Thomson announces mp3HD

[ibng]

For more, read here: http://www.all4mp3.com/Learn_mp3_hd_1.aspx

Sounds nice to me....

[CrowdAds]

[samueljesusfreak]

This doesn't look like it's gonna carry very far. FLAC and Apple Lossless have control of the lossless share, and FLAC is open source. If my understanding is right, there needs to be a separate decoder, which means none of the current players will play it.. even if it has an .mp3 extension. I just don't see much potential.

[dfkt]

Well, it is a hybrid format, regular MP3 and the HD stuff in one file. Backwards compatibility is true and those files (their non-lossless part) play on any old MP3 player... that's quite nifty.

[samueljesusfreak]

Originally Posted by dfkt

Well, it is a hybrid format, regular MP3 and the HD stuff in one file. Backwards compatibility is true and those files (their non-lossless part) play on any old MP3 player... that's quite nifty.

Not bad, but then that kills all portability. Sticking the lossless file on your player and hearing the lossy

[eboyer93]

This will fail very badly.

[Geruvah]

It'd be nice if it becomes the standard. But it won't. It'll be just another lossless file and just taking up more space for those of us with DAPs that won't even play it. And since storage is something a lot are lacking, these days...I dunno. I have mixed feelings about it.

[The DarkSide]

It'd kill all the crap talk about mp3 being a "shoddy" codec, so it's something I hope that actually works. And, I hope it's a free codec, so it'll compete w/the current lossless formats and win.

[Enigmatic]

Originally Posted by The DarkSide

It'd kill all the crap talk about mp3 being a "shoddy" codec, so it's something I hope that actually works.

This is actually a very effective test to see how well an individual understands lossy compression, psychoacoustics, and the only proper way to test the effectiveness of a lossy codec. Anytime I read of someone claiming that lossy codecs are bad and that only lossless codecs matters for excellent sound quality, I know that the writer making this claim has some major gaps in his knowledge. Even at c. 128 kbps, MP3s sound quite good for most music.

[samueljesusfreak]

Originally Posted by Enigmatic

This is actually a very effective test to see how well an individual understands lossy compression, psychoacoustics, and the only proper way to test the effectiveness of a lossy codec. Anytime I read of someone claiming that lossy codecs are bad and that only lossless codecs matters for excellent sound quality, I know that the writer making this claim has some major gaps in his knowledge. Even at c. 128 kbps, MP3s sound quite good for most music.

I agree. A properly encoded LAME mp3 file at ~192kb/s should be considered transparency. Anyone who can hear it has quite a nice case of placebo. FLAC is nice for having a backup of your CD that you can transcode to anything, but for portable playback? No thanks.

And yeah, The DarkSide made no comments about FLAC being superior in sound. People, just don't like mp3 because they're obsessed with having every last bit of data in their song, whether they hear it or not.

[The DarkSide]

Originally Posted by Enigmatic

This is actually a very effective test to see how well an individual understands lossy compression, psychoacoustics, and the only proper way to test the effectiveness of a lossy codec. Anytime I read of someone claiming that lossy codecs are bad and that only lossless codecs matters for excellent sound quality, I know that the writer making this claim has some major gaps in his knowledge. Even at c. 128 kbps, MP3s sound quite good for most music.

FWIW, encodes using a "lossy" codec sound fine to me, as I'm not an audiophile, nor claim to be. 192kbps is probably overkill for me, but I shoot for the stars.

Now the question I'd like to ask is "why do you quote me?", as I made no claims of lossy codecs being "bad", and that "only lossless codecs matter for excellent sq".

Please, tell me what claims I've made.

[dfkt]

I think he didn't mean you, TDS, but the people that actually claim MP3 to be "shoddy".

Anyways, this in not yet another thread about perceived codec quality, but about the lossless/lossy MP3HD hybrid.

[The DarkSide]

Ah, my bad!!!

[Enigmatic]

Originally Posted by dfkt

I think he didn't mean you, TDS, but the people that actually claim MP3 to be "shoddy".

Correct. The DarkSide, I apologize if I have offended you, because it was never my intention to offend you.

Anyways, this in not yet another thread about perceived codec quality, but about the lossless/lossy MP3HD hybrid.

dfkt, perhaps an article should be written and placed in the MP3 Player FAQ about the perceived sound quality of MP3, Vorbis, WMA, and AAC.

