Which is better between FLAC format and ogg format?

Which is better between FLAC format and ogg format?

OGG vs FLAC

Positionable: FLAC supports fast sampling and precise positioning.

OGG vs FLAC

This is not only beneficial for playback, but also makes FLAC files easier to edit.
Resilient metadata: New types of metadata blocks can be defined and implemented without affecting the use of old decoders and data streams. Existing metadata types include tags, reference tables, and ranking tables. Registered applications can define their own dedicated metadata types (Note: this is similar to the MIDI standard).
Great for archiving applications: FLAC is an open and lossless encoding format, you can convert it to any other format you need. In addition to CRC and MD5 marking of each data frame to ensure data integrity, flac also provides a check (verify) option, when using this option for encoding, the encrypted data will be immediately decoded and compared with the data. original input in the same encoding time.
Easy to backup CDs: FLAC has a “reference table” metadata block that contains the list of CD contents and index points for all tracks. You can save a CD into a single file and import the CD reference table, so that a FLAC file can record all the information of the entire CD completely. When your original CD is damaged, you can use this file to restore an exact copy of the original CD.
Damage resistance: Due to the structure of the FLAC frame, once the data stream is damaged, the loss will be limited to the damaged data frame. Usually only a short segment is lost. When many other lossless audio compression formats suffer corruption, one corruption will cause all subsequent data to be lost.
OGGVorbis is a lossy compression encoding for audio.

Which is better FLAC format or ogg format?

Which is better FLAC format or ogg format?

OGG vs FLAC
OGG vs FLAC

Flac is better than ogg. flac is lossless.

OGG vs FLAC
OGG vs FLAC

FLAC is short for Free Lossless Audio Codec, which can be interpreted as lossless audio compression coding in Chinese. FLAC is a well-known free audio compression codec, which is characterized by lossless compression.
Lossless Compression: The encoded (PCM) audio data is lossless and the decoded output audio is the same in every byte of the encoder input. Each data frame has a 16-bit CRC check code of the current frame, which is used to check for data transmission errors. For the entire piece of audio data, an MD5 tag for the original uncompressed audio data is also stored in the file header, which is used to verify the data during decoding and proofing.
Fast: FLAC pays more attention to decoding speed. Decoding requires only integer operations and has low computational speed requirements relative to most encoding methods. Real-time decoding can be easily achieved on very common hardware.
Hardware support: Since FLAC provides a free decoding example and the decoding complexity is low, FLAC is currently the only lossless compression codec that has hardware support.
Streamable: Each FLAC data frame contains all the information needed for decoding. The current frame is decoded without reference to the data frame that precedes or follows it. FLAC uses sync and CRC codes (similar to encoding formats like MPEG) so that the decoder can have minimal time delays when it locates jumps in the data stream.

Audio Coding Part 9

Audio Coding Part 9

Audio Coding

Features: Sound quality performance at low bitrate is hard to match.

Audio coding

Applicable to: digital radio station setup, online listening, music appreciation with low requirements.
mp3PRO
As an enhanced version of mp3, mp3PRO shows pretty good quality, with full treble. Although mp3PRO is inserted during playback via SBR technology, the actual listening experience is quite good. Although it seems a bit thin, you are already in the world of 64 kbps. There is no rival, even more than 128kbps mp3, but unfortunately, mp3PRO’s low-frequency performance is also broken like mp3, fortunately, SBR’s high-frequency interpolation can more or less cover this shortcoming, so mp3PRO’s weakness. low frequency is not as obvious as that of WMA. You can feel it deeply when you use the PRO switch of RCA mp3PRO Audio Player to switch between PRO mode and normal mode. In general, the 64kbps mp3PRO reaches the level of sound quality of the 128kbps mp3 and wins slightly in the high frequency part.
Features: The king of sound quality at low bit rates.
Applicable to: Music appreciation with low requirements.
BUN
An emerging lossless audio encoding that can provide 50-70% compression ratio. Although it is not worth mentioning compared to lossy encoding, it is a boon for friends who are looking for perfect sound quality. APE can be truly lossless, not only without sound, but also with better compression than similar lossless formats.
Features: The sound quality is very good.
Suitable for: The appreciation and collection of music of the highest quality.
Transmission audio coding technology comparison
Classified by waveform coding, parametric coding, and hybrid coding, some typical coding methods are compared in terms of coding rate (code rate), voice quality, and application fields; see the table below for more details.
Table 1 Comparison of typical audio coding techniques
coding technology
algorithm
encoding standard
Bit rate (kbit/s)
quality
Scope
Waveform coding
PCM
G.711
64
4.3
PSTN, ISDN
ADPCM
G.721
32
4.1

