Which ones are best and why?
I prefer Ogg files simply because they’re patent and royalty free.
When it comes to actual sound quality, for low bit rates (<128kbps) Ogg is quite superior. Above that there isn’t much to distinguish them.
If you plan on putting your music on a portable device then mp3 is better as it has far more hardware support. If you aren’t then you might as well go with Ogg.
I’m supposed to be paying royalties on my MP3s? How is this enforced?
What portable and car players play ogg? I don’t think any of mine do.
I think the royalites are paid by the company that sells the MP3 encoding/decoding software/hardware.
I use CDex (freeware) to rip CDs to MP3, iTunes to play them on my computer. I am still confused (not unusual) about this. Are you saying that car stereo/MP3 player makers are the ones paying the royalties? Would that make ogg players cheaper, if the manufacturers aren’t paying royalties?
Sadly, there’s little to no hardware support for OGG-Vorbis :(. I don’t know that this it will ever change considering over-riding industry paranoia over file-trading and OGG’s lack of DRM capabilities.
That said, I still far prefer OGG to MP3 for three reasons:[ul][li] It sounds better than MP3 at low bitrates.[/li][li]It allows seamless playback of tracks, unlike MP3. This is especially important for live concerts or albums where tracks flow into each other, .e.g, the second half of Abbey Road.[/li]It is, indeed, completely free and open-source. IIRC, the the patent to the MP3 format is owned by a German company called Fraunhaufer and they impose levies on hardware and software manufacturers.[/ul]
I have to admit I’d never heard of Ogg until about two weeks ago until LiveJournal.com started offering Phone Posts. As I don’t have Winamp, I had to shout and scream and download patches and kick Windows Media Player before I could make them play. Also I have an MP3 player, and I couldn’t transfer the Ogg files onto it. In short, I think hardware/software support is important when you consider which is better.
Ogg Vorbis is better, hands down, at anything under 194kb/s. I can even say with absolute confidence that Vorbis at 64kb/s sounds better than mp3s at double that.
There are a distinct lack of players that can handle them, though; currently, the only ones I’m aware of are the Digital Innovations Neuros, the iRiver iHP-120, and the Rio Karma, all of which are 20GB hard drive models. Each kicks ass in its own way, but until the format gets picked up by Apple, it isn’t going to go much farther.
I’m not aware of any flash-based players that can play them, and the lower capacity, cheaper flash players are where Vorbis would have a distinct advantage, because you can effectively double the amount of tunes you can fit on it at acceptable bitrates. Frontier Labs has been talking for some time about adding support in the next firmware upgrade to their Nex CF card players, which would rock, but that’s yet to materialize.
In short, in technical and aesthetic terms, there’s no competition between the formats. Ogg Vorbis stomps mp3 ten ways from Sunday. But in practical terms, that is, harware support, and mosti importantly, iPod support, mp3 still takes the cake. Blame it on manufacturer intertia or consumer indifference, but that’s the way it is.
Which is a shame. I currently rip everything to Ogg Vorbis to play on my computer, and re-encode them as mp3s for my mp3/CD player. If I had the money, I’d gladly go out and drop two or three hundred bucks on a Karma or an iRiver, but I don’t, so I won’t.
OGG SMASH!
So how does Ogg compare to MP3-Pro?
That depends on what you play MP3s on - I had to install an add-in to WinAmp (called something like “MP3 splice”) to make it play seamlessly - I think current versions do it automatically.
It’s a pet peeve that seemless play is not the default for much software (and Nero always tries to put 2 secs of silence between tracks on a CD - unless I turn that off every damn time)
Yes.
There’s an exception to the MP3 license fees for free desktop software, but for everything else, the manufacturer has to pay a royalty. That’s why you won’t find any free MP3 players for PalmOS.
Speaking of PalmOS, there are two (that I’m aware of) Ogg players available for it: