Hi Patrons,
Yesterday we made live a large update to the way we create the audio and video displayed on our site. Most folks might not notice the changes, so here’s a rundown:
For Audio:
- We can now read and make mp3s from 24-bit Flac files. This has been requested for many years and we are thrilled to get it working.
- The Ogg audio files that we create from audio files will now be using an updated “libvorbis” library. (The library we were using before today was from 2001!
) - We are no longer making 64kb MP3s (or zips or m3u playlists of those files). This was a judgement call — given how poor the sound quality is for these files and the fact that most people are getting more and more bandwidth to their devices and computers.
- Simplified back-end system, relying more and more on “ffmpeg” for format conversion.
- We will now (try to) make derivatives from “.aac” (Advanced Audio Coding) files and “.ra”/”.rm” (Real Audio) files.
- General ability to read more kinds of audio files more reliably.
For Movies:
- The Ogg Video files that we create from movies files will now be using an updated “libvorbis” library for their audio. (Previously we were using the “non reference” library ogg encoder. Now we are using the much asked for and newer “libvorbis” library).
- Updated ffmpeg to v0.5. This allows for a much wider range of source audio/video containers and codecs. We will be able to derive HD-quality video formats like DV-50 and DV-100. (For those interested in ffmpeg, changelog).
- Better detection of widescreen movies (so less of our movies on our site will incorrectly appear “squooshed”).
- General ability to read more kinds of video files more reliably.
- Noting the prior point, we were able to get streaming videos for about 170 TV archive items that we could not process previously.
Enjoy!
–Tracey Jaquith
Mike said
Always good to see things moving forward!
Will you be deleting the old, derived 64kb MP3s? FWIW, I hope you don’t–I have directly linked to hundreds of them in various blog posts, and I’d hate to see those links break. (Or to try to track them all down.) I’d bet others are in the same position.
In any case, thanks for all the good work.
Michael said
Great to see the new derivatives up and running
Big props to Tracey 
To respond to Mike’s comment (you should always link to the virtual url) … maybe archive.org could promote thous virtual urls better
internetarchive said
Mike:
We will keep existing 64kb mp3 derivatives (and zips and m3us) around — sorry that I forgot to mention it. In the unlikely event we ever do remove them much later on down the line, we’d probably adopt a “dynamic 404 handler” which would automatically serve the higher quality VBR mp3 if a 64kb derivative was requested and didn’t exist. However, we have no plans as of now to remove them from existing items!
Michael:
)
(wave!
Yes we should try to get a better documented set of pages that explain our permalinks and show our broadening JSON API (that will hopefully become the predominant API into the archive for folks wanting metadata and/or the ability to “reskin” our site or sets of items, etc.)
-Tracey Jaquith
Mike said
Thanks for the response–sounds like a great plan.
Andrew said
Nice news, just as I’m planning to sort audio uploads for videogame related material…
Better video stuff is great too, I have to go back and retest some entries I’ve uploaded which failed to derive now
Documentation for me would be a plus. Somewhere it should say what versions of what input/output are used (this is great! but not really on the IA site and I am sure it’ll be updated again at some point
), since an archive really needs to show it’s open in how the backend works – and allows uploaders to make sure at least one file they upload derives correctly for the various derivatives that are pretty necessary. 
Now I can start to do some local testing – not with the same script or OS, but at least the right input/output versions to test to see what files work, yay!
NameCast said
I have about 100 audio podcast posted on my website.
There is no Player at all.Do i have to change/update each of those post again ?help1
George said
Much appreciated!
One more to consider: perhaps the tag could be allowed in item descriptions?
George said
…the HTML5 -video-* tag. (In blog comments, too!)
woo said
Good to know about the 64k mp3’s going away. FYI, the next update to my app (ooTunes Radio) supports playing live concerts (mp3 only for now) from Archive.org either by clicking on the .m3u playlist or with a cool new browser “play” button which pulls out the mp3 links and as much metadata as it can and creates an on the fly playlist with the audio. I wish the metadata was more accessible than it is with some sort of standard format (or at least including the duration and track title in the .m3u file) but it’s already a big hit with some of my beta testers. Is there a place I can let Archive.org users know about this (it isn’t a free app unfortunately, but it’s a swiss army knife of streaming for $4)
Let me know either by emailing me directly or posting here
Thanks for all the work you guys do! My kids will thank you as well!
Freedomshare said
Yes better Audioquality is a big thing, especially for historical radio broadcast 64K was to low quality.
internetarchive said
@woo:
try getting the /details/ page data as JSON! eg:
http://www.archive.org/details.php?identifier=GrowingYounger&output=json&callback=something
@George:
oh, i guess our anti-malicious description cleaning must be stripping out the new [video] tag (i gather you have tried it already on an item of yours at archive.org and it was removed?) that’s a good idea — i’ll add it to the “to do” list…
@NameCast:
if your existing podcasts were using archive.org and working, there should be no change. however *new* items added to archive.org won’t make the 64kb mp3s. so if you have some kind of automated thing expecting the 64kb mp3s, you would want to adjust it. if that’s a big problem and you really want 64kb mp3s, reply here and we can see if there’s anything we can do.
-Tracey Jaquith
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C.Leander said
A couple of questions about recent changes:
1) I used to be able to access streaming Quicktime clips via RTSP, which was faster than progressive download.
This appears to have been changed. Is there another new way to view via RTSP
2) Also, there used to be a Flash “.flv” version of some of the Quicktime video clips, that made it easy to embed on a blog or webpage. However some links have been inactivated. Is there a way to access FLV clips? Is there another way to embed video clips?
Thanks for continuing to provide this service.
Drew said
I’ve been recording live shows in CAF format (via Apple’s Logic software) and have conversions to aif format – both produce rather large files. Are either of these formats uploadable to Achive?
leosinver said
thanks for be a friends of the creators mens in the world, i´m happy for put my songs with you.
kim said
I’ve been uploading mp3’s and I’m wondering how to begin a collection on IA so that the mp3’s related to my podcasts are all together. Thanks in advance.
C.Leander said
Hi – is it yet possible to embed clips into Facebook or other social media blogs?