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Topic: WMA vs MPC wars, part N (Read 6354 times) previous topic - next topic
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WMA vs MPC wars, part N

[span style='font-size:7pt;line-height:100%']Split from 192 kbps Listening Test thread
-------------------------[/span]

wma is laughable here because it:
* is unnecessarily proprietary / annoying drm / microsoft is evil incarnate
* doesn't offer what it promises
* sucks re: usability

better alternatives:
musepack
oggenc-gt3
oggenc-aotuv
lame 3.90.3
faac

...all of which perform better, are open, and come with less bullshit


later

WMA vs MPC wars, part N

Reply #1 –
AFAIK WMA and FAAC have never been compared to eachother in a listening test, so there is little or no basis for claming that one is better than the other.

- Dan

WMA vs MPC wars, part N

Reply #2 –
Quote
wma is laughable here because it:
* is unnecessarily proprietary / annoying drm / microsoft is evil incarnate
* doesn't offer what it promises
* sucks re: usability


I think that the wma compression format is still interesting.
*To me it is not more proprietary than mpc, and drm is independant from the compression technology.
*None of the contenders is (today) able to offer the quality of mp3@128 at half the bitrate.
*it seems to be more usable than vorbis/mpc.

(However I'd prefer a widespread use of aac)

WMA vs MPC wars, part N

Reply #3 –
Quote
I think that the wma compression format is still interesting.
*To me it is not more proprietary than mpc, and drm is independant from the compression technology.
*None of the contenders is (today) able to offer the quality of mp3@128 at half the bitrate.
*it seems to be more usable than vorbis/mpc.

(However I'd prefer a widespread use of aac)


Sorry for asking and for the offtopic, but why do you think Musepack is at least as proprietary as WMA? Even if no one is yet capable to understand and work on Musepack's source code properly, I wouldn't say it's proprietary (edit: and is also open source).

And yes, none of the contenders is currently able to offer the quality of mp3 at 128 kbps at half the bitrate. But MS said that WMA8 offered "CD Quality" at 64 kbps:

Quote
Windows Media Audio 8 nearly triples the audio compression of the MP3 format, making it possible to store almost three times as much CD-quality music on hard drives and portable devices.

Quote
# Windows Media Audio 8 achieves CD-quality sound at 64 Kbps.
# Windows Media Audio 8 offers near-CD-quality sound at 48 Kbps, comparable to MP3 files encoded at 128 Kbps.


So, I agree with xmixahlx on this point.

On the usability issue, I won't say I don't agree with you.

@ezra2323: Yes, most of the "mp3 scene" switched to Lame -aps (I won't argue this here anymore in order to respect the TOS).

Cya

WMA vs MPC wars, part N

Reply #4 –
Quote
Sorry for asking and for the offtopic, but why do you think Musepack is at least as proprietary as WMA? Even if no one is yet capable to understand and work on Musepack's source code properly, I wouldn't say it's proprietary (edit: and is also open source).

Format not defined by any standard body, no real specs available, all we have is source code.
This applyes to both mpc and wma.

WMA vs MPC wars, part N

Reply #5 –
Quote
Format not defined by any standard body, no real specs available.


OK, but that's not the definition of proprietary I use, which is something along these lines:

Parts taken from dictionary.com

- Owned by a private individual or corporation under a trademark or patent;
- something that is used, produced, or marketed under exclusive legal right of the inventor or maker; specifically : a drug (as a patent medicine) that is protected by secrecy, patent, or copyright against free competition as to name, product, composition, or process of manufacture;
-  In the language of hackers and users, inferior; implies a
product not conforming to open-systems standards, and thus
one that puts the customer at the mercy of a vendor who can
inflate service and upgrade charges after the initial sale has
locked the customer in.

I don't think any of these definitions apply to Musepack.

