| - #1 Small Things Come In Lossy Packages
- These sample files let you compare codecs...
- The Gratitude
Many thanks to John Rowe, Marketing Co-ordinator at QDesign Corp. for a copy of the Pro Edition. Rockin' good technology. Consider this: If QDesign can make audio sound good at 32 kbps, imagine what your material would sound like at 128 k!
Thanks also to The Adrian Brinkerhoff Company and Terry Marshall for their kind permission to use these performances. Most generous, guys!
The Tools
- SoundHack version 0.88
- QuickTime Player version 4.1
- Media Cleaner Pro version 4.0.2
- QDesign Music Encoder Pro Edition version 2
- RealProducer version 6.1.0.160
- N2MP3 version 1.0.3
The Process
I started out by using SoundHack's Import > CD Track feature to top and tail the segments of interest and save them as 44.1, 16 bit AIFFs.
Then, I used the Hack > Gain Change function suck out some of the headroom. The Rachmaninoff file got a bit less than 6 dB of gain so as to give just 2 dB of headroom. The Marshall file had around 1.5 dB of headroom so it was fine as is. To finish up in SoundHack, a copy was saved as a 16 Bit Linear QuickTime file. Finally, the files were opened into QuickTime Player. Then, Movie and Sound Track Annotation was added. This resulted in AIFF source files ready for compression.
One addition note: For those of you faced with doing a large quantity of files, the QuickTime Player is fully scriptable. If only more applications were. The figure below shows the left half of the Script Editor with a small portion of the Player's AppleScript dictionary. Lots of scripting support...
For QT4 & WMA -
In Media Cleaner Pro, the source files were first Added to a Batch. Then, a Setting variant (see below) was created for each codec and bit rate. Notice these settings are for 28.8 stereo delivery at 16 kbits/second.
The two source files were then batch processed. HTML files for this page were also produced in the process. The resultant QT4 files made for a 56 kbaud connection (*_02.mov) are very much like the originals. I'll post the original AIFF files if there's enough demand.
Two things about Media Cleaner, an excellent product for compressing audio and video content. Media Cleaner ships with a very capable version of the QDesign codec. This basic version doesn't have as many controls as the Pro version I used. If your client's aren't discerning, they won't appreciate the details so go with the bundled version. The Pro version is fully adjustable for your critical clients.
Second, a word about scripting Media Cleaner. Though Media Cleaner is scriptable, it's dictionary isn't extensive. You would need to have settings and the contents of batches defined in advance, then it would run unattended.
For MP3 -
In Media Cleaner Pro, an MP3 setting was created after listening to the result of an N2MP3 encode. I must be doing something wrong but, the N2MP3 codec produced a truly horrible result. What's up with that? I've included the N2MP3 file for your amusement.
The Media Cleaner settings (see below) were tweaked 4 times to get what I considered the best quality. Even then, you can hear how poor the quality is in comparison to the more modern codecs.
RealAudio G3 -
The source files were first fed to RealProducer (I kid you not) and encoded as SureStream data for 28 k and 56 kbaud targets. Though there aren't many options, too few in fact, RealProducer walks you through the process. The encoder version I used is a free download so you can check it out for yourself.
The resulting files are shown below, sorted by size:
Notice the size of the source files at the top. Also notice that the ".mp3" files made for a 28.8 kbaud connection are the same file size as the QT4 and WMA files made for a 56 kbaud connection. I think you'll also find the audio quality is rather poor for those fat MP3 files.
- AAC -
3/20/2000 - I've finally found an AAC encoder that runs under Mac OS. Liquid Audio's Liquifier quickly and easily provides AAC files and content-specific metadata. Unfortunately, while talking with representatives of Liquid Audio at the AFIM Conference in Cleveland, I realized that you folks can play the resultant files! I would have to get them onto a Liquid server...stand by, I'll see what I can do about that.
Again, before I get down to the samples, we need to talk about requirements. You will need to have QuickTime installed and both the Windows Media player and the RealPlayer to hear the four file formats. Since there is no browser plugin for the ASF files, they have been BinHexed and require Stuffit Expander to reconstitute. Once expanded, they can be played off of your local disk.
Please check that you have the current versions of all these products.
Also, make sure that your browser has a healthy amount of memory assigned to it. Plugins require a larger application heap than would normally be needed. On my current setup (G3 300 running 8.6.1), Communicator 4.7 needs 18 MB to run common plugins without instability. You may also want to increase your cache size a bit. I have mine currently set to 7680 kbytes.
The samples are on a separate framed page since the player controls are embedded. OK, on to the audio. Here are the samples. You decide...
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