Playing Ogg Vorbis (.ogg) Files

Originally by Chironex

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Hello, and welcome to Tech Talk with Chironex Fleckeri! I'm here today to talk to you today about the Ogg Vorbis file format.

As you may have noticed, we tend to use Ogg files and refrain from MP3's here at the Nifforum---for example, you cannot attach MP3's to a post (unless you zip them up), and Ogg files are the type used in Knytt Stories. This is because Ogg files tend to be smaller than MP3's, even while sustaining the same sound quality. However, they are not as widely used as MP3's, so do not have a much support.

There are many solutions to playing Ogg files. Here are the best:

XMPlay is a versatile audio player that is capable of playing pretty much any audio format on the market, given you have the required plugins. It is fast, accurate and takes up few resources. Plus, it has a HUGE database of addons. This one's my number one recommendation!

Foobar2000 is another audio player. It comes with more than XMPlay out of the box; however, with Addons, XMPlay can achieve most of the same things the Foobar2000 can (except CD Burning). It also does not support as many audio formats as XMPlay does.

Winamp is the big daddy of all the audio players out there. It can do a bit more than XMPlay or foobar2000; for example, it can play videos, and access online song downloads. However, it takes up a ton of CPU. Not recommended, but some like it.

If you want to convert Ogg files to MP3s, then my favorite converter is dBpoweramp. This'll do the job quite easily---however, if you want it to convert Oggs to MP3's, you'll need the Helix Encoder, as you have to purchase a license to use the included Lame MP3 encoder. Helix is much faster than Lame, though.

Many people here also vouch for Audacity for MP3 and Ogg conversion. Audacity is used as an audio editor (and an excellent one it is!); however, it can also be used for Ogg -> MP3 conversion. However, it requires you to download the Lame encoder yourself (available here), is very slow compared to dBpoweramp, and does not support batch conversion. Thus, if you have a bunch of Ogg files you must convert to MP3s, I suggest you use dBpoweramp.

I hope you all find this helpful! Now, you never have to complain about people posting Ogg audio files again!

I have just found this topic, and I would like to make a recommendation.
Xion is a low-resource media player from R2 studios. it is very simple to use, and can play just about ANY music file format straight out of the box. It is extremely customizable, with a vast range of addons and skins for every aspect, from the player itself right through to visualization engines.

Winamp is the big daddy of all the audio players out there. It can do a bit more than XMPlay or foobar2000; for example, it can play videos, and access online song downloads. However, it takes up a ton of CPU. Not recommended, but some like it.

This confuses me. Winamp barely takes up any CPU for me. Actually, just firefox takes up three times more CPU than winamp.

Web browsers in general can be CPU and memory hogs.  I can virtually guarantee that XMPlay will take up much less CPU than Winamp.

Yeah, but if Winamp's CPU usage is less than even a standard browser, why bother noting it at all? It isn't going to affect the performance of your computer anyways.
Even if it is relatively high, it isn't actually high at all.

"Not reccomended because of CPU usage" just seems like an odd statement.

Which of the other reasons would you prefer we use, then?  The horribly inaccurate and useless module playback?  The fact that it has a Pro version of the money-cost variety?  The fact that it has "Win" in the name?

The horribly inaccurate and useless module playback?

Sure.

The fact that it has a Pro version of the money-cost variety? 

If you think it matters.

The fact that it has "Win" in the name?

Is that a problem?

All I'm saying is that winamp is a decent media player, and that I really don't get why it's so disliked. I'm not trying to convince you that it is "superior" or anything silly like that.

Well, you caught me; I consider Winamp "inferior" to XMPlay, at least as an audio player.  Basically because of CPU usage, mod playback, and Windows-exclusivity.  (I do think the name sucks, but that's not exactly a concern, nor is XMPlay about to win any prizes for creativity in titles.)

Not about to try to convince you, though, because, well, that would indeed be silly!

Although I'm a huge fan of XMPlay, I can see why people like Winamp over XMPlay. Winamp does have a better song library, capable of searching/filtering and sorting songs based on about any given info of a song. XMPlay also has a library, but its just not as capable as winamp. Its mainly this what will cause a big memory footprint, especially if you have a lot of songs in your library.

I'm surprised nobody has recommended VLC Player in this thread. It's free and open-source; it can play virtually any modern audio or video format, and easily convert files from one format to another; playback options include altering playback speed in addition to the standard CD-player buttons; it can record audio and video including streaming video; and it's the perfect app for pretty much any AV foolery you want to do that doesn't require features like multi-tracking (that's what Audacity is for, of course). It even has nifty visualisations, for those who enjoy a psychedelic abstract display to accompany their music...

Once in a while my VLC Player will get itself worked up if I leave its interface open for a long time without actually having any media file open, but even then it's hardly a system hog. It starts up and shuts down as fast as a system utility (e.g. Calculator, Character Map, Notepad) though, so there's no need to leave it running to avoid load delays.

The c|net review I linked to has more more technical details about its awesomeness, so I'll just close with my fiancée's comment: "The interface is really intuitive. I'm still learning all the stuff it does, but I've never been stumped trying to figure out how to do anything."

I find that VLC often plays audio at very slightly off the regular speed, actually. There's a tiny change in pitch that I sometimes pick up on.

KMPlayer support them too.

I use and recommend Yahoo! Music Jukebox for these and other files...