SB-ADPCM
G.722
64/56/48
4.5

parameter encoding
LPC

2.4
2.5
confidential voice
hybrid coding
ECLAC

4.8
3.2

VSELPC
FAMILY
8
3.8
Mobile communication, voice mail
LTP-RPE
GSM
13.2
3.8

LD-CELP
G.728
16
4.1
ISDN
MPE
MPE
128
5.0
CD
Note: There are five levels of quality evaluation (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), of which 5.0 is the highest score.
For the full Chinese and English names of various algorithms and abbreviations in the application fields in the above table, please refer to the following description.
PCM: pulse code modulation, pulse code modulation.
ADPCM: Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation, Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation.
SB-ADPCM: Subband Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation, Subband Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation.
LPC: Linear Predictive Coding, Linear Predictive Coding.
CELPC: Code Excited Linear Predictive Coding, Code Excited Linear Predictive Coding.
VSELPC: Vector Sum Excited Linear Predictive Coding, Vector Sum Excited Linear Predictive Coding.
RPE-LTP: Regular Pulse Excited-Long Term Predictive, long-term prediction of regular pulse excitation.
LD-CELP: Low Delay Code Excited Linear Predictive, Low Delay Code Excited Linear Prediction.
MPE: Multipulse Excitation, Multipulse Excitation.
PSTN: Public Switched Telephone Network, public switched telephone network.
ISDN: Integrated Services Digital Network, Integrated Services Digital Network.

Audio Coding Part 8

Audio Coding Part 8

Audio Coding

MP3

MP3

MP3 has a good compression ratio, and the medium and high bitrate mp3 encoded by LAME is very close to the source WAV file in the listening sense. With the right parameters, LAME encoded MP3 is very suitable for listening to music. Since MP3 has been around for a long time, along with its good sound quality and compression ratio, many games also use mp3 for event sound effects and background music. Almost all well-known audio editing software also support MP3, you can use mp3 as wav, but because mp3 encoding is lossy, after several edits, the sound quality will decrease drastically, mp3 is not suitable for saving material, but the demonstration as a work is actually quite excellent. The long history and good sound quality of mp3 make it one of the most widely used lossy codecs. A lot of mp3 resources can be found on the Internet, and mp3player has become a trend day by day. Many VCD players, DVD players, and even mobile phones can play mp3, and mp3 is one of the best supported encodings. MP3 is also not perfect and does not work well at lower bit rates. MP3 also has the basic features of streaming media and can be played online.
Features: good sound quality, high compression ratio, compatible with a large number of software and hardware, and widely used.
Applicable to: Suitable for music appreciation with relatively high requirements.
OGG
Ogg is a very promising codec that works surprisingly well at various bit rates, especially medium and low bit rates. In addition to good sound quality, Ogg is also a completely free codec, which lays the foundation for further compatibility with ogg. OGG has a very good algorithm which can have better sound quality with smaller bitrate, and 128kbps OGG is better than 192kbps or even higher MP3. OGG’s treble has a certain iciness to it, so the OGG flaw will be exposed when encoding some musical instruments with high-frequency requirements. OGG has the basic features of streaming media, but there is no media service software support, so ogg-based digital streaming cannot be done. Ogg’s current support situation is not good enough, either software or hardware, it can’t compare with mp3.
Features: It can achieve better sound quality than mp3 with lower bit rate than mp3 and has good performance at high, medium and low bit rates.
Suitable for: Better sound quality with less storage space (relative to MP3).
MPC
Just like OGG, MPC’s competitors are also mp3. At medium and high bit rates, MPC can achieve better sound quality than the competition. At medium bit rates, MPC’s performance is not inferior to Ogg’s. At high bit rates, MPC performance Performance is even higher Hard to beat. The sound quality advantage of MPC is mainly reflected in the high-frequency part. MPC’s high frequency is much more delicate than MP3’s, and doesn’t taste like Ogg’s ice cubes. It is currently the most suitable lossy encoding for music appreciation. Since they are all nascent code, similar to the Ogg encounter, they also lack extensive software and hardware support. MPC has good encoding efficiency and the encoding time is much shorter than OGG and LAME.
Characteristics: At medium and high bit rates, it has the best sound quality performance in lossy encoding, and at high bit rates, it has excellent high-frequency performance.
Ideal for: Listening to music with the best sound quality while saving a lot of space.
WMA
WMA developed by Microsoft is also loved by many friends. At low bit rate, it has much better sound quality than mp3. The appearance of WMA immediately eliminated the once popular VQF encoding. WMA with Microsoft background has got good software and hardware support, Windows Media Player can play WMA, and can also listen to digital radio stations based on WMA encoding technology. Because the player exists on almost every PC, more and more music sites are happy to use WMA as the first choice for online listening. In addition to the good support environment, WMA also has a very good performance under the bit rate of 64-128Kbps. Although many friends with higher requirements are not satisfied, more friends with low requirements have accepted this encoding, and WMA is very good. . Quickly popularized.

