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To Steve (Stevey[dot]eu),
Thank you for your contribution.
I would like to add a few items about Ogg.
- There are several objective tests that can show you that
"byte" for "byte" that Ogg outputs superior fidelity to MP3. The best test of
course is the listen test. When listening, understand the better the hardware
is (headphones, amp., speakers etc), the more one can hear the superior
output of Ogg.
- I have noticed that there have been several PC games that
my kids have installed where I saw .Ogg files being installed. SMART company.
This relieves them of any licensing fees for the distribution of their music.
I know all of the Lego PC games are like that and a lot more.
- On the PC level, Ogg can be played on all audio players
that I know of. In my opinion, the best, latest of the he Ogg decoders and
encoders can be found on the Rarewares Site. http://rarewares.org/ogg.php . It
is all free.
- On Rarewares, there is this outrageously simple and
"cute", Ogg encoder/decoder front end program called oggdropXPd .
http://rarewares.org/ogg-oggdropxpd.php .
There are even versions of it that are customized for 64 bit
processing. Adding the support "dlls", adds decoding from other formats which
gives oggdropXPd to encode several different formats to Ogg.
- When shopping for a portable media player (PMP),
MAKE SURE you send the vendor a email or call to marketing asking them if the
support Ogg. Do it even if you know they don't and remind them that it is
license free. The pressure from Microshaft/Crapple (virtually the same
company), to attempt to kill of any open source software would be the reason
that they won't have decoders for Ogg and most likely the lossless open source
Flac and Ape. ALWAYS ask when shopping on the web or in retail stores
and let it be known that you will not purchase a unit that
DOES NOT support the superior open source formats like Ogg, Flac,
etc.
- There is enormous pressure put on companies to follow the
"greedy brick road", and do what Microshaft/Crapple want then to do. For
example, to support only the "W" formats and MP3 formats that are customized
to include the DRM virus. Fortunately DRM is dying a slow but steady
death. For example, Amazon.com proudly displays that their audio downloads DO
NOT contain DRM. All DRM does is hassle the customer and limit exposure of
artists. I have wrote to Amazon about including some superior open
source formats to give their customers a choice.
- I personally have two Portable Audio Players made by a
South Korean company, Cowon/IAudio. I have the IAudio U3 and the rather
spectacular Cowon D2.
Both of these players natively support Ogg and
Flac as well as the usual suspects. Also they can be connect generically
to Linux boxes to upload and download their media.
While Cowon
is not sold in retail stores, at lease not in the U.S., the are available from
the Cowon web site, Amazon.com, newegg.com (where I have purchased both of my
units) and loads of other large online stores. The D2 is a few years
news and blows out audio at 74watts and my little U3's amp outputs at
64watts. My recommendations would be to look at their D2 or their IAudio
7 line. I will plug in my D2 in my standalone, $58 Philips DVD player to
play videos, audio and photos. IT can connect to about anything and with
its power, it works great on other systems and of course at a
personal player. I am sure that there are other Portable Media Players that
support open source formats, it is just that overall, I like Cowon the
best for audio quality and flexibility.
- We CAN create customer pressure to create changes with
how we spend out dollars. Make sure you let other vendors know that you want
Ogg support . That is on stand alone DVD players as
well.
- Last little editorial . When encoding my files to Ogg, it
is important to understand that Ogg works with quality settings as opposed to
how MP3 works with bitrate settings. There are three Quality (or Q) settings
that I use. If the source audio is of low fidelity quality, like a podcast and
contains speech, OR size of the audio file is of importance, I use Q2.
If
I am posting some music on my web site or for general purpose use, then Q4 is
what I would use.
Most of my encoding is done using Q6. That is what I use
the most for music that I listen to on my Cowon portable media players and PC.
To be honest, I have not been able to hear the difference between the original
source or a lossless format like FLAC while using Q6 and the size of the files
come out at a very reasonable size.
Jon
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