[lestatar]

Digging up a very old thread, but I just updated my Winamp and happen to spy the mp3HD plugin.

While I have known about mp3HD for a while, I haven't followed it at all and this thread pre-dates my own ABi involvement.

So, after reading this thread 18 months later [the only relevant one i found with searching ABi for "mp3HD"], I am wondering:

- has mp3HD died an inglorious death?
- have any of you played around with it?
- has your initial opinion of mp3HD changed?

Enquiring minds want to know...

[dfkt]

I guess the issue with that (well intended) format is: if you know what you're doing, you choose your favorite flavor of lossy codec (LAME, AAC, Vorbis), and you keep your lossless stuff in the universally accepted FLAC format (or whatever works for you, since they all store the same information). If you don't care about any of that, you use good old "MP3" - or whatever stuff WMP or iTunes convert your CDs to, with one click.

If MP3HD would be available on portable players (I know the new Samsung is the first one to support it - good luck), it would still have to catch up to FLAC's asymmetrical power requirements for decoding, and would have a hard time finding its place among the other well established lossless codecs (ALAC probably being one of the most used ones out there, next to FLAC, APE, WV, and that WMAL junk).

The discrepancy is that people who use "MP3" (not LAME, or FhG, or Xing), probably really don't care about lossless, and the whole idea is more a waste of space than anything else. Backwards compatibility is laudable, but I can convert my FLACs within seconds to LAME -v0 - which certainly is still superior to Thomson/FhG's implementation.

You won't reach the geeks in the know with an MP3 codec that isn't LAME, and you won't reach them with a very new approach to a lossless codec either, since there's already FLAC around for that. And you won't reach many noobs with something like that as well. The MP3HD idea is nice, but it's too late to the party, and not exactly needed as a one-size-fits-all solution.

[lestatar]

dfkt, thanks a ton for the primer on the discussion. Pretty much my own conclusions as well. On the surface, it did seem that mp3HD had a few things going for it, but like most things in life, timing is everything as you said. And for sure, there appears to be nearly zero interest in mp3HD both here and out in the wild at present - surely not a good sign.

Thanks again for the detailed response

[Satellite_6]

FLAC ftw, no need for anything else.

A properly encoded LAME mp3 file at ~192kb/s should be considered transparency. Anyone who can hear it has quite a nice case of placebo.

This is BS. . . for me anyway. . .

[dfkt]

Lestatar - Additionally, in two sentences, I would say: I want my LAME MP3s on my portable player, and my FLACs on my computer - I don't see a realistic reason to have both available at the same time. Especially since both, the lossy and lossless part of MP3HD, aren't up to par with the free open source standards already available.

Satellite 6 - ever did a double blind ABX test between a proper LAME encode and FLAC? I'm not saying there won't be the one or other file you can distinguish, but it should be really tough in general.

[Satellite_6]

Originally Posted by dfkt

Lestatar - Additionally, in two sentences, I would say: I want my LAME MP3s on my portable player, and my FLACs on my computer - I don't see a realistic reason to have both available at the same time. Especially since both, the lossy and lossless part of MP3HD, aren't up to par with the free open source standards already available.

Satellite 6 - ever did a double blind ABX test between a proper LAME encode and FLAC? I'm not saying there won't be the one or other file you can distinguish, but it should be really tough in general.

Bleh, high bit rates it's hard, meduim bit rates it's pretty easy. I haven't done that many meduim or low bit rate tests b/c I can ABX high bit rates so I don't see the point, but I have done it in the past and it's not hard. All of this with my HD 485s. . . not my 650s.

I don't think v2 should be generally transparent for everyone is a good statement. . . . but maybe most ppl really are that deaf, idk.

[saratoga]

Originally Posted by Satellite_6

I haven't done that many meduim or low bit rate tests b/c I can ABX high bit rates so I don't see the point, but I have done it in the past and it's not hard.

If its not that hard you're probably not doing it right. That guy on headfi who had pretty good ABX result took 160 trials over the course of something like a month to get positive results, and even then he couldn't ABX most of his test tracks. If you accomplish this in a few minutes theres probably something else going on.