| Vorbis | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Filename extension | .ogg[1] |
| Internet media type | application/ogg, audio/ogg, audio/vorbis, audio/vorbis-config |
| Developed by | Xiph.Org Foundation |
| Initial release | May 8, 2000 (2000-05-08)[2][3] |
| Latest release | |
| Type of format | Lossyaudio |
| Contained by | Ogg,Matroska,WebM |
| Standard | Specification |
| Open format? | Yes[5] |
| Free format? | Yes[6] |
| Website | xiph |
| libvorbis | |
|---|---|
 Screenshot of ogginfo showing information of an .ogg file | |
| Developer | Xiph.Org Foundation |
| Initial release | July 19, 2002 (2002-07-19) |
| Stable release | |
| Repository | |
| Written in | C |
| Type | Audio codec,reference implementation |
| License | 3-clause BSD license[8][9] |
| Website | Xiph.org downloads |
Vorbis is afree and open-source software project headed by theXiph.Org Foundation. The project produces anaudio coding format and software reference encoder/decoder (codec) forlossyaudio compression,libvorbis.[10] Vorbis is most commonly used in conjunction with theOggcontainer format[11] and it is therefore often referred to asOgg Vorbis.
Version 1.0 of Vorbis was released in May 2000.[2] Since 2013, the Xiph.Org Foundation has stated that the use of Vorbis should be deprecated in favor of theOpus codec, an improved and more efficient format that has also been developed by Xiph.Org.[12]
Vorbis is named after the character ExquisitorVorbis in theDiscworld novelSmall Gods byTerry Pratchett. TheOgg format is named afterogging,jargon from the computer gameNetrek.[13]
Vorbis is a continuation of audio compression development started in 1993 byChris Montgomery.[14][13] Intensive development began following a September 1998 letter from theFraunhofer Society announcing plans to charge licensing fees for theMP3 audio format.[15][16] The Vorbis project started as part of the Xiphophorus company's Ogg project (also known as OggSquish multimedia project).[17][18] Chris Montgomery began work on the project and was assisted by a growing number of other developers. They continued refining thesource code until the Vorbis file format was frozen for 1.0 in May 2000.[2][3][19] Originally licensed asLGPL, in 2001 the Vorbis license was changed to theBSD license to encourage adoption, with the endorsement ofRichard Stallman.[20][21] A stable version (1.0) of the reference software was released on July 19, 2002.[22][23][24]
Since February 2013,[12] Xiph.Org has stated that the use of Vorbis should be deprecated in favor of theOpus codec, which is also a Xiph.Org Foundation project and also free and open-source. Compared to Vorbis, Opus can simultaneously achieve higher compression efficiency—per both Xiph.Org itself and third-party listening tests[25][26]—and lower encode/decode latency (in most cases, low enough for real-time applications such asinternet telephony or live singing, rarely possible with Vorbis).[27]
Vorbis faces competition from other audio formats, such as MP3. Though Vorbis is technically superior (addressing many of the limitations inherent to the MP3 design), MP3 has a far higher public profile.[28] Because Vorbis does not have financial support from large organisations, support for the format is not as widespread, though programs such asAudacity can convert to more popular formats,[29] and support in games has gradually improved.[30]
The Vorbis format has proven popular among supporters offree software.[31] They argue that its higher fidelity and completely free nature, unencumbered by patents, make it a well-suited replacement for patented and restricted formats.
