April 17 2002 (update May 20 2002)
This FAQ is prepared for the sole purpose of introducing OGG to a.b.s.music.classical
members. It's unofficial for I'm not associated with OGG developers in any way.
It'll be maintained as long as necessary (as long as OGG is still considered
a "new" format), and as long as I've time. Suggestions for modifications
are welcome, including corrections to my English writing. (By now
many of you have known I'm not a native English speaker.)
You're also welcome to use part or all of it to accompany your own ogg uploads and to answer other people's questions. Make amendments to the text version in abmsc if you like; just remember to remove my name if you do modify it. I'll appreciate you send your modifications to me so I can take them into account when I revise it, but it's not necessary. Just use it anyway you like, as long as it helps people.
The FAQ is divided into three parts: 1) for downloaders; 2) for posters (encoding guide) and 3) links and additional information.
A1: They are OGG files, just like MP3 files. It also contains music, so you can play ogg files just like playing mp3 files.
A2: Some software players play OGGs natively, like Winamp 3 (beta) and FreeAmp on Windows. Some others need a plugin, like Winamp 2.x. Please go to <http://www.vorbis.com/> for the newest software information.
For the convenience of the great majority of Winamp 2.x users, its plugin can be obtained from this direct link: <http://www.blorp.com/~peter/zips/in_vorbis.exe>.
Other software, including software for other platforms, please check <http://www.vorbis.com/download.psp>. (Don't forget to check the "Third Party software page" if you can't find what you want on the main download pages.)
(Note: as Ol' Joe has noted, the <www.vorbis.com> doesn't seem to be
very stable. It should be fine most of the time, but if you can't connect, please
try again later.)
A3: For encoding-time tagging, please read the encoding section below.
First, you may tag individual files in Winamp, as you do with MP3.
If you want to (re)tag multi OGG files, the best (IMO) tool available is WinVorbis at <http://winvorbis.stationplaylist.com/>. The most current version is 1.32, which can be obtained using this direct link: <http://www.enternet.co.nz/users/ross/stationplaylist/winvorbis/WinVorbisSetup.exe>.
If you have installed WinVorbis before, you may get the newest EXE directly from <http://www.enternet.co.nz/users/ross/stationplaylist/winvorbis/WinVorbis.exe>. (Just replace your old EXE with this.)
Its usage is similar to MP3Ext which many of us are familiar with. The way I like to do it is to put everything in the file name, with values for different fields separated by an underscore ("_"), and set up a tagging template in WinVorbis to pick them up and fill in the fields for me. (The only drawback for this approach is that some characters -- mainly the question mark and colon -- can't be used, since they can't appear in a filename.) I believe you can find the way that suits you best. If you can't figure it out, ask and many people can help.
According to JeeWee, OggDrop - another highly acclaimed frontend - also does tagging. OggDrop can be obtained from <http://www.vorbis.com/files/rc3/windows/oggdrop-1.0rc3.zip>.
A4: On Windows, the only CDR burning software currently capable of burning ogg to audio CDR on-the-fly is Power CD Ripper and Burner from LNC-SOFT at <http://www.lnc-soft.com/>. It's a $16.95 shareware.
For Linux or FreeBSD users, Gnome Toaster can do the same as well.. Mac users have to decode OGGs to AIFF files first (see below) and burn those.
A5: Windows Users:
1. Use Winamp's (or your player's) disk writer plugin.
2. Use this command line decoder: <http://www.inf.ufpr.br/~rja00/files/oggdec.zip> (Windows only).
3. Use a frontend. Most highly acclaimed frontends include WinVorbis, OggDrop, and winLAME -- all freeware. Their websites are:
some of the frontend needs the command line decoder in method 2.
A5: Non-Windows users please check <http://www.vorbis.com/software.psp>.
A6: Yes, you can. But be warned that transcoding between two lossy formats is bound to loose some quality.
The best freeware program that does direct ogg to mp3 transcoding is LameDropXPd
on the Rare Ware web site at
<http://www.inf.ufpr.br/~rja00/mp3.html>.
Be sure to get the one that says "now with Ogg-MP3 transcoding". Or
use this direct link:
<http://www.inf.ufpr.br/~rja00/files/lamedropXPd-s.zip>.
It's pretty easy to use (drag oggs onto it and it gives you mp3) and highly recommended. It can do regular mp3 encoding (from wav files) as well.
there's another freeware program called BeSweet that also does ogg-mp3 transcoding, available at <http://dspguru.notrace.dk/>. I've never tried it, and I've no use for it, so please try to figure it out yourself. The same applies to dBpowerAMP Music Converter at <http://www.dbpoweramp.com/>.
There are a few shareware programs that advertise such features, including:
I have no experience with them, either. Of course, decoding ogg to wave
(see Q5) then re-encoding it to mp3 works.
A7: Yes. Try this Ogg filter for CoolEdit: <http://www.blorp.com/~peter/zips/cool_ogg.zip>.
A8: There's a possibility that the OGG files have been tagged with ID3 tags. OGG has its own tagging system, and ID3 tags (no matter which version) are to be avoided. To remove those tags, here's a ugly remedy that I tried and worked.
