Anyone working with MP3Pro? What are your thoughts?

[Ludacris]

What are your thoughts on this technology and why hasn't it gone mainstream? Any good freeware encoders?

 

[Sid59]

they want people to pay for the encoder and decoder .. not good.

 

[TheBoyBlunder]

I tried it with Time Life's Classical Thunder series, and it's crap. Yes, the file sizes are smaller, but it sounds like complete crap compared to the equivalent regular mp3.

 

[Ludacris]

Originally posted by: Sid59
they want people to pay for the encoder and decoder .. not good.

Well that explains why this format isn't going anywhere. I guess they got to greedy.

 

[Ronstang]

Lame is free and has awesome quality and a lot of options for personal customizing so why even experiment.

 

[happyhelper]

mp3pro is better than lame or any other mp3 encoding

the file sizes are half the size for exact same audio quality

if a 96kbps mp3pro file sounds any different, any less good, than a 192kbps mp3 file, it means the player you are using doesn't support mp3pro and is not decoding it properly.

I've been using Steinberg MyMP3Pro and Nero Burning ROM with mp3pro plugin for over 2 years now, and have over 200GB of albums that would be at least 400GB as regular mp3 files, and the mp3pro files do sound just as good as regular mp3 files that are twice the filesize

Also, RCA Lyra portable MP3 players are among the best and coolest mp3 players out there, and they do support MP3Pro. Check out these (prices are much lower than the listed retail prices elsewhere - try ebay or pricewatch) RCA RD2840 and RCA RD2780

Those are the "jukebox" portable mp3 players, with 20gb or 40gb, and one of them plays video on a nice little screen, too. There are other RCA Lyra players that are not "jukebox" players, that have less storage (from 64mb - 2gb) and cost much less ($50-$100 street).

About the only shortcoming is that RCA has not released a plug in for decoding mp3pro files with winamp versions above 2.x (so mp3pro is not supported by the latest versions of winamp (like 3.0 and latest 5.0) but that's OK since Nero's own software for audio playback is just as good as winamp.

Also, I find mp3pro to be excellent for audiobooks and other spoken word (like comedy and other stuff) because it makes the files much smaller and audiophile quality is not necessary.

 

[Shockwave]

Originally posted by: happyhelper
mp3pro is better than lame or any other mp3 encoding

the file sizes are half the size for exact same audio quality

if a 96kbps mp3pro file sounds any different, any less good, than a 192kbps mp3 file, it means the player you are using doesn't support mp3pro and is not decoding it properly.

I call shenanigans. No way a file half the size will sound exactly as good.

 

[Chiropteran]

I have been using AAC with my iPod, quiality is great at 192kbps.

 

[drag]

Good Free (open standards, open source, and no $) codec that does what MP3's/MP3Pro'
s do is Ogg Vorbis.

It's a high quality lossy codec. It's one thing that is does is have a variable bitrate, were instead of "hey I encoded it at 128bit rate", you encode on a sliding scale of quality. Most encoders will aim for 128bit/s (for example) but it will vary from 100bit/s to 130-140bit/s depending on the amount of information that has to be encoded. That way it encodes the highest quality amount of sound at the smallest amount of bandwidth.

Plus it's encoding sceme is just plain better then mp3's. At bitrates higher then 128 or so it's hard to tell much of a difference, if any it's going to be in OGG's favor. But as you get into higher and higher compression (smaller files/lower bit rates) is when OGG stands out.

i don't know how it stands up to MP3pro, though. They are probably very close in quality (as far as I can tell).

The main difference is that you can design encoders and encoders, sell them, give them away, and make music using them and never have to owe money to anyone or ever worry about any liscencing issues.

One famous use for Ogg is that UT2004 uses ogg for it's music and you can add your own music to the game using it.

There are other free encoders. For instance you have FLAC, which is a lossless compression sceme like (for example) zip. It will always give you 100% quality, unlike Ogg/MP3/MP3Pro which discard information to acheive high compression rates.

With MP3's and other lossy formats you risk loosing much of the nuance to the sounds. You loose the little auditory signals and information that you pick up semi-consiously to determine things like spatial/stereo effects.

Then you have other utilitarian codecs like Speex. Speex is specificly for heavily encoding speech while still having high quality and wouldn't be good for music.

Here is a good page for learning about open source encoding/ripping-style software, it's definately not all there is though.


Also keep in mind that Ogg is a container, Vorbis is the actual codec. Ogg streams usually are sending vorbis music, but you can also send Flac, speex and video streams using it.

For simplisity sakes though people just generally refer to Ogg Vorbis as just ogg files. And mime types would generally be application/ogg.

 

[happyhelper]

Originally posted by: Shockwave

Originally posted by: happyhelper
mp3pro is better than lame or any other mp3 encoding

the file sizes are half the size for exact same audio quality

if a 96kbps mp3pro file sounds any different, any less good, than a 192kbps mp3 file, it means the player you are using doesn't support mp3pro and is not decoding it properly.

I call shenanigans. No way a file half the size will sound exactly as good.

idiot




as for ogg files, they seem pretty cool and very good quality too, but are closer to mp3 filesizes than mp3pro filesizes

also, I had really bad luck with ogg video (ogm or something like that and gave up on those)

oh and for the original question, why hasn't mp3pro gone mainstream... because the average computer user, kazaa type, doesn't know the difference between lame and fraunhofer, much less mp3pro or ogg or anything different and the media programs that come with PCs or burners don't include stuff that costs extra. Also, the release groups that were releasing full albums as mp3pro a couple years ago gave up because they were heavily criticised for "crappy sounding releases" by people who didn't bother to read the nfo file included with the release and use an appropriate mp3pro decoder.

Also, ogg isn't unique for having "variable bitrates" - the common mp3 encoders have had that capability for years and the latest Nero can encode variable bitrate mp3pro files also.

 

[Codewiz]

Originally posted by: happyhelper

Originally posted by: Shockwave

Originally posted by: happyhelper
mp3pro is better than lame or any other mp3 encoding

the file sizes are half the size for exact same audio quality

if a 96kbps mp3pro file sounds any different, any less good, than a 192kbps mp3 file, it means the player you are using doesn't support mp3pro and is not decoding it properly.

I call shenanigans. No way a file half the size will sound exactly as good.

idiot




as for ogg files, they seem pretty cool and very good quality too, but are closer to mp3 filesizes than mp3pro filesizes

also, I had really bad luck with ogg video (ogm or something like that and gave up on those)

oh and for the original question, why hasn't mp3pro gone mainstream... because the average computer user, kazaa type, doesn't know the difference between lame and fraunhofer, much less mp3pro or ogg or anything different and the media programs that come with PCs or burners don't include stuff that costs extra. Also, the release groups that were releasing full albums as mp3pro a couple years ago gave up because they were heavily criticised for "crappy sounding releases" by people who didn't bother to read the nfo file included with the release and use an appropriate mp3pro decoder.

Also, ogg isn't unique for having "variable bitrates" - the common mp3 encoders have had that capability for years and the latest Nero can encode variable bitrate mp3pro files also.

Well you showed your true colors. Instead of calling someone an idiot, why don't you prove your points. Prove the man wrong. Words don't mean sh*t. Step up to the plate and provide some proof.

If the Nero mp3pro decode is anything like their MP3 decoder then I am seriously not impressed.