Poll -> OGG VS MP3 : LET THEM FIGHT (Patreon)

Hello patrons,

Very important question : It's regarding which format you want the audio in.

Since the beginning, I've been providing the audio in .mp3, and sometimes .wav for the music (not the ambiences). I think it's time to address that topic properly, and our good ol' democracy might be the solution.

I take the risk to skew the poll (democracy didn't last long) by saying I prefer .ogg and by a lot. Why ?

• Quality is higher. It's also a lossy format, but less than .AAC and much less than mp3 at higher frequencies. Higher frequencies are cool, especially to have rich reverb and "room".
• It's MUCH lighter, about two times lighter for the same quality range.
• It's also accepted by VTT like FoundryVTT or Roll20.
• It can be encoded to mp3 afterwards if necessary. The opposite is true but you won't get back the audio information you got rid of when it has been encoded in MP3.
• .ogg is perfectly gapless, mp3 isn't. It means that in some cases, you may hear a very short blank between loops with mp3.

Naturally, other solutions may exist, but they don't seem doable to me.

• By example, .wav and .flac are way too heavy for most connections, and would be too heavy for Roll20's limitations.
• Asking patrons to re-encode the files themselves from lossless (.wav/.flac) to lossy (mp3/ogg) is a big no. Some may like it, but many among you are here because my work makes your life as a DM easier, not the opposite.
• Many other fancy formats exist, but I can't ask you to download special apps to use them, or do any technical manipulation. I'm pretty sure I can't even export them directly from Cubase.

But you may ask : 

Several reasons : First, because it's taking a lot of time. It simply doubles the time required to process the audio. Second, because it doubles the probability to make a mistake somewhere (file name error, seamless loop creation problem, etc.). Third, it doesn't work well with the new directory system we made.

So, what do you think ? I'll follow the majority whatever the choice

Happy Easter!

Michael

EDIT: For MUSIC (actual songs), I'll keep providing Flac + Mp3 + ogg, as it's rarer and easier to export.