VVC + xHE-AAC vs AV1 + OPUS at extremely low bitrates and resolution

[Z2697]

The "old" HE-AAC/v2 has poor PS, which made the stereo separation sound off, SBR is also not good.
So while they might have less artifacts, the other aspects of quality are worse. (compared to Opus)
Which one is better is gonna depend on the type of encoded audio, and personal preference.

USAC/xHE-AAC has improved SBR and PS.

FFmpeg's native Opus encoder is CBR only, and experimental. (between which there might be a causal relationship)
Doing a separate comparison against libopus hard-cbr would be more fair, IMO.

[benwaggoner]

FFmpeg's native Opus encoder is CBR only, and experimental. (between which there might be a causal relationship)
Doing a separate comparison against libopus hard-cbr would be more fair, IMO.
It might be more fair, but as a soundtrack with CVBR video, I find VBR audio modes can save a decent number of bits without causing any practical downside.

Hard CBR is presumably needed for broadcast. Any other scenarios?

[hajj_3]

@MoSal that compares codecs with the open source exhale xhe-aac encoder which is worse than the fraunhofer xhe-aac encoder so that doesn't tell us much about the audio codecs themselves just the open source encoder.

[modus-ms325c]

Hard CBR is presumably needed for broadcast. Any other scenarios?i have not seen a single application of Opus being used anywhere beyond YouTube, and even there i'm not aware of Hard CBR mode being used on Opus audio tracks at all.
@MoSal that compares codecs with the open source exhale xhe-aac encoder which is worse than the fraunhofer xhe-aac encoder so that doesn't tell us much about the audio codecs themselves just the open source encoder.luckily i do have the latter encoder, albeit a licensed one at that. i tried it a couple of times (paid for it even), and resulting quality was fairly good but was very cumbersome to use.

[hajj_3]

i have not seen a single application of Opus being used anywhere beyond YouTube

Quite a few messaging apps use opus.

[modus-ms325c]

Quite a few messaging apps use opus.oh, okay, actually there is one messaging app that i'm aware of that uses Opus for literally anything: WhatsApp.
it's currently actually shitting out literally every single recorded voice message into "opus" files every. single. time. checks out.

[Z2697]

Discord also uses Opus.

The fraunhofer xhe-aac encoder isn't that much better than exhale actually.
I tried it with a software named "EZ CD Audio Converter", it has free trial and cough cough, works in VM, cough cough.
To me they sound more or less the same, but fraunhofer one can reach lower bitrate, and is several times faster.

[MoSal]

exhale xhe-aac encoder which is worse than the fraunhofer xhe-aac encoder

I don't think that's in any way an established fact at ~40kbps. I wouldn't expect it to be decidedly true either.

It is explicitly stated that exhale doesn't implement some of the tools that help with very low bitrates. But that's not the point of (sub-)discussion here. And exhale is no slouch in the ranges where it competes.

A proper listening test is needed here for us to know better.

[benwaggoner]

I don't think that's in any way an established fact at ~40kbps. I wouldn't expect it to be decidedly true either.

It is explicitly stated that exhale doesn't implement some of the tools that help with very low bitrates. But that's not the point of (sub-)discussion here. And exhale is no slouch in the ranges where it competes.

A proper listening test is needed here for us to know better.
The Fraunhofer encoder has quite a lot of configurability as well, so we'd want a clearly defined apples-to-apples comparison scenario.

[VoodooFX]

Quick personal ABC/H blind ratings/tests on random audio at hand. I gave multiple ABX only to "3.8" sample in the first test (8 from 8).

1) Speech + sound effects (stereo):
5.0 - Original
4.8 - FhG xHE-AAC 39k
4.0 - FDK HE-AACv2 34k
3.8 - FDK-HE-AACv2 26k
3.6 - FhG xHE-AAC 28k
1.5 - Opus 34k
1.0 - Opus 28k


2) Speech + quiet background music (stereo):
5.0 - Opus 34k
4.8 - Original
4.5 - FhG xHE-AAC 39k
3.7 - FhG xHE-ACC 28k
3.5 - Opus 28k
3.0 - FDK HE-AACv2 34k
2.5 - FDK-HE-AACv2 26k

[modus-ms325c]

item 1 has official xHE-AAC obliterate all other encoders at 39k compared to literally anything else, while item 2 has Opus do exactly that at just 34k.
make it make sense!

[VoodooFX]

make it make sense!

Sense: Opus is very bad on "1", HE-AACv2 is not so good on "2", xHE-AAC is good on both samples.

[modus-ms325c]

Sense: Opus is very bad on "1", HE-AACv2 is not so good on "2", xHE-AAC is good on both samples.yeah, i see it.

[benwaggoner]

Sense: Opus is very bad on "1", HE-AACv2 is not so good on "2", xHE-AAC is good on both samples.
Yeah, my experience with xHE-AAC is that it is always decent at 40+ Kbps, across a variety of content. Good enough for built-in TV speakers, although imperfections are audible with a good audio system or headphones.

[Qljo]

Try MPC-HC (https://github.com/clsid2/mpc-hc/releases), which plays VVC.

First of all, thank you so much - that thing is working nicely. I just downoaded V2.5.2 and it plays back without problems. Do you know ny any chance if this "engine" is also available as VLC plugin?

Another question how can I convert videos on my PC into VVC/xHE files? Target bitrate would be around 100k combined, mainly for educational videos (they usually are not very rich in movement and audio is mono so it should be easy).

Is MPC-HC or anything that pas back VVC-xHE also from Android? I don't think this one can https://apkpure.com/mpc-hc/com.mpclassic.mpc.hd as it is from 2021.

[GeoffreyA]

First of all, thank you so much - that thing is working nicely. I just downoaded V2.5.2 and it plays back without problems. Do you know ny any chance if this "engine" is also available as VLC plugin?

De rien. I'm not sure about VLC, but I expect they'll implement support at some point. I believe it does use the same libraries as MPC-HC, so it's strange there being no support.

Another question how can I convert videos on my PC into VVC/xHE files? Target bitrate would be around 100k combined, mainly for educational videos (they usually are not very rich in movement and audio is mono so it should be easy).

For converting to VVC, download a build of FFmpeg (https://www.gyan.dev/ffmpeg/builds/). Then, paste the following line into a BAT file with ffmpeg.exe and the video in the same folder:

ffmpeg -i "INPUT.mp4" -c:v libvvenc -preset faster -qp 30 -period 10 -c:a copy "OUTPUT.mp4"

Raise QP for smaller size; lower it for better quality. If your CPU is fast enough, change preset to medium, slow, or slower. At present, FFmpeg does not have an xHE-AAC encoder built in by default, so that will necessitate an external tool.

Is MPC-HC or anything that pas back VVC-xHE also from Android? I don't think this one can https://apkpure.com/mpc-hc/com.mpclassic.mpc.hd as it is from 2021.

Not sure about that one but will give it a try when free.