Audio Coding Part 7

Audio Coding Part 7

WMA Format

WMA format

Wma File Format

WMA is the file format encoded by Windows Media Audio, developed by Microsoft, WMA is not aimed at the standalone market, but at the network!

The competitor is the well-known Real Networks in the online media market. Microsoft claims that at a bit rate of just 64 kbps, WMA can achieve sound quality close to CD. Unlike the previous encoding, WMA supports the anti-copy function. Supports adding protection via Windows Media Rights Manager, which can limit playback time, number of playback times, and even playback machine, etc. WMA supports streaming technology, that is, play while reading, so WMA can easily realize online streaming. Because it is a Microsoft masterpiece, Microsoft has added support for WMA in Windows. WMA has excellent technical characteristics. With vigorous promotion, this format has been accepted by more and more people.
AR format
RA is the RealAudio format, which is a format that many Internet users have come into contact with. Most online audition music websites use RealAudio. This format is completely targeted at the Internet media market and supports very rich features. The biggest flickering point is that this format can control its bitrate according to the bandwidth of the audience and improve the sound quality as much as possible on the premise of ensuring fluency. RA can support a variety of audio codecs, including ATRAC3. Like WMA, RA not only supports reading and playing, but also supports the use of special protocols to hide the real network address of the file, in order to realize the online playback-only viewing method without downloading. This is very important for record companies and record sales companies. Under vigorous promotion from various parties, RA and WMA are currently the most widely used audio media formats for online listening on the Internet.
mono format
APE is a lossless compression format provided by Monkey’s Audio. Monkey’s Audio provides plugin support for Winamp, which means that the compressed file is no longer a simple compressed format, but an audio file format that can be played as MP3. The compression ratio of this format is much lower than other formats, but it can be truly lossless, so it has won favor with many enthusiasts. Among the many existing lossless compression schemes, APE is a format with outstanding performance, satisfactory compression ratio and fast compression speed, which has become the only choice for many friends to communicate with fever music in private. .
Broadcast Format Features
All types of audio coding have their technical characteristics and applicability in different occasions, we will briefly explain how to apply these audio coding flexibly.
PCM encoded WAV
As mentioned above, PCM encoded WAV file is the format with the best sound quality and on Windows platform all audio software can support it. There are many functions in WinAPI provided by Windows that can play wav directly, so when developing multimedia software, wav is often used in large numbers for event sound effects and background music. PCM encoded wav can achieve the best sound quality with the same sample rate and sample size, so it is also widely used in audio editing, non-linear editing and other fields.
Features: The sound quality is very good and it is supported by a lot of software.
Suitable for: multimedia development, saving music and sound effects.

