most efficient codec on gigabeat

[leland]

hi all,

i'm new to rockbox and wondering what codec to transcode my collection into... most of the collection is lossless and i always would put it into ogg for use on my karma, mainly for the size advantage.

i took a battery hit by using ogg, but it wasn't so bad.

now that i have all these wonderful choices, i was wondering if rockbox (on the gigabeat f40, if it matters) is more battery efficient w/ a certain codec.

i was planning to use lame just so i can share w/ friends and they won't whine about it, but could be persuaded to give aac a whirl. anyway, would appreciate hearing what you guys chose and why. thanks!

[Llorean]

AAC is a bad, bad idea. The Rockbox version isn't very good, and it wouldn't really offer extra decode efficiency either.

Either go LAME MP3 or Ogg/Vorbis. On the Gigabeat you're probably (though not definitely) going to see equivalent runtimes with the two. MP3 might get you a little more, but since there's no CPU scaling, and our Vorbis is actually fairly optimized on ARM, it's not a certainty.

If you're doing higher bitrates (256kbps range) you might consider Musepack instead, but if you're going higher than 128, or 192, you're probably wasting space anyway. Of course, in the end, you should go with what your ears tell you sounds best (so long as you don't force your subjective results on others

[saratoga]

Ogg is a really fast format.  If you saw a hit on the Karma, that was probably just due to issues on the Karma.  

MPC is the fastest lossy format in Rockbox though.

[markun]

MPC is the fastest lossy format in Rockbox though.

Don't know if it's faster than AC3 (but nobody probably uses that for CD ripping)

[saratoga]

MPC is the fastest lossy format in Rockbox though.

Don't know if it's faster than AC3 (but nobody probably uses that for CD ripping)

Should be, unless the AC3 decoder is absolutely amazing.  Subband decoders are generally faster then transform decoders.

[leland]

Thanks all. Good to know not to use aac. I'll need to keep checking to see if/when that matures.

Using mpc would be nice, but it's just too annoying to share music people. At least some people (meaning those not here) have heard of ogg

As to my ears, I won't tell you what they say...But I don't require much from a portable player. Even if I could hear a difference I'm on the go or on a plane. Not really concentrating on the music. I have my lossless files hooked up to my home stereo for good listening (please note that the lossless is for archival and transcoding purposes, I do not purport to hear the differences between lossy and lossless codecs).

[Multiplex]

For most devices, main stream codecs (MP3/OGG) and your stated use of the player I think the best bet is to get the smallest file (lowest quality) that you are OK with. That way the player can get more tracks(longer playing time) into the buffer when it spins up the disk(power hungry activity) and as a benefit you can get more tracks onto your player.

Some folks claim that OGG sounds better (less bad?) than MP3 at <128kbps rates.

I, like you, use my player for blocking our background noise at the office, planes, and in the car - I find OGG at Q3 perfectly acceptable for this use - at home, in a quiet room and plugged into my  stereo I might hear, and get annoyed at, the compression.