FFmpeg 9.1's new AAC encoder

Post by pkulak » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 9:16 PM UTC

CharlesW wrote: post #27

ndiddy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest advantage for having a good AAC encoder isn't efficiency, it's that for nearly the past 2 decades the de facto standard for live streamed video has been RTMP with H.264 video and AAC audio. There is basically no support for any other codecs. If you want to send a video stream to Youtube or Twitch, you will be sending H.264 and AAC. If you want an idea of how ubiquitous this is, I just checked in OBS and i…

Plus, at 96+ kbps (assuming an Apple-quality AAC-LC encoder) Opus loses its quality advantage. So at higher bitrates, the benefit of choosing Opus is that encoders/decoders are royalty-free.

Post by moniosi » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 9:18 PM UTC

ndiddy wrote: post #17

Nice, I'm looking forward to seeing how this performs in practice. FFmpeg's previous AAC encoder produced poor quality output and often had irritating chirping artifacts, so I've always had to install Apple's Core Audio encoder on any computer I do video recording on to get decent sound. I've done A/B/X comparisons and found that a 320kbps MP3 sounds better than a 320kbps AAC encoded by FFmpeg, but about the same as…

Post by chaosharmonic » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 9:38 PM UTC

duskwuff wrote: post #74

scratcheee wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s going a bit far. I’m in the games industry and have used opus regularly, it’s a great codec for games, often the hardware decoding is so restricted that we’re using software regardless so we might as well use something like opus. The licensing restriction is unfortunate, but only restrictive for those with very specific goals, under normal conditions BSD is a wonderful license for game devs since you’re free t…

> under normal conditions BSD is a wonderful license for game devs since you’re free to use the code and only have to add an acknowledgement somewhere. And it's not as though libopus is an outlier in using a BSD license. A lot of other commonly used libraries have similar licenses; a few examples that come to mind which are likely to show up in games are zlib, curl, Lua, and SDL.

Post by Aurornis » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 9:47 PM UTC

skydhash wrote: post #33

zamadatix wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say it or don't but "I have evidence otherwise but don't think I should say" is just as bad a flame war gateway as tempting the junk science audiophiles directly.

I know that with oscilloscopes, it’s recommended to use 5x instead of nuquist 2x of the highest frequency you want to use., but the most reasonable argument I’ve heard for higher than 48kHz sampling is digital audio effects. But for the end result 48kHz is more than necessary. I can’t even hear any frequency above 17kHz.

Post by derf_ » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 10:21 PM UTC

stefan_ wrote: post #72

ndiddy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest advantage for having a good AAC encoder isn't efficiency, it's that for nearly the past 2 decades the de facto standard for live streamed video has been RTMP with H.264 video and AAC audio. There is basically no support for any other codecs. If you want to send a video stream to Youtube or Twitch, you will be sending H.264 and AAC. If you want an idea of how ubiquitous this is, I just checked in OBS and i…

I think often of how all it would have taken was a bomb for the 10 or so people that years ago at some browser vendor consortium out of pure self centeredness went „nah lets fragment“. We could have saved many many collective years, electricity and eyeballs simply watching the most basic content.