MP3 - still the most versatile lossy compressed audio format?

[bob4432]

i have been using mp3 for many years - cbr - 192kbs, stereo, high quality using the newest stable version of the lame dll. i have tried mp3pro - nice spice saving but never took off, aac/mp4, sounds good but pretty limited, wmv, the same - sounds good but not supported as well, etc.

as my store bought cds grow is mp3 still the most versatile format? please take into account car stereos, portable devices and home stereos. also, since portable players are getting larger and larger along with home devices being able to play off of dvds, size is not as important.

thanks for your toughts

 

[imported_Rat]

Yes. But AAC is catching on.

 

[Rubycon]

WMA Pro (9) is better as it supports 24/96 out.

 

[Jawo]

I think so, mostly because it is not a propritary format like wmv/aac are. FLAC is an awesome formatt as well.

 

[PurdueRy]

I use FLAC and then convert to OGG when I need to. I would just buy products that support the formats I want to use.

 

[chcarnage]

We are doomed to use MP3 until we die... like JPEG. A technically obsolete but omnipresent and very compatible format.

I convert everything to VBR MP3s, I think that's a fair compromise between compatibility and efficient compression.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: PurdueRy
I would just buy products that support the formats I want to use.

that is not always an option if you have numerous devices

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: PurdueRy
I would just buy products that support the formats I want to use.

that is not always an option if you have numerous devices

precisely why I start out in the FLAC format

 

[So]

Originally posted by: MS Dawn
WMA Pro (9) is better as it supports 24/96 out.

Yes, but it's less portable, and that's the OP's point I think -- if you have a CBR MP3, you can be confident that any digital audio player will play it, and do a decent job w/ it.

 

[imported_Rat]

Originally posted by: chcarnage
We are doomed to use MP3 until we die... like JPEG. A technically obsolete but omnipresent and very compatible format.

I convert everything to VBR MP3s, I think that's a fair compromise between compatibility and efficient compression.

JPEG is the best photo compression format available. MP3 is being slowly replaced.

 

[chcarnage]

Originally posted by: Rat

Originally posted by: chcarnage
We are doomed to use MP3 until we die... like JPEG. A technically obsolete but omnipresent and very compatible format.

I convert everything to VBR MP3s, I think that's a fair compromise between compatibility and efficient compression.

JPEG is the best photo compression format available. MP3 is being slowly replaced.

I disagree twice. JPEG 2000 is much more advanced than plain old JPEG, yet it's not implemented in web browsers six years after its creation. And the competitors of MP3 have been around some time, too.

 

[So]

Originally posted by: chcarnage

Originally posted by: Rat

Originally posted by: chcarnage
We are doomed to use MP3 until we die... like JPEG. A technically obsolete but omnipresent and very compatible format.

I convert everything to VBR MP3s, I think that's a fair compromise between compatibility and efficient compression.

JPEG is the best photo compression format available. MP3 is being slowly replaced.

I disagree twice. JPEG 2000 is much more advanced than plain old JPEG, yet it's not implemented in web browsers six years after its creation. And the competitors of MP3 have been around some time, too.

Neither JPEG nor MP3 are going anywhere for a long time.

 

[Journer]

MIDI FTFW!!!!!!!!!! lol

 

[randomlinh]

Originally posted by: PurdueRy

Originally posted by: bob4432

Originally posted by: PurdueRy
I would just buy products that support the formats I want to use.

that is not always an option if you have numerous devices

precisely why I start out in the FLAC format

heh, i don't have the money to have flac versions of all my cds on HD

 

[Mark R]

Originally posted by: Rat

JPEG is the best photo compression format available. MP3 is being slowly replaced.

JPEG is not a particularly good compression format by modern standards - improvements in perceptual coding, wavelet techniques, etc. have been important developments. Additionally, JPEG only supports 8-bit dynamic range which a serious limitation in modern digital photography.

