Average checkbox next to bitrate settings

• Jul 1, 2018 - 22:14

Hi!
Would it be possible to add support for average bitrate mp3-s? This could increase quality, especially for medium/low bitrates (<192). As far as I know, the LAME library already supports this mode. The attached picture shows what I mean.
Thanks,
Máté

Attachment	Size
export-mp3-average.png	32.2 KB

Comments

Jojo-Schmitz

• Jul 2, 2018 - 09:37

There are 3 options, CBR (Constant BitRate, which we currently use hard coded), ABR (Average BitRate) and VBR (Variable BitRate).
So maybe we should go the full path and have a pulldown menu with all 3 options?
ABR would be easier to implement though, as it 'plays' better with the bitrate settings and doesn't need to somehow map those to VBR qualities (0-9).
Or with VBR we could disable the bitrate setting menu and use the hard coded (and recommended) QUALITY_2

See https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/pull/3777, ABR only so far

humate

• Jul 2, 2018 - 12:20

Thank you for your answer. I know about VBR, but it requires a lot of new settings, and may be confusing for most users (0 quality is better than 9?). But it's only my opinion.
Thanks again,
Máté

shoogle

• Jul 2, 2018 - 12:32

Sounds like it only needs one new setting, and you can avoid confusion by having a dropdown list of qualities like this:

0 (best)
1
2 (recommended)
3
4
...
9 (worst)

Jojo-Schmitz

• Jul 2, 2018 - 12:41

Yes, that might be the way to go. If we really want all 3 options or CBR + VBR

I wonder which bitrate musescore.com is using (self answering: 128kBit/s) and whether it would benefit from the better sound or possibly smaller files (when reducing bitrate , but making it the average), and whether we'd need a command line option for that too then.

shoogle

• Jul 2, 2018 - 15:53

I'd personally like to see MP3 ditched altogether in favour of the Opus audio codec. Apparently it is supported by all major browsers (except IE of course, though Edge has it).

Jojo-Schmitz

• Jul 2, 2018 - 16:00

No Edge on Windows 7 or 8, so a no-go.

Jojo-Schmitz

• Jul 2, 2018 - 12:39

I've now compared an MP3 export with and without that option, both at 128kBit/s, one fixed the other average of course. The ABR file is slightly bigger than the CBR file, 3,84MB vs. 3,61MB. I personally don't hear any difference, but this is with pretty cheap PC speakers.
Windows explorer reports the ABR file to have a bitrate of 36kBit/s, guess that is the setting at the start of the file

[DELETED] 5

• Jul 4, 2018 - 17:54

You can have all the settings in the world by exporting to WAV and using a dedicated audio software to do the MP3 conversion. If you know what CBR vs ABR means, you must have a dedicated audio software.
I tried to keep the MP3 export as simple as possible but added bitrate selection recently. Now CBR/ABR/VBR? OK. Next what? Sample rate, replay gain etc... man lame is long enough to make a very complex UI ... https://svn.code.sf.net/p/lame/svn/trunk/lame/USAGE. And when lame settings are all exposed, next up is editable id3 tags https://musescore.org/en/node/52886

shoogle

• Jul 5, 2018 - 00:00

You make a valid point about codec setting. I guess there isn't much point in adding complexity if the user can go down the uncompressed route anyway.

Metadata is different though. MuseScore has information about the title, author, composer, etc in File Properties, so this could be added to the MP3 automatically, without the user having to configure anything in the preferences. The default should be to export all available information that the format is capable of holding.

Jojo-Schmitz

• Jul 5, 2018 - 06:39

Yes (to the Metadata). And preferably the same for PDF

[DELETED] 5

• Jul 5, 2018 - 11:33

That's why I said "editable" ;)