$12256 / $11500
Hey, everybody!
I'm not usually this forward but I thought I'd ask for others opinions.
I've been looking around in the music section and noticed that... pretty much every submission is in MP3 format. I suppose that makes sense as it's such an easy format to distribute in. But... I have two issues with it.
It's Lossy
Like the JPEG's, it's a lossy format. E.g., you lose information during the compression. Sure that can be minimized by choosing a higher quality setting, but that sort of defeats the purpose of the compression. And if you're going to save it at a higher quality, why not use an open format?. Which brings me to my next point.
It's a Patented Format
Just like JPEG, the MP3 format is a patented format. For me, it's one of the most egregious abuses of the patent system in the US and I would even go so far as to say that software patents are evil. It's one of the reasons I don't support MP3 formats in my NAS2D API and one of the reasons I've been avoiding MP3 alltogether. Sorry, but if we're targeting the FLOSS community, I would think that using patented compression algorithms which require paid royalties regardless of who builds an encoder/decoder flies in the face of everything that is FLOSS.
That stated, what I'm wondering is why we don't have more submissions in either FLAC or OGG formats? Should we encourage submitters to encode music/audio in these other, non-patented formats? Sure, anybody can convert an MP3 to something else with tools like Audacity but, as with my first point, the damage to audio fidelity has already been done and the lost information is permanently lost. And yes, OGG is a lossy format, but FLAC isn't and it gets a pretty good compression factor.
Just as with NAS2D, I personally encourage everybody to use non-patented formats (like PNG or WebP and Ogg or Flac for audio)... should OGA do the same?
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This has alread been discussed here. My opinion on the topic is that FLAC should always be preferred (over both Ogg Vorbis and MP3). This way everyone can convert the track to whatever format and bitrate (s)he needs. However, it has been pointed out that uploading a FLAC encoded track might be impossible for people with slower internet connections. If that's the case I'd prefer Ogg Vorbis over MP3.
Note: Ogg Vorbis is lossy.
Also this:
On FLAC and OGG Vorbis audio file formats.
FLAC and OGG are fine open formats, only issue is that a lot of the higher end software cant use them where as formats like pnj/jpg etc are widly supported audio is a lot harder to find a good format to work in that is widly supported. The major advantage of mp3 is that everything supports it, even tho it is patented =/
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Full Steam Ahead! o/ <-- little ascii fist in the air holding a debugging hammer.
Perhaps, but I don't think "Well, OGG/FLAC isn't widely supported yet." is a good reason. PNG for the longest time wasn't widely supported but people kept using it, it gained popularity and now it's a standard. WebP will likely follow suit as a replacement for JPEG as a lossy format.
Plus, every major editor can export or mix down to WAV or some other raw format... that's where software like Audacity (and other similar, freely available tools) come into play to encode OGG files. Plus, a lot of current MP3 players do, in fact, support OGG.
It would seem that a lot of others agree with me on this point... so I'm wondering if we should consider public encouragment of OGG/FLAC?
Oh dont get me wrong im not against encouriging it, however it will be a dificult thing to push as most software currently dont support them :)
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Full Steam Ahead! o/ <-- little ascii fist in the air holding a debugging hammer.
I would be for vorbis/flac and for selling .wav and .mp3 downloads to people who have the money to not spend the time to convert, but I can't ask OGA admins to go through the effort of actually implementing such a thing, both sofware and legal/business-side.
.rar archives once were allowed on OGA. Not any more. Not sure why but I'm glad it's the case.
Right now, art contributors can choose to promote free formats. I do that on freesound ( example: description of /171100/ ). Mostly as a reaction to about 12 comment complaints about not being able to open .flac during the last 2 years.
Do you have specific ideas for what OGA should do? A note in the upload form encouraging certain file formats? Auto conversion to vorbis/flac and deletion of mp3/wav originals?
I wouldn't suggest something as intrusive as auto-conversion, especially MP3 -> OGG (decode into non-compresses, encode into compressed throwing away other data... leads to crappy audio quality)... but I think a note encouraging the use of patent-free formats is reasonable. Of course, I'm not an admin, but I make the suggestion in an effort to help improve the goals of OGA.
Since available software that is capable of playing ogg/flac seems to be a possible problem, I made a little test with my installed ones (on WinXP):
Opera: ogg yes, flac no
VLC: both
Foobar2000: both
So far, I dont see a popularity problem :)
Playing isnt the problem its software you can import/export and edit those formats in that is the issue.
