is it worthwhile using tooLAME with TMPGEnc ?

[Scumbag]

as the subject says...

Is there a noticeable difference in the audio encoding quality of TMPG vs tooLAME ? I read in a recent post an indirect reference to this, but thought I'd get a broader set of opinions.

I've never been upset with the audio quality i've got from TMPG, but I'm always interested in improvements !

regards,

jr

[haubrija]

I think there's a hugh difference... Maybe its just me but I always thought tmpgenc audio sounded kind of bad... I don't use it through tmpg however... I hate that it creates a temporary wave file... try it out though... definately worth it.

[whyme]

I'm happy with TmpGenc's audio lately as I now convert to 44KHz and normalize with DVD2AVI when converting DVDs to VCD or SVCD. Otherwise TmpGenc seems to sound a bit tinny.

[SatStorm]

Yes!

[low_iq_88]

IMHO, toolame is FAR better....use it damnit ...lol

[samyboy]

Does it add too much time if you add tooLame as a external audio encoder with TmpgEnc ? Any numbers available ?

[Scumbag]

I just used tooLAME to encode around 71 minutes of audio (via TMPGenc) and it took 13 minutes on my c800 with 7,200 rpm drives and 256 meg of memory.

I haven't done my subjective audio quality comparison test yet though.

regards,

jr

[AntnyMD]

I find TMPGEnc's audio compression to be acceptable when encoding audio at 224kbps and higher. When I need to go down below 192, its tooLAME, or the worst sound imaginable! And I also use joint-stereo mode when encoding below 224 ... seems to help a bit.

[Truman]

You may even use SSRC as external sampling frequency converter.
Vob2audio as audio decoder, SSRC, tooLAME as endoder and .mp2 @ 128kbps rocks.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Truman on 2001-09-20 20:51:37 ]</font>

[taco]

Just use bbMPEG and everything will be cool.

[Ymen]

I agreed with Truman but I get audio sync problem on NTSC film conversion. I used Vob2audio, Tmpgenc and TooLAME to convert audio @128kbps. Do you need to slow down/speed up the audio ? If yes, how do you do it ?

[BxB]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-09-20 14:15:33, samyboy wrote:
Does it add too much time if you add tooLame as a external audio encoder with TmpgEnc ? Any numbers available ?
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Keep in mind that while toolame adds some time, it decreases the processing that TMPGEnc must do. I just did my first conversion with toolame, and a 50 minute DVD2AVI project took at least 30 minutes LESS than not using toolame. TMPGEnc took over 40 minutes less, but toolame added about 10 minutes (using PIII 533mHz).

I had already converted the file to 44.1 kHz in DVD2AVI (TMPGEnc doesn't do this very well), adding at least 30 minutes to the process, but I presume I wouldn't need to do that just using toolame, so subtract another 30 minutes.

Total time (potentially) saved using toolame: about an hour. Sound quality: excellent. I'm a little concerned about synchronization using an external tool, but we'll see how that goes.

[Scumbag]

Well I've finished my semi-scientific analysis, and in short, the answer is Yes - it is worthwhile.

It is both quicker and of a higher quality. Bargain !!!

Some results.

Speed:
Encode 10 mins of audio

TMPGenc internal: 1:58 avg
tooLAME external: 1:34 avg

Quality:
A lot more subjective but I think it did sound better at all the encoding bitrates I tried, 320, 224 and 160. A spectrum analysis of the resultant mp2 files showed the following.

High frequency rolloff with tooLAME external
320kbps 15,275 - 16,123 Hz
224kbps 13,782 - 14,507
160kbps 12,352 - 12,711

High frequency rolloff with TMPG internal

320kbps 14,387 - 14,708 Hz
224kbps 13,130 - 13,309
160kbps 11,693 - 12,052

In every case the LAME encoder gave more top end and quicker. What more could you want.

I also did one test with LAME at 384 kbps. Rolloff of the high frequency ocurred between 15,644 and 16,183 Hz.

It seems to me that it may well be worthwhile spending those extra 96 - 160 kbps on the audio if you have the availble space / bandwidth to go from 224 to the higher rates.

Once you've got the average bitrate of the video up to around 2000 kbps I think you may as well spend it on extra audio quality.

regards,

jr

[Scumbag]

One last point...

Always make sure to use the highest quality source WAV file.

In DVD2AVI make sure to do a F8 - audio level pre-check before doing the project save, and make sure you have the 48 -> 44.1 KHz convert on ultra high quality.

jr

[adam]

I wouldnt use dvd2avi to do the 48->44100 conversion. Its way too slow. Using an external rate converter in TMPGenc can cut the encoding time down by an hour or so.

[Scumbag]

Downsampling, or indeed, upsampling, is a very complex "art". It is no trivial matter to get good results. A poor resampling algorithm will guarantee audible artifacts in the resultant file.

I have used a lot of resampling tools in my time, especially with my sampling synthesizer, when I collected gigabytes of instrument samples, and needed to re-sample many of them to a usable format.

All sample rate conversion will introduce some aliasing and distortion. Many, quite expensive pieces of software don't do it well.

I have found that DVD2AVI on ultra-high does quite a good job, and it has the advantage that it can be done whilst doing the AC3 conversion.

If you are wanting to see if you can do better at the conversion, there is only one sample rate convertor I would bother with, SoX. I had excellent results with it, though I can't remember if speed was one of it's major attributes.

SoX can be found at SourceForge here: -
http://sourceforge.net/projects/sox

A good article explaining resampling and SoX can be found here: -
http://leute.server.de/wilde/resample.html

I may do a bit of testing to see if it's worth using SoX, but it's not a task for beginners.

regards,

jr