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Lossy audio encoding taken to new heights.
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Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Sydney, Australia
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Well you all know about AAC. Sounds great doesn't it? Then came HE-AAC for low bitrates, where the high frequency information is lopped off and re-created on the fly, by the decoder using hints encoded along with the audio. HE-AAC is damn impressive at bitrates down to about 64-48kbps.
But there's been another development, PS HE-AAC. PS adds lossy stereo encoding. When files are encoded using this method they sound absolutely amazing for the bitrate. I've been playing with this encoder (in virtual PC, using cmd.exe - fun!) all night and I swear I nearly fell off my chair the first time I heard it's output.
I've created 9 samples for people to download and listen to. You must use VLC (available from http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-macosx.html if you don't already have it) to play these back as QuickTime/iTunes doesn't support them, and they will sound absolutely horrible.
These are 24kbps, 44.1Khz Stereo files.
Yes that's right, 24kbps, as in, could stream over an old 28.8k modem without difficulty. So stream away you dialup users 
To the mods, these are the full songs. I think fair use comes into play here as at this sort of bit rate people aren't seriously going to be using these to infringe copyright (I'm certainly not, I just want to demonstrate the quality of this codec.)
So without further ado:
http://homepage.mac.com/qnxde_hexley/alanis.mp4 520kb, Alanis Morissette - 8 Easy Steps
http://homepage.mac.com/qnxde_hexley/britney.mp4 596kb, Britney Spears - Can't Make You Love Me
http://homepage.mac.com/qnxde_hexley/christina.mp4 676kb, Christina Aguilera - Hello
http://homepage.mac.com/qnxde_hexley/dido.mp4 768kb, Dido - Here With Me
http://homepage.mac.com/qnxde_hexley/jaxx.mp4 880kb, Basement Jaxx - Plug it In
http://homepage.mac.com/qnxde_hexley/kristine.mp4 712kb, Kristine W - Fly Again
http://homepage.mac.com/qnxde_hexley/kylie.mp4 692kb, Kylie Minogue - Love Affair
http://homepage.mac.com/qnxde_hexley/michelle.mp4 692kb, Michelle Branch - Are You Happy Now?
http://homepage.mac.com/qnxde_hexley/natalie.mp4 752kb, Natalie Imbruglia - Counting Down The Days
There's a variety of different sounding music there - the britney sample sounds almost identical to the original 128kbps AAC I transcoded it from as britney in general is quite plastic and synthetic...  the natalie imbruglia one doesn't fare quite so well as it's fairly acoustic sounding, but still very impressive nonetheless...
Note these are CBR files - ie, 1 second of silence uses as much data as one second of complex audio - so it could also be improved using a VBR algorithm. Also it's very very new, so there is much tuning to be done.
Sorry if it sounds like I'm gushing I just find it incredible that you can squeeze that much quality, and stereo - into 24kbps...
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You can't eat all those hamburgers, you hear me you ridiculous man?
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Mac Elite
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The RIAA is going to send the swat team to your house and rape you... or maybe just sue the jebus out of you... one of the two.
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Could you link some music that's not terrible, please?
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When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. -- Jonathan Swift.
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Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Jul 2001
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Don't make me put Celine Dion up there...
but seriously they're hardly FLAC files of the whole album...24kbps is about 1/2 the bandwidth of an ichat voice convo to put it in perspective...
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You can't eat all those hamburgers, you hear me you ridiculous man?
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Join Date: Feb 2004
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Impressive, but I think it's missing just a bit too much of the high end. But damn, it's not bad at all (for the file size).
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Mar 2002
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Originally Posted by qnxde
Sorry if it sounds like I'm gushing I just find it incredible that you can squeeze that much quality, and stereo - into 24kbps...
It is impressive, indeed. I would not use this quality level, but it's quite good, and with respect to the file size, very good. I would not even want to try how an mp3, regular AAC sounds at 24 kbps... This codec at 64-96 kbps may sound very well.
