[opensuse] sound advice
12.3 Hi I'm converting some music CD's for my 'phone using Sound Juicer. It's fine for rock/pop but poor for classical tracks. I notice sound juicer will only write ogg. It says mp3 and mp4 output is not available. Qns. 1. Would I gain by converting to mp3 or mp4 instead? 2. If so what else do I need? 3. How about the quality? Any advice on an app which may be better than sj? I'd rather stick to point and click but I don't mide cli if that's the only way I can up the quality. Thanks. I ask because Ubuntu seems to have a google stranglehold on anything multimedia in Linux:( Thanks, L x -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On Mon, 22 Apr 2013 09:19:04 lynn wrote:
12.3 Hi I'm converting some music CD's for my 'phone using Sound Juicer. It's fine for rock/pop but poor for classical tracks. I notice sound juicer will only write ogg. It says mp3 and mp4 output is not available.
This may be because it requires external libraries like libmp3lame to support mp3 (but I'm guessing because I'm not familiar with soundjuicer).
Qns. 1. Would I gain by converting to mp3 or mp4 instead?
Little to nothing if your phone supports ogg. All are lossy formats and the quality is very much dependent on bit rate.
2. If so what else do I need?
At lease you will need to install libmp3lame (from the packman repository).
3. How about the quality? Any advice on an app which may be better than sj? I'd rather stick to point and click but I don't mide cli if that's the only way I can up the quality.
I'm much more familiar with cli apps for dealing with sound and video format conversion. SOX is the "swiss army knife" of audio conversion tools but it still depends on external libraries to support multiple formats. FFmpeg is another - very powerful (deals wtih almost every video and audio format known to man, but again many rely on external libraries), constantly in development, sparsely documented and with a steep learning curve, but once you master it you'll never go back. With FFmpeg though it pays to keep up with development rather than relying on distro releases (and that means installing from source and updating regularly). For audio conversion for the phone it might be a bit like using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut, but it ihas much wider uses than that. If you're definitely only wanting to audio, give sox a try. If you're confident with bash scripting (or some other scripting language) it's easy enough to automate batch processing once you've settled on the parameters you want.
Thanks. I ask because Ubuntu seems to have a google stranglehold on anything multimedia in Linux:( Thanks, L x
Ironically, FFmpeg as distributed by Ubuntu is way out of date and intentionally broken (for licensing reasons) and therefore unsupported by the developers. I don't know about the other mm tools for Ubuntu - haven't used it for years. -- ============================================================== Rodney Baker VK5ZTV rodney.baker@iinet.net.au ============================================================== -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 22/04/13 10:16, Rodney Baker wrote:
On Mon, 22 Apr 2013 09:19:04 lynn wrote:
12.3 Hi I'm converting some music CD's for my 'phone using Sound Juicer. It's fine for rock/pop but poor for classical tracks. I notice sound juicer will only write ogg. It says mp3 and mp4 output is not available. This may be because it requires external libraries like libmp3lame to support mp3 (but I'm guessing because I'm not familiar with soundjuicer).
Qns. 1. Would I gain by converting to mp3 or mp4 instead? Little to nothing if your phone supports ogg. All are lossy formats and the quality is very much dependent on bit rate.
2. If so what else do I need? At lease you will need to install libmp3lame (from the packman repository).
3. How about the quality? Any advice on an app which may be better than sj? I'd rather stick to point and click but I don't mide cli if that's the only way I can up the quality.
I'm much more familiar with cli apps for dealing with sound and video format conversion. SOX is the "swiss army knife" of audio conversion tools but it still depends on external libraries to support multiple formats.
FFmpeg is another - very powerful (deals wtih almost every video and audio format known to man, but again many rely on external libraries), constantly in development, sparsely documented and with a steep learning curve, but once you master it you'll never go back.
With FFmpeg though it pays to keep up with development rather than relying on distro releases (and that means installing from source and updating regularly).
For audio conversion for the phone it might be a bit like using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut, but it ihas much wider uses than that.