Audio Coding Part 6

Audio Coding Part 6

Ogg

OGG encoding

ogg

An audio codec called Ogg Vorbis appeared on the Internet, known as the MP3 killer! What is the origin of Ogg Vorbis? OGG is the project name of a large multimedia development program, which will involve the development of video and audio encoding. The whole purpose of the OGG project plan is to provide a completely free media encoding solution for anyone! OGG’s belief is: OPEN! FREE! The word Vorbis is the name of a “playboy” character in the fantasy novel “Small Gods” by Terry Platjat. This term became the official name for audio encoding in the OGG project. At present, Vorbis has been successfully developed and an encoder has been developed.
Ogg Vorbis is a high quality audio coding scheme. Official data shows that Ogg Vorbis can achieve better sound quality than MP3 at relatively low data rates. Ogg Vorbis is also much more advanced than MP3, which was successfully developed in the 1990s. It can support multiple channels, what does this mean? This means that Ogg Vorbis can encode all channels with the support of SACD, DTSCD, DVD AUDIO ripping software (currently there is no such software), instead of MP3 it can only encode 2 channels. The rise of multi-channel music has brought revolutionary changes in music appreciation, especially when enjoying the symphony, it will bring more presence. This revolutionary change cannot be adapted to MP3.
Like MP3, Ogg Vorbis is a flexible and open audio codec that allows for significant sound quality adjustments and further algorithm improvements once the codec has been fixed. Therefore, your sound quality will get better and better. Like MP3, Ogg Vorbis is more like an audio coding framework, which can be continually improved by introducing new technologies. Like MP3, OGG also supports VBR.
MPC encoding
MPC is another impressive and powerful player. Its popularization process is very discreet and there is no complicated backstory. She only has one purpose for her looks, smaller size and better sound quality! MPC was previously known as MP+, and it’s obvious who it’s targeting. However, anyone who has used this code will be impressed by its excellent sound quality.
mp3PRO encoding
On June 14, 2001, Thomson Multimedia SA and Fraunhofer Institute released a new version of music format on June 14 named mp3PRO, which is an improved scheme based on mp3 encoding technology is quite attractive in features announced by the officer. According to various information, mp3PRO is not a completely new format, it is an improvement based on traditional mp3 encoding technology, and its biggest technical feature is SBR (Spectral Band Replication), which is a new audio encoding enhancement algorithm. Provides the ability to improve speech and audio encoding performance at low bit rates. This approach increases audio bandwidth or improves encoding efficiency at a specific bit rate. The biggest advantage of SBR is that it can achieve very efficient encoding at low data rates. Unlike traditional encoding technology, SBR is more like a post-processing technology, so the quality of the decoder algorithm directly affects the sound quality. . The high frequency is actually produced by the decoder (player), and the SBR encoded data is more like a set of commands that produces high frequency, or a guide signal source, which is kind of the way it works. We can see that mp3PRO is actually a mixed data stream encoding of mp3 signal stream and SBR signal stream. Relevant information shows that SBR technology can improve high-frequency sound quality with little data traffic by about 30%. We don’t care how this 30% is obtained, but it can be predicted in advance that this improvement can make the 64kbps mp3 reach 128kbps. The sound quality level of mp3 (note: under the same encoding conditions, the increase in data rate is not proportional to the increase in sound quality, at least in the human ear), which is comparable to mp3 PRO official 64kbps, which is comparable to 128kbps mp3 The propaganda is basically consistent.

Ogg Vorbis FAQ Part 3

Ogg Vorbis FAQ Part 3

OGG vorbis

What is Ogg Vorbis?

OGG Vorbis

Ogg Vorbis is a new audio compression format. Compared to today’s most popular digital audio formats such as MP3, VQF, and AAC, it differs from traditional digital audio formats in that it is completely free, open, and patent-free.

What is the origin of the name?
Vorbis is part of the Ogg project, a project that aims to create a completely open multimedia system, and is the name given to the audio compression scheme for creating Ogg Vorbis files.

What is the file extension used by Ogg Vorbis?
As part of the Ogg project, Vorbis files use the extension .ogg.

Is Vorbis a complete replacement for MP3? Or is it a complementary compression format?
Ogg Vorbis is designed to completely replace the proprietary audio format. This means that you can encode all of your own music content in Vorbis without hesitation. 🙂

When will Ogg Vorbis be completed?
Currently (as of November 2000), the final version 1.0 is about to be released. However, the file format has been completed for the time being, and the Vorbis files created at this stage are guaranteed to be compatible with future decoders.
The format is designed with flexibility in mind, allowing developers to improve file size and sound quality without wasting traditional encoders and players.

