Product Management: The BlackBerry Application Platform

[stealth]

The *.ogg file format comes standard on all factory burned music CDs and it is smaller than the mp3 file format. This would make it possible to copy files directly from a CD to the Blackberry without first converting them over to mp3.

I have a Blackberry Storm 9530

[PerfectReign]

I second this.  Aparently the bb supports some closed-source .amr format. I have trouble with standard players like totem, vlc and xine to play them.

mplayer and gmplayer do play the files but only after having to download an extra codec. 

[ydaraishy]

I would say that FLAC would be far more useful, sure it's larger, but this is why we have large capacity SD cards...

[stealth]

Why would you want FLAC over OGG? As you pointed out FLAC is larger. Why not WAV? WAV is about the same size as FLAC. OGG is smaller than MP3. FLAC, WAV and OGG are standard file formats on all factory CDs. OGG works on any Linux system and gamers can tell you that the sound files in the computer games are ogg even on MS which would not dare support an open source format. There are apps that work on MS that will support OGG. There are some thrid party apps that work on some BBs that run OGG files. If there was a thrid party app for my BB that would play OGG files I would download and install it.

[ydaraishy]

WAV is considerably larger than FLAC, not approximately the same size. FLAC is not lossy and it is compressed (unlike WAV), hence it is preferrable to a lossy format like OGG.

[PerfectReign]

I actually wouldn't mind flac as well as .ogg.

I have multiple U2 bootlegs in .flac format I've downloaded over the years. Especially for bootlegs, I like flac since the sound quality is already somewhat suspect.

Most of my CD collection, however, is in .ogg format. I even wrote a blog entry some time back about using KAudocreator to rip CDs using ogg. (http://www.perfectreign.com/?q=node/27) I have many thousands of songs in .ogg format at the moment.

I wonder if there's a way to load a codec into the system which would support ogg in the native music player. Any ideas how to get into the filesystem and figure out what the current codec files are?

[stealth]

How would you lose sound quality if you use OGG files directly from the factory CD? I would think that all file formats on a factory CD will create the file formats from source so there would be no loss. Besides 1 FLAC file takes up as much space as about 8.5 OGG files.

[ydaraishy]

OGG, like MP3, is lossy compression. You lose sound quality no matter what you do, even from the "factory CD". OGG, like MP3, is smaller than WAV because it throws away information that you typically cannot hear as much.

FLAC is lossless compression. You do not lose sound quality at all. This is why it's preferrable.

[stealth]

Then according to what you are saying, WAV is the better file format because it is bigger than FLAC. Problem solved. WAV currently runs on BB. You may be right about OGG and loss of sound quality but if the person listening to it does not have perfect hearing then they probably would not notice any difference between any of the formats weve talked about. My music files on my BB sound really good with my Bose head set. So do my phone calls as well as my audio GPS. I still would rather have OGG over MP3 because I can store more files with OGG.

[PerfectReign]

.WAV is a decent - if a bit lossy - file format. (It is an almost exact reproduction of a CD, yet a CD is itself lossy, due to the frequency range used, when compared to analog recordings.)

However, a 3-minute WAV is roughly 35 MB. This is just too unwieldy. FLAC, which is lossless compared to WAV is about half the size.

.mp3 and .ogg are 1/10th the size and more preferential, especially when copying and moving files.

I am one of the ones with not so perfect hearing, therefore I don't mind .mp3/.ogg format.