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ZT |
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Wednesday, June 16, 2004 at 9:35 AM I want to thank you for all of the work you do encoding the shows and distributing them. You many not realize how much your work improves people's lives! I would, however, like to ask you if you've considered encoding your shows, record from FM, in Speex? Speex is a codec created by the same collective that produced Ogg Vorbis. However, speex was designed specifically to encode human speech and contains very significant optimizations for this purpose. As most of Loveline is human speech, this codec should work very well. At about 8kbps, you should get the same, or better, voice quality than some of the mp3s encoded at 16kbps -- or higher. For those of you that are interested in cutting the size of shows in half, while maintaining the same fidelity, this would be the best codec to use. Like Ogg Vorbis, Speex also is a free and open codec. To be fair, I should mention that there would be some drawbacks. While there are plug-ins to support Speex for Winamp, Foobar2000, Zinf, to write Speex directly to an audio CD for Nero, and to edit Speex files in CoolEdit, it is definately not as widely supported as mp3. However, the more people use it, the more demand there will be for it to be supported. It should also be mentioned that for Loveline shows with guests that are promoting a CD, the music played during the show will not sound as good as it would if the entire show was encoded in Ogg Vorbis, or MP3. But, for the added benefit of using the codec and as music is not the focus of the show, I don't believe this will be a significant drawback for most listeners. Thank you for your time, and considering using Speex to encode Loveline episodes. I may be reached via this forum should you require assitance setting up Speex, or encoding files in it. Sincerely, —ZT |
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ZT |
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Tuesday, June 22, 2004 at 5:03 PM This is really a better Idea than the length of the thread indicates. —ZT |
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NJC |
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Tuesday, June 22, 2004 at 5:14 PM The problem is steve can't encode from FM (it's not on where he is). There, now it's 3. —NJC |
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puck71 |
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Tuesday, June 22, 2004 at 6:39 PM Would the average person be able to play these speex files? —puck71 |
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Jeremy |
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Tuesday, June 22, 2004 at 6:45 PM Of course not. That's why the shows need to be encoded using a standard format like MP3, that anybody can play without installing anything special. —Jeremy |
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ZT |
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Friday, June 25, 2004 at 6:38 PM Yes, if you wanted to play a file encoded in Speex, you would have to be a rocket scientist and use very complicated software, like winamp. You can download the plug-in here: http://www.saunalahti.fi/~cse/html/other.html. If you use winamp 5, download the 2.xx version. If you want to hear what it sounds like, I tested it on a copy of a show I guest host on sometimes, Not Enough Coffee. The show is about 4 hours long, and I encoded it as a "quality 1" speex (about 8kbps) in wideband -- It came out to be 12.4 MB, smaller than a 16kbps MP3 of loveline with commericals. Download it, and let me know how you think it sounds.
If you're curious heres the parameters I used when I encoded it:
-w --quality 1 --vbr --comp 10 The docs recommend using a complexity of 3 or so. Complexity for speex is like the -1 through -9 for gzip or bzip2, except the difference in processing power needed to decode the files seems to be greatly exaggerated, with the increased complexity. —ZT |
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puck71 |
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Friday, June 25, 2004 at 10:22 PM Well, until it's built in to Winamp and other popular players, I might have to pass. I'm sure it's fantastic and all, but I'm happy with sticking with the standard and catering to the average user. Plus I like Winamp 5...does the plugin not work for that? It's built on Winamp 2 so it seems like it should work. I don't want to downgrade to 2.x (yes I see it as a downgrade) and I expect many others wouldn't either. Also, I don't really use those command line parameters. I record in TotalRecorder and I don't think there's a place to paste that in. I'm a simpleton when it comes to recording. I don't really care much about making the best possible recording. I just want a file I can listen to. Anyway, I just listened to your file (the plugin does work on Winamp 5 by the way) and the voice part sounds pretty good. The music is pretty bad, but I know speex isn't designed for that. But still, there IS music on Loveline and I wouldn't want it to sound that bad...it sounds much better on a 16kbps mp3 and the talking isn't much different to my untrained ears. —puck71 |
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ZT |
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Saturday, June 26, 2004 at 9:27 PM Plus I like Winamp 5...does the plugin not work for that? It's built on Winamp 2 so it seems like it should work. I don't want to downgrade to 2.x (yes I see it as a downgrade) and I expect many others wouldn't either. The 2.xx version works perfectly in winamp 5, and winamp 2. I think I already said that. Anyway, I just listened to your file (the plugin does work on Winamp 5 by the way) and the voice part sounds pretty good. I think I already said that too. :) The music is pretty bad, but I know speex isn't designed for that. I think I already said that as well. :) :) But still, there IS music on Loveline and I wouldn't want it to sound that bad...it sounds much better on a 16kbps mp3 and the talking isn't much different to my untrained ears. But you achieve the same fidelity at more or less half the bitrate and less than half the file size. So, an episode of loveline would be 6-7 megs. And, people really don't listen to loveline for the music anyways -- its all stuff that you could record off any commerical radio station, or find on WinMX. Even if there was a world premire of a song on the show, no one would want a 16kbps version of it -- regardless of what it was encoded it.
Anyways, the one thing I said, that you didn't say is that none of this really matters unless you're starting with a reasonably high fidelity version of the show (i.e. from FM -- or maybe if one of us struck a deal with Anderson, maybe engineer Mike -- I think he might work cheap if it would help him get out of his parent's house).
106.7 KBPI in Denver seems to have upgraded their transmitter a little bit. In Boulder, I couldn't get loveline in clear even if I used a T antenna. They used to have a repeater on like, 103.3, but I think they had to kill that too after the NAB business. But, now its much better. Anyways, I keep trying to find the moral fortitude and structure to record the shows and... you know, like upload them. I think I may have found just the thing to help me. Its called LiveInCode, and is made in the Former Soviet Union. God Bless The Russians. —ZT |
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Jeremy |
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Saturday, June 26, 2004 at 9:36 PM Chris would be the engineer that lives with his parents. Mike was the engineer before Anderson.
—Jeremy |
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