1. rename the .ogg files to .mp3.
2. use a mp3 tagging utility to remove the id3 tags. I use id3kill (freeware), but others should do, too. Remember to use one that can handle v2 tags. id3kill can be found at <http://www.headstrong.de/software-id3kill.shtml>.
3. rename the .mp3 back to .ogg.
Now you should be able to open the files in WinVorbis.
First you have to get an encoder for your platform from <http://www.vorbis.com/software.psp>. The following mainly applies to Windows users only, sorry. I have no hands-on experience with other platforms. But I suggest users of other platforms read the part about quality settings (Q3).
A1: If you're using one of EAC 0.9 betas (not pre-beta), I suggest setting
up a configuration "profile" for OGG, after saving your original
configuration for mp3 encoding. It's easier to switch between profiles than
having to reset the settings.
No changes need to be made in general options and drive options, so let's go straight to the [Compression options] section. Click the second panel -- External Compression, check the "Use External Program for Compression" option.
For the "Parameter passing scheme", choose "Ogg Vorbis Encoder". Give EAC the full path for the encoder, and leave the "additional command line options" field blank. Then choose the quality setting you want to use.
** IMPORTANT ** Do not use any of those "Variable Bitrate xxx KBit/s" settings. Use one of those "Quality n" settings instead. The former leads ABR (Average Bitrate) encoding, which is significantly inferior to the latter. As to what quality grade to use, please see the section about quality settings below.
** IMPORTANT ** Make sure the "Add ID3 tags" options is NOT selected. Also remember to check the "ID3 Tag" pane and make sure NO ID3 tags related option is selected. Some OGG players or utilities may not know how to handle ID3-tagged OGG files. Since OGG has its own better defined tagging system, there's no point using ID3 anyway.
Now, after properly setting up EAC and oggenc, you can click on the MP3 button in the main window to start ripping and encoding. EAC will write the most commonly-used standard OGG tags (artists, titles, genres, etc.) for you if the information is available.
If you want to add additional fields to the tag (like Composer, Conductor, encoding method, etc.), you may modify the following line to fit your need and put it in the "additional command line options" field:
-c "Encoding=oggenc 1.0 rc3 -q 6" -c "Composer=Beethoven" -c "Conductor=Bohm"
If you don't want EAC to tag the files at all, you may use the advanced method (see the next section), or delete the tags afterwards.
A2: If you're new to OGG encoding, or EAC, or both, I strongly suggest you start with the standard method.
The advanced method uses the "User Defined Encoder" -- instead of "Ogg Vorbis Encoder" --as the parameter passing scheme. With this scheme, you'll have define all the parameters needed to pass to OGGENC, including tagging parameters.
Remember to define the file extention: .ogg, and to uncheck (deselect) all ID3 tagging options (read the previous section to know why). Ignore the Bitrate selection box, and put the following line in the "additional command line options" field (modify to fit your need):
%l-q 6.00%l %h-q 7.00%h -t "%t" -a "%a" -l "%g" -N "%n" -d "%y" -G "%m" -c "Encoder=oggenc 1.0 rc3 -q 6" -c Composer=Beethoven" -c "Conductor=Bohm" -o %d %s
The benefits of this approach are:
1. more flexibility in quality setting. You may use non-integer quality setting like -q 6.25.
2. able to encode without tagging -- just remove those tagging related parameters (from "-t" to the last "-c", but remember to keep the "-o %d" and %s).
Note: The pair of "%l" signs enclose the options used when you click the "Low Quality" radio button, while the pair of "%h" signs enclose the options for "High Quality". In the example above, -q 6.00 will be used when "Low Quality" is used, and -q 7.00 for "High Quality". (Don't worry; -q 6.00 is very good already. And the radio buttons are just nominal anyway; you might as well set up -q 10.00 for "Low Quality.") For more detailed instruction about available symbols (%l, %h, %s, %d ... etc) in the "additional command line options" field, please check the "Tips and Tricks" section on EAC's website @<http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/eac11.html>.
If you don't need to switch between two quality settings, you may simplify the line into:
-q 6.00 -t "%t" -a "%a" -l "%g" -N "%n" -d "%y" -G "%m" -c "Encoder=oggenc 1.0 rc3 -q 6" -c "Composer=Beethoven" -c "Conductor=Bohm" -o %d %s
A2: In the end, you have to decide for yourself. Here are just some tips to get you started. I assume you're familiar with LAME and the quality of mp3s produced by various LAME presets (aps, apx, and api are for --alt-preset standard, extreme, and insane respectively).
Oggenc currently uses a quality scale from 0.00 to 10.00 (you may add as many digits at the end as you like, in fact). -q0 will get you about 64 kbps (currently not competitive at this bitrate). Somewhere around -q5 to -q5.8 is about lame aps quality. (Comparing strickly between OGG Vorbis RC3 and LAME 3.91 only. Both will change, of course; so will the equation).
There're two important thresholds on the quality scale. -q5 is the starting point of "lossless channel coupling". Up to -q 4.9999... some forms of lossy channel coupling would be used (akin to joint stereo for MP3, but more complex and intelligent).
