mp3 vs ogg vorbis?

[Whaleboy]

Which do you use, and which do you think is better (please note that it is of course possible to have both in the same music directory and winamp/xmms playlist.

mp3's are pretty much omnipotent, but they are closed source, some licencing issues are potential problems, and generally give mediocre quality.

oggs are much newer open source technology, that generally gives better quality for the same size music file. However, they are still relatively rare (a quick search on gnutella doesnt show that many).

I personally prefer oggs, because of the better quality. Its especially clear on my stereo which is the audio output of my computer. www.vorbis.com for more info.

[Whaleboy]

Will someone answer my poor lonely thread?

[Adagio]

Better quality than MP3? Didn't think that was possible... I can't hear any difference between MP3 and my audio CD's anyway...

[Whaleboy]

Better quality than MP3?

Something to do with a better compression algorithm. For example, if you have a 3MB file, with the same song, one is mp3, one is ogg, the ogg will be able to give higher bitrate despite being the same size. Also doesnt cut ouf as many of the audible frequency ranges.

[Adagio]

With other words: The quality is the same, but the size is lower?

[Cruddy]

Ogg? Don't tell me that's a Nanny invention...

MP3 wasn't invented as a stand alone music pirate aid, so I wouldn't be at all surprise if more efficient formats are invented. Whether or not they catch on is surely in the hands of the Great Banana.

[Whaleboy]

With other words: The quality is the same, but the size is lower?

Yeh, pretty much.

All major linux distros that i know of provide it, and the windows version is free and easy to use (works with winamp and mplayer etc iir), I dont see why it cant catch on.

[Provost Harrison]

Ogg Vorbis, sounds like a Star Trek character...

"Ambassador Ogg Vorbis of the Lesbians is ready to be beamed aboard"

[ixnay]

mp3, simply because of availability.

[Zopperoni]

Well, the majority of my digital music is still encoded in MP3, but I like the quality of the few OGG tracks I have.

I hope it'll catch on too, since it is evidently better quality.
However, MP3 is so embedded in digital media right now that it's going to be hard for people to change.
Virtual players like Winamp can play OGG files (a plugin is needed for playback in Winamp 2.xx), but physical MP3-players can't play OGG-files, only MP3/WMA-files, so that's a drawback, and I don't know if future models will have OGG-compatibility.

[Whaleboy]

I would imagine so. I think vorbis are working on a number of open source media formats so that will certainly increase oggs profile, on open source platforms as well as mac and windows.

[The Viceroy]

I have to be honest, and say Ive not come across Oggs before .. I shall look into that. I would prefer the smaller file size at the same quality, as im not that bothered about quality .. as long as its above tape quality .. thats fine by me.

[Buck Birdseed]

Where's the "I kinda like my sub-bass heavy and tweeter crisp and think compression is evil" option?

[RGBVideo]

I'd say that ogg's are better (have seen few, lately). I mainly use mp3's, though.

[The Viceroy]

wav,raw ?? and put the sample rate at 1Mb a second .. watch it chew your HD !

I actually use to write sound samplers back in the ZX Spectrum days, when you only had 48k (infact much less) to play with, you could get 20-30 seconds of good quality (ha ha 8bit quality) sounds .. of course, it took 3 minutes to load from tape