Recently, I did a comparison of MPEG Layer I, II and III codecs, just to see how much of a difference is there between them, if Layer II sounds better than Layer III (at higher bitrates), and how much progress has been made in between them.
The progress is audible, and MP3 wins.
I did this also to find out how good is the Layer II at 384kbps, which is being used for HDV audio. I have to say that I am dissapointed. Overall, it leaves a different taste, but what is noticeable is that even at 384kbps, Layer II simply doesn't cover the high frequencies almost at all. I am talking about the range between 12kHz and 20kHz. I had some high-frequency hiss and other sounds and noise, and Layer II loses them.
MP3 covers those even at half the bitrate (192kbps) of Layer II.
Quality wise, MP3 would have been a better choice, but I think that Layer II was used because it's easier to edit and synchronize with video.
Personally, I am strongly convinced that plain uncompressed PCM audio should have been left in place, as 1152kbps difference hardly means anything to video, and a world of difference to audio.
Note: I used Sound Forge 8.0 to compress the audio, and Winamp, Windows Media Player 9, and Media Player Classic for playing back the compressed files (whichever player was able to play them).
The progress is audible, and MP3 wins.
I did this also to find out how good is the Layer II at 384kbps, which is being used for HDV audio. I have to say that I am dissapointed. Overall, it leaves a different taste, but what is noticeable is that even at 384kbps, Layer II simply doesn't cover the high frequencies almost at all. I am talking about the range between 12kHz and 20kHz. I had some high-frequency hiss and other sounds and noise, and Layer II loses them.
MP3 covers those even at half the bitrate (192kbps) of Layer II.
Quality wise, MP3 would have been a better choice, but I think that Layer II was used because it's easier to edit and synchronize with video.
Personally, I am strongly convinced that plain uncompressed PCM audio should have been left in place, as 1152kbps difference hardly means anything to video, and a world of difference to audio.
Note: I used Sound Forge 8.0 to compress the audio, and Winamp, Windows Media Player 9, and Media Player Classic for playing back the compressed files (whichever player was able to play them).