Real Media vs MP3 Posted Mixes?

[MikeBee]

Is there any reason that DJ's post mixes in ram format rather than MP3 or ogg? (see www.vorbis.com (http://www.vorbis.com) for info on ogg) I know a few people that wont ever listen to a Mix just because they don't want to be locked into having to load a package like Real Media on their PC's. Real Media is generally not trusted bacause of all their previous violations of user privacy. Such as collecting personal info from users and sending it back to their servers. Also, what if we want to appreciate the mixes on a portable player? Most portable players do not support ram.

[Ben.]

ram = smaller files and therefore less bandwidth usuage...

also a lot of people including myself post mixes in real audio because they are intended for streaming rather than download.

[MikeBee]

Originally posted by Ben.:
ram = smaller files and therefore less bandwidth usuage...

also a lot of people including myself post mixes in real audio because they are intended for streaming rather than download. So you don't want you music to be shared?

[beaniboy67]

rm files are smaller files that contain file headers and info (protocols)which allow streaming possiblities far easier than mp3s would.

mp3 does offer better quality at the higher bit rates but its not as versatile as rm and the server space g man would need to store all those mixes would be 30 to 40 times larger as well.

i recently done a honours degree audio theosis on streaming formats and i also done internationaly recognised listening tests on rm and wmf audio files at various bit rates.

64 kbps rm and wmf are very very close to the quality of true wav files and can even beat the ass of some mp3 codecs at 128 kbps and sometimes even 192kbps.

[Edmund White]

I use Real Audio files for the convenience of streaming. It's good for modem users or people that simply don't want to download a real mp3. I also make my mixes available in 160kbps mp3. So, the end-user has a choice.

[MikeBee]

Originally posted by beaniboy67:
rm files are smaller files that contain file headers and info (protocols)which allow streaming possiblities far easier than mp3s would.

mp3 does offer better quality at the higher bit rates but its not as versatile as rm and the server space g man would need to store all those mixes would be 30 to 40 times larger as well.

i recently done a honours degree audio theosis on streaming formats and i also done internationaly recognised listening tests on rm and wmf audio files at various bit rates.

64 kbps rm and wmf are very very close to the quality of true wav files and can even beat the ass of some mp3 codecs at 128 kbps and sometimes even 192kbps. You need an Honors degree in English.....

[Mark Andrus]

Originally posted by beaniboy67:
64 kbps rm and wmf are very very close to the quality of true wav files That was the conclusion of an "honors thesis"?

Someone needs to go back to school, this statement is absolutely ridiculous.

[beaniboy67]

Originally posted by Mark Andrus:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by beaniboy67:
64 kbps rm and wmf are very very close to the quality of true wav files That was the conclusion of an "honors thesis"?

Someone needs to go back to school, this statement is absolutely ridiculous. </font>[/QUOTE]basically i done a bsc honours in auio technologyat glasgow caledonian university and as 30 percent of my overall mark i had to do a 30 thousand word in depth theosis.


my project was called

Subjectiive comparisons of internet audio codecs using iTU standards.

the tests used a technique called the MUSHRA method.this is the first and only internationally recognised subjective listening technique for testing streaming file types.

it used all iTU recs for the tests and results which are long and lengthy show that for certain types of audio 64 kbps wmf and rm codecs can perform just as well as some mp3 codecs at higher bit rates.

The type of audio being tested also determines what codec performs best at a certain bitrate and pre editing and frequency analysis can also improve audio quality after compression.

the paper i completed was certified through my university and will be edited and published by a panel of proffesors at my university in scotland.

hopefully then it will be published ina audio phile magazines and may even be used as a white paper as in international standard.

if you are really intrested in this type of thing then im sure i can arrange for you to have a rough copy of the document.

[beaniboy67]

Originally posted by MikeBee:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by beaniboy67:
rm files are smaller files that contain file headers and info (protocols)which allow streaming possiblities far easier than mp3s would.

mp3 does offer better quality at the higher bit rates but its not as versatile as rm and the server space g man would need to store all those mixes would be 30 to 40 times larger as well.

i recently done a honours degree audio theosis on streaming formats and i also done internationaly recognised listening tests on rm and wmf audio files at various bit rates.

