AAC Quality - FAAC vs. ffmpeg

[manolito]

The latest Handbrake versions give you a choice between FAAC and ffmpeg for audio conversions to the AAC format.

Older versions only offered FAAC, and this has been considered as one of the weak spots of Handbrake. Is ffmpeg a step up in quality? The HydrogenAudio AAC listening tests did not include ffmpeg, so I need some opinions from the experts...:D


Cheers
manolito

[Brazil2]

Maybe they are talking about an ffmpeg build which is using this:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=95989
Maybe ?

[Rodeo]

Maybe they are talking about an ffmpeg build which is using this:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=95989
Maybe ?

No, it's the libavcodec encoder. It's not necessarily better than faac, but has the advantage of being GPL-compatible.

[jethro]

There were some improvements see:
http://www.saintdevelopment.com/?page_id=32
The original one was horrible, in fact it was chosen as low anchor in a 2011 test see: http://listening-tests.hydrogenaudio.org/igorc/aac-96-a/results.html.

[manolito]

Thanks for the info...
Too bad that on the Handbrake website I could not find any info about the FF-AAC version they use.


Cheers
manolito

[nibus]

Just encode the video in Handbrake, then use eac3to and nero or Quicktime to encode the audio. Then mux with mkvmerge or Yamb.

[IgorC]

No, it's the libavcodec encoder. It's not necessarily better than faac, but has the advantage of being GPL-compatible.
No, it's not a libavcodec native AAC encoder. It's a new FhG AAC encoder for Android OS and it should be better than both libavcodec and faac.


I will suggest use QuickTime AAC encoder. You can do a portable version of it (QAAC) for LC-AAC. And a new FhG/Winamp HE-AAC1/2 encoder for low bitrates (32-64kbps stereo, 160 kbps 5.1 )