thelinuxlink.net

What's your preference?

Here's my suggestion for you guys: A regular mp3, a regular ogg and a high quality OGG.

If you're only gonna do one high quality format you could up the quality a little more above 128 maybe, then the people who're still bitching about it can re-encode it themselves.

I say, offer direct downloads of lower quality 32k MP3, and OGG files like you have been, and put out a higher quality 64k or more MP3, and OGG torrent. That way, casual listeners can grab the smaller file directly, and us hardcore TLLTS fans can get higher quality shows without costing you any more bandwidth. The MP3 is a must, since alot of us have portable devices that don't support OGG. Including both the OGG and MP3 in the same torrent is great for people like me who download both versions.

Tsuroerusu wrote:Here's my suggestion for you guys: A regular mp3, a regular ogg and a high quality OGG.

If you're only gonna do one high quality format you could up the quality a little more above 128 maybe, then the people who're still bitching about it can re-encode it themselves.

I think 128k is alittle overkill for speech. 64, or 96k would be plenty. Also, anyone who bitches about the audio should know that re-encoding a lossy file to a higher bitrate won't improve sound quality, since the source has so much missing data to begin with.

Wally Balljacker wrote:Also, anyone who bitches about the audio should know that re-encoding a lossy file to a higher bitrate won't improve sound quality, since the source has so much missing data to begin with.

You certainly get a better result converting a 192 OGG to MP3 rather than 64 OGG to MP3, so even if people re-encode themselves, they will see a little benefit.

Tsuroerusu wrote:

Wally Balljacker wrote:Also, anyone who bitches about the audio should know that re-encoding a lossy file to a higher bitrate won't improve sound quality, since the source has so much missing data to begin with.

You certainly get a better result converting a 192 OGG to MP3 rather than 64 OGG to MP3, so even if people re-encode themselves, they will see a little benefit.

Oh, I thought you meant encoding to a higher bitrate.

Wally Balljacker wrote:

Tsuroerusu wrote:

Wally Balljacker wrote:Also, anyone who bitches about the audio should know that re-encoding a lossy file to a higher bitrate won't improve sound quality, since the source has so much missing data to begin with.

You certainly get a better result converting a 192 OGG to MP3 rather than 64 OGG to MP3, so even if people re-encode themselves, they will see a little benefit.

Oh, I thought you meant encoding to a higher bitrate.

No No No, I was reffering to the process of converting the high quality ogg into an mp3.

Tsuroerusu wrote:

Wally Balljacker wrote:

Tsuroerusu wrote: You certainly get a better result converting a 192 OGG to MP3 rather than 64 OGG to MP3, so even if people re-encode themselves, they will see a little benefit.

Oh, I thought you meant encoding to a higher bitrate.

No No No, I was reffering to the process of converting the high quality ogg into an mp3.

Ah, ok. That's actually a good idea. I'm making an MP3 out of the OGG right now to throw on my iPod. That works.

Okay first let me say that I am a big fan of the low quality “raw” file. Some of the most interesting and amusing stuff comes in this section. While I would love to embrace ogg vorbis the simple fact is that it's poorly supported on portables ( I bought an Iriver with high hopes a year ago but as we all know it doesn't “really” support ogg). Here is my dilemma: if you stop doing a raw mp3 I will go back to what I used to do which is downloading them both. I listen on my portable 99% of the time and I don't see that changing. If you stop doing a raw mp3 I will personally end up costing you twice as much in bandwidth (sorry I'm a dick like that). Solutions are tricky because everybody wants it their way and you can't encode 24+ different files. How about doing the raw data as a separate file? Then you could do four files 1. high quality ogg torrent, 2. low bit rate ogg 3. low bit rate mp3 and 4. low bit rate raw data mp3 (it's already in the high quality ogg).

Honestly I don't see what your worried about with just doing it all raw. Throw in a clip that announces the raw data begins here with a disclaimer for sensitive audiences to simply turn it off. After all I can't think anything in the raw data that is more racy than “licking that fine ass with a my tongue brush” and moaning Japanese porn girls and nobody seems to be complaining about that...

Madar

Madar wrote:Okay first let me say that I am a big fan of the low quality “raw” file. Some of the most interesting and amusing stuff comes in this section. While I would love to embrace ogg vorbis the simple fact is that it's poorly supported on portables ( I bought an Iriver with high hopes a year ago but as we all know it doesn't “really” support ogg). Here is my dilemma: if you stop doing a raw mp3 I will go back to what I used to do which is downloading them both. I listen on my portable 99% of the time and I don't see that changing. If you stop doing a raw mp3 I will personally end up costing you twice as much in bandwidth (sorry I'm a dick like that). Solutions are tricky because everybody wants it their way and you can't encode 24+ different files. How about doing the raw data as a separate file? Then you could do four files 1. high quality ogg torrent, 2. low bit rate ogg 3. low bit rate mp3 and 4. low bit rate raw data mp3 (it's already in the high quality ogg).

Honestly I don't see what your worried about with just doing it all raw. Throw in a clip that announces the raw data begins here with a disclaimer for sensitive audiences to simply turn it off. After all I can't think anything in the raw data that is more racy than “licking that fine ass with a my tongue brush” and moaning Japanese porn girls and nobody seems to be complaining about that...

Madar

Why not just encode the OGG as an MP3 and save bandwidth?

In my experience this encoding of oggs to mp3 (lossy to lossy which is pretty silly in general) results in mp3s that crap out on my Iriver. I believe this is what the guys over at lug radio do and I have a lot of problems with their mp3s as well. I haven't done it with the tllts ogg for a long time so maybe Audacity (what I use) has gotten better with this (I was using an older version). I'm going to try right now and see how it goes.

Madar

Orinally the added content to the ogg-vorbis file was to promote the use of ogg. I screwed that up by putting the mp3 version of the ogg up for download because I made a version off the original so I could play it back on my portable device.

I'm a bit torn by this. Ideally I would like to promote the ogg in this manner but I don't like short changing our listeners in any way.

Okay I encoded the ogg to mp3 at 32kb using lame and it sounds and plays just fine on my Iriver. At this point I say anything goes, I was just hung up on the raw mp3 because of the portable issue. This is actually better, I can keep the higher quality ogg and simply reencode a throw away version to mp3 for my player. What ever you guys decide is cool. Honestly as long as I can hear the show on the go I'm not that concerned with the audio format. I'm really hoping that the new mikes Alan was talking about getting you guys will help to level you all out a bit. Sometimes I have to have it really cranked to hear Pat. Also guests over asterisk are often too low in the mix. Anyway, merry Christmas guys, thanks for another fantastic year of shows!

Madar

dann wrote:Orinally the added content to the ogg-vorbis file was to promote the use of ogg. I screwed that up by putting the mp3 version of the ogg up for download because I made a version off the original so I could play it back on my portable device.

I'm a bit torn by this. Ideally I would like to promote the ogg in this manner but I don't like short changing our listeners in any way.

I guess the most logical thing would be to go with a 128k MP3 and OGG torrent, and 32k MP3 and OGG direct downloads. That's basically what LugRadio does. They have both formats in high and low quality. You can always put the extra stuff in all the files, if you don't want to shortchange anyone.

Just a side note last episodes high quality OGG was 118MB so if you have a flash DAP you might not be able to keep much else on it merry christmas