14 DAY TRIAL // How many times have you ripped an Audio CD to OGG audio format? Never? That is understandable as MP3 keeps dominating the market after all these years, despite the fact that it is a lossy audio format. MP3 was released to the general public in the mid-'90s in order to shrink the audio files so that they could be stored on the small HDDs of the time.
The compromise between the quality of the sound and the size on disk was perfect for the average user. How was this achieved? The MP3 encoder would cut out certain frequencies of the sound that the human ear was not able to perceive and those that many untrained users cannot hear.
The result was a small sized file with the sounds outside human hearing range being cut out. The compressed output file preserved the general quality of the original and to the untrained ear, the sounds were similar. However, a loss in quality can be noticed by more experienced listeners.
OGG audio format is the result of Fraunhofer Gesellschaft (the organization that developed MP3) to charge a fee on MPEG Layer 3 audio format. It is also a lossy audio compression format but it is the property of public domain. This means that the format can be freely used by anyone who wants to.
The dispute between MP3 and OGG fans regarding which of the two provides a better sound quality is in my opinion long time ended. The reason is that testing both of them proved that OGG is slightly better than MP3. I am not taking sides (despite the fact that I am an OGG audio format fan myself), but various tests revealed this fact. However, the difference is only on paper as it is impossible for the human ear to distinguish between the two formats.
OGG Vorbis Translator is a free sound encoder able to convert your music into OGG audio. The reason for this is that OGG compresses the files more and the file size is smaller. To have an idea, a 4MB MP3 was compressed to a whopping 1.4MB. Besides this obvious difference, there was another one, also noticeable. Not in the quality of the sound, but in the duration of the song. OGGVorbis Translator seems to have "stretched" the song with a few seconds (6 seconds) and this duration was filled with pause. No sounds were heard and the song finished at the same time as the MP3 counterpart, but then a few moments of silence followed.
The application is absolutely free and the ease of use and remarkable results recommend it for converting your MP3 collection into OGG, thus gaining valuable space on the HDD. The mischief comes from the devices supporting OGG format as there aren't many, the great majority being MP3 fans.
The interface is quite lame and absolutely un-cool. There is no color and the developer kept the options to the minimum, leaving the user only with the minimum alternatives. The Start button is ruling over the entire window while the file list is blank and below it only the version of the application is available.
The most important element of the menu is Settings, under Programs. This is where you inject quality into the resulting files. There is nothing complicate about this window and even a kid could handle it with no problems. First, you have to set the encoding frequency which is already set to a very good level. Then drag the slider to the quality level you want. For more quality, drag it to the right and for less keep it more to the left. I suggest keeping the slider somewhere in the middle as too much quality results in a file larger than the original, while less quality will result in an obvious depreciation of the sound.
Adding the files is extremely easy, as the application supports drag and drop feature and you can also batch convert the various formats. However, I would not recommend you to hurry into using this option as during my tests I was left waiting for long periods of time for the files to load. Suffice to say that the operation ended with a "quick death" of the process and a restart of the application.
OggVorbis Translator will not only convert MP3s to OGG, but it is also capable of extracting the sound out of AVI, WMV, ASF and even MPEG. The audio formats it can deal with include the most popular of them (MP3, MP2, WAV, AIFF and WMA).
Additional features sported by the encoder allow the user to rip an Audio CD directly into OGG and even add an Internet stream. By default, the resulting files will be stored in the same location as the original, but in the Settings menu, there is a blank bar that once pressed will pop up the Save File window allowing you to choose a location.
As you can see, there is absolutely nothing complicated about OggVorbis Translator and to be frank, the quality of the end result is quite similar to the original, or at least I could not sense too much of a difference.
The Good
Easy to work with and equipped with an Audio CD to OGG ripping option, OggVorbis Translator makes it easy to the average user to convert the audio files.
The Bad
The simplicity of the application is also one of its disadvantages as there are no options for a better adjustment of the quality or even translate the original file into bitrate values, frequencies etc. The user is only guided in this by his/her own ears.
The interface needs a touch of color and the drag and drop function is not flawless as I bumped into freezes of the software many times when I attempted to drop a bunch of files in the encoding window.
The Truth
It is free so there is no reason not to try it, especially as it leaves no trace in the registry (the zipped executable will launch the application) because it cannot be installed.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
