OptimFROG 4.910b, lossyWAV 1.2.3a, QAAC v0.33, плагины foobar2000, обновление статей

Доброго времени суток. Неделя выдалась напряженной, но к счастью я успел добавить на сайт всё что хотел. Представляю Вашему вниманию новый блок новостей.

Программы

• new: lossyWAV 1.2.3a - lossy препроцессор для PCM WAV аудио, который динамически понижает разрядность отдельных фрагментов аудио и таким образом позволяет значительно повысить степень его сжатия lossles кодеками. Главным преимуществом является высокая степень прозрачности и отсутствие каких либо артефактов компрессии при обработке абсолютно любых сигналов.


• update: OptimFROG Lossless Audio Compressor v4.910b - да, он вернулся. Lossless кодек, который обладает одним из лучших показателей сжатия. Хочется надеяться, что теперь разработчик наконец-то внедрит в кодек какие-то оптимизации для повышения скорости его работы.
What is new in this version (4.910b):
- fully backward compatible with previous versions
- slightly better compression for highnew, extranew, bestnew modes, and also for --maximumcompression
- parsing WAV files with invalid data chunk size in WAV header using --incorrectheader (for foobar2000 and other commandline format converters using pipes who cannot compute the WAV file length in advance and generate a 4 GB header instead)
- many internal source code improvements

- [other] updated foobar2000 input plug-in for foobar2000 1.1.x
- [other] updated OptimFROG SDK to version 1.300 (included here)


• update: QAAC (QuickTime AAC/ALAC Encoder) v0.33 - продолжается активная разработка кодера. Кстати говоря, в последних версиях QuickTime наконец пропала проблема с отключением НЧ фильтра в случае отключения ресемплинга.
release 0.33
Fixed the way to pick AAC encoder bit rate table entry.

Technically, QuickTime AAC encoder uses not literal bit rate value, but index of bit rate table, for configuring the encoder.

You can see this table by specifing CBR/ABR/CVBR and impossible bit rate value (say, 0) like:
qaac --cvbr 0 foo.wav

CVBR bit rate table consists of bit rate ranges, and each ranges has some overlaps, therefore has ambiguity:
1: 64 - 72
2: 72 - 82
3: 80 - 91
4: 96 - 109
5: 112 - 127
6: 128 - 145
7: 144 - 164
8: 160 - 182
9: 192 - 228
10: 224 - 266
11: 256 - 305
12: 288 - 343
13: 320 - 381

See? when you specify
qaac --cvbr 256 ,...

qaac has been selecting the index 10 (224 - 266). However, it seems to be 11 (256 - 305) is proper selection (iTunes and qtaacenc seems to choose the latter).

Therefore, I fixed qaac to follow them. This impacts only the CVBR case. TVBR doesn't use bit rate. CBR and ABR use different table, and there's no ambiguity with them.

However, if you were using with CVBR, be careful.


release 0.32
Modified to abort when detected FLAC decoder error (formerly, qaac just silently treated FLAC decoder error as end of file).
Switched to BSD's getopt implementation (due to incompatibility of MPL and GPL). As before, I've modified it to use wchar_t for Unicode capability.
Fixed usage message.


release 0.31
Implemented resampler using libsamplerate (SecretRabbitCode).

This is activated by placing libsamplerate_vc10.dll in the same directory with qaac.exe. If you don't want this, just don't install this dll, or specify --native-resampler command line option.

Resampling is usually not recommended. However, resampling happens on the following cases:
QuickTime cannot encode with the source's sample rate (due to AAC spec limitation).
You specified --rate 48000 or something.
You specified --rate auto, and the target bit rate or TVBR quality is low enough for QuickTime to decide down-sampling.


• Плагины для foobar2000:
  
  
  • update: Effect DSP (foo_dsp_effect.dll) v0.7.1
    Version 0.7 highlights: Added a realtime CD de-emphasis decode post processor. The tag "PRE_EMPHASIS" must be used on content which is supported by FB2Ks decode processor services, for this to work. Pre-emphasis can be signified in your media with the values "1" or "0".
    Version 0.7.1 highlights: Fixed the realtime de-emphasis post processor to be on par with SoX. Made clear distinctions between the phono and CD de-emphasis filters in the IIR filter dialog.
  
  
  • update: DVD-Audio Decoder and Watermark Detector (foo_input_dvda.dll) v0.4.4
    02/08/11:
    Version 0.4.4 - Watermark detector crash on End of track / Seek event fixed.
    
    02/07/11:
    Version 0.4.3 - ISO playback bug fixed. Watermark time is syncronized with the Seekbar slider.
    
    02/03/11:
    Version 0.4.2 - Watermark time and tempo added to console log.
    
    10/04/10:
    Version 0.4.1 - Experimental - Dolby TrueHD files playback added.
  
  
  • update: VST 2.4 adapter (foo_vst.dll) v0.9.0.2
    0.9
    Support for conversion and playback with same DSP chain presets
    Preset manager for each VST
    Per-instance channel number limit
    DSP config shortcuts bugfixes
    
    0.8.1.0
    Revamped VST [un]loading strategy with regard to threading issues.
    Doesn't use registry anymore (hold Shift and press Add button to get VST entries back).
  
  
  • update: OptimFROG Lossless/DualStream Decoder (foo_input_ofr.dll) v1.30
  
  
  • update: SoX Resampler/mod/mod2 SSE3 (foo_dsp_resampler*.dll) v0.6.0
    Version 0.6.0:
    Uses SSE3 optimizations but also works on CPUs without SSE3 support (0.5.6 and 0.5.4.4 merged).
  
  
  • update: HDCD decoder (foo_hdcd.dll) v1.10
    Version 1.8 highlights: Removed sort header setting from HDCD tester results dialog. Improved HDCD tester to accept all files and only skip unacceptable files when invoking the scanner.
    Version 1.9 highlights: Increased HDCD packet life to 10 seconds, and added full HDCD feature detection and reporting to the scanner.
    Version 1.10 highlights: Added an advanced preferences option under the Decoding category to negate the volume halving normally incurred from HDCD decoding.
  
  
  • update: Soft Playlist (foo_softplaylists.dll) v2011-02-05
    2011-02-05:
    -added Last.fm custom playlist functionality, creating a new one must be done on www.last.fm for now
    2011-02-04:
    -changed feed downloading to match Last.fm api changes
    -recent tracks playlist: duplicates are not removed anymore
    2011-02-03:
    -fixed fetching large track feeds for Top Tracks and Recent Tracks


• update: Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 SP1/2008 SP1/2010 Redistributable Packages - обновлены ссылки, добавлены последние обновления.

Статьи

• update: LAME + настройка - добавлена информация о пресетах.


• update: Установка и настройка Creative X-Fi XtremeGamer @ Windows 7 - добавлена раскладка каналов для ASIO.


• update: Организация качественного вывода звука на компьютере [foobar2000 1.1.2, Windows 7/XP] - добавлен тестовый семпл (udial.flac) для выявления некачественного ресемплинга.

И еще одна хорошая новость: на данный момент я работаю над статьей, которая посвящена новой для этого сайта тематике, а именно - воспроизведению видео. Следите за обновлениями.