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- <HTML><HEAD><TITLE>xiph.org: Ogg Vorbis documentation</TITLE>
- <BODY bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#202020" link="#006666" vlink="#000000">
- <nobr><img src="white-ogg.png"><img src="vorbisword2.png"></nobr><p>
- <h1><font color=#000070>
- Ogg Vorbis encoding format documentation
- </font></h1>
- <em>Last update to this document: July 15, 1999</em><br>
- <em>Last update to Vorbis documentation: July 21, 1999</em><p>
- <table><tr><td>
- <img src=wait.png>
- </td><td valign=center>
- As of writing, not all the below document
- links are live. They will be populated as we complete the
- documents.
- </td></tr></table>
- <p>
- <h2>Documents</h2>
- <ul>
- <li><a href="packet.html">Vorbis packet structure</a>
- <li><a href="envelope.html">Temporal envelope shaping and blocksize</a>
- <li><a href="mdct.html">Time domain segmentation and MDCT transform</a>
- <li><a href="resolution.html">The resolution floor</a>
- <li><a href="residuals.html">MDCT-domain fine structure</a><p>
- <li><a href="probmodel.html">The Vorbis probability model</a>
- <li><a href="bitpack.html">The Vorbis bitpacker</a><p>
- <li><a href="oggstream.html">Ogg bitstream overview</a>
- <li><a href="framing.html">Ogg logical bitstream and framing spec</a>
- <li><a href="vorbis-stream.html">Vorbis packet->Ogg bitstream
- mapping</a><p>
- <li><a href="programming.html">Programming with libvorbis</a><p>
- </ul>
- <h2>Description</h2>
- Ogg Vorbis is a general purpose compressed audio format
- for high quality (44.1-48.0kHz, 16+ bit, polyphonic) audio and music
- at moderate fixed and variable bitrates (40-80 kb/s/channel). This
- places Vorbis in the same class as audio representations including
- MPEG-1 audio layer 3, MPEG-4 audio (AAC and TwinVQ), and PAC.<p>
- Vorbis is the first of a planned family of Ogg multimedia coding
- formats being developed as part of Xiphophorus's Ogg multimedia
- project. See <a href="http://www.xiph.org/">http://www.xiph.org/</a>
- for more information.
- <h2>Vorbis technical documents</h2>
- A Vorbis encoder takes in overlapping (but contiguous) short-time
- segments of audio data. The encoder analyzes the content of the audio
- to determine an optimal compact representation; this phase of encoding
- is known as <em>analysis</em>. For each short-time block of sound,
- the encoder then packs an efficient representation of the signal, as
- determined by analysis, into a raw packet much smaller than the size
- required by the original signal; this phase is <em>coding</em>.
- Lastly, in a streaming environment, the raw packets are then
- structured into a continuous stream of octets; this last phase is
- <em>streaming</em>. Note that the stream of octets is referred to both
- as a 'byte-' and 'bit-'stream; the latter usage is acceptible as the
- stream of octets is a physical representation of a true logical
- bit-by-bit stream.<p>
- A Vorbis decoder performs a mirror image process of extracting the
- original sequence of raw packets from an Ogg stream (<em>stream
- decomposition</em>), reconstructing the signal representation from the
- raw data in the packet (<em>decoding</em>) and them reconstituting an
- audio signal from the decoded representation (<em>synthesis</em>).<p>
- The <a href="programming.html">Programming with libvorbis</a>
- documents discuss use of the reference Vorbis codec library
- (libvorbis) produced by Xiphophorus.<p>
- The data representations and algorithms necessary at each step to
- encode and decode Ogg Vorbis bitstreams are described by the below
- documents in sufficient detail to construct a complete Vorbis codec.
- Note that at the time of writing, Vorbis is still in a 'Request For
- Comments' stage of development; despite being in advanced stages of
- development, input from the multimedia community is welcome.<p>
- <h3>Vorbis analysis and synthesis</h3>
- Analysis begins by seperating an input audio stream into individual,
- overlapping short-time segments of audio data. These segments are
- then transformed into an alternate representation, seeking to
- represent the original signal in a more efficient form that codes into
- a smaller number of bytes. The analysis and transformation stage is
- the most complex element of producing a Vorbis bitstream.<p>
- The corresponding synthesis step in the decoder is simpler; there is
- no analysis to perform, merely a mechanical, deterministic
- reconstruction of the original audio data from the transform-domain
- representation.<p>
- <ul>
- <li><a href="packet.html">Vorbis packet structure</a>: Describes the basic analysis components necessary to produce Vorbis packets and the structure of the packet itself.