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Originally Posted by andreas_g4
It is impressive, indeed. I would not use this quality level, but it's quite good, and with respect to the file size, very good. I would not even want to try how an mp3, regular AAC sounds at 24 kbps... This codec at 64-96 kbps may sound very well.
Agreed. Any chance of a 64-96 kbps sample? 
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Grizzled Veteran
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okay, here ya go. Not much point in testing 96kbps as normal LC-AAC sounds good even at that bit rate...
http://homepage.mac.com/qnxde_hexley/ch-heaac.mp4 1.3mb, HE-AAC, 64kbps - Crowded House - Four Seasons in One Day
http://homepage.mac.com/qnxde_hexley/ch-lcaac.mp4 1.3mb, LC-AAC, 64kbps - Crowded House - Four Seasons in One Day (I encoded this one using QuickTime for comparison)
and
http://homepage.mac.com/qnxde_hexley...ited-heaac.mp4 1.61mb, HE-AAC, 48kbps - Alanis Morissette - Uninvited
http://homepage.mac.com/qnxde_hexley/tom.mp4 680kb, PS HE-AAC, 32kbps - Tom McRae - 2nd Law
I'm not sure if PS is used at bit rates this high (bar the 32kbps one), the encoder isn't very verbose unfortunately...
(
Last edited by qnxde; Jun 4, 2005 at 07:23 PM.
)
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You can't eat all those hamburgers, you hear me you ridiculous man?
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Grizzled Veteran
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Originally Posted by qnxde
Thanks! This is very good, but still has some of that "compression sound".
I wouldn't reencode my music collection using it, but I agree that the quality is definitely amazing for the bitrate!
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Grizzled Veteran
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Oh it's not made for encoding your own music with, this is more designed for web delivery where every last bit counts...Also you could probably do quite nice sounding 5.1 audio at 128kbps rates with it
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You can't eat all those hamburgers, you hear me you ridiculous man?
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Professional Poster
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Could you link some music that's not terrible, please?
Crowded House - Four Seasons in One Day
Excellent! 
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"I'm virtually bursting with adequatulence!" - Bill McNeal, NewsRadio
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Hmm.. the QT 7 plug-in loads it up... is VLC really necessary to play them?
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QuickTime/iTunes doesn't support them, and they will sound absolutely horrible.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Aug 2001
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Originally Posted by DeathMan
QuickTime/iTunes doesn't support them, and they will sound absolutely horrible.
I will seccond this, I thought it sounded alright with quicktime, but once I played it with VLC I was amazed!
Zach
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inscrutable impenetrable impregnable inconceivable
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Originally Posted by phantomdragonz
I will seccond this, I thought it sounded alright with quicktime, but once I played it with VLC I was amazed!
Zach
Wow, that's true! 
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Addicted to MacNN
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Originally Posted by lavar78
Excellent!
I'm here to help. 
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When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. -- Jonathan Swift.
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Professional Poster
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Why does it sound so bad in QT? Is there a QT plugin that will help? This rules!
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Addicted to MacNN
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Originally Posted by phantomdragonz
I will seccond this, I thought it sounded alright with quicktime, but once I played it with VLC I was amazed!
Zach
You are right.
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Mac Elite
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speaking as someone who encoded my music collection as apple lossless because 160 kbps mp3 sounded too crappy, this sucks, but I could see uses for interned radio over cellphone internet connections, it would definitely be higher quality than most phones speakers. Although it is better than fm radio.
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Originally Posted by phantomdragonz
I will seccond this, I thought it sounded alright with quicktime, but once I played it with VLC I was amazed!
Zach
I am listening to natalie.mp4. The high pitched vocals sound too ringy, and some low tones sound distorted (specially at 1'20"). I don't have the original song to compare against.
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Mac Elite
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Would this make high encoded files sound even better, or is it only applicable to very low bitrates?
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