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Opus Audio Codec – FAQ

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Re: Opus Audio Codec – FAQ

#21

Post by p1mrx »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #10
xellisx wrote: post #3

Site has been hugged. On another point, is Opus a popular format, given that alot of people now stream stuff mostly? IIRC, some of the Quake engines support it.

Opus is the standard audio codec in WebM, alongside VP9 or AV1 video.

It's one of the WebM audio codecs; Vorbis was first.

Re: Opus Audio Codec – FAQ

#22

Post by p1mrx »

gruez wrote: post #11
TylerE wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never seen an Opus file in the wild. MP3 and FLAC are by far still dominant. Ogg is still popular I. It’s niche (eg game sounds, and I think Spotify uses it too)

Is there a reason why mp3 is still around? AAC has better compression ratios, and support is a non-issue. Maybe mp3 has better brand recognition? Most people know what a mp3 is, but probably wouldn't know what AAC or a .m4a is.

MP3 has been around so long that it works with damn near everything, and the last patents expired in 2017, so it's now a completely free and open standard.

If you don't care too much about file size (LAME -V0 is ~256 kbps), it's a decent option for many purposes.

Re: Opus Audio Codec – FAQ

#24

Post by quadrangle »

lozf wrote: post #8

The only point in lossy encoding is to save space / bandwidth . Opus excels at getting good sound quality at lower bitrates. If there's a talk or lecture on Youtube that you're about to grab, try the 50kbps Opus version and save your limited space for more important things, but you might need to remux from webm to an ogg container for compatibility. e.g. youtube-dl -f249 $URL --exec 'ffmpeg -i {} -vn -c:a copy {}.ogg…

> e.g. youtube-dl -f249 $URL --exec 'ffmpeg -i {} -vn -c:a copy {}.ogg'

Why not just `youtube-dl -x` ?

Re: Opus Audio Codec – FAQ

#25

Post by mxmilkb »

nitrogen wrote: post #23
mxmilkb wrote: post #2

https://github.com/erikd/libsndfile/blob/master/NEWS#L2 "Version 1.0.29 (2020-08-15) * Add support for Opus files."

Given that the patents on MP3 have expired, maybe libsndfile will finally support it...

That's https://github.com/erikd/libsndfile/issues/258

Re: Opus Audio Codec – FAQ

#26

Post by indolering »

xellisx wrote: post #3

Site has been hugged. On another point, is Opus a popular format, given that alot of people now stream stuff mostly? IIRC, some of the Quake engines support it.

On virtually every platform where trademarks and patent trolling isn't the norm. So you won't see it being advertised because Dolby/Apple/Samsung isn't making money off of it.

Re: Opus Audio Codec – FAQ

#27

Post by indolering »

I really wish Opus would make it into wireless speakers and headphones. From what I've read, it might not be the most power-efficient format, however, and those tiny earbuds need to be /really/ efficient.

But I also suspect that popular wireless codecs (i.e. Dolbly's AptX, MPEG's AAC, and Samsung's Scalable) are powered by marketing fluff. I'd love an informed opinion :D

Re: Opus Audio Codec – FAQ

#28

Post by est31 »

TylerE wrote: post #4
xellisx wrote: post #3

Site has been hugged. On another point, is Opus a popular format, given that alot of people now stream stuff mostly? IIRC, some of the Quake engines support it.

I have never seen an Opus file in the wild. MP3 and FLAC are by far still dominant. Ogg is still popular I. It’s niche (eg game sounds, and I think Spotify uses it too)

Opus files are often enclosed in the Ogg container format, so some of your .ogg files might actually contain an opus stream instead of a vorbis stream. Files with an .opus extension usually use Ogg as container format as well.

Re: Opus Audio Codec – FAQ

#30

Post by xellisx »

TylerE wrote: post #4
xellisx wrote: post #3

Site has been hugged. On another point, is Opus a popular format, given that alot of people now stream stuff mostly? IIRC, some of the Quake engines support it.

I have never seen an Opus file in the wild. MP3 and FLAC are by far still dominant. Ogg is still popular I. It’s niche (eg game sounds, and I think Spotify uses it too)

I was originally thinking of Ogg Vorbis....
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