If you're definitely only wanting to audio, give sox a try. If you're confident with bash scripting (or some other scripting language) it's easy enough to automate batch processing once you've settled on the parameters you want.
Thanks. I ask because Ubuntu seems to have a google stranglehold on anything multimedia in Linux:( Thanks, L x Ironically, FFmpeg as distributed by Ubuntu is way out of date and intentionally broken (for licensing reasons) and therefore unsupported by the developers. I don't know about the other mm tools for Ubuntu - haven't used it for years.
Hi Yes, the bitrate seems to be the key to this. Sound Juicer doesn't let you change it but I just found asunder which does. Unfortunately, only the mp3 option tells you the value. With ogg you have a scale of 1 to 9. 6 is sounding good. It's producing double the file size tat sj was producing though. I wonder what that translates to on the terminal. I ask, because it's taking 30 minutes to rip a cd. Maybe the frontend is taking all the energy? L x -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 22/04/13 12:00, lynn wrote:
Yes, the bitrate seems to be the key to this. Sound Juicer doesn't let you change it but I just found asunder which does. Unfortunately, only the mp3 option tells you the value. With ogg you have a scale of 1 to 9. 6 is sounding good. It's producing double the file size tat sj was producing though. I wonder what that translates to on the terminal. I ask, because it's taking 30 minutes to rip a cd. Maybe the frontend is taking all the energy?
You can set bitrate etc for ogg, but you'll need to use the cli encoder, I think. The file size is directly related to the quality: bigger file=more data=better fidelity. Dylan
L x
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On 4/22/2013 3:19 AM, lynn wrote:
I'm converting some music CD's for my 'phone using Sound Juicer. It's fine for rock/pop but poor for classical tracks. I notice sound juicer will only write ogg. It says mp3 and mp4 output is not Now you got me a little bit curious. In what way is it poor for classical?
Damon Register -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 22/04/13 12:33, Damon Register wrote:
On 4/22/2013 3:19 AM, lynn wrote:
I'm converting some music CD's for my 'phone using Sound Juicer. It's fine for rock/pop but poor for classical tracks. I notice sound juicer will only write ogg. It says mp3 and mp4 output is not Now you got me a little bit curious. In what way is it poor for classical?
Damon Register An example? Listen to Heinz Holliger playing Vivaldi on Philips 456 333-2. On the wav you can hear breathing and the keys clicking. On the ogg you can't. L x
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 22/04/13 11:54, lynn wrote:
On 22/04/13 12:33, Damon Register wrote:
On 4/22/2013 3:19 AM, lynn wrote:
I'm converting some music CD's for my 'phone using Sound Juicer. It's fine for rock/pop but poor for classical tracks. I notice sound juicer will only write ogg. It says mp3 and mp4 output is not Now you got me a little bit curious. In what way is it poor for classical?
Damon Register An example? Listen to Heinz Holliger playing Vivaldi on Philips 456 333-2. On the wav you can hear breathing and the keys clicking. On the ogg you can't.
Are you playing it on the same hardware? That sort of detail may be removed by "error correction" or other filtering in the encoding process, and would certainly not be reproduced faithfully by a phone. Dylan
L x
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 22/04/13 13:11, Dylan wrote:
On 22/04/13 11:54, lynn wrote:
On 22/04/13 12:33, Damon Register wrote:
On 4/22/2013 3:19 AM, lynn wrote:
I'm converting some music CD's for my 'phone using Sound Juicer. It's fine for rock/pop but poor for classical tracks. I notice sound juicer will only write ogg. It says mp3 and mp4 output is not Now you got me a little bit curious. In what way is it poor for classical?
Damon Register An example? Listen to Heinz Holliger playing Vivaldi on Philips 456 333-2. On the wav you can hear breathing and the keys clicking. On the ogg you can't.
