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Freed At Last From Patents, Does Anyone Still Care About MP3? (hackaday.com)

submitted 3 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Opus is better than MP3 in every way. File size is either better or the same, and audio is better even at lower bitrates. But realistically, most streaming services don't provide HD audio, so it really doesn't even matter.

249 webm  audio only      2 │    1.58MiB  49k https │ audio only         opus        49k 48k low, webm_dash
250 webm  audio only      2 │    2.09MiB  65k https │ audio only         opus        65k 48k low, webm_dash
251 webm  audio only      2 │    4.14MiB 128k https │ audio only         opus       128k 48k medium, webm_dash
233 mp4   audio only        │                 m3u8  │ audio only         unknown             Default
234 mp4   audio only        │                 m3u8  │ audio only         unknown             Default
140 m4a   audio only      2 │    4.20MiB 130k https │ audio only         mp4a.40.2  130k 44k medium, m4a_dash

This is YouTube music, which generally serves the split audio from a YouTube video as a song. Most of them I checked either don't have audio above 130Kbps or don't even provide MP3/Opus anyways.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Youtube Music doesn't just serve the audio from a video. They do serve the audio from a video if nothing else is available, but they also get releases directly from the publishers/distributors.

The difference in sound quality is definetly noticeable.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Youtube Music doesn’t just serve the audio from a video.

Yes it does. You don't even need to take my word for it. Look up any song by any artist and find their official video for that song. Take this one as an example: https://youtu.be/kPa7bsKwL-c

Analyze it with yt-dlp or something similar;

249 webm  audio only      2 │    1.51MiB    50k https │ audio only           opus        50k 48k low, webm_dash
250 webm  audio only      2 │    2.00MiB    67k https │ audio only           opus        67k 48k low, webm_dash
251 webm  audio only      2 │    3.92MiB   130k https │ audio only           opus       130k 48k medium, webm_dash
233 mp4   audio only        │                   m3u8  │ audio only           unknown             Default
234 mp4   audio only        │                   m3u8  │ audio only           unknown             Default
140 m4a   audio only      2 │    3.90MiB   129k https │ audio only           mp4a.40.2  129k 44k medium, m4a_dash

YouTube already has access to the audio for that song without any additional effort because of how YouTube works. I'm sure publishers can provide higher quality audio, up to 256Kbps but that option isn't even enabled for users by default. By default you're listening to "normal" audio or 130Kbps: https://i.xno.dev/Ow2eC.png

The reason why YouTube Music works is because they already have access to a huge library of music through music videos and the like. They save a ton of time and money by doing things this way and it makes perfect sense that they do...

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 days ago

As I said, some of the music is just the audio of a video, but they also get a lot of releases directly from the publishers. They are both on YT Music and the difference in quality in between them is noticeable.

I have my audio quality set to high in that options menu btw.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It's less supported, and for me mp3 is largely enough. Can fit a lot of them on my 20€ 128GB usb key...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

I mean, I'm sure that it is less supported, but in all the years I've been using it I haven't found one. 🤷‍♂️