Confused with technological terms used to describe how music is stored (ex. mp3)

[Orbert]

I'm a little confused, are we talking about the same thing? I know that a lot of movie soundtracks are MP3, because it has video and I'm assuming they wouldn't be able to fit lossless soundtracks on there, but I was talking about the 5.1 mixes of albums, specifically DVD-A (Stupid Dream, FOABP, Duke etc etc). I just find it hard to imagine that a DVD-A wouldn't be able to utilize lossless audio.

DVD-A is not the same as DVD.  DVD-A includes an extended specification that allows for lossless 5.1, which is why those 5.1 album remixes can be lossless.  I thought we were talking movies on DVD, which can never be lossless, because standard DVDs can never be lossless.

I was agreeing with you.  On vinyl, no information is lost due to sampling (but, information is lost due to other constraints of the medium.) 

Oops, sorry.  I misunderstood.  We cool. 

[AcidLameLTE]

This thread keeps reminding me about Claude Shannon and how much I hate my degree.

[Ħ]

Oh wow.

I just tested the difference between playing a CD and listening to an iTunes import with Queensyche's Promised Land (the only album I have on hand at college) and I cannot believe what garbage I've been listening to.

I have never actually listened to a Dream Theater album straight from CD, unless you count a couple times in the car.  I've always uploaded to my iPod as an AAC file.  I absolutely cannot wait to get home to my collection and actually listen to a real DT album.

....I wonder if this is why I always thought Awake's production was terrible.   But seriously, I feel like I'm starting from square one with listening to music.  Not a bad thing though.

[faemir]

The Porcupine Tree Anesthetize bluray 5.1 audio is 4gb as 24bit FLACs.

TOTALLY WORTH IT

edit: As for ripping rip to v0 mp3, v0 = variable bitrate, so its not a constant number, it cuts as much as it 'needs' to for each section. Or FLAC, but then only ipods 5.5gen and previous can use rockbox to listen to FLACs.

[Ħ]

What I've been doing with my ipod is taking lossless FLAC files and converting them to WAV files, since ipods can play WAV.  Apparently this is supposed to be a lossless transition.

[faemir]

ipods can also play ALAC, apple's own lossless format.

I say that, because WAVs are huuuuuuge and uncompressed. FLAC > ALAC, but it's better than Wav.

[Ħ]

ipods can also play ALAC, apple's own lossless format.

I say that, because WAVs are huuuuuuge and uncompressed. FLAC > ALAC, but it's better than Wav.

How can FLAC be better than ALAC if they are both lossless?

[robwebster]

ipods can also play ALAC, apple's own lossless format.

I say that, because WAVs are huuuuuuge and uncompressed. FLAC > ALAC, but it's better than Wav.

How can FLAC be better than ALAC if they are both lossless?

Because one formula (FLAC judging by faemir's hierarchy) offers better compression than the other, I presume. Condenses it more effectively.

Not that I'm an expert. 256kbps MP3s, generally. As long as I have the disc. If I'm buying a digital copy of a song I'll usually get a WAV, just so I know the CD quality is somewhere, but yeah.

[faemir]

ipods can also play ALAC, apple's own lossless format.

I say that, because WAVs are huuuuuuge and uncompressed. FLAC > ALAC, but it's better than Wav.

How can FLAC be better than ALAC if they are both lossless?

flac and alac are both lossless, but they "organise" the data to a degree, unlike wav.

flac has superior encoding time and size.

[Fiery Winds]

I wouldn't recommend using Apple's lossless codec, as it means less compatibility among players and devices.  If you really want lossless, use FLAC, but otherwise a 256kbps mp3 is more than sufficient and will play on any device out there.  A couple things I've noticed though:

1.  Some high bitrate mp3's sound bad because they used to be lower (say 128kbps) and then "converted" to 256kbps.  So the file will say 256kb but it can't create information that was never there.

2.  If you plan on using mp3's for slide shows, PowerPoints, YouTube videos, etc. I've noticed that sometimes they don't play nice with VBR (variable bit rate).  

VBR, as opposed to CBR (constant bit rate) is exactly what it sounds like.  Instead of a "constant" bit rate (say 256kbps), VBR will adjust the bit rate based on the "needs" of the song.  This helps keep the file size down by only using the amount of bits necessary to maintain a given quality.

[Ħ]

ipods can also play ALAC, apple's own lossless format.

I say that, because WAVs are huuuuuuge and uncompressed. FLAC > ALAC, but it's better than Wav.

How can FLAC be better than ALAC if they are both lossless?

flac and alac are both lossless, but they "organise" the data to a degree, unlike wav.

flac has superior encoding time and size.

I'm not sure what that means.  Does that means it sounds better?

[Xanthul]

No, they sound the same because both are lossless, so ALL the information is there. What he means is that the same song will take less disk space and will be compressed faster if you use FLAC instead of ALAC. The compressing time might not be important to you if you are not doing it yourself, but the size is important (cue jokes) because you can store more songs in the same device.

[Orbert]

Exactly.  It's like if you have a spreadsheet with lots of data in it, and you compress it using WinZip to save disk space.  When you unZip it later, you get the original spreadsheet back, with all data, exactly as you started with.  But if you compressed it using WinRar or 7zip or some other encoding scheme, you also get all the original data back but the archive file would be much smaller, because WinZip is about the worst you can get in terms of data compression.

FLAC and ALAC are the same way.  Upon playback, both will be exactly the same: lossless.  But one takes less disk space and also encodes and decodes faster, therefore it is better.

