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Does Ogg Vorbis sound better than MP3?
Yes, definitely. Naturally, we invite you to judge this for yourself.
Will Ogg Vorbis audio quality improve?
Yes. Vorbis has a flexible format which allows significant tuning of sound quality and training of the algorithms even after the file format is frozen. Vorbis sounds very good today, and will continue to sound better every day.
Why is Ogg Vorbis better than the other "New MP3" codecs that are available?
Vorbis sounds better. Vorbis is open, so you're free to use it on your favorite platform. Vorbis doesn't have intellectual property restrictions to get in the way. And Vorbis doesn't just try to sound better, it tries to do things fundamentally better in all the ways that it can.
Can I convert my MP3 collection to the Ogg Vorbis format?
You can convert any audio format to Ogg Vorbis. However, converting from one lossy format, like MP3, to another lossy format, like Vorbis, is generally a bad idea. Both MP3 and Vorbis encoders achieve high compression ratios by throwing away parts of the audio waveform that you probably won't hear. However, the MP3 and Vorbis codecs are very different, so they each will throw away different parts of the audio, although there certainly is some overlap. Converting a MP3 to Vorbis involves decoding the MP3 file back to an uncompressed format, like WAV, and recompressing it using the Ogg Vorbis encoder. The decoded MP3 will be missing the parts of the original audio that the MP3 encoder chose to discard. The Ogg Vorbis encoder will then discard other audio components when it compresses the data. At best, the result will be an Ogg file that sounds the same as your original MP3, but it is most likely that the resulting file will sound worse than your original MP3. In no case will you get a file that sounds better than the original MP3.
Since many music players can play both MP3 and Ogg files, there is no reason that you should have to switch all of your files to one format or the other. If you like Ogg Vorbis, then we would encourage you to use it when you encode from original, lossless audio sources (like CDs). When encoding from originals, you will find that you can make Ogg files that are both smaller and better quality than MP3.
(If you must absolutely must convert from MP3 to Ogg, there are several conversion scripts available on Freshmeat.)
You're claiming that Vorbis has great audio quality. Have you done any listening tests to back this up?
Over the last few public beta and prereleases, we've fixed many of the outstanding bugs that affected audio quality. After the 1.0 release, we're hoping to conduct double blind listening tests with a variety of test samples to fairly compare Vorbis with competing audio formats. Based on informal listening tests by the developers and other interested parties, we are confident that Vorbis will fare well in these tests. These tests will be used to further tune the format as development continues.
I've heard some test samples that had audible artifacts. Why did this happen?
While the Vorbis file format is standardized, the Vorbis encoder has undergone several beta and prerelease testing cycles. If the files you heard were encoded using an earlier version encoder, they might contain serious audio quality bugs that have already been fixed. Try re-encoding from the source audio using the latest encoder. If you still think you've got a bug that produces unreasonable artifacts, please e-mail the vorbis-dev list with the details.
What does the "Quality" setting mean?
Beginning with libvorbis 1.0rc3, audio quality is no longer measured in kilobits per second, but on an arbitrary scale of 0 to 10, called "quality." This change in terminology was brought about by a tuning of the variable-bitrate algorithm that produces better sound quality for a given average bitrate, but which does not adhere as strictly to that average as a target.
This new scale of measurement is not tied to a quantifiable characteristic of the stream, like bitrate, so it's a fairly subjective metric, but provides a more stable basis of comparison to other codecs and is relatively future-proof. As Segher Boessenkool explained, "if you upgrade to a new vorbis encoder, and you keep the same quality setting, you will get smaller files which sound the same. If you keep the same nominal bitrate, you get about the same size files, which sound somewhat better." The former behavior is the aim of the quality metric, so encoding to a target bitrate is now officially deprecated for all uses except streaming over bandwidth-critical connections.
For now, quality 0 is roughly equivalent to 64kbps average, 5 is roughly 160kbps, and 10 gives about 400kbps. Most people seeking very-near-CD-quality audio encode at a quality of 5 or, for lossless stereo coupling, 6. The default setting is quality 3, which at approximately 110kbps gives a smaller filesize and significantly better fidelity than .mp3 compression at 128kbps.
How does Vorbis fare for speech compression?
It works well, but is generally not the optimal solution. Vorbis is designed for the compression of music and general purpose audio. Special purpose codecs can achieve much greater compression of speech than Vorbis. Vorbis also tends to have a latency that is too high for telephony, a common use of speech codecs. Read the Speech Coding and Compression FAQ for more details. Those looking for an open-source, patent-free speech codec should take a look at Speex.
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