[TriLUG] Ogg vs. mp3

[crimsun at fungus.sh.nu]

On Thu, May 29, 2003 at 10:57:04AM -0400, Daniel Monjar wrote:
> What is the benefit of Ogg over mp3 format?  Is it just a legal thing or 
> are there size and/or audio benefits to Ogg as well?

Quality difference is largely perception; a few of my younger friends
claim Vorbis reproduces the higher frequencies better. (FWIW, I trust
their judgment because their hearing is more acute; YMMV.) There was
also discussion on the frame boundaries (mp3 codecs don't handle them
correctly), so separation between bitstreams can be eliminated to be
"truly gapless." Also, decoding is simpler (but usually requires more
memory). I should refer you to:
http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/doc/vorbis-spec-intro.html
for the gory details.

I use Vorbis with [Net-]Rhythmbox, which will be a nice iTunesish
application.

-- 
Dan Chen                crimsun at fungus.sh.nu
GPG key: www.unc.edu/~crimsun/pubkey.gpg.asc