OGG-Vorbis Audio Compression

[Tenji_no_Ichi]

The official site of OGG-Vorbis says the ogg format is better than mp3 and have smaller size than mp3 in same bitrate. What do ya think? Can this format kick the mp3 audio format and gonna be the winner like mp3 in past?

[alexis]

hmmmmmmph i will stick to lame for now

[nezumi]

There's 2 reasons to use Ogg over MP3:

1- It's patent-free. There's a patent on the MP3 codec which costs developers and manufacters money in royalty fees when they make MP3 players. Also, the Fraunhoffer (sp?) corporation doesn't like open source MP3 encoders. This spurred the open-source, patent-free solution that is Ogg.

2- It sounds much better. I only have a few Ogg files (grabbed from http://www.machinaesupremacy.com ) and Although their file size is larger, I have to admit that I've never heard an MP3 sound so clean and distortion-free. MP3 is a very lossy compression method, and if you have a decent sound setup you can hear distortions in bitrates as high as 192 kbps. Ogg is also a lossy method, but not nearly as much.

 

As for Ogg winning against MP3, don't bet on it. MP3 is already incredibly popular, and I believe that there's no possibility for DRM in Ogg files. The crappy format that is WMA and Apple's own little AAC codecs are the alternatives to MP3, Ogg is for people who have a ton of CDs in decent condition, and would like to make high-quality backups to their computers. You won't find many Ogg files for download over P2P networks. Also, if you have an iPod, you can't play Ogg files on it. Complain to apple all you want, they won't add Ogg support to the iPod firmware. If you want Ogg support in a portable audio player, cruise over to http://www.rioaudio.com and check out the Karma (The One True Audio Device of Power).

 

Let's see... I'm a bit of an open source zealot, so I'm supposed to provide links...

http://www.vorbis.com

http://www.goingware.com/tips/legal-downloads.html

and for the heck of it, http://www.boycott-riaa.com