User interface for Asunder

[Mig21]

Hi everyone

I'm adding support for 3 more file formats to my CD ripper (Asunder (http://littlesvr.ca/asunder/)). Shamefully I'm not very knowledgeable about these formats, so I'm here asking for help with the settings and interface.

For reference, there are screenshots of the interface here: http://littlesvr.ca/asunder/screenshots.php

The first I'm adding is Monkey's Audio, using the official encoder "-- Monkey's Audio Console Front End (v 3.99-u4-b5-s4) (c) Matthew T. Ashland --". The only configurable setting there seems to be the compression level, from -c1000 to -c5000. This makes my life easy because it's just one slider for the quality - but what should I pick for the default? I set 3000 for now because it's in the middle, but it encodes so fast I'm wondering if I should just use the maximum, 5000?

The second is the Nero AAC encoder. This one is trickier because it has a few more configurable parameters:

Quality/bitrate control:
-q <number> : Enables "target quality" mode.
<number> is a floating-point number in 0...1 range.
-br <number> : Specifies "target bitrate" mode.
<number> is target bitrate in bits per second.
-cbr <number> : Specifies "target bitrate (streaming)" mode.
<number> is target bitrate in bits per second.
When neither of above quality/bitrate options is used,
the encoder defaults to equivalent of -q 0.5

Multipass encoding:
-2pass : Enables two-pass encoding mode.
Note that two-pass more requires a physical file as input,
rather than stdin.

I can't have that many sliders and checkboxes, Asunder is a simple tool and though I's like to make it useful for experts - I won't do so at the cost of regular users. So the questions are:

- What is 2pass encoding, and is it used often? If I hardcode a default - should it be on or off?
- What is streaming mode?
- Are there compelling reasons to control the -br and -cbr separately, or will one slider controlling -q be enough? What would be a good default setting for this?

Finally there's Musepack, which seems to only need one slider - so the same question as for Monkey's Audio - what is a good default?

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

[tebasuna51]

...
- What is 2pass encoding, and is it used often? If I hardcode a default - should it be on or off?
2pass requires a physical (WAV) file as input, if your tool make "Simultaneous rip and encode", you can't use the 2pass. Used for AverageBitRate (-br here) like video encoding, without 2pass the -br mode can be replaced by the VariableBitRate mode quality based (-q)

- What is streaming mode?
Use -cbr when you need ConstantBitRate for some reasons, maybe for streaming.

- Are there compelling reasons to control the -br and -cbr separately, or will one slider controlling -q be enough? What would be a good default setting for this?
Like I say before the -br mode without 2pass have no sense for me, and if you want only one slider maybe you can use:
Approx. average bitrate <-> Quality table (stereo, NeroAacEnc)

Bitrate Quality
~ 15 0.05
~ 32 0.15
~ 63 0.25
~ 99 0.35
~146 0.45
~197 0.55
~248 0.65
~299 0.75
~350 0.85
~401 0.95
To select defaults remember than aac quality is better than mp3 quality, then the -q 0.5 NeroAacEnc default can be better than a mp3 with 192Kb/s abr. And -q 0.3 like mp3 128Kb/s abr.

Of course these equivalences can't be exact.

[Mig21]

Thanks!

[ngu nhan]

thank you