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The Quite OK Audio Format for Fast, Lossy Compression

qoaformat.org

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Re: The Quite OK Audio Format for Fast, Lossy Compression

#32
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesnt Opus (speex?) have some low CPU settings?

It does, and I've tried tweaking that, but the performance difference isn't very significant. I appear to be able to get maybe 30% better performance -- pretty nice, but not nearly big enough especially on low end servers.

I'm not sure much gets better latency than Opus but LyraV2 seemed interesting https://opensource.googleblog.com/2022/09/lyra-v2-a-better-f...

Re: The Quite OK Audio Format for Fast, Lossy Compression

#34
post #22

How can one create a professional looking pdf like the QOAF specification one?

I looked at the PDF, and can confidently say I could typeset that in a word processor, using a stylesheet to sustain it.

That's not what they did, apparently.

The document properties call out https://cairographics.org

Re: The Quite OK Audio Format for Fast, Lossy Compression

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does, and I've tried tweaking that, but the performance difference isn't very significant. I appear to be able to get maybe 30% better performance -- pretty nice, but not nearly big enough especially on low end servers.

I'm not sure much gets better latency than Opus but LyraV2 seemed interesting https://opensource.googleblog.com/2022/09/lyra-v2-a-better-f...

Could be an option, but we take high audio quality as a point of pride and encode in Opus 128k by default. Audio doesn't only include speech but also any sound effects, media present in-world, etc.

But that might be an interesting experiment. Right now the low cpu usage/high quality/faily high bandwidth usage category is something we're looking to have an option for.

Re: The Quite OK Audio Format for Fast, Lossy Compression

#37
post #22

How can one create a professional looking pdf like the QOAF specification one?

I looked at the PDF, and can confidently say I could typeset that in a word processor, using a stylesheet to sustain it. That's not what they did, apparently. The document properties call out https://cairographics.org

Cairo’s a couple layers down from what you’re talking about. It’s the actual glyph rendering.

Re: The Quite OK Audio Format for Fast, Lossy Compression

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably the most infamous audio format patent ever was owned by a German research institute.

I guess you mean this one: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5812672 That was an USA patent from Fraunhofer, who made quite some cash from mp3 license fees (100 000 000€ according to Wikipedia).

No. The claim that there are no patents in Germany on this stuff is common internet misinformation(*). There are a great many coding patents from Fraunhofer all around the world, including in Europe.

Presumably because it's much easier to get injunctive relief in Germany I've seen more codec related litigation there than anywhere else.

(*) Like many pieces of misinformation it has its roots in a seed of truth: Particularly between 1998 (State Street) and 2014 (CLS v Alice) the case law in the US supported software patents.

The real confusion is that "Software patents" is an obscure term of art which refers to patents specifically on software methods without any reference to a physical machine or good.

When non-patent-attorneys say "software patents" they mean something more like "something I could infringe by writing software". But clever drafting allows people to write patents that software causes an infringement of without it technically being a "software patent": The patent's claims language will say something like "A recorded media containing instructions..." or "A microprocessor programmed to...". And this has been true in the US and Europe through the whole span.

Which is why there is an awful lot of patent action impacting software in places where "software patents" don't exist, such as the US (as of right now) and Europe.

Re: The Quite OK Audio Format for Fast, Lossy Compression

#39

I looked around, but didn't see any mention of potential patent issues. I assume that this has been considered? The Ogg Vorbis people spent a lot of time on that back when they were developing their format. Other than that, looks great!

The website says it’s made in Hesse. No software patents to care about there. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_the_E...

You can absolutely patent software in Europe. Sorry. It's a common misconception that you can't. There's a stupid dance you have to do so it isn't technically "software" that you're patenting... but really it is.
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