Re: [codec] draft-ietf-codec-oggopus and "album" gain

[Ian Nartowicz <[e-mail]>]

>But this part:
>
>> Encoder authors are advised to
>> take this into account. For example, it is more robust for a
>> post-processing application to performing track normalization to update
>> the 'output gain' field and write a comment 'R128_TRACK_GAIN=0' than to
>> put the normalization value directly in the comment."
>
>Possibly needs to give some slightly different advice, at least for the
>case where R128 normalisation is something that someone retrofits to
>a recording that was previously mastered to some acceptable level, to
>avoid actually losing useful information about the original in that case.
>
>Does that seem like it would cover what you're worried about?
>
>Do you have some proposed language for what you'd like us to recommend
>people do if they want to retrofit R128 normalisation to recordings?

I hadn't considered language that goes any further than leaving the issue
unspecified.  Actively encouraging encoders not to put R128 gains into the
output gain field seems to go directly against a key design goal for Opus.
Although I'd be happy to see this particular case recognised, do we want to to
second-guessing users and filling the spec with exceptions?

In an ideal world I'd still like to see a solution that produces normalised
output by default for all players, with sufficient information for more
advanced players to "de-normalise" out a specific R128 gain when needed.

--ian