Are you playing it on the same hardware? That sort of detail may be removed by "error correction" or other filtering in the encoding process, and would certainly not be reproduced faithfully by a phone. The wav sounds worse than the ogg on the phone, but just as good on a laptop coming directly from the cd as a proper (10 year old) hifi system. Maybe I should try another app? The quality is very good on the 'phone as it is. You can tell the difference between an ogg at 1 and an ogg at 6 for example. Maybe I'm expecting too much? L x
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 22/04/13 12:34, lynn wrote:
On 22/04/13 11:54, lynn wrote:
On 22/04/13 12:33, Damon Register wrote:
On 4/22/2013 3:19 AM, lynn wrote:
I'm converting some music CD's for my 'phone using Sound Juicer. It's fine for rock/pop but poor for classical tracks. I notice sound juicer will only write ogg. It says mp3 and mp4 output is not Now you got me a little bit curious. In what way is it poor for classical?
Damon Register An example? Listen to Heinz Holliger playing Vivaldi on Philips 456 333-2. On the wav you can hear breathing and the keys clicking. On the ogg you can't.
Are you playing it on the same hardware? That sort of detail may be removed by "error correction" or other filtering in the encoding process, and would certainly not be reproduced faithfully by a phone. The wav sounds worse than the ogg on the phone, but just as good on a laptop coming directly from the cd as a proper (10 year old) hifi system. Maybe I should try another app? The quality is very good on
On 22/04/13 13:11, Dylan wrote: the 'phone as it is. You can tell the difference between an ogg at 1 and an ogg at 6 for example. Maybe I'm expecting too much? L x Coming a bit late to this a couple of points.
By definition wav is a lossless format so all things being equal will sound better than any compressed format, simply because the ripping process preserves more data. If a properly ripped wav sounds worse than an ogg on a phone then your problem is likely to be the phone and/or the headphones used with it. In general terms I would expect the audio chip on the phone to be designed to cope with the lower amount of data contained on an ogg rather than the much bigger wav file. The app you use shouldn't make any difference they are all frontends to the various encoding programmes already cited by others. FWIW I still use kaudiocreator from kde3 to rip and encode cds. On a kde4 system its still easily installable, just add the relevant KDE3 app and libraries. You can also use k3b to do the same thing, the crucial point to use a high enough bitrate I use ogg 8 but ogg 6 is probably good enough. But that's subjective it all depends on what is good enough for you. One last thought you don't say what headphones you are using with the phone, anything better than those supplied can make a major difference, and without looking at a lot of money. HTH Mike -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
lynn wrote:
An example? Listen to Heinz Holliger playing Vivaldi on Philips 456 333-2. On the wav you can hear breathing and the keys clicking. On the ogg you can't.
That's a problem with lossy formats in general. They achieve compression by deleting "insignificant" stuff. One example I have is the Beatles "A Day In The Life" where the vocals almost drop out entirely. If you want that breathing and clicking, you'll have to use a lossless format. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
On 22/04/13 08:19, lynn wrote:
12.3 Hi I'm converting some music CD's for my 'phone using Sound Juicer. It's fine for rock/pop but poor for classical tracks.
I can't see why the quality would differ between different music types, although cheap/damaged CDs and/or copy protection can have an effect.
I notice sound juicer will only write ogg. It says mp3 and mp4 output is not available.
Qns. 1. Would I gain by converting to mp3 or mp4 instead?
Only portability, but ogg is (in my experience) superior to mp3
2. If so what else do I need?
You need the multimedia packages from the packman repo
3. How about the quality? Any advice on an app which may be better than sj? I'd rather stick to point and click but I don't mide cli if that's the only way I can up the quality.
There must be quality options in the sj settings - ogg has a simple 0 to 6 quality parameter which hides the details of bitrates etc if you're not familiar with them. I use asunder myself, but there is also grip, which is very detailed and configurable.
Thanks. I ask because Ubuntu seems to have a google stranglehold on anything multimedia in Linux:(
add "suse" to your search terms... Dylan -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org
participants (6)
-
Damon Register -
Dylan -
James Knott -
lynn -
michael norman -
Rodney Baker