JPEG2000 uses some of these advances to enhance compression and produce less obvious artefacts, and recognises the need for HDR support. Unfortunately, although JPEG2000 is supposed to be free (like JPEG) there are a huge number of patents on the types of technology used in JPEG2000.

This is of great concern, especially as several companies selling JPEG codecs (e.g. Apple, Adobe) have been sued (and have paid up) due to alleged patent infringement, despite the fact that the JPEG format is old and was released with the intention of being free.

As more and more companies recognise 'submarine' patents as a potential business model, companies are getting very cautious about using new technologies. Partly because of this concern, JPEG2000 has had very little market penetration - mainly into low-volume niche fields where it's special features (e.g. HDR, less obvious artefacts) are important e.g. medical images.

MP3 is a good file format. It is a relatively old format released 15 years ago. Unlike JPEG, however, MP3 is not free; significant royalties must paid for CODEC software/hardware (up to $5 per copy/chip) as well as on revenue from selling media in MP3 format (2%).

When MP3 was released it was state-of-the-art and was accepted as a major standard for audio compression, and this has propelled it into its huge popularity.

However, in part due to the need for commercial users to pay royalties, there has been significant interest in developing replacement formats. As a result, several organisations have built file formats to make use of new technologies, but more importantly, to avoid the royalty payments. (WMA, Vorbis, MPEG AAC)

Both formats are showing their age, but are 'good enough'. However, while JPEG has the advantage of being free, it has a complete stranglehold on the market. MP3 is slowly pricing itself out of the market as media suppliers look for cheaper options.

 

[ntdz]

mp3 is the most versatile, but I like wma the best out of the formats...All my music is still in mp3 format though...

 

[imported_Rat]

Originally posted by: chcarnage

Originally posted by: Rat

Originally posted by: chcarnage
We are doomed to use MP3 until we die... like JPEG. A technically obsolete but omnipresent and very compatible format.

I convert everything to VBR MP3s, I think that's a fair compromise between compatibility and efficient compression.

JPEG is the best photo compression format available. MP3 is being slowly replaced.

I disagree twice. JPEG 2000 is much more advanced than plain old JPEG, yet it's not implemented in web browsers six years after its creation. And the competitors of MP3 have been around some time, too.

MP3 is being phased out very gradually. But like MPEG-1 video, it will be around for a while. Hell, people are still making GIF animations.

JP2 is a superfluous format. The artifacts are worse than those of JFIF at the same file size. The "advanced features" are cute, but not really needed when we have the PSD format.

 

[imported_Rat]

Originally posted by: Mark R

Originally posted by: Rat

JPEG is the best photo compression format available. MP3 is being slowly replaced.

JPEG is not a particularly good compression format by modern standards - improvements in perceptual coding, wavelet techniques, etc. have been important developments. Additionally, JPEG only supports 8-bit dynamic range which a serious limitation in modern digital photography.

JPEG2000 uses some of these advances to enhance compression and produce less obvious artefacts, and recognises the need for HDR support. Unfortunately, although JPEG2000 is supposed to be free (like JPEG) there are a huge number of patents on the types of technology used in JPEG2000.

This is of great concern, especially as several companies selling JPEG codecs (e.g. Apple, Adobe) have been sued (and have paid up) due to alleged patent infringement, despite the fact that the JPEG format is old and was released with the intention of being free.

As more and more companies recognise 'submarine' patents as a potential business model, companies are getting very cautious about using new technologies. Partly because of this concern, JPEG2000 has had very little market penetration - mainly into low-volume niche fields where it's special features (e.g. HDR, less obvious artefacts) are important e.g. medical images.

MP3 is a good file format. It is a relatively old format released 15 years ago. Unlike JPEG, however, MP3 is not free; significant royalties must paid for CODEC software/hardware (up to $5 per copy/chip) as well as on revenue from selling media in MP3 format (2%).

When MP3 was released it was state-of-the-art and was accepted as a major standard for audio compression, and this has propelled it into its huge popularity.

