if you could pick a standard format for a purpose what would it be and why?
e.g. flac for lossless audio because…
(yes you can add new categories)
summary:
- photos .jxl
- open domain image data .exr
- videos .av1
- lossless audio .flac
- lossy audio .opus
- subtitles srt/ass
- fonts .otf
- container mkv (doesnt contain .jxl)
- plain text utf-8 (many also say markup but disagree on the implementation)
- documents .odt
- archive files (this one is causing a bloodbath so i picked randomly) .tar.zst
- configuration files toml
- typesetting typst
- interchange format .ora
- models .gltf / .glb
- daw session files .dawproject
- otdr measurement results .xml
People are able to on some songs because mp3 is poorly optimized for certain sounds, especially cymbals. However, opus can achieve better quality than that at 128k with fewer outliers than mp3 at 320k, which saves a lot of space.
Oh, yeah, not arguing that Opus is the superior format. It 100% is. Not questioning that.
Indeed, the first place that gets hit by lower bitrates with MP3 is high frequencies. MP3 does have a pretty harsh cutoff at very high frequencies… that the vast majority of equipment can’t reproduce and most ears can’t hear. It’s relatively debated, some claim to be able to “feel” the overtones or something like that. I’m extremely sceptical, if I’m being honest. Last time I did the test - must have been a decade ago - I couldn’t distinguish lossless and high bitrate MP3 any more accurately than a coin toss.