The Occasion

It was my birthday recently, and my wife bought me a CD/MP3 player for the car.  Having better-sounding and easier-to-operate media in the car wouldn't ordinarily be a problem, but there were two big issues for me:

1. My music collection was predominantly in Ogg Vorbis format, and my car player doesn't support that.
2. Under current Australian law, it is technically illegal for me to either copy my CDs or convert my CDs to another digital format such as Ogg or MP3 for use in my car player.

The former problem could easily be solved, but not by me.  There are no low-end card audio devices commercially available in Australia that support Ogg.  In fact, when i went looking at devices, i didn't see a single one in any store that supported Ogg, and i got strange looks from several technology-ignorant salespersons when i mentioned Ogg.

Listening habits

I listen to music mainly on 6 different devices (in rough order of most to least time spent):

Only the Linux PCs support Ogg format, and although i know that there are Windows XP and Pocket PC 2003 players that support Ogg, i wanted something that would work on all 6 devices.  This left me with no choice but to convert most of my music to MP3 format.  Since all of my Ogg music came from my CDs originally, i'm re-ripping direct from CD.

Quality settings

I play music a lot, and i consider myself reasonably picky about how it comes out, but budget considerations usually win out over my audiophile tendencies.  Thus i wanted to work out the best balance of size and quality for MP3 ripping.  I did a some testing in 3 different environments: the car, my PDA (using the Sennheiser headphones), and my home desktop.

I tested a number of different bit rates between 64 and 256 Kbps, in both fixed and variable rate configurations, and found that for me, the best balance was to use 64-160 Kbps variable bit rate in joint stereo mode.  Both grip and CDex use LAME as the MP3 encoder, and LAME supports two different VBR methods.  I found the default (old) VBR technique produced noticably better sound on the songs i tested.  I found that when using bitrates higher than 160 Kbps i couldn't discern any difference in sound, and in fact the difference between 128 and 160 Kbps was minimal as well.  I found myself wishing that the MPEG audio standard allowed for 144 Kbps as a bit rate — that probably would have been my choice.  Interestingly, joint stereo sounded very slightly better than normal stereo in my tests (even though theoretically it shouldn't, if i understand the documentation correctly), and was smaller in file size.

Previously, i ripped Ogg in VBR quality level 6, which normally uses around 155-180 Kbps and according to the Ogg documentation roughly equates to 192 Kbps fixed-rate MP3.  For most tracks i've ripped so far, a 64-160 Kbps MP3 file works out several hundred Kb smaller than the equivalent Ogg quality level 6 file, and i can't perceive any difference in the sound (although i've not been able to test on anything but my home desktop - it may have been a different story under other players).

The Copyright issue

More problematic is the fact that this entire exercise (of converting my CD collection to another digital format) is illegal under current Australian law.  It is with some relief that i found out that the Australian Attourney-General's Department is conducting "An examination of fair use, fair dealing and other exceptions in the Digital Age" due primarily to the recommendations of the Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Treaties (JSCOT) as a result of the recent US/Australian "Free Trade" agreement.

However, due to the heavily corporate-weighted views of the Bush and Howard governments, i hold grave fears for the outcome of any copyright or patent discussion.  I'm grateful for the existence of the ACCC, as they have overturned some aspects of copyright as being anti-competitive, but i fear any real change towards a true balance between corporate and public interests can only come via a huge shift in foreign policy in Australia, one that even the current opposition would be reluctant to make.

In the meantime, i mean to continue format conversion of resources i own - if legally, great; if illegally, as an act of civil disobedience against an unjust law - and i encourage everyone i know do do the same, in the hope that we will eventually overthrow the concept that the right of corporations to make money must be a fundamental assumption of law.

Conclusion

Our household is progressively migrating our music collection to MP3, but not without some regret in the fact that we have to use a patented software format.  However, by using this format we have gained the ability to listen to music on more (different) devices, and we have done so using completely free software, with no audible loss of quality.

Pleas for action

Out of this i feel an urgent need for:

• audio technology manufacturers to support non-patented, non-proprietary algorithms for audio encoding,
• governments to abolish software idea patents entirely and adopt fair and reasonable copyright measures, and
• citizens to prompt government action by lobbying and, where necessary, civil disobedience.  Of particular importance in Australia right now is to participate in the aforementioned Attourney-General's department's review of fair use.

In addition, more simple, ubiquitous standards for sharing media amongst listening devices are needed.  Perhaps CF or SD cards may eventually become a standard in all desktop and mobile computing devices, now that sizes greater than 1 Gb are available.  Or perhaps miniature hard disks may eventually fill this role.  Or perhaps other wired (e.g. USB 2) or wireless (e.g. 802.11g) standards may allow existing devices to interact better.  It would certainly be nice if i could carry around my 200 Gb music collection in my PDA and automatically take advantage of the amplification and speakers provided in my car, home stereo, or the sound desk at our church!