Also see: Audio | Audio Formats
Home Page: http://www.twinvq.org
Aka: Transform-domain Weighted INterleave Vector Quantization)
Lossy, proprietary audio codec developed by NTT Human Interface Laboratories, Japan. Its’ file extension is VQF.
Advantages
- Little details are lost and the sound is softened.
- A tad smaller than a MP3 of the same bitrate.
- Better quality than MP3, especially when comparing low bitrates (<= 128 kbit).
Disadvantages
- Spatialisation (sound is far compared to the original) and pre-echo.
- Compared to other lossy formats like OGG and MP3 it needs a bit more CPU power to decode (P100 minimum) and a lot more power to encode (more than 3 times slower).
- Searching in an audio player goes slowly especially when compared to other audio formats like OGG and MP3.
Additional plugins which support this codec exist for XMMS, Winamp and possibly more. TwinVQ isn’t very common anymore and it never really broke through most likely because of the popularity of other lossy formats like the MP3.
TakeDown.NET -> “TwinVQ”