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Full Steam Ahead! o/ <-- little ascii fist in the air holding a debugging hammer.
Oh my wrong ok.. so what about a similar list, about editing software that is able to deal with flac/ogg?
(just that I cant help here, since I am a pure consument when it comes to sounds)
A simple solution is Audacity. I know I keep mentioning it but it's the only one I really know for Windows that works well and imports/exports multiple formats including OGG and FLAC.
Players include WinAMP (which reads all of them) and there are codecs for Windows Media Player for the average consumer.
sure audacity can read them, but just like you said its the only one you know for windows that can, someone using flstudio, soundforge etc cant.
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Full Steam Ahead! o/ <-- little ascii fist in the air holding a debugging hammer.
Perhaps not, but those programs can at least do a mix-down to a raw, uncompressed lossless format like WAV, which can then be converted by Audacity. I can accept that it's a potential pain to have to save with one program, open it with another, and then save it again in the desired format.
On a note, are any of these more "professional" audio suits scriptable? It might be worth the effort of writing import/export plugins in order to spread the word about FLAC/Vorbis.
If one wants to do editing/processing of a file, then I'd say that's all the more reason to have it in a non-lossy format. If FLAC isn't supported, I agree that you can convert via something like Audacity - and whilst that's an extra step, it seems better than hosting as WAVs (which will mean larger sizes, longer downloads - although wavs would seem fine for short sound samples).
I agree with preferring OGG over MP3 (or FLAC so it can be converted to OGG without extra loss) - many open source game developers will need OGG due to the patent issues, as has been said.
ETA: http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/audiostudio/techspec lists OGG and FLAV for import/export - though don't know if I'm looking at the wrong program.
I was assuming that riidom was joking. :)
Could you illustrate or describe how OGA could do this?
To my mind comes: one sentence explaining that OGA encourages FLAC and/or OGG Vorbis and why but I couldn't come up with an exact phrase yet.
PS: I think it's arrogant to claim that it's no biggie to just download and install a totally new piece of software (Audacity), soley for the purpose of converting an audio file into a useable format when at the same time nearly all other websites make an effort to provide formats that are instantly usable (.wav in .zip, .mp3). On the other hand I think there are good reasons to do so: 1. avoiding patent protected formats, 2. propagation of FLAC as an alternative to WAV and OGG Vorbis as an alternative to MP3. OGA could help users by having a phrase informing users about how to deal with OGG Vorbis and FLAC in case they haven't used them yet. We'd have to come up with a nice, concise phrase and the admins would have to decide whether it'd be a nice addition or whether it would be annoying clutter.
PPS: Check out the comments in the top 2 downloaded .flac files from freesound.org: 60009 and 60030 to see what kind of problems have with .flac format.
Actually, I wasnt joking :P
I didnt quite got that we talk about editing software, and not just players.. and some talk about software that can or can not, might save people time with downloading, installing and checking if they eat it or not.
And downloading a software just for converting.. for a pure consument it might be too demanding, but for someone that actually works with audio files it should be acceptable.
P.S. When I get time and be in a playful mood, I will check how blender is set up audio-wise.. didnt scratch that topic so far, might be an alternative too - especially for people who have it installed already.
For a phrase, something along the lines of "Support non-patented formats, use OGG or FLAC!" could suffice.
As far as consumers, VLC, MPC, WinAMP and Windows Media Player with codecs are all capable of playing both of these formats. For those who would say that "Well users don't want to have to install codecs!"... perhaps not. But they already do for video files (for Windows at least a common one is the CCCP). Is it really that much more difficult to install an audio codec or two? Keep in mind that these audio codecs are mostly for those users who use WMP exclusively.
Regarding the hassle of conversion, i think that works both ways - if ogg isn't an option, then developers wanting that will have to convert. Though i wouldn't object if both mp3 and ogg were available. And yes, there is the consideration of whether some users wouldn't even be able to play the files just to listen to them.
Providing wav in a zip seems fine to me too, as long as there's also a lossy format one can use to preview/stream the music. I don't know how the size compares to flac though.
Actually fl studio supports ogg, so does most other audio software I've used. Flac is another story though unfortunately. I also second the opinion of mp3 being anti-free, and I dont believe its popularity is a valid reason to use them