Ogg Vorbis Ripper/Encoder ..?

[Ragnor]

Okay taking the hint from KJ in this thread: http://forums.overclockers.co.nz/showthread.php?s=&threadid=800

I've been investigating the Ogg Vorbis format (www.vorbis.com), downloading some rippers that have ogg support etc.

Seems better then mp3 to me so far so good..

So before I go spend a long time to ripping and encoding my cd's to .ogg I want to call on the OCNZ collective knowledge pool, and ask if anyone has any recommendations for which ripper/encoder is the best / their favourite.. etc?

[Binky Stunt Cat]

Ogg is playable in winamp ja?

[Ragnor]

Yes.. latest v2.80 Full of Winamp supports it natively. Previously it required a plugin.

[Wibber]

winamp 3 even plays avi's and mpegs :) I use audio grabber, it just needs a plugin and is very intuative to use

[AcurA]

Isn't ogg lossless compression format?
It is bound to be better than mp3 then...

[Wibber]

yup, smaller 2

[AcurA]

u mean lossless compression and smaller than mp3 (which is lossy)?????

[Ragnor]

It's a lossy format... you do loose something but it's open source, free, uses better modeling and VBR (variable bitrate) encoding then mp3.

[AcurA]

kewl.... must have been confused with some other format

[Binky Stunt Cat]

hmm......is there an installer for it for teh lamers who couldnt install a codec if their life depends on it?

(no, not me.....oh all right....maybe me...but more so i could rip movies with Ogg :D)

[Sydog]

To install codecs normally u just have to right click the inf and click install.

[Wibber]

well, the codec isn't lossless, yet , but the is the objective of the project... though I think they gave up on ogg and moved to an ogg v2 style thingee

[KingJackal]

Originally posted by Binky Stunt Cat
hmm......is there an installer for it for teh lamers who couldnt install a codec if their life depends on it?

(no, not me.....oh all right....maybe me...but more so i could rip movies with Ogg :D)

:eek: :eek:

Binky doesn't know about OGG??

Heh - mainly cos it's a big Linux thing ( open source, rada rada rada ), and the only OGG evangelist you'll know is Cheetor..... ( :rolleyes: ;) )

All my CD's are in OGG Vorbis 160Kb.... swapped over about 6 months ago. I'm not sure how it compares to mp3 Pro, but there is ONE downside. ( wait for it.... )

In Winamp, OGG files don't change seamlessly. So you get a small decoding pause when switching tracks in the playlist ( which is a pain for albumns like Gatecrasher where the songs all flow into each other ). But apart from that one niggle - it's all good :).

Haven't ripped any OGG ( or anyTHING ) for a while though.... might have to go refresh my memory.... ;)

[Grrr!!]

Audiocrusher has Ogg Vorbis support for ripping CDs. It is available at download.com.

[SecretSquirrel]

I downloaded both types of the same song, both VBR, to see if I could tell the difference. And to be honest, I could.

The .ogg was smaller, I could turn the amp right up to full (mp3s sort of get sh!tty around 20%) and NO CRACKLE at all, fantastic.

I need to get the rest of the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack, perfect for .ogg, mostly acoustic and so its very nice. Counting Crows is another one for showing off the clairty. They use a lot of very high and very low notes, and when they are mp3'd it tends to lose a lot of that...ogg does not :)

GO OGG!

[fatsanchez]

i use cdex for ripping + encoding, its a nice little program, dosent have support for the latest RC3?? release, but i cant hear the difference.

all my stuff gets ripped to ogg vbr 200k'ish

[Binky Stunt Cat]

sounds like i've got a project for the weekends after i finsih my labs...:D

[swiftynz]

i'm using Audiograbber 1.8.2 (http://tucows.inspire.net.nz/files/agfreesetup.exe) with the ogg encoder (http://www.vorbis.com/files/rc3/windows/vorbis-tools-1.0rc3-win32.zip). seems to work ok.

/edit: the above link for audiograbber is the free version... i cant post a link to the full version for obvious reasons.

[Binky Stunt Cat]

i've got the full of 1.8 floating around somewhere...:rolleyes:

[Jazzed]

I am using dBpoweramp at the moment, you can download the Ogg codec, but there is also another codec that has lossless compression called monkeys. With codec downloads you can use
dBpoweramp with .ogg and .wma as well as lame .mp3

i have noticed though that the unistall on win98 didnt work properly but it works fine in W2k

check it out at www.dbpoweramp.com

[SecretSquirrel]

Umm Monkeys Audio is lossless because the files tend to be 20+mb

You might as well keep the bloody .wav files.

[Grrr!!]

Stupid Question - Does Ogg Vorbis support ID3 tags?

[SecretSquirrel]

yesh

hmm, i tried to rip a cd for the first time in months, and three out of four cds just constantly had read errors (EAC) so obviously no ripping occured :/

RUDE!!

[Grrr!!]

It really does help to have a decent CD Drive to rip from, otherwise you'll get constant **** results.

Damn Vintech!

[OldGrey]

Originally posted by SecretSquirrel
I downloaded both types of the same song, both VBR, to see if I could tell the difference. And to be honest, I could.


Wouldnt this only be vaild if you did the encoding yourself from the same source? You cant really compare two random encodes of a song from different sources. Ill stick with my mp3 collection thanks, for a few reasons such as bugger all portable devices support .ogg which could be a future purchase.. plus i think half of it is the supposed "l33t" image, i.e "everyone uses windows, it sux, i use linux" with "everyone uses MP3, but i use ogg!"

