Frauenhofer mp3 surround encoder/decoder released

[mikegun]

hi,

see here: http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/amm/download/mp3surround/index_d.html
german language !

input= 5.1 wav
output=5.1 mp3 at 192cbr

the encoder is free for use until 31.12.2005.
the player is free forever.

regards,

mikegun

[crahak]

I was almost excited by these news for a couple minutes...

Input wise, I guess you're right, you have to use wav files (and only that). So we have to decompress everything to huge wav files prior to using it... Annoying at best (unless you're the type of person that so happens to have original, uncompressed multichannel wav files on your HD all the time? not me)

Output wise, I hope that's wrong. I normally encode 2 channel audio at 192kbps vbr (128kbps is "just ok"), so 3 times as many channels for same bitrate and not vbr, I don't think I even want to hear what it sounds like. Even if it did have configurable output, I doubt it would sound significantly better than AC3 (at least not worth converting from AC3), and probably nowhere near what AAC would sound like at those bitrates. That alone is quite a good reason not to bother. Not sure how the non-demo will be, but I doubt they'll manage to convince me to fork out any kind of money to use it.

Implementation wise, it's one of the worst I've seen (yes, I do know it's still a demo). A form that moves around the screen as the only "meaningful" user feedback, no actual controls or even hint of what is being outputted (and it looks like you have to read german to find out in what ways it's crippled). Just a ugly drag and drop form. It looks like there is no DirectShow filters installed either (at least I couldn't find any), which makes me wonder, how are we supposed to play stuff back? With their proprietary player? (you have to use their own encoder/decoder apps, non DirectShow and no CLI, so manually do everything...) Oh, there's a winamp plugin (haven't even bothered trying it), that's about the only somewhat useful thing in the whole package.

That's a lot of hassle for something that isn't free, not here yet (only as a crippled demo and most likely offers average performance (probably about as good as goold old AC3). Especially when AAC has been around for a while, that it most likely sounds better, that there are DirectShow filters and misc tools, various encoders, it plays fine in all standard media players, been tested and works in several containers, etc. Heck, it's even part of the MPEG-4 Standard! It looks a lot more future proof. Theres's a lot of companies supporting it, and it should play on most of those "MPEG4/DVD" players in a somewhat near future too (AVC/AAC is way to go imho).

Why wait for a commercial and clearly all-around lesser product?

NO thanks!

[Malcolm]

@crahak

what a useless post.

[milan]

@Malcolm: I agree too.

Since demo contains header file and dynamic library it shouldn't be too hard to add support for it into ffdshow. I'm just waiting for _real_ opinions about quality and usefulness of 5.1 mp3 files.

[crahak]

Originally posted by Malcolm
@crahak

what a useless post.

That's still my opinion, and most of what I mentionned is facts. No one forced you to read it, agree with it or to like it.

But hey, thanks for your much more useful post guy...

@milan: Sorry guy. I guess that was _fake_ opinion...

I guess people don't mind it's lesser codec, without DS filters or CLI or support for anything yet. (Perhaps that's how we ended up using Windows now and VHS tapes) ffdshow support for it? ffdshow is a good video decoder/post-processor, but hoping on it to decode every audio format out there as well? Quality wise, they have demo files, just judge/hear for yourself. What sounds good to someone is far too subjective to even bother discussing it imho. (and there will probably be "benchmarks" of it whenever it's not beta anymore at audio sites proving AAC better again...) Usefulness? Uh, either as stand alone audio files (contents: anything that pleases your ears) or inside other containers (what else?).

And don't forget next time to say what type of feedback you allow on your post and what you find useless...

[mikegun]

I'm really looking forward to have 5.1ac3 -> 5.1mp3 in some of my movies, if this is possible at all.

[daphy]

@ crahak

well done ;)

[Kurtnoise]

Originally posted by crahak

Implementation wise, it's one of the worst I've seen (yes, I do know it's still a demo). A form that moves around the screen as the only "meaningful" user feedback, no actual controls or even hint of what is being outputted (and it looks like you have to read german to find out in what ways it's crippled). Just a ugly drag and drop form. It looks like there is no DirectShow filters installed either (at least I couldn't find any), which makes me wonder, how are we supposed to play stuff back? With their proprietary player? (you have to use their own encoder/decoder apps, non DirectShow and no CLI, so manually do everything...) Oh, there's a winamp plugin (haven't even bothered trying it), that's about the only somewhat useful thing in the whole package.

Sorry but there are an encoder/decoder CLI in their package.

And ssamadhi97 has created a plugin for fb2k (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=29783)....

[Malcolm]

Originally posted by crahak
...most of what I mentionned is facts
if i look through you post i find the following words in nearly every phrase:
- I guess
- I hope
- I don't think
- Even if
- I doubt
- probably
- would
- Not sure how
- will be
- but I doubt
- it looks like (1)
- It looks like (2)
- I couldn't find
- most likely

So much for your 'facts'! Your post is full of assumptions, prejudice and very subjective points of view.