Vorbis has different uses for consumer products. Manyvideo games store in-game audio as Vorbis, includingAmnesia: The Dark Descent,Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas,Halo: Combat Evolved,Minecraft, andWorld of Warcraft, among others.[32] Popular software players support Vorbis playback either natively or through an externalplugin. A number of websites, includingWikipedia, use it.[33][34][35][36] Others includeJamendo andMindawn, as well as several national radio stations[33] like JazzRadio,Absolute Radio,NPR,Radio New Zealand[37] andDeutschlandradio.[38] TheSpotify audio streaming service primarily uses Vorbis[39][40] as well asAAC.[41] Also, the French music site Qobuz offers its customers the possibility to download their purchased songs in Vorbis format, as does the American music siteBandcamp.[42]
| Quality | Nominal bitrate | |
|---|---|---|
| Official Xiph.Org Foundation Vorbis | ||
| -q-1 | 45 kbit/s | 48 kbit/s |
| -q0 | 64 kbit/s | |
| -q1 | 80 kbit/s | |
| -q2 | 96 kbit/s | |
| -q3 | 112 kbit/s | |
| -q4 | 128 kbit/s | |
| -q5 | 160 kbit/s | |
| -q6 | 192 kbit/s | |
| -q7 | 224 kbit/s | |
| -q8 | 256 kbit/s | |
| -q9 | 320 kbit/s | |
| -q10 | 500 kbit/s | |
Vorbis I is a forward-adaptive monolithic transform codec based on themodified discrete cosine transform (MDCT).[43] Vorbis uses the modified discrete cosine transform for converting sound data from thetime domain to thefrequency domain. The resulting frequency-domain data is broken intonoise floor and residue components, and thenquantized andentropy coded using acodebook-basedvector quantization algorithm. The decompression algorithm reverses these stages. The noise-floor approach gives Vorbis its characteristic analog noise-like failure mode when the bitrate is too low to encode the audio without perceptible loss. The sound of compression artifacts at low bitrates is similar toreverberations in a large space.
Vorbis streams can be encapsulated in other mediacontainer formats besides Ogg.[44] A commonly used alternative isMatroska. It is also used inWebM, a container format based on a subset of Matroska.[45][46][47] Vorbis streams can also be encapsulated in anRTP payload format.[48]
Vorbismetadata, calledVorbis comments, supports metadata tags similar to those implemented in theID3 standard for MP3. The metadata is stored in a vector ofbyte strings of arbitrary length and size. The size of the vector and the size of each string in bytes is limited to 232 − 1 (about 4.3billion, or any positive integer that can be expressed in 32 bits). This vector is stored in the second header packet that begins a Vorbis bitstream.[49]
The strings are assumed to be encoded asUTF-8. Music tags are typically implemented as strings of the form "[TAG]=[VALUE]", for instance, "ARTIST=The John Smith Band". The tag names are case-insensitive, thus typing "ARTIST=The John Smith Band" would be the same as "artist=The John Smith Band". Like the current version of ID3, users and encoding software are free to use whichever tags are appropriate for the content. For example, an encoder could use localized tag labels, live music tracks might contain a "Venue=" tag or files could have multiple genre definitions. Most applications also support common de facto standards such as disc number andReplayGain information.
aoTuV is a notablefork which adds support for encoding at lower bitrates.[50] aoTuV's changes were intended to be merged into the reference encoder periodically, but that only happened once in libvorbis 1.1,[51] due to future merges being a "task that requires uninterrupted time, something I [Chris Montgomery] don't have a lot of."[52]
Knowledge of Vorbis' specifications is in thepublic domain.[8] Concerning the specification itself, the Xiph.Org Foundation reserves the right to set the Vorbis specification and certify compliance. Its libraries are released under the revised 3-clauseBSD license and its tools are released under theGNU General Public License. The libraries were originally released under theGNU Lesser General Public Licence, but a BSD license was later chosen with the endorsement ofRichard Stallman.[53] TheXiph.Org Foundation states that Vorbis, like all its developments, is completely free from the licensing orpatent issues raised byproprietary formats. Although the Xiph.Org Foundation states it has conducted a patent search that supports its claims, outside parties (notably engineers working on rival formats) have expressed doubt that Vorbis is free of patented technology.[54][original research?]
The Xiph.Org Foundation has not released an official statement on the patent status of Vorbis, pointing out that such a statement is technically impossible due to the number and scope of patents in existence and the questionable validity of many of them. Such issues can only be resolved by a court of law.
Vorbis is supported by several largedigital audio player manufacturers such asSamsung,SanDisk,Rio,Neuros Technology,Cowon, andiriver.