However, in part due to the need for commercial users to pay royalties, there has been significant interest in developing replacement formats. As a result, several organisations have built file formats to make use of new technologies, but more importantly, to avoid the royalty payments. (WMA, Vorbis, MPEG AAC)

Both formats are showing their age, but are 'good enough'. However, while JPEG has the advantage of being free, it has a complete stranglehold on the market. MP3 is slowly pricing itself out of the market as media suppliers look for cheaper options.

JPEG 2000 was never really needed. It has worse artifacts than plain JFIF. If you need extra quality, use PNG, TGA, or PSD.

 

[wazzledoozle]

WMA is gaining a lot more acceptance, a lot of dvd players will now play it (my jvc unit does), and a lot of car stereos are starting to support it now too. My grandparents just got a Kia (I think) and the cd player supports WMA and mp3 formatted discs.

I use WMP10>rip to lossless>transfer to Zen micro with all songs automatically converted to 128kbps wma.

 

[hellokeith]

Originally posted by: PurdueRy
I use FLAC and then convert to OGG when I need to. I would just buy products that support the formats I want to use.

FLAC is lossless, and OGG is a container format. Neither have anything to do with lossless formats.

MP3 will be around for a while, but I suspect vorbis, aac, and wma to be the predominant distribution methods going forward.

 

[Kadarin]

Hmm... Plays on everything + good enough sound + NO DRM = versatile and useful, in my book. There's no need to replace it with anything else.

 

[Mark R]

Originally posted by: Rat

JPEG 2000 was never really needed. It has worse artifacts than plain JFIF. If you need extra quality, use PNG, TGA, or PSD.

It depends what you mean by 'worse'. The artefacts are different - whether they are worse depends on what you are using the pictures for.

JPEG tends to retain sharpness of edges, but at the cost of areas near the edges having incorrect colours in a 'blocky' pattern. In JP2, the colours tend to be more correct, and artefacts tend to show up merely as loss of fine detail and blurring.

As it is, the intended 'killer app' never really came along - because JPEG is pretty good anyway, storage and network bandwidth have increased hugely and more quickly than many people expected.

However, there are niches where JP2 is used - e.g.
satellite photos - the downlink from the satellite has very limited bandwidth, and the photos are of enormous resolution - so high compression is required, but conventional JPEG artefacts (incorrect colours, blocking) are unacceptable for many purposes that satellite images are used for.
Similar reasons are used in medical imaging (e.g. X-ray and CT images require massive amounts of storage unless the images are compressed - e.g. a complex CT study can exceed 1 GB - which has implications for image storage (large hospitals may need hundreds of TB of server space) and transmission (DVD-/+R are not approved formats for sending data).

 

[mrSHEiK124]

To answer the OP, yes, MP3 is still the most versatile lossy compressed audio format. A LAME preset extreme MP3 is still IMO one of the best sounding lossy compressed audio files evar. I only use ALAC (Apple Lossless) for my store bought CDs though, I got EAC set up to rip em and everything, its nice.

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: hellokeith

Originally posted by: PurdueRy
I use FLAC and then convert to OGG when I need to. I would just buy products that support the formats I want to use.

FLAC is lossless, and OGG is a container format. Neither have anything to do with lossless formats.

MP3 will be around for a while, but I suspect vorbis, aac, and wma to be the predominant distribution methods going forward.

huh? What are you trying to say?

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Originally posted by: PurdueRy

Originally posted by: hellokeith

Originally posted by: PurdueRy
I use FLAC and then convert to OGG when I need to. I would just buy products that support the formats I want to use.

FLAC is lossless, and OGG is a container format. Neither have anything to do with lossless formats.

MP3 will be around for a while, but I suspect vorbis, aac, and wma to be the predominant distribution methods going forward.

huh?

I think he meant "have anything to do with LOSSY formats." And I think he was being a perfection Nazi about people saying OGG instead of Vorbis or OGG Vorbis.

Hmm, don't understand the second part though, its just