How can you be so sure that it's - how you write - a clearly all-around lesser product??? No one can know this by now!
And your post really did *nothing* to help finding it out!

That's my final word. i don't want to bother discussing this furter.

greetings,
Malcolm

[milan]

@crahak
I surely don't want ffdshow to support every audio format, it just seemed to me to be quite easy to develop a binding between ffdshow and decoding dll that Fraunhofer provides. I'm assuming tools which can mux/demux mono or stereo mp3 files to/from AVI (MKV, OGM) will be able to do this for 5.1 mp3 files too so there should be many tools for handling these already available.
I just wanted to hear some opions about quality of encoded 5.1 sound, because I'm not able to test it not owning a 5.1 receiver (only DolbySurround).

[Chainmax]

Do you guys think this could be a match for 5.1 AAC?

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by Chainmax
Do you guys think this could be a match for 5.1 AAC? Not at 192kbps "CBR". I reckon it's a little too high....

I'm currently using Nero's AAC-HE "tape:lowest" setting, which offers "variable" bitrates that average at around 128kbps.

That said, it's early days for 6Ch MP3 and I hope it takes off.

Does anybody know if it's based on MP3 or MP3pro. Or a mixture of both!


Cheers

[KpeX]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
Does anybody know if it's based on MP3 or MP3pro. Or a mixture of both!
As far as I know SBR is not being used in this implementation of 5.1 MP3. And it would probably be a bad idea to include it, since that would introduce even more compatibility problems.

[alexnoe]

Which muxers do support 5.1 MP3 already? I mean, there are headers for nbr of channels in the AVI file format which should be set correctly, you know...

[Teegedeck]

Originally posted by Chainmax
Do you guys think this could be a match for 5.1 AAC?
How could it? Not a chance. It is one generation behind in technical terms. IMHO this move by the Fraunhofer Institute is just an attempt to squeeze some last bucks out of the universal popularity of MP3. The announcement of 5.1 MP3 seems about as exciting news as a double-core Intel 486 CPU. ;)

5.1 HE AAC is more effective than this right now, and it will be even more effective once Ahead's Ivan Dimkovic and chums come around adding spatial surround encoding.

[KpeX]

Originally posted by Teegedeck
IMHO this move by the Fraunhofer Institute is just an attempt to squeeze some last bucks out of the universal popularity of MP3. Ditto ;). Although it will be tough for this to inject much life back into MP3, since one of the few significant advantages MP3 has over AAC right now is the prevalence of existing software and hardware decoders - whereas 5.1 MP3 does not have this advantage; in fact it probably has less SW/HW support than AAC.

[bond]

Originally posted by alexnoe
Which muxers do support 5.1 MP3 already? I mean, there are headers for nbr of channels in the AVI file format which should be set correctly, you know...afaik these mp3 multichannel (or to be precise: mp3 "surround" as fhg calls it) are not real multichannel, but simply stereo files, with some extra info to tell the surround enabled decoder what parts to play in what channel, similar to how parametric stereo works (mono stream, that gets upmixed to stereo during decoding)

this can for example be seen because these surround streams can be played by any normal mp3 player (backwards compatiblity), which of course simply ignores the additional multichannel upmix info

also note that his extension is not covered by mpeg-1 or mpeg-2 (which contains specs for real 5.1 multichannel mp3 streams, which never got used in practice tough)

[crahak]

Originally posted by Malcolm
if i look through you post i find the following words in nearly every phrase:
- I guess
(...)- most likely

So much for your 'facts'! Your post is full of assumptions, prejudice and very subjective points of view.

How can you be so sure that it's - how you write - a clearly all-around lesser product??? No one can know this by now!
And your post really did *nothing* to help finding it out!

That's my final word. i don't want to bother discussing this furter.

greetings,
Malcolm

It's so easy to misquote people, or to state partial information, or to make it sound like one wants. You basically posted everything about my opinion (the main point to the post, even if you obviously disagree), and ignored the actualy facts (like AAC being part of the MPEG4 standard and all the rest). Web forums are built upon mutual respect and acceptance of other's different opinions and views. Uselessly flaming/bashing goes against that. But I take it you don't want to discuss it further.

@Kurtnoise13: I stand corrected, thanks :)

mp3 surround is getting late in the game and is a lesser codec as is also pointed out by other people (after all, it's based on older less efficient mp3 encoding technology and not VBR either). It will also take some time before we see a final encoder, and perhaps a DirectShow decoder. AAC has already been a quite viable option for a while and has all the tools and encoders we need including some freeware. AAC being a part of a standard means support in a lot of upcoming devices and players. It would take a lot to convince me to wait so I can eventually use some new commercial codec that's alerady outperformed by AAC.