Tremor, a version of the Vorbis decoder which usesfixed-point arithmetic (rather thanfloating point), was made available to the public on September 2, 2002 (also under aBSD-style license).[55] Tremor, or platform-specific versions based on it, is more suited to implementation on the limited facilities available in commercial portable players. A number of versions that make adjustments for specific platforms and include customized optimizations for given embedded microprocessors have been produced. Several hardware manufacturers have expressed[citation needed] intentions to produce Vorbis-compliant devices and new Vorbis devices seem to be appearing at a steady rate.[citation needed]
Apple'siPod does not natively support Vorbis but through the use ofRockbox, an open-source firmware project, is capable of decoding Vorbis files on certain models. Similar statements apply to other devices capable of running Rockbox, as well. The Xiph.Org Foundation wiki has an up-to-date list of Vorbis-supporting hardware, such as portables, PDAs, and microchips.[62] Also seeInternet radio device for an overview.
Software supporting Vorbis exists for many platforms. The multi-platform open-sourceVLC media player andMPlayer can play Ogg Vorbis files, as canWinamp andfoobar2000.Windows Media Player does not natively support Vorbis; however,DirectShow filters exist to decode Vorbis in Windows Media Player and other Windows multimedia players that support DirectShow.[63] Vorbis is also supported in the multi-platform audio editing softwareAudacity, in the multi-platformmultimedia frameworksFFmpeg,GStreamer andHelix DNA. Vorbis is well-supported on theLinux platform in programs likeXMMS,xine,Amarok. A list of Vorbis-supporting software can be found at the Xiph.Org Foundation wiki and Vorbis.com website.[64][65] Users can test these programs using the list of Vorbis audio streams available on the same wiki.[66] For more information about support in software media players there is acomparison of media players available.
Some newerUbisoft games use Vorbis files renamed with thefilename extension .sb0. It can therefore be played using a compatible player, although sometimes one must force a differentsampling rate to hear it correctly. A number of tools are available for extracting sound fromarchived files such as the .m4b ofMyst IV: Revelation.
As originally recommended byHTML 5, theseweb browsers natively support Vorbis audio (without a plug-in) using the<audio> element:Mozilla Firefox 3.5 (and later versions),[67][68]Google Chrome (from version 3.0.182.2),[69]SeaMonkey (from version 2.0).[70]Opera 9.5 experimental video builds released in 2007 and 2008 have only<video> support and play back Vorbis audio included in Ogg video files.[71][72]Opera 10.5 browser has support for Vorbis audio,WAVE PCM audio andTheora video.[73][74]
The game design softwareRPG Maker MV, released in October 2015, is the first version of that program to drop MP3 support in favor of Ogg Vorbis.
In October 2017, Microsoft released support for Ogg media container, and Theora and Vorbis media formats as an optional add-on to Windows 10 and Xbox One, available for free in theMicrosoft Store.[75]
| Microsoft Windows | macOS | Linux | Android | iOS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Codec support | Yes[75] | Via third-party applications | Yes | Yes | Via third-party apps |
| Container support | On Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (1709) with Web Media Extensions add-on: Ogg (.ogg is not recognised; requires pseudo extension)[a] Matroska (.mka, .mkv) On Windows 10 October 2018 Update (1809): WebM (.webm is recognised officially) On Windows 10 May 2019 Update (1903): Ogg (.ogg is recognised officially) | depends on application | Ogg (.ogg) Matroska (.mka, .mkv) WebM (.webm) | Ogg (.ogg, .oga) Matroska (.mka, .mkv) WebM (.webm) | depends on application |
| Notes | OnWindows 10: - RequiresFall Creators Update (1709) and installation ofWeb Media Extensions package. - OnApril 2018 Update (1803) with Web Media Extensions preinstalled, Microsoft Edge (EdgeHTML 17) supports Vorbis audio embedded in <audio> tags. - Supported onUniversal Windows Platform apps (Groove Music,Microsoft Movies & TV). Unsupported onWindows Media Player. - Up till October 2018 update (1809), the filename extension .ogg was not recognised. (substitute with a pseudo file extension such as .m4a)[76] OnWindows 8.1 and older: - Requires installation of a third-party multimedia framework,LAV Filters. | No native support in the macOS native multimedia framework. In versions of Mac OS X prior to 10.11 El Capitan, Vorbis support could be added toQuickTime using theXiph QuickTime Components.[77] | - | - | No native support in the iOS native multimedia framework. |
.ogg filename extension is not recognised byUniversal Windows Platform appsGroove Music andMicrosoft Movies & TV, hence a pseudo extension of another audio format (such as.m4a) is required instead.[76]