64 kbps rm and wmf are very very close to the quality of true wav files and can even beat the ass of some mp3 codecs at 128 kbps and sometimes even 192kbps. You need an Honors degree in English..... </font>[/QUOTE]you need a lesson in manners.dont judge when you no nothing ;)

[beaniboy67]

oh i forgot to say.

certain audio covers certain freq's of the audio spectrum

certain codecs capture certain freq's of the audio spectrum

certain codecs dont capture certain freq's of the audio spectrum

if coding a voice file for streaming with a 16 kbps streaming codec then a lot of the time it will give a better result than a mp3 codec

it was simply designed to capture voice freqs and not musical freq's

some streaming codecs were designed for radio voice commentating with atmosphere there for the algorithms used are suited better for this purpose.

this is a very simple explanantion but as i said before i can get you a hold of the paper.

[Mark Andrus]

Originally posted by beaniboy67:


it used all iTU recs for the tests and results which are long and lengthy show that for certain types of audio 64 kbps wmf and rm codecs can perform just as well as some mp3 codecs at higher bit rates.

That I can agree with, but the statement "64 kbps rm and wmf are very very close to the quality of true wav files" I cannot agree with at all, and have an extremely difficult time imagining how any properly-conducted listen-testing could result in such a conclusion.

[beaniboy67]

Originally posted by Mark Andrus:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by beaniboy67:


it used all iTU recs for the tests and results which are long and lengthy show that for certain types of audio 64 kbps wmf and rm codecs can perform just as well as some mp3 codecs at higher bit rates.

That I can agree with, but the statement "64 kbps rm and wmf are very very close to the quality of true wav files" I cannot agree with at all, and have an extremely difficult time imagining how any properly-conducted listen-testing could result in such a conclusion. </font>[/QUOTE]if you read the above text in my previous message you will understand where i am coming from.

a 64 kbps rm or wmf file was not a million miles away from the quality of the true wav of the same audio piece using the MUSHRA scale

the mushra scale is split into 5 areas of

excellent(80-100)
good(60-80)
fair(40-60)
poor(20-40)
bad(0-20)

all codecs are tested against each other with identical short pieces of music plus the original wav and a hidden anchor of the same wav file are also used at the same time.the tests were also carried out under strict ITU guidelines and the tests were done in co-ordination with the EBU.

these tests results will shortly be published but in short the 64 kbps rm and wmf codecs gave a result of good to excellent in most cases and with some types of audio excerpts the listener was not able to determine a difference


When the codecs were tested against higher bit rate mpeg layer 3 codecs(mp3) it was also clear that the rmf and wmf files were sometimes better with certain pieces of audio.

pretty intresting stuff but i do agree that the rm and wmf codecs at 64kbps are not as good as the true wavfile,that is obvious but what i am saying is going on the mushra results the files are rated very highly and some of them even came into the category of excellent for certain types of music.

the rm files were also streamed under an enviroment that caused serious data packet losses on the streamed file and it was recorded that the files could withstand up to 15% packet losses during streaming without degragation in quality compared to the same files without streaming.

[JMNYC]

another point to the original question is that MP3 downloads are often blocked by corporate firewalls where streaming RealAudio (ram) files are not.

As to the question of whether people who stream RA vs offering MP3 downloads want to "share the music" - IMHO, that depends on your definition of "sharing"... I share my mixes online via RealAudio streaming rather than MP3 out of respect for the artists (see Royalties thread)... those RM files probably won't end up on P2P's, as opposed to the MP3 which undoubtedly would.

[ November 06, 2003, 07:42 PM: Message edited by: JMNYC ]

[Ben.]

^^^ what he said graemlins/thumbsup.gif

plus a there tends to be a lot of unreleased material on the mixes I post... people could bootleg stuff from there if I posted high quality mp3's.


Originally posted by MikeBee:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Ben.:
ram = smaller files and therefore less bandwidth usuage...

also a lot of people including myself post mixes in real audio because they are intended for streaming rather than download. So you don't want you music to be shared? </font>[/QUOTE]