Best Music Format For Your Music Collection??

Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 3:17 pm

When it comes to my music collection I have always preferred MP3 or Ogg formats for mass music file handling. The recent switch to Linux for me had me using MP3 for a while (with unfortunately not completely "legal" codec support), but with easy to use converters (Sound Converter is what I used) I eventually converted my music collection with a minimum amount of hassle, and Im glad that I have. The Ogg format matches the MP3 format in most ways, but it excels at lower bitrates compared to just about any other music format(Lossy format). That means I could keep much smaller bitrate files and still have excellent quality, which saves me some disk space. Also, what alot of people dont know about MP3 files, is that the patent for MP3 is owned by a group of guys and though unlikely, they could just decide they didnt want people using there format anymore. Ogg is licensed under the GPLv2 which means that its a protected free music format with no chance of anyone suing you for illegally using there patented product or sticking in any copyright protection that makes it impossible to copy or burn the music.

I dislike wma format, mostly because its windows format, but for quality reasons its because its so restrictive in certain ways. Like, not all music players support playing it and converting it to another format is usually harder than for mp3 or ogg formats. I dislike m4a(apple,ipod) formats for the same reasons. Another problem with the WMA and real formats is that they require proprietary software to play them.

After reading about the different music formats Ive become a supporter of the Ogg music format and keep my music collection in Ogg format even if I had to convert the files. Since Ogg isnt as widely used as MP3 I do what I can to help promote the format, such as posting music torrents in Ogg format and informing the community when possible, Which music format do you prefer to use? Did any of the information I posted change your mind? And if you dont use MP3 or Ogg which format do you use and why?

I would have posted some links to music format comparisons and info but due to your forums restrictions with posting links you'll have to google that for yourselves.

Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 4:47 pm

I prefer OGG Vorbis files, though usually stick with MP3 because it's just so common. And I'd really just leave the formats as they are than convert them into another.

And yeah, I dislike WMA and M4A formats as well.

Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 10:34 pm

i hate .m4a and .wma because of drm.. i convert/record to .ogg as soon as possible.

i like .ogg because it excels at keeping a high-quality file, with little space... however i only use this for rock & other formats not requiring a high itrate...

for my electronic & classic, i use .flac, since strings and intense drum beats take a large bitrate to sound good.. it really depends on how much space you want to store it all on.

Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 10:05 am

MP3 .... totally bec its so common and everybody uses it..... sometimes (in my area - dont know bout elsewhere) when u say mp3 u MEAN music/song etc

Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 12:00 pm

Flac. Fast, easy, lossless. What's not to love?

Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 8:14 pm

Disconnected wrote:

Flac. Fast, easy, lossless. What's not to love?

they *can* become quite sizable.

Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 8:51 pm

toulji wrote:

Disconnected wrote:

Flac. Fast, easy, lossless. What's not to love?

they *can* become quite sizable.

The days of dial up and 500mb hard drives are long gone. Whats the point of having a decent soundcard or so called HD on board audio and decent speakers if your only going to use them for an inferior quality encoding? Its time to move on and throw MP3 on the heap with the old PIIs and 8x cdroms. Laughing

Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 9:04 pm

OG wrote:

The days of dial up and 500mb hard drives are long gone. Whats the point of having a decent soundcard or so called HD on board audio and decent speakers if your only going to use them for an inferior quality encoding? Its time to move on and throw MP3 on the heap with the old PIIs and 8x cdroms. Laughing

Yeah that's nice and all, but it still doesn't defeat the fact that FLAC rapes hard drives like no tomorrow.

Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 9:36 pm

OG wrote:

toulji wrote:

Disconnected wrote:

Flac. Fast, easy, lossless. What's not to love?

they *can* become quite sizable.

The days of dial up and 500mb hard drives are long gone. Whats the point of having a decent soundcard or so called HD on board audio and decent speakers if your only going to use them for an inferior quality encoding? Its time to move on and throw MP3 on the heap with the old PIIs and 8x cdroms. Laughing

I would probably use lossless formatting if I was a musician and needed to store my music, but for just listening to music in the background while Im on the computer Im not willing to spend 20 Mb+ on each track. Especially considering how much music I download, I went with mp3 for a really long time, but eventually something is going to be done with all the piraters downloading on the internet and I feel safer with a computer full of unpatented music than if I had a bunch of mp3's. Besides, just because mp3s are the most well known format doesnt mean its the best choice, though I can sympathize with not caring enough to convert and retag everything you download. But considering how Ogg is just as good a quality and not under the control of anyone else, I decided a while ago that it was the best choice for me. Though, I hope that someday a lossless format that isnt as space consuming will be invented.

Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 10:23 pm

I think lossless is as small is its going to get. If it were possible to get smaller filesizes and retain the quality there would have been improvements even in the past couple of years, but that hasnt happened. In fact the opposite is true, filesizes will be getting larger as more multichannel audio hits the market, and if its flac that should prevail with its ability to store up to 6 channels @192khz in lossless compression. Couple that with larger and cheaper hard drives, MP3's days are numbered. Its old, its ownd, its a pretty crappy method of compression, and the only reason people cling on to it is the inane need to download as many albums as humanly possible and store it on their computer even though they'd need to live to 130 years old to listen to it all. Laughing

Seriously, its like moaning about the size of HD DVD downloads and saying you'll just stick to crappy old xvid (fine if you care nothing about quality). Time has come to move on to bigger and better things.

Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 11:35 pm

OG has an excellent point.

hard drives are doing nothing but getting faster and handling even more data at greater efficiency, so mp3 is not going be around much longer, and when compared to .flac, the quality seriously sucks.

.flac will likely grow in channels (up to 7 or 8 ) then reach a climax. audio quality is beginning to reach the point where humans cannot distinguish between real & recorded audio.

but hey, a PII is still a good chip, it has its drawbacks sure, but they're normally free and work great for a 7 day render, due to low power cosumption (compared to P4)

edit: grammar/smiley

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 12:44 am

maybe the solution isnt 2 wait 4 a smaller good quality format, but 4 bigger HDDs. its time 2 get used that a song will require 3 times more memory (or more) - but only if u care about the quality (i think movies and pics will do to)

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 7:48 am

toulji wrote:

Disconnected wrote:

Flac. Fast, easy, lossless. What's not to love?

they *can* become quite sizable.

For me, the price difference amounts to not getting drunk 1 Friday/year. Or 2 hours worth of overtime. I'm fairly confident I'll find a way to cope, somehow Wink

It's a question of priorities. Collecting music is a hobby of mine. To me, it makes no sense to back up a collection in a lossy format. It's neither safe nor practical. It'd probably be very different if I was unemployed, but fortunately I'm not.

EDIT: Things like this also depends heavily on one's hardware. Unlike OG, for example, I love 700MB movie rips. Why?
Because we have a fair amount of bandwidth. Enough to stream a 700MB rip, but too little to do the same with a DVD iso (supposing one could).
We also happen to use a video projector, and while the quality is pretty good, it's not enough for the quality difference between a decent Xvid and a DVD iso to be noticeable.

So, it really becomes a question of whether 5.1 surround is worth waiting for, and mostly it's not.

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 11:53 pm

Well, I have mostly .mp3, But I've gotten into the .flac scene lately. Mainly because I have a Kick-ass Receiver that can handle it -- anyway, I like .mp3 because it can be used on most, if not all Computers out there.

Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 2:05 pm

hi i wanna try out some melodies in .flac, but im having a hard time trying 2 find the songs i like....any suggestions??