Ogg Vorbis Players? 32
TokyoBoy asks: "I have been looking at in-dash mp3 head units and changers lately. However, its occured to me that I would much rather make Ogg/Vorbis files instead of mp3s now. Does anyone know of any hardware manufacturers who plan on supporting the Ogg/Vorbis format in either portable or car stereo equipment?" I would figure this wouldn't be so hard to add on support to some of those Linux-based players out there. There has been a lot of press about the Empeg Car MP3 player (now RioCar...here's hoping that these units are still as flexible as they always were), over the past year, and Slashdot did
this MP3 player project which also might proove to be a good starting point. If anyone out there has done this already, please share your experiences.
Dadio (Score:3)
It's pointless (Score:1)
It's way too niche, and about 5 years too late, to really catch on.
Hell, look at the Microsoft engine and all of it's $$$ that can't get WMA to catch up to mp3.
Put a fork in Ogg Vorbis, it's through.
~dlb
Re:It's pointless (Score:2)
Ogg will catch on because *companies* want it. Hardware manufacturers, software companies, they want quality, Free audio - why wouldn't they? WMA failed because MS wanted $$ for it, and always will. Vorbis is utterly Free, and the tools are going to be ready to go when they do a 1.0 release. When that 1.0 hits, I think it's going to make a huge splash. If the transition from mp3->vorbis can be done seamlessly (which, if Nullsoft puts the Vorbis plugin into Winamp's default download package, it will be), I think MP3 may be what's "through." What is MP3's advantage, if all the major software players support it? (there's the hardware market, but weren't you saying something about "niche" earlier?)
Hip Zip? (Score:3)
The only one I have heard of is the IOMega Hip Zip, which will supposedly support Vorbis in the future which is useless if you want one now. (And also useless if you're in the majority that thinks 40 Megabyte media are too small.)
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Re:It's pointless (Score:1)
I'll wager that Duke Nukem Forver gets released, with 2 sequels, before ogg vorbis makes any sort of inroads on the digital music industry. *companies* are more likely to say "oh god, not another music format" than say "hey, ogg is 'utterly free'".
Besides, who wants to re-encode their entire collection just for the sake of ogg? Why do all that work for no real substantial gain?
Ogg Vorbis is too little too late along with OS/2, MS Bob, any language by Sun, and Corel's rehash of Wordperfect.
~dlb
Re:It's pointless (Score:2)
It's there TODAY, in beta. (Score:2)
Re:It's pointless (Score:3)
Vorbis may not be as popular as MP3, but it's technically superior, and it works, right now. The compression and sound quality are excellent. The people behind it are working hard to have support included in popular players, and have even written a firmware update for the HipZip portable player to add Vorbis support (I just bought one of these players, and the Vorbis update does indeed work). Furthermore, Ogg Vorbis is not patented, and you don't have to pay royalties to anyone to use it (whereas Thompson charges significant royalties for MP3-related products).
So yes, it's the underdog compared to MP3, but it's far from through. With the attitude of "it's not the most popular and therefore it's pointless", though, we have little to look forward to in this world.
-John
Car Audio Equipment (Score:2)
Re:It's pointless (Score:1)
I think that Linus said the same thing about Linux vs HURD. [does some searching...] ahh, here it is "just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu".
I know personally when I get my in-car mp3/ogg player going, 99% of the music files are going to be ogg, and they are the ones that I rip myself. If friends want to .. "borrow" files from me, they'll get them in ogg format.
Re:Hardware OGG Vorbis Player (Score:1)
Re:It's pointless (Score:1)
I don't exactly agree that Ogg Vorbis is a flash in the pan. But I must say that I think it would do better in the non-geek world with a better name. "MP3" just sounds a whole lot better than "Ogg Vorbis", or even just "Vorbis". IMHO, they need a cooler-sounding name for the technology.
Having said all that, I do hope that Vorbis takes off and makes an impact in the world of digital music.
Re:It's pointless (Score:1)
Granted, "Ogg" is the name of the entire codec project (whereas "Vorbis" is just the audio portion), but if you're just going on a catchy name, "ogg" is it, baby!
"I've just ripped my 43rd album to oggs"
"Damn, my ogg collection is getting enormous"
"No officer, I don't trade illegally copied MP3s. What's Ogg? Oh, it's just some random data file, ignore that."
