Best lossy format to convert to for Rockbox?

[sa3atsky]

I have a huge lossless music database (Flac, Ape and Wavpack) that I want to convert to something smaller to accommodate my 80gb Ipod Video.. I'm stuck between the three lossy formats: MPC, Ogg Vorbis or ofcourse Mp3..

I'm going after quality first and then playability (as in little battery-life usage, smooth seeking etc.) To me MPC sounds greatest but is plagued with terrible seeking, Ogg comes in second and sorry LAME Mp3 comes in third..

Any tips or advice?

[saratoga]

Whats wrong with MPC seeking?

[sa3atsky]

well the version i used for converting some MPC files was sluggish, esp when seeking through +15min epics

[Llorean]

So you meant "it has terrible seeking on my PC" (which really has very little to do with converting for Rockbox, doesn't it?)

[sa3atsky]

I remember mpc seeking was terrible at some point, but now it seems to be working pretty fine. So, when it comes to overall features would you go MPC , OGG or MP3?

[Llorean]

What kind of "features" are you talking about?

[StsIkel]

I'm no expert, but OGG decoding uses more CPU than MP3 or Musepack. So battery life will be a little bit less there.

In terms of playability however, ogg is probably better supported for the long-run and for other hardware and software than MPC. I've had about 100 CDs re-ripped to the 4 formats i've used in the last 8 years - MP3, M4A, MPC, OGG, and most are either still there or back to MP3 again now. When they were musepacked, I found they were not only bigger than the equivalent ogg files, but that I could do very little with them outside of rockbox.

The most useful thing you can do is conduct a blind listening test as it's the only way to find out which psycho-acoustic encoding model best suits you and at which bitrate... I get transparency between Q6 and Q8 in ogg files for instance but it might be higher if you listen to lossless all the time.

[sa3atsky]

I'm no expert, but OGG decoding uses more CPU than MP3 or Musepack. So battery life will be a little bit less there.

In terms of playability however, ogg is probably better supported for the long-run and for other hardware and software than MPC. I've had about 100 CDs re-ripped to the 4 formats i've used in the last 8 years - MP3, M4A, MPC, OGG, and most are either still there or back to MP3 again now. When they were musepacked, I found they were not only bigger than the equivalent ogg files, but that I could do very little with them outside of rockbox.

The most useful thing you can do is conduct a blind listening test as it's the only way to find out which psycho-acoustic encoding model best suits you and at which bitrate... I get transparency between Q6 and Q8 in ogg files for instance but it might be higher if you listen to lossless all the time.

Thanks for the useful reply, I'm going to do a test-run to choose between the three, good tip about the battery life, ill keep that in mind...

[Multiplex]

The best sounding codec is a matter of personal taste (and can vary depending on what coder you use) - this is debated with religious fervor over at Hydrogen Audio.

For codec efficiency on Rockbox there is this Wiki page http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/CodecPerformanceComparison results are platform and build dependant with minor code optimisations happening fairly often.

Also, don't forget that if you rate codec X@128kbps as equivalent to codec Y@150kbps you have to factor that in to the efficiency decision - you can't just compare codec X and Y at 128 kbps.

[Zardoz]

I'd go with mp3 if I were you. It works everywhere. mpc maybe sounds best but the difference is marginal.

[donp]

I've never used wavepack, but doesn't it give you lossy+"completer" files?  The chart says it's supported on rockbox, so maybe try the lossy portion?