On 2/11/07, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@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.