Improvements to LAME encoder integration within Winamp

[gaekwad2]

Originally posted by Juanus
And you are correct about the UI not being able to apply any of the option switches. I think that you will find that if you are truely an advanced user, they are unneccesary and if you are a novice, they are confusing. Everything you need is there and believe me, without all those switches, you are being saved from yourself.

Actually the UI still exposes too many options (*cough* Stereo *cough*), and is confusing eg. if you don't know that you're supposed to set vbr "bitrate" via VBR Q and not via Min/Max Bitrate or Quality.

As for additional switches, I don't think the dll (Winamp doesn't use lame.exe) allows access to all of them, and the most 1337 ones have been completely disabled in beta/final versions anyway (no more --preset audiophile).

[onix]

Humble apologies for reviving an old thread. At least it cleared up the difference between Quality and VBR Q:

Originally Posted by gaekwad2

Actually the UI still exposes too many options (*cough* Stereo *cough*), and is confusing eg. if you don't know that you're supposed to set vbr "bitrate" via VBR Q and not via Min/Max Bitrate or Quality.

As for additional switches, I don't think the dll (Winamp doesn't use lame.exe) allows access to all of them, and the most 1337 ones have been completely disabled in beta/final versions anyway (no more --preset audiophile).

I don't know what is possible with the lame.dll, but I would like to see the following:

• Ability to embed art into mp3 file. While placing a single image into an album folder makes some sense, the 10-20kB per file addition is hardly much of an impact on file size, when we're arguing merits of VBR. And also I prefer not to use album folders. I let WinAmp's ML GUI do the sorting for me.
• I prefer mp3gain vs. Replay Gain. It embeds volume adjust into mp3 encode (losslessly) so that even old mp3 player that cannot recognize Replay Gain will benefit. The disadvantage is that mp3gain has no album gain feature.
• With respect to VBR, I don't care how long the encode takes, opting instead for quality instead of efficiency for the same resulting file size. I prefer a more detailed analysis of the originating file that results in a more compact high quality file, much like a 2-pass ABR would be. I would like to understand the best setting to accomplish this.
• I'd like to see high- and low-pass filter options. It's been a long time since I've been able to hear anything above 15kHz, and 20kHz bandpass is overkill for most of us.
• Disallowing anything lower than 32 kbps under ABR/VBR. This is a bug.

[nbinns]

Originally Posted by onix

Ability to embed art into mp3 file. While placing a single image into an album folder makes some sense, the 10-20kB per file addition is hardly much of an impact on file size, when we're arguing merits of VBR. And also I prefer not to use album folders. I let WinAmp's ML GUI do the sorting for me.

That's one of the main reasons why I gave up using Winamp and started using MediaMonkey - it uses the LAME encoder and allows seamless embedding of album art directly from Amazon.

[Koopa]

Originally Posted by onix

• I prefer mp3gain vs. Replay Gain. It embeds volume adjust into mp3 encode (losslessly) so that even old mp3 player that cannot recognize Replay Gain will benefit. The disadvantage is that mp3gain has no album gain feature.

Not?

http://meggamusic.co.uk/shup/1311023244/ag.png

And MP3Gain is only lossless if you keep the Tags, which hold the undo values. If the tags are lost, you cannot restore the original volume anymore.

[onix]

Sure, let's be clear. The stored audio quality remains unchanged using mp3gain -- there is no re-encode. The studio volume setting is lost, so if you consider that loss being lossy, then yes.

Originally Posted by Koopa

Not?

http://meggamusic.co.uk/shup/1311023244/ag.png

And MP3Gain is only lossless if you keep the Tags, which hold the undo values. If the tags are lost, you cannot restore the original volume anymore.