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[Proposal] Allow .ogg files as a main audio source

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Sanch-KK
I am referring to this rule from Audio section of current RC:

A beatmapset's audio file must use the .mp3 file format and have an average bit rate no greater than 192kbps.


For now, i can't see any reason why .ogg files are not allowed, as they are superior to mp3 in following ways:

1. quality/size efficiency. Even if 192 kbps mp3 is used, it still can be differentiated from flac and 320 kbps file of the same song, using ogg file of the same size can help achieving really close to 320 kbps subjective audio quality, or use of the smaller size file while maintaining reasonable quality (much, much better than 128 kbps mp3) can be beneficial for players and server side if people are mapping really long songs.

2. possibility of having 0 offset on the map. If flac or wav file is being converted to ogg, convertion process doesn't create any additional offset, and most of the songs don't have silence in the beginning originally. This will reduce complications to basically zero with timing and checking timing on single bpm maps.

I would like to hear about possible technical complications when implementing this, but as far as i know:

osu! has support for ogg files, as they can be used as hitsounds.
You technically can use ogg as a main audio file if you edit .osu file, and it works perfectly fine. Only possible problem i can see is creation of preview audio on site, but this can probably be solved.

I also may create some audio file comparisons if people are interested in seeing the difference between file formats
abraker
xenal
No need to go 3 years ago, this was said in a post by peppy only a few months ago and also prompted the mp3 audio rule (which was just an oversight, it was a unwritten rule before that anyway).

https://osu.ppy.sh/community/forums/topics/946771 mp3 proposal
https://osu.ppy.sh/community/forums/topics/945413

peppy wrote:

Actual track data should remain mp3 for compatibility reasons.

So until peppy actually gives the ok, song file stays in mp3 format.
tatatat
2. possibility of having 0 offset on the map. If flac or wav file is being converted to ogg, convertion process doesn't create any additional offset, and most of the songs don't have silence in the beginning originally. This will reduce complications to basically zero with timing and checking timing on single bpm maps.

I actually PREFER having an offset greater than zero. If there isn't no silence at the beginning of a song, I add it myself. I need a tiny bit of wiggle room at the beginning of the map to make sure my offset is perfect by playing back the audio over and over.

I do think that using .ogg files for audio seems perfectly reasonable, as peppy recently (within months) fixed issues that prevented .ogg files from being used. They are now 100% compatible as far as I know.
lenpai
id love to see this implemented.

.ogg strikes a nice balance between small filesizes and audio quality. Both of which are enforced by the RC / a group of ppl to some degree.
peppy
i'm not really in a state to focus on such issues right now (huge backlog), but for it to work:

- need to test mcosu / osu!droid / other clients that people use (and confirm it already works or the developers are willing to make it work)
- need to test osu!lazer (on iOS / android / windows / linux / macOS)
- need to test stable-fallback
- (requires me) need to confirm we aren't regressing audio data buffering behaviour (stable / lazer)
- (requires me) need to fix web preview generation

The ones that don't require me could be tackled in the mean time.
McKay

peppy wrote:

i'm not really in a state to focus on such issues right now (huge backlog), but for it to work:

- need to test mcosu / osu!droid / other clients that people use (and confirm it already works or the developers are willing to make it work)
...


McOsu has working ogg support on all supported operating systems (Windows, Linux, macOS, Nintendo Switch), I've tested it again and everything seems to work fine.

All BASS platforms should have ogg support for free which is nice.
pishifat
tested some .ogg maps in opsu (osudroid) and windows/android lazer and didnt have problems

these maps specifically
https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets/31750#osu/107763 https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets/15919#osu/58093 https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets/28991#osu/96375 https://osu.ppy.sh/beatmapsets/14994#osu/54581
Xinnoh
I tested the above maps with these builds on osx:
stable-fallback
stable / beta / cutting edge
lazer - 2018.1108.0 build

all of the above work fine
Newer versions of lazer will not launch, it requires me to update to osx 10.13 but my laptop doesn't support beyond 10.12.6

pishi also tested fallback for windows, it worked fine.
bassoons
Note that .ogg is only a container format and could contain multiple audio codecs.

Whereas an .mp3 file is almost always an actual mp3 encoded data.

Most often .ogg would contain Vorbis codec audio, or more modernly, Opus.

Usually vorbis-encoded files are affixed as .ogg extension whereas opus-encoded are affixed with .opus.

I would suggest requiring only the latest, most efficient codec, Opus, if updating the audio file standard(s) for osu. It also has an advantage of very often being very low latency to decode.
McEndu
using ogg file of the same size can help achieving really close to 320 kbps subjective audio quality
Kinda reminds me of an rejected proposal, making me think whether the reasoning against that (primarily legal stuff abd like arising from audio quality increase) applies here.
clayton
Opus is supported by BASS as well so that should cover most of the clients we care about. should test that just in case bc it looks like everything tested so far was Vorbis
peppy
As it turns out, I recently found out that the bundle triangles intro theme has always been ogg/opus. I think it's fine that we push this through, with the same bitrate rules at mp3. Note that the bitrate rules are NOT for legal reasons as people may have incorrectly stated, but to ensure downloads size is within acceptable limits (especially important as we push forward with mobile platforms).
clayton
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