Playing OGG files on a Pocket PC?

[Crystal Eitle]

Hi All,

I just read this thread (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7302&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0) on the Winampaq player and I must confess I was a little flummoxed by it all. Is there anyone out there who could post a short tutorial on:

1) Converting CDs to OGG files? What is the best (free) software for this?

2) Playing OGG files on the Pocket PC? Do you prefer MVP or Winampaq (or some other program)?

Any help with this would be appreciated! I've just started putting music on my PPC using Windows Media Player. I like the small size of the files - I transfer the music at 48 kbps - but if I could get even better performance at a small size using OGG, that would be great!

[Buddha]

To convert to OGG I would recommend 'dBPoweramp Music converter' (http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc.htm) which is extendable with a several add-ons which allow you to convert all sorts of soundfiles to OGG and best of all its free!

I myself prefer WinamPAQ to play my OGGs, i like the winamp-style layout and having the playlist directly visible under the player (don't get me wrong i LOVE pocketMVP but for video-playing)

[Buddha]

If you're using WMA at 48kbps right now you're probably gonna be pleasantly surprised when you hear OGG's at 48kbps ABR. I use 48kbps ABR aswell which fits my needs perfectly, I really like quality/size ratio OGG gives me. There are other audiophiles among us who will disagree :D but as usual, it all a matter of personal preference. I don't expect a 3D sound concert when I listen to music on my PPC I just enjoy having something to listen to when traveling.

[taxus]

To convert to OGG I would recommend 'dBPoweramp Music converter' (http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc.htm)

Unfortunately, dbPowerAmp is unfriendly to international characters. It does not encode them correctly, and many letters in the song title or author name will not be displayed in the player. (e.g. "Daniel Bélanger" will display "Daniel B�nger")

I found that CDex (http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/) supports international characters. It even has many language modules.

[Buddha]

Let me just state that this is not necessarly my way of ripping or THE best way. Its just A way, here goes:

First you need to download a couple of things:
-dBPowerAMP Music converter (http://download.com.com/redir?pid=10125657&merid=83769&mfgid=83769&ltype=dl_dlnow&lop=link&edId=3&siteId=4&oId=3000-2140-10125657&ontId=2140&destUrl=%2F3001-2140-10125657.html)
-the OGG encoder add-on (http://www.dbpoweramp.com/codec-central-ogg.htm)


-Now install dBpowerAMP and the OGG add-on.
-Put a CD in your cd-rom
-go to Start/dBpowerAMP Music Converter/ and start 'dMC Audio CD input'

-Now when the program starts, it will probably try to find your CD in the online CD database, if it does you will have all the tracknames listed otherwise they'll just be called something like 'track01' or something like that.

-Now go to the little arrow on the right of the 'RIP' button at the top. A Menu should appear were you can select 'Rip To' in the following menu you should be able to chose the option 'Ogg Vorbis.

-Go click on the little arrow next to 'RIP' again and choose 'Compression Settings'.
-In the little window that appears: Set 'encoding' to 'Average Bitrate' and move the slider all the way to the left until it says 48kbps (or whatever bitrate you want)
-Make sure the 'Frequency' is set to '44100' Hz.
-Press 'OK'

-Now Press the 'RIP' button and there you go, your cd is beeing converted to OGG.

You will find the resulting OGG-files on your C: drive in the directory 'Converted Music'. All that's left to do is copy the OGG's to your PPC and fire up WinamPAQ! The program (dMC) has many other options but this is just ment as a quick 'help you on your way' guide.


I hope this helps, happy listening! 8)


<<One last little thing, should you notice that when playing your ogg in a player it displays another bitrate than 48kbps, for example 57kbps or whatever, this is normal, this doesn't mean the 48kbps OGG you made is bad. This is just due to the player you're using 'misreading' the bitrate>>

[To be OGG not to be, that is the question.] :wink:

[Buddha]

taxus,

Do you mean the tags? because you don't need those as WinamPAQ simply displays the filename of the MP3.

If you meand the filename, I haven't had any problems with those, I have a lot of french stuff aswell and they are named fine by dMC:

La Clinique Mr R - C'est ça la France.ogg

And it displays fine in WinamPAQ.


*EDIT* I just popped in a CD from Francis Cabrel just to see if I had anything that wouldn't be ripped correctly. Had no problems there:

Francis Cabrel - Répondez-moi.ogg

Came out like that fresh from the oven. (and btw no I'm not using a French OS 8O LOL)

[taxus]

Yes, I should have specified that I was writing about the tags. You're right, the file names are OK, and I know WinamPAQ displays them correctly, but I prefer GSPlayer2, which doesn't display the file names. ;)

There are a few bugs in WinamPAQ that, well, bug me. :D

The scroll bar in the file list, for instance. You can't slide it down completely.