-q6 is the starting point of full-bandwidth encoding. Up to -q 5.9999... some high frequency cutoffs will be done. IIRC, the lowpass is set around 20.5 k for 5 <= -q < 6, which should be enough for most music, and already higher than LAME. The lower the quality setting, the lower the lowpass threshold. But you're that kind of people who hate high frequency cutoffs, don't go under -q6.
One word about high frequency encoding and lowpass: when a lowpass is set, things above that threshold aren't encoded at all. The reverse isn't true. Even if you're using a setting that doesn't exercise any high frequency cutoff, it doesn't mean all high frequency data would be encoded, for the encoder still has to work through ATH and other methods to decide what to encode and what to discard. This applies to all lossy codecs.
My personal take on quality: -q6 should be better than lame-aps, -q7 should be slightly better than lame-apx, and -q8 should be slightly better than lame-api.
Bitrate-wise, -q6 should be about the same as lame-aps, -q7 should be slightly smaller than lame-apx, and -q8 should be significantly smaller than lame-api.
If you're satisfied to Lame 256 kbps CBR, try -q6.5, should be at least as good in quality with 40-50k less bits.
For a more comprehensive bitrate and quality comparison and discussion, please
see
<http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/showthread.php?s=d42bc0e03bde6f415c1cbf84f44167a6&threadid=1199>.
The original poster didn't state the version of software he/she used, but from
the date it was posted, LAME should be 3.91, oggenc should be 1.0 RC3, and mpcenc
should 0.99s or so (mpc updated more often in the last few months, so it's harder
to guess the exact version).
One word about quality and bitrate: With RC3, ogg has moved away from bitrate-based thinking to quality-based thinking. It's the same as lame and mpc, where they use standard, extreme and insane to represent the quality they expect to produce, except with ogg you get a whole quality scale to play with.
The reason of doing this is to get as stable a quality as possible, while the size (bitrate) fluctuates as needed. If you encode an mp3 with LAME aps (--alt-preset standard), you may get a file averaging 165 kbps, or you may get 215 kbps, but the quality should be about the same. The 215 kbps one is larger because it's more difficult to encode, not because it has better quality.
From the table I referred you to above, you can see with -q 6 (the quality setting I use for posting), the actual average bitrate ranges from 168 kbps to 192 kbps (in that person's experiment), but they should have about the same quality.
One thing to note is that the difficulty to encode of a particular track varies from codec to codec, so something using more bits for LAME doesn't necessarily do so in OGG, or vice versa. E.g., in that table, LAME aps mp3s needs only 178 kbps for "missa", but it needs 193 kbps for "Otello1". OTOH, ogg uses 185 kbps for the former, but only 184 for the latter. So when doing size comparisons among different codecs, we can't use only one test sample.
A3: The official RC3 encoder compile is slower than LAME VBR encoding, for various reasons. It engages in more complex computation than lame, and it's not optimized for speed yet, so you may want to consider using an alternative compile (ICL-compiled) if you encode OGG regularly. Please check the Rare Ware web site at <http://www.inf.ufpr.br/~rja00/>. The OGG files produced should be the same most of the time (they're from the same source code), except where different compilers implement floating point calculation differently. (If you don't know what that means, don't worry, just consider it the same.)
I personally use a post-RC3 build compiled by John33, also with ICL. It's even faster, and quality wise should be no worse than RC3. (It's said to have, among other improvements, better pre-echo handling, but I haven't done any extensive tests myself.) You may get it from the same Rare Ware web site. Please do exercise more caution with this interim build. Things can still go wrong though John33 is known to choose his builds carefully. So far I'm very satisfied with its stability -- both in the program itself and in the oggs it produces, and yet I do listen to my own encoded oggs before uploading them. I encourage you to do so as well, especially if you're using one of John33's test builds.
A4: If you don't want to use EAC as the frontend, and don't like to use the command line, here are a few alternatives. Please note that some (maybe all, but I haven't tried them all) of these will need the command line encoder (oggenc) or the dll version of the encoder (libvorbis.dll) to work.
The one I use is WinVorbis, for its familiarity to MP3Ext. WinVorbis is a versatile tool. It can encode/decode and tag ogg files. Load wave files, set up the tags, and click "Save" to encode. (Don't worry, it won't tag the wave files. I don't think wave files can be tagged, can they?) Load OGG files, and choose "Decode" from the [File] menu to decode.
The web site for WinVorbis is here: <http://winvorbis.stationplaylist.com/>.
Other popular frontends include OggDrop, and winLAME -- all freeware, though I haven't tried them.
There's an advanced version of OggDrop (with more advanced options for experienced users) called OggDropXPd, which can be obtained from the Rare Ware web site at <http://www.inf.ufpr.br/~rja00/ogg.html>. I haven't tried it yet, either.
You may have noticed, the software links provided above are mostly from the same web sites. Here's a list of those web site's homepages.
For discussion forums about psychoacoustic audio compression, my favorite web site is <http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/>, for it has the developers of LAME, OGG, AAC, and MPC actively participating in discussions.