Ive read quite a few articles about tests carried out on audiophiles who couldnt pick the difference.. the only thing i can see worthy of it is the open source nature of the codec.

[Grrr!!]

I agree "Ogg" does have nerd value. But I want my damn "@britannica.com" freemail back!

[Cheetor]

Just to reply to the lossy -non lossy thing way up above

obfis (Losless)
OggVorbis(Lossy)

[Cheetor]

As for Ogg Vs Mp3
I can tell the difference, bjut not above 128Kbps
but a 128Kbps Vorbs Vs 128Kbit MP3, anyone should be able to hear it, especialy on a Dolby Pro Logic Surround sound system, MP3 destroys the Surround chanell, Vorbis doesnt

[whetu]

Originally posted by OldGrey
Ive read quite a few articles about tests carried out on audiophiles who couldnt pick the difference.. the only thing i can see worthy of it is the open source nature of the codec.

this usually indicates a level of the psych factor, eg g33k believes due to the open source nature (and the propoganda they are fed) that it must be better.. in the same way that beginner audiophiles can suffer from the psych factor of things such as "having polished speaker boxes results in better sound"

wheras in reality things are a whole different story...

[whetu]

Originally posted by Cheetor
especialy on a Dolby Pro Logic Surround sound system, MP3 destroys the Surround chanell, Vorbis doesnt

erm... Pro Logic is an expansion format for movies, NOT music (especially music recorded in and intended for stereo playback)...
neither mp3 or vorbis can destroy a surround channel that is created from an original stereo input.. it's the prologic processor's handling of the hacked up frequencies used in the compression that destroys the surround channel...

stereo music is intended for stereo playback
so its not really a valid argument

bit i guess you already knew that huh ;)

[Binky Stunt Cat]

i'm being Oggified now :D
seriously, 96Kbit Oggs are just as good as 128Kbit Mp3s....and since i cant tell any difference with anything higher...96Kbit will do me fine! (also save HDD space)

[SecretSquirrel]

Here's a test for you guys with decent stereo setups or headphones even.

Rip a song, encode it VBR mp3 with 128kbps the lowest possible, also ogg the same file 128kbps (ugh!) VBR, listen to them both, and then listen to the cd track live.

Which one sounds better? Other than the cd, geniuses...

[Grrr!!]

Ogg Vorbis.

[swiftynz]

ogg simply sounds better, especially at low bitrates. to do a real test that you can hear easily encode both at 64k ;).
i can even tell the difference at 160ogg/160mp3... except the ogg was vbr and the mp3 wasnt so not really a fair comparison.

but i heard that the ogg vbr is supposed to be better than mp3 vbr, why is that? i've never used vbr mp3 because everyone advised against it but now with ogg vbr is default????

if you take into account that with ogg vbr is standard and with mp3 it isn't, you could say that my above test WAS a fair comparison. :p

[OldGrey]

Originally posted by whetu


this usually indicates a level of the psych factor, eg g33k believes due to the open source nature (and the propoganda they are fed) that it must be better.. in the same way that beginner audiophiles can suffer from the psych factor of things such as "having polished speaker boxes results in better sound"

wheras in reality things are a whole different story...

By me saying its good because of the open source is nothing to do with my g33kness at all, Ive got no interest at all at looking at the code or contributing to it, not that I could anway, but more to do with the legal implications of mp3 vs ogg, as from what i know MP3's can be cracked down on by RIAA and artists with copyrighting etc whereas ogg wont be, then again I probably got the wrong jist of it. Oh yeah by the way that test I was talking about was a completely blind test, they were just told to pick the best one not asked if they could hear a difference so there was no psych factor involved.

[Agent666]

you got it wrong as a copy is illegal independant of the codec used......... its like saying you copied it to a CD so it is legal cos thats what it came on in the first place........

[Grrr!!]

Wouldn't that make coping CD's to tape illegal too?

;) It probably is, I'm just stupid.

[whetu]

Originally posted by OldGrey


By me saying its good because of the open source is nothing to do with my g33kness at all, Ive got no interest at all at looking at the code or contributing to it, not that I could anway, but more to do with the legal implications of mp3 vs ogg, as from what i know MP3's can be cracked down on by RIAA and artists with copyrighting etc whereas ogg wont be, then again I probably got the wrong jist of it. Oh yeah by the way that test I was talking about was a completely blind test, they were just told to pick the best one not asked if they could hear a difference so there was no psych factor involved.

ok, a couple of points you really should get down:
I wasnt picking you out.. i was picking out geeks in general.. who typically have the mentality of "open source = superiar ogar!!!!"

I wasnt picking out the audiophiles, I was again picking out the g33ks, saying that THEY were suffering from the psych factor, not the audiophiles. I would trust an audiophile's judgement over a g33k's try-hard ramblings about "its so crisp and clear"

[Agent666]

Originally posted by Grrr!!
Wouldn't that make coping CD's to tape illegal too?

;) It probably is, I'm just stupid.

yeah it is.......... but like most things you aint going to go to jail for it.......... do you still own a 'tape' thingee??? ;)

[Gh0s7 L3mUr]

Man OggdropXPd is so easy to use and talk about not taking up much space. I'd almost choose Ogg over mp3 for the encoding ease alone. The fact that at lower bit rates you can get better quality sound makes this brilliant.

Has anyone else noticed that the ut2 beta uses Ogg?