[http://sourceforge.net/p/ufoai/feature-requests/479 Item 479] imported from sourceforge.net tracker on 2013-01-28 20:20:07

I did some experiments regarding the soundtrack of the game:
@ present all files are encoded using ogg, but many of them used different bitrates when encoding.
Most of the files are encoded using CBR (constant bit rate).
During some tests I managed to reduce the filesize needed massively, without reducing the quality.

Here one example:
Reencoding the music from CBR to VBR, when using ABR-quality -1, that means reencoding files with 128 CBR to 112 VBR for example, with a upper limit of 160 VBR reduced the filesize for the music from 219 MB to 189 MB (!).
But we could do even better reduction, when we define the upper limit with 128 VBR.

Reducing the filesize of the tracks would also help in reducing loading-speed a little bit & would help us to optimize the way content of the game is stored.
Backups of the original encodings should be made in case the original is needed again.

If developers want I can optimize the reencoding & prepare a patch.

Do not misunderstand me: I do not want to trade quality against size here, but keep the quality as high as possible, but the filesize reasonable & optimized...
Why should we use 300Kilobit per second for silence after all ?
===== Comments Ported from Sourceforge =====

====== mcr2010 (2010-04-05 18:48:03) ======

Just some thoughts on filesize ;)
... without compromising quality @ all...
I hope you like that idea.
====== tlh2000 (2010-04-05 19:50:13) ======

no file => no patch - moved to fr
====== mcr2010 (2010-04-08 20:19:29) ======

I'm sorry, Mattn, but I really did not know how to manage to get 186MB into 256KB ;))))
But I can send you small packages of the recoded music files, which make most difference when recoded if you want.
But first we should make some specification for the music like: Our maximum bitrate used in the game should be 128KBit VBR (= more or less 160KBit CBR).
Then I could start to look @ the files which are encoded @ a much higher bitrate. There we can make the most difference, but we should not transcode any files that are already encoded @ a bitrate lower than our maximum to avoid degrading quality...
====== tlh2000 (2010-04-09 06:11:58) ======

give me a script to convert them - then i will do it and commit them.
====== mcr2010 (2010-04-13 19:01:53) ======

I will try to organize that for you, but this could take some time ;)
====== mcr2010 (2010-05-07 14:32:57) ======

Destructavator finished this task.