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[duplicate] [Proposal] Remove cap on audio bitrate.

posted
Total Posts
13
fluxie31
325 posts
Joined December 2016
Topic Starter
fluxie31
I believe it is time to move on from the 192kbps limit on MP3 files in maps that is currently set by the ranking criteria.

As storage for an average user becomes more and more abundant, and as it seems like the osu! community is incredibly strict with audio quality (e.g. 128kbps MP3 files being "misrepresented" as 192kbps), I think it is time to abandon this rule which was set over 10 years ago so people are free to use 320kbps MP3 files if they wish.

The main reason I thought of this proposal is because while I was mapping a song that I had a 320kbps MP3 of, I compressed it down to 192kbps which reduced its quality significantly. I opened the compressed MP3 in Spek and I noticed that the audio frequency was rarely over 16 kHz, which could have lead to audio quality assurance people pointing out that the quality was low. And even worse, the compression only got the file down from 7MB to 4MB.

320kbps MP3 files should be here to stay. They do not take so much more space than a 192kbps MP3, and even if they did, we have the BSS file size limit to keep our mapsets below 100 MB.
Aranel
439 posts
Joined January 2017
Aranel
+1
GoldenWolf
2,983 posts
Joined May 2012
GoldenWolf
If you really care about audio quality, just use vorbis instead

Also wasn't one of the reasons of the bitrate cap for piracy purposes? So that people don't just have an easy way to get high quality audio files or something?
Karliah
177 posts
Joined April 2015
Karliah
OGG is the future
lewski
1,346 posts
Joined September 2014
lewski
The rule being old is completely moot, it's been brought up for discussion several times over the years. Notably, it's only been two years since peppy confirmed that the bitrate limit is still necessary to keep filesize "acceptable", and that it'll be "especially important as we push forward with mobile platforms". (@gowo not actually a piracy thing)

Flux3on wrote:

the compression only got the file down from 7MB to 4MB
Only? A 40% reduction in filesize sounds massive to me, especially since the MP3 is where most of an average mapset's filesize comes from. That difference adds up when you consider the actual number of maps a player is likely to have instead of just the one you're uploading right now.

If you're worried about people making invalid points about a technically acceptable audio file, just tell them their points are invalid instead of changing the RC. If an MP3 doesn't sound good enough at 192kbps, use Ogg.
Last edited by lewski , edited 1 time in total.
fluxie31
325 posts
Joined December 2016
Topic Starter
fluxie31
Ok, thank you for informing me
GoldenWolf
2,983 posts
Joined May 2012
GoldenWolf

lewski wrote:

(@gowo not actually a piracy thing)
I stand corrected.
-Kemsyt
298 posts
Joined August 2013
-Kemsyt
OGG is the future
i am very gay
168 posts
Joined May 2018
i am very gay
some people do have very slow internet and the game should accomodate for that. ive had times where my internet is at like 100 kbps or something stupidly slow and ive spent 5 mins downloading a map before. i really dont want to spend 10 mins downloading a map cuz someone wants placebo quality
fluxie31
325 posts
Joined December 2016
Topic Starter
fluxie31

i am very gay wrote:

some people do have very slow internet and the game should accomodate for that. ive had times where my internet is at like 100 kbps or something stupidly slow and ive spent 5 mins downloading a map before. i really dont want to spend 10 mins downloading a map cuz someone wants placebo quality
Yeah, I get it. It just irritates me how small of a window there is for audio quality, where people will complain abt a 128k MP3 or a Lossy -> Lossy conversion. Just figured if the limit was removed then nobody would worry as much abt having 320K mp3s

Also I have been under the impression that using OGGs was a bad practice, since I haven't seen a ranked map in recent years that use OGG files, and the fact that osu used to say "drop an mp3 or ogg here" but now omits OGG and that is very confusing to me
abraker
Global Moderator
8,327 posts
Joined July 2014
abraker
Last time this was brought up was 2 years ago community/forums/topics/1072965
See last post for reasons why it did not pass.
fluxie31
325 posts
Joined December 2016
Topic Starter
fluxie31
if it's not gonna pass then we need BNs and other relevant people to chill out when it comes to audio quality. Like I swear ppl get mad abt 160k audio and 192k isn't much higher but they also get mad when a 320k mp3 is compressed to 192k bc "flac is lossless" and all that kinda crap.

My main reason behind this proposal was because I feel like if people care that much about audio quality, the limit may as well be removed.
McEndu
1,166 posts
Joined March 2019
McEndu
If you remove the limit, you would see some absolutely insane guys ranking maps with 1411.2 kbps uncompressed (WAV) lossless audio...

Regardless, there were already a few thing done to make sure that BNs don't force 192k in case it is impossible to find higher quality audio. In most cases though, it is possible to find a higher quality audio, and replacing the audio is not much a hassle for mappers -- Changing MP3 is just a drag-and-drop issue, and the offset can be corrected easily using Mapping Tools and other automation. Therefore I don't see a necessity in removing the audio cap.
Last edited by McEndu , edited 1 time in total.
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