Best Audio codec to use with Mpeg-4 Video

[TheShadow091]

Which is best compressed Audio codec to use with Mpeg-4 Video? I use Radium's MP3 Codec. Are all the MP3 Codecs the same (Lame, Radium, Fraunhofer, I think there is another!)? I heard the old DivX Audio Codec came out very well at "64kbits/s for DivX ". Thanks.

[benderman]

Yes, I use the original Fraunhofer MP3 for 96kbps or higher and DivXAudioCodec for 64kbps/stereo. For mono-sound mp3 seems to be OK even with 64kbps or lower.

[Thrawn]

i always use radium codec too, as i never had any probs with it

what is lame mp3 codec good for? variable bitrate? is this the reason of unsynch videos and else errors?

[Enchanter]

Would there be a quality difference between those codecs, bar the processing speed?

[TheShadow091]

I have no clue wut the difference between the MP3 codecs is. If u ask me, one MP3 Codec is as good as the next. I sticking with Radium because it works!

[Mpegger]

In terms of quality, Lame is the best mp3 encoder and decoder available. Next would be Fraunhofer (Radium), followed by Xing. There are plenty of other mp3 encoders available as well, but they all fall below the Fraunhofer, with some worse then Xing, and the Xing codec isn't that good to begin with.

If your not worried about quality, just stick with the Fraunhofer/Radium.

[zoli]

I agree lame is supposed to be the best quality mp3 encoder engine, although the developers modestly say only: "Quality is comparable to FhG encoding engines and substantially better than most other encoders."

However, there are also some people doing testing out there.

"Conclusion

The best encoder in this test is Lame 3.89 (used with the -h switch) followed closely by Psytel AAC. Both are freeware, so I would use one of these two. I would certainly not use BladeEnc or Xing at this bitrate. Fraunhofer's mp3enc is called "the reference encoder" by many people. Until recently that was probably true, but nowadays Lame -h - or with some tweaked settings - seems to be the best MP3 encoder (and is much faster than mp3enc too!)."

http://home.wanadoo.nl/~w.speek/listeningtest.htm

The bitrate mentioned here is 128 kb/s.

cheers,

z.

[Enchanter]

Is there anywhere I can download this encoder? I'm having trouble downloading it from Nicky's site.

By the way, is this freeware capable of encoding in high bitrate (128kbps & above)? Also, is there a significant difference in the encoding performance between Radium and Lame?

[zoli]

sure man

http://www.mp3-tech.org/software/encoders/lamewin32.exe

lame can encode up to 320 kb/s, cbr, abr and vbr also

follow the link in my previous note, and you can see what the difference is...

cheers,

z.

[Enchanter]

Thx.

I'll give it a try (Shaking with excitement).

[TheShadow091]

What about speed? I read somewhere that Radium's Codec was made to not sound better but encode faster. Is that true? I don't notice a difference in encoding speeds, but thats just me and my not too great computer.

[Enchanter]

By the way, can I encode MP3s with nandub using this Lame codec? I don't seem to find any new options in the compression settings. Well, I couldn't find any either when I had Radium, so it could be the same case with Lame.

I'm able to encode MP3s using Lame's GUI though.

[zoli]

You cannot directly select the codec engine (radium or lame) when wanting to encode. Instead, (at least on my win98 SE) go to control panel/multimedia/audio. There you can priorize your codecs, so that when a generic "hey, encode this to mp3" command is given to VirtualDub eg. and there are different types of engines available on your machine, it's going to look at the priorities and use whichever codec it rated higher.

As for Lame's speed, I don't really know, I've never done the testing, I don't really care, I want to encode audio stuff with the highest quality encoder, so if it takes 20 secs more or less...

Though I clearly cannot spot the difference between radium and lame encoding, and only here and there can I identify bitrates by hearing, still, I need the psycho side to be ok, that I'm using the best possible method...
cheers,

z.

[Thrawn]

lol how do u even recognize a difference between radium & lame?
just think that some guys started getting used to lame so that they say it is best (perhaps they dont know how to install radium exactly *gg*)
RADIUM is goooooooood enough for alllllll use in my opinion

[Enchanter]

Given that my Win2K refuses to allow Vdub (or the other way around) to see the presence of the MP3 codec (be it Radium or Lame), it is a good thing to know that the Lame encoder came with its own software to manually convert my .wav to .mp3. And it's good to know that somebody says that Lame sounds better (Zoli, I'm on your side!) and I can live with that knowledge. ^_^