Cya

WMA vs MPC wars, part N

Reply #6 –
Quote
- Owned by a private individual or corporation under a trademark or patent;

This could perhaps apply to Musepack, and applies to most audio compression formats

WMA vs MPC wars, part N

Reply #7 –
Gabriel, could you detail more those trademarks/patents you're talking about ?
It's a 'Jump to Conclusions Mat'. You see, you have this mat, with different CONCLUSIONS written on it that you could JUMP TO.

WMA vs MPC wars, part N

Reply #8 –
Quote
Gabriel, could you detail more those trademarks/patents you're talking about ?

Well, most audio formats are covered by patents. For mp2, mp3 and aac, we are sure that there are some patents, most beeing widely known.
Regarding mpc, it is not yet clear if it is exempt from Philips patents.
This is not really a major problem, as most of Philips mp2 related patents will expire soon, and mpc does is not as widespread to cause worries to Philips.

I think that wma is not more proprietary than mpc: we have the same kind of specifications (ie source code only), even if in the wma case the source if reverse engineered, and both are likely to be covered by patents.
None of them is approved by any standardization body.


btw: thank you to admins for having split this discussion

WMA vs MPC wars, part N

Reply #9 –
Quote
I think that wma is not more proprietary than mpc: we have the same kind of specifications (ie source code only), even if in the wma case the source if reverse engineered

You have WMA encoder source codes? 

WMA vs MPC wars, part N

Reply #10 –
Quote
You have WMA encoder source codes

No, only decoder.
But formats are defined by decoding, not by encoding. Encoding only defines a specific implementation, not the format.

WMA vs MPC wars, part N

Reply #11 –
Some members of this community already tried to find patents in Musepack and didn't come up with anything. So, there's also a possibility that it's exempt from patents (though this doesn't prove anything). But let's imagine (for argument's sake) that it's not exempt from some patents. This doesn't make it proprietary. Cause if it does, aren't MP3, AAC and others also proprietary? They may be ISO standards, but not being an ISO standard doesn't make something proprietary, right?

Cya

WMA vs MPC wars, part N

Reply #12 –
I am very interested in seeing these reverse-engineered WMA decoders. I realize they're probably illegal and can't be posted here, but it annoys me when people I know upload samples of their music on the internet in WMA and I have to give them the I-don't-have-Windows-Media-Player speech.

The fact that MPC has an open-sourced encoder available is a point for it against WMA, but if, as I understand it, the format isn't documented well enough for it to be possible to write your own encoder/decoder from scratch (like LAME), or at least modify the stock encoder/decoder (early LAME, OGG+GT3 and OGG+AoTuv) it's really no better than WMA in that regard.

Microsoft's claim that 64 kbps WMA is "CD quality" is a load of bovine feces. My co-worker at work rips music to his computer in 64 kbps WMA and it sounds terrible, even to my hearing-damaged musician ears.

MP3 and AAC are proprietary in that they technically require royalties for their use, though of course most people ignore that except for people who develop commercial products around them.

WMA vs MPC wars, part N

Reply #13 –
Quote
I am very interested in seeing these reverse-engineered WMA decoders. I realize they're probably illegal and can't be posted here

http://www1.mplayerhq.hu/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cg...&cvsroot=FFMpeg

Might be illegal, but it was even announced at the validated news, so I guess there's no big danger.

The rumour going around is that it's not really a reverse engineering of the format, but somebody got the WMA decoding SDK Microsoft gives to portable player manufacturers (under NDA, of course), and based on those sources wrote his own decoder. (wise move, else Microsoft could sue based on copyright law - I.E, the SDK is ©Microsoft, so you can't redistribute it without written permission)

WMA vs MPC wars, part N

Reply #14 –
It seems WMA has a slow decoding speed. Right?

WMA vs MPC wars, part N

Reply #15 –
Quote
It seems WMA has a slow decoding speed. Right?

I don't think so (regarding WMA std). Quite the opposite, I'm under the impression it's quite speedy.