Re:It's pointless (Score:1)
Re:Hardware OGG Vorbis Player (Score:2)
Guy gets around!
ps- good eyes! I never normally look at the name of the person posting
Re:It's pointless (NOT) (Score:3)
I would buy any decent portable player for this feature alone. (I've been bugging Sonic Blue -- they make the Rio line of players, most of which are firmware-upgradeable -- about including Ogg support for a while now. If anyone is interested, call or email [see below] and ask them about it. The more interest they get in Ogg, the more likely they will be to consider using it.)
-cf
SonicBlue product/technical support: (541) 967-2450 or customersupport@sonicblue.com
SonicBlue pre-sales/customer support: (800) 468-5846
Whoa, there; I think we missed a step (Score:2)
I would use Ogg Vorbis if it were equivalent to lame in quality. Sad fact is that it isn't. It's getting closer, but not quite there yet. Sure, it's a better format, more free and useable, but I care about quality. I'm not comparing it to mp3 as a whole; it's better than most mp3 encoders. Lame still whoops ogg though. While the lame team is actually working on ogg (I believe that they're actually just supporting one guy who may have given up trying), Ogg encoders and decoders still have quite a way to go in order to be fully competitive with lame.
The Ogg team has the right ideas and plays them well, and I'd encourage others to use the format, but when I rip and encode music, it will be with the latest Lame. I try the new Ogg Vorbis on occaision, but I'll probably wait for a front page Slashdot article to claim it is equal or better than Lame (which I believe WILL happen) before my next return to Ogg experimentation.
Why? (Score:1)
Re:Whoa, there; I think we missed a step (Score:1)
Depending on exactly when you tested this out (meaning whether you were using the WinAMP-official plugin, or the Ogg Vorbis team plugin) the CPU requirements are, in theory, reduced somewhat. Part of the problem (as reported on the WinAMP message boards by one of the WinAMP programmers) was that there was no option to disable bitrate display updates in the Ogg Vorbis team plugin. The actual alteration of bitrates doesn't consume much, but apparently reporting it to the display takes a significant chunk of CPU time. That isn't to say that they are by any means equal in terms of workload yet (although they might be... it's difficult to test anything when all I get is 1-2% CPU usage reported for either type of file). However, it might be worth checking at some point to see if you have the most current version of the (Official Nullsoft) plugin. I'd be interested to know if it still takes up more CPU time.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
Re:Hardware OGG Vorbis Player (Score:2)
This is one of those times I wish I had some moderation points sitting around -- someone mod this Citron1313 troll into OBLIVION.
Re:Whoa, there; I think we missed a step (Score:1)
my experience was 1-3 months ago with the ogg team decoder on what was then the most recent winamp. my performance was actually an under-exaggeration, for mp3s usually take 0-1% while oggs take 3-6% CPU. your argument has convinced me to take another look the next time any ogg announcement graces
Re:Hardware OGG Vorbis Player (Score:1)
Hardware manufacturers are interested. (Score:2)
I attend the Winter CES in Las Vegas, as well as the CEDIA show. I can tell you, every maker of music jukeboxes I talked to was very interested. MP3 licence fees cut into their profits, and if they had a free (as speech) encoder that they could optimize for their application, they would be very happy. That it is also free (as in beer) makes them overjoyed.
Re:Car Audio Equipment (Score:1)
The empeg may support it in the future (Score:2)
Why take the hard way? (Score:1)
Re:Whoa, there; I think we missed a step (Score:1)
Re:Why take the hard way? (Score:1)
Those are only a few that I could think of off the top of my head.
U can make a difference (Score:1)
In any event, no matter how you feel about Vorbis, please let Philips know that you have absolutely no wma files nor any intention of using that format in the future!
Re:Whoa, there; I think we missed a step (Score:2)
As for decoding CPU usage, ogg123 and mpg123 command line decoders are roughly equivalent -- the general rule is that Vorbis was designed to be little more computationally complex than MP3. Frontend implementions, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, can have an impact on that.
Re:Hip Zip? (Score:1)
Re:It's pointless (Score:2)
So, yes, I'll be reencoding my 150 albums to Vorbis when RC1 is out. If only for the 40% space saving on my hard drive.