Ogg vorbis...
 

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know what Ethen?
 

Now remember, this is coming from someone who is NOT brainiac material so take it my thoughts for what they're worth......exactly zippo LOL.

For versatility, stick with mp3 - you can get it anywhere and do anything you want with it, and is accepted by more and more devices everyday and, most importantly, mp3 IS the standarized method of file compression out here (for now).

One just can't go wrong.

[remember what I said at the beginning now :D]

I usually listen to a hungarian underground net radio called Tilos. You can stream them in 24kbs, 128kbs Mp3, and Ogg Vorbis. They say that the latter is their favorite non-profit format. I don't know exactly how mp3s work, but I know that Fraunhoffer no longer licenses its codec, and Lime for instance is not open source I believe. Ogg vorbis is. So to me its symphatic. I don't have very sharp ears, so honestly, I could not make out the difference, however, sometimes it seemed that ogg is somewhat better, but then, I not sure about this. One thing is for sure though. It is not worse than MP3, however, there is a chance you can listen to radio in ogg on ISDN, but you can't to 128kbs. MP3 stream. So it seems faster. Also, you can check their faq here: http://www.vorbis.com/faq.psp

Ogg would not replace mp3 for a long time, perhaps never, but it is more and more supported - there is ogg plugin for all players now, and as I said, if you listen to net radios (trough shoutcast for instance), it delivers the same (or perhaps better?) sound quality as 128 mp3, but it is less demanding.

:S:

I just copied the link they have to faq, and now i see is somewhat outdated. Still, it gives you info of what is ogg about, but some parts are no longer true - for instance, when it says that ogg is still beta. That faq was last updated 11/6/2000. Sorry.

Re: Ogg vorbis...
 

vorbis is very good. the quality is better than mp3 at low bitrates

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Fraunhofer does license mp3: mp3licensing.com. It's just rather expensive. LAME is open source and pays nothing to Fraunhofer, which is why its illegal.

BUT, the mp3 patents are all going to expire in a couple of years anyway.

Thanks for the update Scyth. I didn't know LAME is illegal either. As I said, I don't know toomuch about these issues, and I made out of the comments somehow that ogg is somehow more open source (ok, ok, I know this sounds quite lame) Here is the faq on ogg on which I based my presumption:

"Also, artists should be concerned about licensing terms for formats. If you decide to sell your music in MP3 format, you are responsible for paying Fraunhofer a percentage of each sale because you are using their patents. Vorbis is patent and license-free, so you will never need to pay anyone in order to sell, give away, or stream your own music."

So this means, that no one needs to pay for LAME also.

"Licensing

What licensing applies to the Ogg Vorbis format?

The OggVorbis specification is in the public domain. It is completely free for commercial or noncommercial use. That means that commercial developers may independently write OggVorbis software which is compatible with the specification for no charge and without restrictions of any kind. However, developers that wish to use the open source software we have written must adhere to certain rules.

What licensing applies to the included Ogg Vorbis software?

The bundled OggVorbis utility software is released under the terms of the GNU GPL, or GNU General Public License. The details can be found at
www.gnu.org.

The libraries and SDKs are released under the more business friendly BSD license. Please note that developers are still free to use the specification to independently write closed-source implementations of OggVorbis which are not bound by these licenses. We make commercial, closed source software. Can I use Ogg Vorbis at all? What licensing do I need to pay?

Again, there are no licensing fees for ANY use of the Ogg Vorbis specification. As a commercial developer, you are free to create and sell (or give
away) open or closed source implementations of Vorbis encoders, decoders, or other tools. However, if you use our software rather than writing an independent implementation, you must respect the terms of the license. Our libraries [available under the BSD license] can be used whole or in part by closed source applications.

Are there licensing fees for distributing, selling, or streaming media in the Ogg Vorbis format like there are in other formats, such as MP3?

No.

If there aren't any licensing fees, how are you going to make money off the format? Will you charge fees later, after Vorbis becomes popular?

The benefits of a patent-free, license-free format outweigh the concerns of making money directly from the format. Vorbis will always be free

and in the public domain. No one needs to place intellectual property restrictions on Vorbis in order to benefit from it."

Anyway, thanks again for the info. :BSD:

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