Why should an artist pay attention?
There are many reasons.
First, although many artists may not know it, MP3 is known as a lossy compression format (lossy compression). Therefore, much of the sound data is lost when it is converted to an MP3 file, and as a result, the sound quality is lower than that of a CD.
Vorbis is also a lossy compression format (lossy compression), but it uses an excellent acoustic model to reduce damage, so if it is the same size, it will be able to provide music with better sound quality than MP3 files.
And if you are an artist, you should also consider music format licensing issues. If you decide to sell your music in MP3 format, you will be responsible for paying Fraunhofer (a proprietary MP3 company) a flat royalty on the sales. .. But with Vorbis, you don’t have a patent or license, so you don’t have to pay to sell it, distribute it to others, or pass it on.

Why should music fans pay attention?
First of all, it must be of high quality. The file size is also smaller than MP3s and will be even smaller as development progresses. Many software players already enjoy it, and soon some of the major hardware players will be supported.
With Vorbis, you can enjoy high-quality music with less data area.
Using Vorbis means that you can choose encoders and decoders without being limited by licensing issues. Also, most companies are unable (or unwilling to) pay for encoder licenses, so encoders for creating MP3 files should be limited in the future. This is why using Vorbis gives you more options for your encoder.

Why Should Developers Pay Attention?
The distribution of developed hardware and software players is greatly affected by audio-related patents and licensing issues.
With Vorbis, you can develop hardware and software players without any of these encoding and decoding restrictions.
Vorbis also offers a flexible, high-quality audio format. For more information, see http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/index.html.
Why Should Music Companies Pay Attention?
Music companies should pay the most attention to Ogg Vorbis. While other technologies require a large investment to start a business, Volbis offers the only platform for startups that is easily accessible and saves funds for start-up. This is because your customers, music fans, will not be angry with incompatibilities and will be happy with the higher sound quality due to the wide range of compatibility and openness of the player.

■ Related to the license
What license applies to Ogg Vorbis?
The Ogg Vorbis specification is in the public domain and is completely free for commercial and non-commercial use. Software developers can independently develop software compliant with this specification without restrictions or fees. However, developers who want to use open source software must follow the proper rules (see below).

Ogg Vorbis FAQ Part 2

Ogg Vorbis FAQ Part 2

Ogg Vorbis

Ogg Vorbis

OGG vorbis

0. Introduction

The other day, I presented ogg using this material at a regular kmlug meeting, but recently, it seems that ogg-related sites are inaccessible for some reason. So I put it here so that I can only use the binary I got earlier, so use it when the following site is not available.

1. What is Ogg Vorbis?
(Excerpt from http://homepage2.nifty.com/eangel/Mizuno/Software/ogg/)

Ogg Vorbis has the same music / audio file format as “.mid”, “.wav” and “.mp3”. I’ll abbreviate it as Ogg below, but we’re going to touch on the background behind the birth of this format.
First of all, as a music format, there is the mp3 which has become so famous that no one knows about it now, so why is it Ogg now? The answer is simple, because mp3s are no longer free.
Below is an excerpt from the ZDNET news.
Last September, Fraunhofer IIS-A began collecting royalties. This cost is considerable, to say the least. Fraunhofer IIS-A requires $ 5 for an encoder like MusicMatch, plus 1 cent per song for every MP3 downloaded or streamed, or 1% of total sales.
Fraunhofer IIS-A is a German laboratory that created the mp3 format. The short answer is that making an mp3 encoder or distributing a song costs money.
In this way, abroad, there is now a big problem regarding copyright related to online distribution of music files. The result was the open Ogg Vorbis, which has no copyright, patent or property rights.
Ogg Vorbis complains about MP3 and better sound quality, smaller file sizes, and avoidance of the aforementioned copyright issues. And it is constantly moving towards reality. But it is important to note that Ogg is not yet a complete format. As of September 2000, it appears to have the functions that MP3 has at the moment.
Let’s examine two important points.
First of all, regarding file size, Ogg basically uses a variable bitrate. Variable Bit Rate (VBR) is a high bit rate when high sound quality is required and a low bit rate when high sound quality is not required. If the bit rate is low, the sound quality will be low, but the file size will also be small. By making good use of this, the file size is smaller with the same sound quality as MP3. (By the way, MP3 also has VBR). Generally, 128 kbps is said to be enough for MP3 to get satisfactory quality, but Ogg has a sound quality of 160 kbps, which is a higher range, and the file size is roughly the same.
The next thing is the sound quality.
First of all, the default bit rate of the Ogg encoder is 160 kbps, which shows that sound quality is important.
Additionally, MP3 like LAME and BladeEnc have announced that popular encoders will also support Ogg.
In fact, I made MP3 files and Ogg files from my CD and listened to them. At the same bit rate, the file size was naturally smaller for Ogg, but the sound quality didn’t seem to be much different from MP3.
So I increased the Ogg bitrate by a range and checked the sound quality with almost the same file size. When I added another Wav file extracted from CD to the comparison target and listened to it over and over again, I came to the conclusion that the Wav file had the clearest sound quality, followed by Ogg and MP3.

