Opus, the open codec for podcasts and Internet audio

auphonic.com

11 points·grh··10 comments

What makes Opus particularly attractive for podcasting is the fact that it unites the benefits of music- and speech-specific audio codecs - listen to the examples ;)

What I really like about Opus is that it provides excellent sound quality even at very low bitrates - and at very low latencies as well. Those two things really distinguish it from other lossy codecs, such as MP3 or AAC.

well, i would be interested in aac examples, they only compare it to mp3 ...

I wonder if it's even possible to switch iTunes to this, from the legal perspective? Will major labels allow new format?

If iTunes switches, then everyone will use it ...

They use a different technique than in other lossy codecs (mp3, acc, etc.) without a psychoacoustic model. And the algorithms are actually quite old and not patented anymore (as in aac, mp3) - so in theory it should work ;)

However, I think libopus should also compile on the iPhone, so it should be possible to play .opus files on i-devices.

No, I'm not at all concerned about tech details. It's just that a big part of itunes evolution was related to different label legal things

The codec itself is an entirely open standard, so no legal problems there. Whether there will be political pressure by major labels or Apple themselves remains to be seen. The benefits of Opus are huge, but then again, we got VHS, too.

Might be interesting if it's used on the mobile version of skype.

AFAIK it will be used in future skype versions!

I think the Skype implementation is in fact complete, just not released yet.

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