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NegativeKarmaForever | 3 points | Oct 21 2017 19:44:47

[Meta] Choosing Opus as an audio codec | Megalinks MegaDB [Meta] Choosing Opus as an audio codec

Paging /u/ecchh

Technical merits aside, Opus audio is a poor choice for a soundtrack: no major hardware player supports Opus and those of us who watch movies on TV have to transcode the audio track to a mainstream format (AAC, mp3, etc).

While audiophiles could argue that, at identical bit rates, the psycho-acoustics of Opus are better than, say, mp3, with movies | Megalinks MegaDB movies (i.e. not extremely-high quality sound tracks, played through specialized amps and high-end speakers) using Opus instead of a mainstream codec is a very questionable choice.

The above observations notwhitstanding, thank your for posting so many good movies!

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[-] ecchh | 8 points | Oct 21 2017 21:18:25

I use Opus as my audio codec because I really don't like the results that AAC gives me at identical bitrates to Opus. Maybe it's because I'm using audiophile equipment to listen to my movies, but I can always hear an annoying hiss in 5.1 AAC audio @384k during speech whereas none of that is present in the Opus track. I've also found Opus compresses better, allowing the audio to only take up ~200MB instead of several hundred, while still retaining clarity.

I started encoding these videos for my own personal use since I couldn't find x265 versions of specific films I wanted. I wasn't worried about compatibility because I knew that it would work with the setup I have. While I was doing the work of encoding these movies anyway, though, I figured I would upload them here as well in case other people wanted them.

Perhaps that explains my choice a little more.

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[-] tiiiiimmmm | 5 points | Oct 21 2017 20:49:16

While I tend to agree with you about the merits of using AAC as opposed to Opus, this is one of those things I say is up to the uploaders. My feeling is you get what you get, if someone is willing to take requests for specific formats you want terrific, if you have a hardware compatibility issue worst case you can convert the audio to another format for yourself. Yes this results in a slight drop in quality but I will again refer to "Beggars can't be Choosers".

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[-] NegativeKarmaForever | 1 points | Oct 21 2017 23:38:27

this is one of those things I say is up to the uploaders

"Beggars can't be choosers"

You are absolutely right - hence, my thanks to the original poster.

I just wanted to let the poster(s) know that "Works for me just fine" may not be applicable to many - which undermines his very laudable intent of sharing something with other people; this could simply be avoided with a couple of clicks, and choosing a different, mainstream codec.

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[-] RowanX2 | 2 points | Oct 21 2017 20:09:24

movies (i.e. not extremely-high quality sound tracks

Sure bout dat? Kodi plays Opus.. Kodi is your god. If your hardware or software can't play Opus you need to get out of the 1990's.

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[-] NegativeKarmaForever | 1 points | Oct 21 2017 23:28:27

I think you misunderstood. Let me rephrase it:

-for normal, watching-at-home, movies, through normal | Megalinks MegaDB normal speakers/sound systems, going over the top with encoding parameters gives you nothing but a waste of space. Normal TVs and/or sound systems simply don't have the tech specs that would allow them to take advantage of losless and beyond;

-even if you had a super-specialized, extremely expensive sound system, it's very unlikely that the movie's sound track has the acoustic range that would make a difference to a listener;

-even if your movie is one of those very, very rare movies with such a sound track, your typical listener won't hear much of a difference (you need to be one of the winners of the genetic lottery AND have a film with an OST that's more that speech, explosions and typical sound effects);

-as I was saying, it was a problem with a certain codec being supported by mainstream, VERY MODERN, hardware | Megalinks MegaDB hardware players.

Sorry, but it had nothing to do with Kodi - or any other software | Megalinks MegaDB software player.

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[-] Redditor20121 | 0 points | Oct 21 2017 19:49:15

I like AC3 for 5.1 Audio since my Roku can direct play AC3 5.1 For 2 CH audio AAC is good as well. I am not sure about Opus but i do see it as default option in Staxrip, so might be something popular.

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[-] NegativeKarmaForever | 3 points | Oct 21 2017 19:58:11

As I was saying, the problem with Opus is its lack of support in hardware | Megalinks MegaDB hardware players (Roku, etc). Those who watch movies on their laptops (via VLC or other software) don't have this problem. Same for those who connect/stream from their laptops to their TVs. The issue affecs those who use their TVs to decode natively or their external hardware players.

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[-] Redditor20121 | 5 points | Oct 21 2017 20:11:11

I am using Plex, so it transcodes the audio as needed. There is not much CPU usage for Audio transcode.

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