What exactly is GHETTO PLAY/OGG-VORBIS?

hisashi joe · Post by **hisashi joe** » Thu Jan 03, 2002 4:25 am

I aint got a clue as its all greek to me?

Dr Zoidberg · Post by **Dr Zoidberg** » Thu Jan 03, 2002 6:52 am

It's a music player.

One thing that confuses me about it are all the different names that are used, I'm sure that I'm calling it the wrong thing most of the time.

hisashi joe · Post by **hisashi joe** » Thu Jan 03, 2002 7:03 am

Do you mean like a mp3 player?
I noticed some thing like media player is being added does that mean you can watch movies or trailers downloaded from the inter net?
Cheers!

Dr Zoidberg · Post by **Dr Zoidberg** » Thu Jan 03, 2002 7:39 am

It's like an mp3 player, it has it's own format that you have to encode the files into, you can read more about it here.

Heliophobe_ · Post by **Heliophobe_** » Thu Jan 03, 2002 12:11 pm

The short version is:

Ogg Vorbis is a music format similar to .mp3, except that the algorithms used to encode and decode it are patent and license free. This means that anyone can legally develop a program that encodes and/or plays Ogg Vorbis files, without owing any royalties to anyone.

If you've ever looked for freeware programs that encode mp3's on an unlimited basis, you've probably either turned up something warezed without realizing it, or found nothing. That's because any developer that releases software that can encode mp3 files must pay the patent owners (Fraunhofer?) a royalty for each copy made available (so free software is clearly impossible - you'd have to pay royalties for each download).

The official Vorbis libraries come with a very flexible license, and there's nothing stopping someone from developign their own.

The format's not quite finished yet, though, right now it performs and compresses about as well as mp3 at the same quality but should eventually be able to surpass it.

Ghetto Play is an .s3m (tracked music format) player that was part of the libdream (and KOS?) examples. It was modified to be able to play Ogg Vorbis files using the Vorbis library, saving the author from having to code a new GUI.

Rocky Balboa · Post by **Rocky Balboa** » Thu Jan 03, 2002 1:56 pm

nice explanation heliphobe, your so wonderful

Veggita2099 · Post by **Veggita2099** » Fri Jan 04, 2002 9:31 am

Sounds cool and all that you can play mp3's on your DC, but is it really worth going through all that trouble? I think I would just listen to them on my PC since if my DC is on I will be playing something on it more then likely :)

perry · Post by **perry** » Fri Jan 04, 2002 9:43 am

Since you said it will supass mp3 does that mean it will be compressed smaller?

That would be great for those of us with dial-up

Heliophobe_ · Post by **Heliophobe_** » Fri Jan 04, 2002 2:04 pm

perry2175 wrote: Since you said it will supass mp3 does that mean it will be compressed smaller?

That would be great for those of us with dial-up

Yes, Vorbis should offer better quality with less data, so filesizes will be smaller than equivelant mp3's, and sound better. I guess it already does this (the page I was looking at before might have been a little out of date) but they're still working on improving it.

...which isn't entirely unique, there are already better codecs out there than what is used with .mp3 files. .MP3 itself is rather outdated technology, but you know how hard it is to get the world to convert to a new standard. Right now most of the other codecs have patents and license restrictions that are even worse that .mp3, so hopefully Vorbis or something else that's free will catch on in a big way.

fatheadpi · Post by **fatheadpi** » Sat Jan 05, 2002 1:41 am

Must say, I'm pretty interested in any new audio format. I've been using Radium MP3 for quite some time now, and while it's better than a gig of uncompressed pcm, it's time for something a little more powerful in the compression department. Especially for those of us who refuse to settle for divx movies at resolutions less than 720x480. I'd really like to see something that could encode an hour and a half's worth of audio in about 50 megs space or less, so go ogg, viva la resistance or somethin.

perry · Post by **perry** » Sat Jan 05, 2002 5:34 pm

actually nooooooo

come to think of it i just got a personal MP3 player!!!!!

So to everyone in the world....

stick with the old outdated MP3 !!!