[Buddha]

GSplayer2, another great player indeed :D the little thing that 'bugs me' about GSPlayer is that the playlist is so 'far away' LOL

btw I know what you mean with the scrolling to the bottom in winamPAQ but I haven't had that problem for a long time (i even checked it a couple of times recently by scrolling to the bottom and playing the last song shown and then pressing NEXT (with repeat ON), it just started at the top of the list again so it was the last song) I use version 0.93 and it works fine. I think they just fixed it along the way somewhere :wink:

[taxus]

You're certainly right about the play list in GSPlayer2! There's a thing that bugs me too. ;)

About WinamPAQ, that's it, I was using 0.92SP1. I'm still waiting for the English version of 0.93, but I'm not sure if I'll ever use it anyway. I really despise the standard Winamp 2 skin, and I didn't find the skins I tried clear enough on my PPC screen.

BTW I rip at 48kbps too, so I guess I'm not much of an audiophile either!

[Crystal Eitle]

Hey, thanks for the help! I downloaded dbPoweramp and the OGG codec, and things seem to be working fine, EXCEPT

I just put a CD in to convert to OGG, and it's converting VERY sloooowly. It's been almost 8 minutes and it hasn't even finished converting the first song yet (this is a normal 3-minute-or-so song).

Is this normal?

[Buddha]

No this is not normal, it might be because of your cdrom beeing the bottleneck? On my mp3-box it takes about 20 mins to convert a 14 track cd, its a 1.7GHz with 256MB. A 3 mins song encoded in about +/-2mins.
Btw don't use your computer when ripping from CD that could speed up things aswell (no surfing while ripping :wink: ).


Try ripping to WAVE instead of OggVorbis in the 'dMC Audio CD Input' program and see how fast you get the wave on your HD. If its fast then try converting it to OGG 'by hand' (just right-click the .WAV file and select 'Convert To' and then select 'Ogg Vorbis', after that the dMC window will popup where you can set the bitrate. )

Now if it still takes more than 8 minutes to encode your song, your computer might just be old? :wink: but if it now encodes in a minute or two your cd-rom is the bottleneck. So then for you converting to WAVE first might be the option.

[slothdog]

Try using CDex (http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/) to rip CDs to oggs. It's pretty easy to use and has a "paranoia" features that will rip scratched CDs without skipping. I actually use Exact Audio Copy (http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/) to rip CDs securely, although it's a lot harder to set up.

But whatever you do, never ever ever convert from mp3 or wma or any other lossy compressed format to oggs. You will lose sound quality, and they won't sound anywhere near as good as oggs ripped directly from CD.

[Buddha]

EAC is what I use aswell for my ripping needs but as mentioned the 'learning-curve' is a little steeper.

For someone starting out I think dMC or CDex are easier to use.

One thing though, the statement is true that you loose quality when converting MP3's to OGG but I doubt it will bother you if you're satisfied with 48kbps OGG now. (although if you can be bothered i agree you should always use the best source as possible... beeing the original CD)

I myself (who tries hard not to develop to much of 'a good ear' hehe otherwise I'd be like those audio-guys having to have 160kbps oggs on my ppc :D ) I usually just convert a bunch of songs from my MP3 server mp3's (256kbps) to OGG (48kbpsABR) every week using the 'file selector add-on' of dBpowerAMP and load some of them on my PPC for the week. When I make a new bunch of oggs I just delete the old oggs ones. Quality is fine, as long as you don't expect QUAD-quality sound.

If someone else thinks it sounds HORRIBLE, that's ok, they are free (and encouraged) to develop their own method that suits them best, no harsh feelings, but just try it out for yourself and don't take my word or anybody else's for it. Have your own opinion. :D

[PetiteFlower]

But whatever you do, never ever ever convert from mp3 or wma or any other lossy compressed format to oggs. You will lose sound quality, and they won't sound anywhere near as good as oggs ripped directly from CD.

Well what if you don't HAVE the music on CD to start with :p My mp3 collection is all downloaded, so I have no choice. They're all decent quality mp3s but not great(128kbps). I don't think it will be too bad. I doubt I'm going to end up with oggs that are totally unlistenable or anything...if not then what good does ogg do me? I don't want to rip my CDs, I'd rather just carry them instead of taking up space on my SD card!

[slothdog]

If you don't have the original source, I'd just stick with the mp3s you already have, especially at that bitrate. Then again, that's just me. As Buddha mentioned, if you convert them and they sound fine to you, go for it. Just don't go passing the converted files around and claiming they're examples of how great ogg's can sound, because they won't be.

[PetiteFlower]

A 128 kbps song is around 3-5 megs. A 48 kpbs song would be considerably smaller. My SD card is "only" 256 megs, if I can compress my songs more without losing too much quality I can fit more on there. I re-encoded all my MP3s for play on my ppc at 96k and I can still only fit about 75 of them. I'm trying to save space.

But heavens no I wouldn't go wrecking the reputation of your precious OGG by playing them for other people :roll:

[Buddha]

But heavens no I wouldn't go wrecking the reputation of your precious OGG by playing them for other people

Imagine that! I think that would be a 'criminal offence' on OGG-world :mrgreen: LOL