- <li><a href="envelope.html">Temporal envelope shaping and blocksize</a>: Use of temporal envelope shaping and variable blocksize to minimize time-domain energy leakage during wide dynamic range and spectral energy swings. Also discusses time-related principles of psychoacoustics.
- <li><a href="mdct.html">Time domain segmentation and MDCT transform</a>: Division of time domain data into individual overlapped, windowed short-time vectors and transformation using the MDCT
- <li><a href="resolution.html">The resolution floor</a>: Use of frequency doamin psychoacoustics, and the MDCT-domain noise, masking and resolution floors
- <li><a href="residuals.html">MDCT-domain fine structure</a>: Production, quantization and massaging of MDCT-spectrum fine structure
- </ul>
- <h3>Vorbis coding and decoding</h3>
- Coding and decoding converts the transform-domain representation of
- the original audio produced by analysis to and from a bitwise packed
- raw data packet. Coding and decoding consist of two logically
- orthogonal concepts, <em>back-end coding</em> and <em>bitpacking</em>.<p>
- <em>Back-end coding</em> uses a probability model to represent the raw numbers
- of the audio representation in as few physical bits as possible;
- familiar examples of back-end coding include Huffman coding and Vector
- Quantization.<p>
- <em>Bitpacking</em> arranges the variable sized words of the back-end
- coding into a vector of octets without wasting space. The octets
- produced by coding a single short-time audio segment is one raw Vorbis
- packet.<p>
- <ul>
- <li><a href="probmodel.html">The Vorbis probability model</a>
- <li><a href="bitpack.html">The Vorbis bitpacker</a>: Arrangement of
- variable bit-length words into an octet-aligned packet.
- </ul>
- <h3>Vorbis streaming and stream decomposition</h3>
- Vorbis packets contain the raw, bitwise-compressed representation of a
- snippet of audio. These packets contain no structure and cannot be
- strung together directly into a stream; for streamed transmission and
- storage, Vorbis packets are encoded into an Ogg bitstream.<p>
- <ul>
- <li><a href="oggstream.html">Ogg bitstream overview</a>: High-level
- description of Ogg logical bitstreams, how logical bitstreams
- (of mixed media types) can be combined into physical bitstreams, and
- restrictions on logical-to-physical mapping. Note that this document is
- not specific only to Ogg Vorbis.
- <li><a href="framing.html">Ogg logical bitstream and framing
- spec</a>: Low level, complete specification of Ogg logical
- bitstream pages. Note that this document is not specific only to Ogg
- Vorbis.
- <li><a href="vorbis-stream.html">Vorbis bitstream mapping</a>:
- Specifically describes mapping Vorbis data into an
- Ogg physical bitstream.
- </ul>
- <hr>
- <a href="http://www.xiph.org/">
- <img src="white-xifish.png" align=left border=0>
- </a>
- <font size=-2 color=#505050>
- Ogg is a <a href="http://www.xiph.org">Xiphophorus</a> effort to
- protect essential tenets of Internet multimedia from corporate
- hostage-taking; Open Source is the net's greatest tool to keep
- everyone honest. See <a href="http://www.xiph.org/about.html">About
- Xiphophorus</a> for details.
- <p>
- Ogg Vorbis is the first Ogg audio CODEC. Anyone may
- freely use and distribute the Ogg and Vorbis specification,
- whether in a private, public or corporate capacity. However,
- Xiphophorus and the Ogg project (xiph.org) reserve the right to set
- the Ogg/Vorbis specification and certify specification compliance.<p>
- Xiphophorus's Vorbis software CODEC implementation is distributed
- under the Lesser/Library GNU Public License. This does not restrict
- third parties from distributing independent implementations of Vorbis
- software under other licenses.<p>
- OggSquish, Vorbis, Xiphophorus and their logos are trademarks (tm) of
- <a href="http://www.xiph.org/">Xiphophorus</a>. These pages are
- copyright (C) 1994-2000 Xiphophorus. All rights reserved.<p>
- </body>
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