WMA vs MPC wars, part N

Reply #16 –
Quote
It seems WMA has a slow decoding speed. Right?

Use foobar and find out.  IIRC when i tested it, decode speed was extremely fast for std and fairly quick for pro.  Something like 100x real time on my 1.8GHz Athlon for std and 80 for Pro.

I've heard the decoder uses a bit more ram then MP3 or AAC though.  I don't know how true that is.

WMA vs MPC wars, part N

Reply #17 –
Quote
I am very interested in seeing these reverse-engineered WMA decoders. I realize they're probably illegal and can't be posted here

Reverse engineering is not illegal in most countries.

Quote
MP3 and AAC are proprietary in that they technically require royalties for their use

IMO this doesn't make them proprietary. I think that something controlled by a single person/company is proprietary.

Quote
The rumour going around is that it's not really a reverse engineering of the format, but somebody got the WMA decoding SDK Microsoft gives to portable player manufacturers (under NDA, of course), and based on those sources wrote his own decoder.

Author said he has no access to any wma source code.
I think that it could have been done in tandem: Someone having access to source code covered by NDA, and someone else writing the decoder by asking the first one questions regarding algorithms.
This way the original source code is not disclosed.

Quote
It seems WMA has a slow decoding speed

A little slower than mp3, but the main point is that it uses more memory.

WMA vs MPC wars, part N

Reply #18 –
Quote
IMO this doesn't make them proprietary. I think that something controlled by a single person/company is proprietary.

I agree. And it's the main reason I wouldn't say that mpc is as proprietary than wma.
WMA was developed by Microsoft ; wma patents are owned by microsoft ; licences conditions were made by microsoft...

MPC was developed by Buschmann and Klemm, but is someone the owner of MPC? Are patents and licensing conditions really clear? I don't think so.

A proprietary format is logically the property of someone (company or not). MPC doesn't seem to belong to someone. Therefore the expression "proprietary format" isn't IMO appropriate to mpc. I suggest "unclear juridical and open-source audio format".
Wavpack Hybrid -c4hx6
 

WMA vs MPC wars, part N

Reply #19 –
I do not consider mpC to be proprietary.
At first glance, we might consider that wma is proprietary. However, we I think about it, I think that it is not very different than mpc.

The format is frozen, and technically everyone could write an encoder/decoder for it, as there is some source code available.
The both lack specification documents.
They are both unclear regarding patents. I do not think that wma is clear regarding patents. When you licence wma code from Microsoft, we are sure that you are licensing an implementation. But are you licensing some patents? If yes, are you licensing ALL the relevant patents? I am not sure about it.

WMA vs MPC wars, part N

Reply #20 –
Quote
They are both unclear regarding patents. I do not think that wma is clear regarding patents. When you licence wma code from Microsoft, we are sure that you are licensing an implementation. But are you licensing some patents? If yes, are you licensing ALL the relevant patents? I am not sure about it.

I can't say if WMA is juridically clear or unclear. Nevertheless, many companies supports wma format, so I suppose that Microsoft offers the necessary warranties.
Advantage of WMA: there's a big owning company behind, with a lot of money and a big juridic assistance, which could assume all possible juridic problem. It's not really the case of MPC.
Wavpack Hybrid -c4hx6

WMA vs MPC wars, part N

Reply #21 –
Quote
The fact that MPC has an open-sourced encoder available is a point for it against WMA, but if, as I understand it, the format isn't documented well enough for it to be possible to write your own encoder/decoder from scratch (like LAME), or at least modify the stock encoder/decoder (early LAME, OGG+GT3 and OGG+AoTuv) it's really no better than WMA in that regard.

With regards to Vorbis, the documentation from Xiph.Org currently only details the decoding process which does help in understanding the encoder only in very general terms, but is not enough to allow one to understand the specifics of the encoder, let alone modifying it.  Things such as the psychoacoustic model, noise normalization, etc. get no mention.  There is no substitute for plunging into the source code head first.