[Wiktionary-l] [Commons-l] Sound files

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
The problem is that existing academic software like "praat" use .wav 
files. I do sympathise up to a point that storage is used. However, the 
price of a terabyte of storage is such that this is not that relevant. 
Both an .ogg and a .wav file would be saved. The first is to enable 
science to do its thing, the second is for our punters.
Thanks,
    GerardM

http://www.fon.hum.uva.nl/praat/


Gregory Maxwell schreef:
> On 2/11/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hoi,
>> I read this in digest mode so let me answer things together.
>>
>> The reason why .ogg files are not great is because indeed it is a lossy
>> algorithm. There is some great software to analyse pronunciation files;
>> a program called "praat" is worth mentioning it is even licensed under
>> GPL. There is even functionality in there to do with IPA transcription.
>>
>> Gregory's proposal to use Ogg/FLAC is not helpfull. This is not the
>> format that is used to analyse pronunciation files. The notion that a
>> specific quality was "the gold standard" at the time is indeed that. It
>> used to be, times have changed.
>>
>> The Shtooka program that we are talking about CAN create both a WAV and
>> an OGG file. It just needs asking. It would be helpful if we learn
>> sooner rather than later what the outcome is of this request.
>
> The Ogg/Flac is lossless, so it removes your concerns about lossyness.
> It can be uploaded today, so it removes the problems of not being
> uploadable. It is compressed (losslessly) so it's not quite so bad on
> our storage and bandwidth. Shtooka already outputs Flac, and could be
> trivially altered to output ogg/flac, if you'd like I will do this for
> you. Any number of Ogg/Flac files can be quickly converted to wav with
> a single command.
>
> I am very hesitant and concerned about the prospects of permitting
> uncompressed files: I think people will use them where they are
> completely inappropriate because they are a bit easier to playback.
> Flac or Ogg/Flac should be substantially smaller than wav and won't
> drive people to use uncompressed formats for bad reasons.
>