Yup, pretty much. Why would you use an obscure and lossy format like Opus?

I was curious of this as well. Supporting a lossy format based on the fact that it is pretty universal is understandable. Using valuable time to support a lossy format that is not universal by any means seems like wasted time to me.

-this IETF standard is 1-open and 2-more efficient than other lossy formats (for example quality/bitrate, latency)
-since SDJ crippled recording abilities had to find solution for recording and opusenc is eating 3% of cpu comparing to 30% (Audacity) - you can even use it for icecasting
-by implementing it serato will prove that it's looking ahead innovative company and format will become less obscure

I'm reading this in 2017 and yes, I would like to see Opus support in SDJ.

On the Hydrogenaudio forums the format becomes very popular (came in third) and I'm really looking forward for the 2017 results.

hydrogenaud.io

Save me from the extensive reading please. What is the appeal with opus? Being music sources do not natively offer it I am assuming converting becomes a necessity. I try to be openminded so let’s hear it. Sell me on this. Why lossless? Why opus? Why not mp3?

It's about transparency at lower bitrates.

MP3 is generally indistinguishable from lossless audio at around 320kbps.
For AAC it's around 256kbps.
With Opus it's as low as 128kbps.

In other words: You can save more than 50% of disk space without hardly any loss of quality.

I know HDDs are getting cheaper and cheaper every year but unfortunately it's not the same case with flash storage on MacBook Pros.

With lossless and lossy files I have less than 100 GB left on my 512GB SSD so my next MBP would must have 1 TB of storage. So the possibility to save more than 50% storage space on lossy files and muuuuch more with lossless files would be amazing!

No, I'm not gonna convert from one lossy format to another but it would still save me tons of space when ripping vinyl or CDs.

Same goes for my bandwith when streaming from my home server or having as much songs on my phone as possible.

Plus:
I'm not an expert on this case but the Opus codec was designed to have ultra low latency and uses less CPU power than other lossy formats. I don't know if that may come in handy with DJ software but it sure sounds promising as well.

Makes sense actually. Opus @ 128 is comparable to 320 MP3? That sounds pretty great. Is there a possibility to up the quality closer to lossless if you encoded via opus @ 192 or 320?

Opus goes up to 512kbps but all the audiophiles in the known forums say it makes no sense to go beyond 256 and most stay at 128-192.
Except for the ones who say all lossy codecs come straight from hell :D

I just hope it gets support by both Serato and iTunes anytime in the future. I may hope for Serato but Apple would make the actual difference.

I think the first reply is the best.

Support for FLAC/ALAC and other *lossless* formats with the low cost of HDDs these days makes something like OPUS a huge waste of time for the 1-2 people who might use it.

You're having "Jameson" in your profile pic so you're cool :)

But storage is still very costly when purchasing a MacBook Pro - which probably is the most used notebook for Serato DJ - so cutting down the file sizes to 50% on lossy and 10% on lossless tracks is a huge benefit.

I wouldn't switch to Opus before Serato and Apple support it but it will never happen if nobody asks for it.

Well I would need that too actually. I just found a lot of rare exclusive material only available over youtube in acceptable audio quality. I dumped the audio stream to my PC and ... it is an OPUS file around 125 kbit/s. The music sound amazingly clear for this bitrate, I am very impressed actually. Now if Serato DJ supported it, I would not need to manipulate the audio further, it would be nice.

As in ripped from Youtube?

You may ignore it, but there is a case for it. Like I mentioned, it is a rare material, only available in a Youtube video. It is not available elsewhere, you cannot buy it, you cannot download it from pools.

Discogs and ebay for the rare stuff... nothing on YouTube is going to sound better transcoded from their low bitrate audio.

Well my point was why not just get a converter (ripper) that converts straight to MP3. Yes it is lossy but so is Opus and trust MP3 is plenty to handle youtube rips even at their best.

There is an Opus encoder in Mixxx that is used for recording or broadcasting.

Interesting.

Does mixxx allow you to and encoder/codec’s as vdj does?

I'm not too sure. As the new 2.1 beta is out now I may give it a little go. The feature list is getting very stronger now with some interesting additions.

I'd also like to see this feature for the reasons discussed above; its a new format that outperforms MP3 allowing storage of more tracks with minimal or no quality loss.

Also wanted to add this. Opus is not a trivial format. This is why Youtube uses it to save terrabytes of hardrive space but keep overall sound quality. Xiph states ...

"Q: Does Opus make all those other lossy codecs obsolete?

Yes.

From a technical point of view (loss, delay, bitrates, ...) Opus renders Speex obsolete and should also replace Vorbis and the common proprietary codecs too (e.g. AAC, MP3, ...)."

wiki.xiph.org

Quite an extraordinary statement and from the people who created it (and Xiph have a very good track record by the way). So MP3 reigned supreme for decades. RIP mp3. Long live Opus.

Still waiting for opus support. This can't be difficult to add. Maybe it is, if so tell me.

Since I read that Serato DJ Pro supports .ogg file, I was wondering what kind of audio streams of that container it really supports; and it turns out it only support Vorbis audio streams and not Opus. I think that Opus support would really be nice, because of all the reasons people before me already wrote on this thread. Opus is becoming a de-facto standard on the internet, since it's very efficient in terms of compression/quality ratio and it has free patents that makes it easy to be included into all sorts of projects without worrying about fees and all that. The pros against all other already supported codecs are several, especially the ones concerning about disk usage while still keeping the same (if not better) audio quality. I really suggest you to include Opus codec support in the future updates.

Thank you for explaining this. I could not figure out why Serato could not play certain OGG files. I've had to convert my Opus files to FLAC in order to play them.