Sound quality of Tmpgenc: Is it that bad?

[wwenze]

I've encode most of my vcds using Tmpgenc. I heard rumours that the sound quality of Tmpgenc sux. I didn't bother coz the sound playback was still considered fine on my vcd player (yes i encoded into vcd) Then recently I played a vcd on my new vcd player (the old one spoilt) and found the sound quality SUCK TO THE BONE!!! I thought of the rumour, and tried playback under Vdub with the original DivX file. To my surprise, the sound was almost exactly the same during music playback! (sounded good)

Using ver 2.59
Original audio: 128 kbps mp3
Converted to: 224kbps mp2 (is this how you write mpeg layer II?)
Sound system:
ICH2 soundmax
and a brandless pair of headphones which could differentiate the sound quality from my com. with the one on my mp3 player.

So my question: It is really true that the sound of Tmpgenc is really bad?
There might be other factors that leads to sound degradation (e.g. lack of bitrate which is most likely to happen) which might not be Tmpgenc's fault.
And I also saw on a site that says all mpeg converters come with a bad sound engine. Is that true also?

[ZippyP.]

I never even bothered to compare after I read that it was better to use an external audio encoder, I just took people's word for it. Toolame is readily available in the Tools section and is easy to install. All my videos sound great, why not use it?

[tenders]

So my question: It is really true that the sound of Tmpgenc is really bad?
There might be other factors that leads to sound degradation (e.g. lack of bitrate which is most likely to happen) which might not be Tmpgenc's fault.
And I also saw on a site that says all mpeg converters come with a bad sound engine. Is that true also?

crap in-crap out. audio and/or video.
personally,i have had good results with tmpgenc. i do encode to svcd . guess it all depends on what your willing to live with?

not that i'm suffering :P

if you want,do a search for my guides,they may help

[sterno]

What I've found is that the MP2 encoding in tmpgenc is fine, but the sample rate converter sucks. If your audio is already at 44.1kHz it'll be OK, but if it's at 32kHz or 48kHz and tmpgenc internally converts it to 44.1kHz for VCD it'll usually have an annoying tinny/metallic sound.

[scottb721]

I've always let TMPG do the audio work and have been happy with the SVCD results. But that has been for DVD to SVCD conversions.

[txpharoah]

Just let the audio passthrough at whatever it was capped at (leave bitrate settings alone). The bitrate converter does suck FOR SOME PEOPLE (not all). Just get real audio software for working on the audio, and leave the TMPGenc to the video.

[scottb721]

Perhaps I could try using Cool Edit Pro to do my 48 to 44.1 conversions first then encode that.

[wwenze]

Oh... so it's just sample rate conversion. No wonder I see no problem since all the audio is at 44.1

Thanx for your replies. Personally i do not want to use toolame or Tmpgenc's high quality sample rate conversion since they both slow the encoding down alot.

And crap in crap out... nice way to put it.

[DJRumpy]

Use SSRC. It does an excellent job for resampling. It can be pluged in on the environment setting as well.

They shouldn't slow down your output that much overall though. TMPGenc is just slow. No getting around it. I wonder if anyone has done a speed test, using the internal resampler, and an external one?

I prefer working on my audio seperately anyway. I'm a hands on sort of guy

[wwenze]

Well I prefer automation. I can set my com to start itself at 12 am, do the encoding/downloads, and shutdown itself at 5 am, all while I'm sleeping.

And I did a speed test of the internal sampling converter. At high quality it takes 5 times as long to resample the audio. But heck I'm not using it anyway.

[DJRumpy]

Resampling the audio shouldn't take more than a few minutes though. Did you do any speed tests for for the whole job overall? I'd be curious to see how much longer it takes.

[wwenze]

At low quality:
A 24min clip takes 30min to encode

At high quality:
A 24min clip takes 40+min to encode

(Audio only)
At low quality, 1 min to complete a song
At high quality, takes 4.5 min fo the same song

[txpharoah]

SoundForge is the Photoshop of sound, but as pricey. Just though I'd mention it if you want to know about the good stuff.

[wwenze]

This post was edited


DO NOT AVOCATE WAREZ !!!

[txpharoah]

That's great and all, but this site does not advocate warez, which is what you're doing. Just keep it to yourself, at least for the purpose of this site. I'm not some high and mighty you-must-buy-it guy, but when I give video advice, I give legal video advice. Just playing by the rules here.

Yes, most of us all are all very well aware that people rarely buy when they should.

[wwenze]

heh heh...

[TheWolf]

Ääähm, back to topic?

Maybe most of you know but maybe somone does not:
You may use tooLame and ssrc inside TMPEG to do all the audio-jobs.

Options --> Environmental setting --> Audio engine

MPEG-1 Audio Layer II encoder: external program --> tooLame.exe
SAmpling frequency convertor: external program --> ssrc.exe

[wwenze]

The topic is more like whether the sound quality of Tmpgenc sux and that's what all I want to know, not how to do it with another program since I don't bother to test them out.

In short, this thread has already gone waaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy off...

Yah. And so conclusion (again), the audio encoder/sample rate converter of Tmpgenc does not suck at all, contrary to *some* rumours.
Rumour: gives distortion when resampling
Result: no significant faults when resampled from 48 to 44.1 khz.

Case closed. :icon14: