CODEWITHSUNDEEP
audiocore-audioaudio-streaminglameicecast
IyadAssaf
IyadAssaf

Reputation: 308

Determining the quality of mp3 audio streams

I have built a source client using Portaudio and LAME which streams the microphone input to an Icecast server to be listened to online via the HTML5 tag. I have managed to (supposedly) get the quality of the stream to MP3 320kbps at 44.1kHz and am looking for a way to confirm this using tests and or benchmarks.

I have an indication that these stats are somewhat correct from looking at stream inspectors in software such as iTunes and VLC, but I am looking to get a more in-depth data set.

What I basically want is to be able to test how much of the original file is being lost over the stream and if or how much the quality changes depending on environmental conditions of the broadcaster or streamer.

Does anyone know of any tools, frameworks to get some hard numbers or representations of this data?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 84

Answers (1)

Brad
Brad

Reputation: 163468

If VLC tells you the stream is 320kbit CBR, then it is.

It sounds like what you're looking for is a comparison of the actual audio content. This is highly subjective. MP3 is built to use features of how our hearing works to save bandwidth. For example, quiet sounds are masked by loud sounds. High frequencies are harder to hear and are simply rolled off.

You can compare the spectral analysis between the original PCM-sampled waveform and the MP3 decoded waveform, but this doesn't tell you how humans interpret that sound. For that, you would have to survey humans.

Upvotes: 1

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