probably because the gzip algorightm isn't a good match for sound data. Then I tried with 'bzip2 -9': 20336 track01.flac.bz2 4560track01.mp3.bz2 3776track01.ogg.bz2 32080 track01.wav.bz2 Next up is 'rzip -9': 20240 track01.flac.rz 4560track01.mp3.rz 3776track01.ogg.rz 32080 track01.wav.rz And finally 7zip '7z a -mx=9': 20448 track01.flac.7z 4576track01.mp3.7z 3760track01.ogg.7z 31424 track01.wav.7z My conclusions were: - The general archivers can compress the wav somewhat without loss, but none do as well as the dedicated lossless compression program flac. - Trying to compress mp3, ogg and flac files further is a waste of time. - If you want smaller files, use lossy compression like mp3 or ogg vorbis, and pick the lowest quality level that sounds acceptable to you. Roland -- R.F.Smith http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/ [plain text _non-HTML_ PGP/GnuPG encrypted/signed email much appreciated] pgp: 1A2B 477F 9970 BA3C 2914 B7CE 1277 EFB0 C321 A725 (KeyID: C321A725) pgpuFeqlLQMcc.pgp Description: PGP signature