Ogg Vorbis FAQ

Ogg Vorbis FAQ

Ogg Vorbis

Q. What is Ogg Vorbis?

Vorbis Ogg

Ogg Vorbis is a lossy audio compression standard similar to MP3, WMA, AAC, etc. The difference with these existing standards is that they are free and open standards. The Basic Reference Library is provided in a format that conforms to the BSD license and you can freely incorporate it into your own software or modify it. Also, there is no obligation to pay the fee at that time. One of the main features of Ogg Vorbis is that it has fewer rights restrictions than other codecs and formats. Q. What does the name mean? Ogg is a container for various data. Vorbis refers to a lossy compressed audio format. These are proper names, not abbreviations of significant words. In addition to Vorbis, Ogg can include Theora (Ogg Theora) and Ogg FLAC (FLAC). Q. What about the sound quality of Ogg Vorbis? Sound quality is not bad. However, everyone’s ears are different, so try it out for yourself. In general, many people feel that they have an advantage over other formats at low bit rates (64 kbps to 128 kbps). It also makes a big difference depending on the encoder (compression program). If possible, try different encoders. Q. The bit rate (capacity per second) is not constant.

Ogg Vorbis is based on quality-based VBR (variable bit rate). Therefore, the bit rate is not constant. If you need a constant bit rate, use the bit rate management mode. However, even in this case, frame-based constant bit rate (CBR) encoding, such as MP3, is not possible (like many other formats).
Also, the stronger the bit rate limit, the more disadvantageous it will be in terms of normal sound quality. Also, the encoding speed will be slower. It is better to use the underlying Vorbis quality mode (VBR).

Q. What is lossy audio compression after all?
The word irreversible means non-reversible (denial of reversibility). Simply put, it is irreversible audio compression. And the fact that it doesn’t fully return means that the sound quality may not be exactly the same as the original. However, it is possible to reduce the data by minimizing hearing damage. This is because the human ear is sensitive in parts, but very insensitive. Modern format encoders like Vorbis try to compress while preserving subjective sound quality as much as possible by exploiting the auditory characteristics of those people.
By the way, there is a lossless compression that does not deteriorate the quality at all, but in general, a large compression ratio cannot be expected. FLAC and Monkey’s Audio are relatively popular as lossless audio compression standards, but the compression ratio is in the range of 30% to 70% of the original.

Q. I want to listen to an Ogg file, how can I listen to it?
The easiest way is to use an Ogg Vorbis-enabled software player. There are a lot of compatible players for different platforms, so I can’t cover all of them here. Try searching by typing “Ogg Vorbis Player” into an Internet search engine.
There are also hardware players, although the absolute number is still small. For example, you can play Ogg Vorbis audio files outside with a portable player. You can find several things in this area by searching for “Ogg Portable Player” in the search engine.
Although rare, there are non-Vorbis files even with the Ogg extension, so be careful.

Q. I want to listen to Ogg Vorbis audio with my usual player,
In order to play it with WMP on Windows, I need to install the DirectShow filter. One of the most actively being developed is the Xiph.Org DS filter. Install the plugin for QuickTime
when playing iTunes on Macintosh (Windows version is also acceptable). Also, there are many other programs that can support playing Vorbis in the form of plugins. Even if it doesn’t play by default, you might want to look it up on a search engine.