Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

 Which encoder should I use: the standard v1.1 or the experimental ArcherB10 one?

If you’re wondering, then go for the standard v1.1. It has been widely tested for months, and is actually recommended by the Xiph.org foundation. It’s safe and secured, and guaranteed to be 100% Ogg-Vorbis.

The experimental version is of beta-quality: it’s supposed to be better, but obviously might not be. Currently audio gurus seem to enjoy it, and it’s clearly faster. But it’s beta. Is it clear like this?

 It’s a pretty rudimentary version. Only allows control over the constant bitrate, whereas Ogg offers the same VBR, Stereo, etc. controls as MP3

It seems there are some confusion about which "mode" this encoder is using, meaning Constant (CBR) or Variable BitRate (VBR). I guess this puzzlement comes from the mp3 world, where for historical reasons there are hundreds of possible configurations. Ogg-Vorbis is a new, cleanly designed codec, and as such is using the best available mode, VBR, only. So does my encoder, it uses VBR through the quality setting; this is the VBR nominal bitrate which is displayed in the user interface.

As a matter of fact, Ogg-Vorbis doesn’t have any other real mode than VBR. However, it is true that some encoders are offering an emulated CBR mode: it’s nothing more than the VBR mode where the encoder is forbidden to increase or decrease the bitrate. This truncated VBR mode actually gives poorer results than VBR: files are not smaller, but resulting audio quality isn’t as good. Such configuration makes sense in the context of a streamed webradio where we need to have a strict control over the bitrate; it’s just very stupid to use it to archive an audio CD.

Because I want my Winamp encoder to be as easy to use as possible and give the best possible audio quality, I don’t offer this skewed CBR mode, and don’t plan to unless someone can convince me about the benefit of doing so. I’m refering to the popular Lame mp3 encoder, where many front-ends still offer old poor settings such as CBR whereas there’s a universal —alt-preset standard configuration which gives the best possible audio quality in the mp3 world. Every audio experts all agree about it, but because newbies are lost amongst all those possible settings, 99% of mp3s in the wild have damn poor quality. I don’t want the same story for Ogg-Vorbis, so at least Winamp users are guaranteed to get the optimal quality possible with Vorbis.

Do you have any unanswered question? Then feel free to use my Contact page to ask me.