[Ħ]

No, they sound the same because both are lossless, so ALL the information is there. What he means is that the same song will take less disk space and will be compressed faster if you use FLAC instead of ALAC. The compressing time might not be important to you if you are not doing it yourself, but the size is important (cue jokes) because you can store more songs in the same device.

Oh ok, that's a relief.  Well, I'm not a computer scientist and I'm still at a very basic level with this stuff, so I don't mind just keeping everything on physical copies and uploading/deleting as I feel.  Besides my ipod can't play FLAC, so there you go.

[AcidLameLTE]

Well, I'm not a computer scientist

Lucky you.

[MetalManiac666]

Well, I'm not a computer scientist

Lucky you.

You make me extremely apprehensive of my future major of computer science.

[kári]

You can download a program that will convert FLAC to ALAC which is also lossless, and your iPod can play it. But there's no need for ALAC on your iPod. Not even with the best headphones.

[Orbert]

I'm not sure I agree with that.  iPods do have the ability to feed a line-level signal to an auxilliary input.  At that point, it is the same as if it came from a CD player or other component.  I have a dock that feeds my iPod to my home theater; those .mp3's sound about as good as they're gonna sound, but they're still .mp3's and there's a noticeable drop in quality on the 128k's.

[kári]

I can definitely notice the difference between the same recording in the same quality being played on my laptop with the same earphones as on my iPod (both plugged in at the line out).

[Ħ]

I can definitely notice the difference between the same recording in the same quality being played on my laptop with the same earphones as on my iPod (both plugged in at the line out).

How is that possible if it's the same file type?

[kári]

There are many other things that can alter sound quality, like the wire used, etc. I don't know if portable MP3 players actually have a "sound card" but they do have something to convert the digital audio to electrical signals the speakers can understand... And whatever they've put in the iPod to do that makes the signal (and thus the sound quality) pretty bad.

[Orbert]

I can definitely notice the difference between the same recording in the same quality being played on my laptop with the same earphones as on my iPod (both plugged in at the line out).

So if you can tell the difference, then why do you say this?

But there's no need for ALAC on your iPod. Not even with the best headphones.

[kári]

Because the sound is pretty bad no matter the bitrate. Of course a 128kb/s recording would sound worse than a lossless one, but I'm saying the difference is even smaller than on a computer with a good soundboard.

[Orbert]

But that's all completely irrelevant if you're using line out.

[rumborak]

ipods can also play ALAC, apple's own lossless format.

I say that, because WAVs are huuuuuuge and uncompressed. FLAC > ALAC, but it's better than Wav.

To add to the confusion, WAV can actually be compressed too. Despite it being used 99% of the time for uncompressed PCM, the WAV header can actually specify the compression.

rumborak

[Orbert]

Whoa, I did not know that.  I swear, there are engineers who think this shit up just to mess with us.

[kári]

But that's all completely irrelevant if you're using line out.

With line out I mean the normal "hole" where you put the headphones in... Is that not the line out?

[Orbert]

No, that's the output from the internal amplifier or "sound card" as you call it.

I'm talking about using the larger rectangular hole at the bottom, where a charger plugs in and where you interface to a PC or Mac to transfer data or use iTunes.  There are many third-party devices which allow you to use this interface to obtain line-level output.  The data is read directly from the internal hard drive, therefore the sound is not modified by the internal amplifier.  It is line level.  Feeding this to a stereo (home, car, whatever) is the same as feeding it a CD player.  That's why the quality of the encoding can make a difference.

If you're just listening over crummy stock iPod ear buds, then I agree, it doesn't much matter whether you're listening to 128k mp3's or to lossless because it's gonna sound like crap anyway.  But I use my iPod more as my "portable library" and fill it with the 256k or 320k if I can find it, because when I play back in my car or at home, it's a line level signal.

[kári]

OK, I'm with you there. But I don't use the dock connector of my iPod all that often. And mine is full of v0 VBR MP3 as well. But my points was just, that even when using the same (high quality) headphones, music will sound better on a computer with a decent sound card, because the iPod's sound card is crap.

[Orbert]

You might be surprised.  I picked up some Westone-1 earphones a few months back to use as in-ear monitors on stage, and was completely amazed at how good they made my iPod sound.  The step up from the stock iPod earbuds to decent-quality earphones was expected, and a nice step.  I knew from the moment I first heard iPod earbuds that there's a reason why they're given away free.  But this was yet another step up, one which I did not expect.

The amp in an iPod is presumably optimized to provide good sound at low levels, so the mistake a lot of people make is hooking it up to speakers and cranking it, expecting to get better sound.  They will get louder sound, not better.

I rarely listen to music on my computer, so I can't really comment on that.

[kári]

Well I have some quality Denon in-ears as well and the difference in sound between my iPod Touch and my Macbook Pro is very noticeable.

[faemir]

Fun fact: the equaliser on ipods horribly distorts the bass. instead of a nice curvy wave, it looks all jaggedy.

[kári]

Yeah, the bass was the most noticeable thing.

[Orbert]

I always figured that the bass on iPods had to be cranked to compensate for the fact that you're listening to "speakers" an eighth of an inch in diameter.  Then someone explained electrostatics to me and now I'm all confused.  Still, I would've guessed that it curved way up towards the lower end, not be all jaggedy, so I'm back to not knowing what the hell is going on.

[kári]

Still doesn't explain why it would sound way better on a "regular" sound card, with small speakers.