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Windows XP to Target MP3 Files
blown.penguin writes: "Reuters UK reports that Microsoft and RealNetworks plan to "wean customers way from MP3 files" and "limit the quality" of MP3 files that can be recorded on a computer running Windows XP. You can read all about it here." The entire Wall Street Journal story is here. Read it and weep. Dave Farber (who, incidentally, does understand the issues and isn't making this comment in a "get used to it" sense) has a great quote: "The consumer is going to eat what he's given."
The same could easily be said for Windows XP. Believe it or not Microsoft has got to sell Windows XP. If Windows XP is chuck full of stupid "features" that are actually disincentives to the upgrade then people will stick with what they have. This is nearly as dangerous for Microsoft as if the user had switched to Linux. Remember, Microsoft's biggest competitor isn't Corel, or Oracle, or IBM, or even the amorphous "Linux," Micrsoft's biggest competitor is previous versions of their own software.
Even worse issues like games and compatibility with work also make it more likely that people will stick with what they have. I don't know of any businesses that have rolled out Windows XP (nor do I know of any that have done a serious desktop rollout of Windows 2000, for that matter). They should be making their operating system as attractive to buyers as they possibly can. Instead they are lining up an initiative to treat their customers as copyright breaking thieves. Things like WMA and the new copy protection scheme aren't likely to entire current Windows users to this new OS.
Meanwhile Linux will continue to grow. naysayers have been predicting its imminent demise since it's first arrival on the scene, and they have always been spectacularly wrong. The reason for this is simple, Linux is too darned useful. It's price tag is a siren song for hackers and entrepreneurs everywhere, and the cost of maintaining the infrastructure that keeps Linux alive is negligible. Microsoft can't bankrupt Linux, it can't buy Linux, and it can't intimidate enough Linuxers to make a difference.
This doesn't make Linux better than Windows. I personally don't think that Linux is ready for the desktop, for example. But it does guarantee that Linux will keep growing, and that it will continue to become a more viable alternative every day. If Microsoft continues to misuse their customers they will someday find that most of them are jumping ship.
I say never let facts get in the way of a good Microsoft bashing article on /. For the very, very few of you using beta 2, the following registry key is of interest.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MediaPlaye r\ Settings\MP3Encoding]
"LowRate"=dword:0001f400
Just change it. The above will change it 128k (from 56k). The UI shows this and reflects it.
Also Media Player 8 will allow you to encode .wma files without setting the license keys. I'm not sure that this will make it to the final release, or even WMP9, but ...
Andrew van der Stock
/. ... Microsoft ... FUD... where to begin? Let's start with some facts from a beta tester.
In beta 2, the supplied MP3 encoder gets its Low Rate setting from the registry. This is set at the factory to 56k. You can go into the registry and change 56k to 128k or whatever. And it works, but 64k .wma files sound better than 128k mp3 files, and use less than half the space. And, so far, you can continue to turn off licensing your .wma files.
There are no NTFS or other deliberate data corruption ploys. I have existing MP3 files that play just fine in WMP and in WinAmp (which also continues to work).
CuteRip, my favorite ripper before WMP, continues to work, and continues to encode at whatever setting I set it to. WMP 8 plays these files just fine. But compared to WMP8, CuteRip is feature poor and slow. WMP8 not only goes and grabs the titles without paying for it, it retrieves album art work and orders it properly for you in your media library. As soon as you start ripping in WMP8, it starts playing the encoded files, and it encodes both .wma or .mp3 on my PIII/700 laptop about 3x real time. It's flawless. There seems to be no penalty for playing whilst ripping. It has digital and analog error correction if your CDs have a few scratches like mine do.
Microsoft may or may not ship a MP3 encoder with WMP 8, but it is in beta 2. Microsoft may or may not ship WMP 8 with the ability to turn off licensing .wma files, but it is in beta 2.
Sorry for the barrage of facts. I'm now returing you to your regularly scheduled fact-free Microsoft bash.
Andrew van der Stock
WinXP will be leased, not bought. It will contact a server at Microsoft headquarters every n days to confirm whether it needs "system updates" or not. And if your net connection is down for more than k days, your system will refuse to run, so don't think you can just pull the ethernet jack and use a (crippled) system.
If a program to use your .FMS extension ever gets more than 1,000 users, Microsoft will patch the operating system to exclude it, and within a few days your workaround will stop working.
This will happen back and forth a few times until 99% of the userbase gets thoroughly sick of it and uses whatever format Microsoft makes it easy to use. Ease-of-use, slow and steady, wins the race.
Don't think Microsoft will zap out your program from Redmond? Think DirecTV. They own the operating system from boot to shutdown. No matter how clever you are, they will take your program down remotely.
That's the short-term fix. In the long-term, 5 to 10 years, you will find that Microsoft and the hardware manufacturers will team up to create an audio standard which requires you to know a secret key to put data to your computer's speakers. If you don't apply to Microsoft for a special license, your program will be unable to make noise -- without going through Microsoft's API, of course, which will make only noises guaranteed not to infringe copyright, like boops, beeps, or files stored in whatever format Microsoft makes it easy to use.
Enterprising hackers will of course find and steal secret keys, so that they can release freeware MP3 players that run on Windows. But again, as soon as these programs get popular enough to show up on Microsoft's radar, the operating system will download the new patches which specifically forbid these programs from working.
Try to understand. Microsoft's eventual plan is that you will not own your computer anymore. They will own your computer, and lease its use to you on very specific licensing terms. Their long-term goal is that people who try to use their computers like Turing machines, thinking they can make them do anything they want, will go to jail.
Jamie McCarthy
Jamie McCarthy
jamie.mccarthy.vg
All the more reason to agressively push for the adoption and penetration of Ogg Vorbis.
By know, everyone in the know should have checked out the Xiphophorus company homepage, and taken a look at Ogg and Vorbis.
If we can create a Napster-like groundswell for an open audio codec such as Vorbis, then it will not matter if Windows XP ships with only Windows Media Audio and the Windows Media Player. The fact is, while WMA is good, it isn't open or free, and and the Windows player isn't as strong as WinAmp or XMMS.
Free is good. That is why Napster did so well. If the downloadable audio market is saturated by ".ogg" files and flooded with high quality and free audio players, then Ogg Vorbis has a chance of beating those nasty little ".wma"'s.
It seems like Microsoft, not the customer is the one trying to slip out of a license :).
I've never used MS products to record or play MP3's, so I could care less about MS's lack of support.
Compare all of this to Apple, who just released the best MP3 encoder/ripper/song manager/cd burner program I've ever used, iTunes. Oh yeah, Apple makes their product free to everyone, too. With OSX running both MS Office, apple apps and all of my favorite unix tools, why would I upgrade to Win XP instead of throwing out my PC and getting a G4? Maybe even a Titanium G4 with a GeForce3... :)
-m
Look at it people, it's not as if MS was going to make sure that no MP3 are going to be able to play on the Windows XP.
All they're doing is give a low-quality MP3 encoder with it (as compared to none), and have it be able to encode in their own proprietary format with high quality.
The current encoders might not work all that well right now with it, but they'll be updated so that they can run with it pretty quickly I think.
Lazy people who just want to use what is built-in might want to start using the Windows Audio format, but there's not much preventing you from keeping your MP3 around.
Sure MS wants to push against MP3s, but so far they haven't planned anything drastic with it like banning them from their new OS. Yes, they're using their clout to encourage people not to use it and they'll be pretty successful I think, but people will still have a choice.
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crazy dynamite monkey
All an mp3 ripper does is convert one set of data (uncompressed audio) to another kind of data (compressed audio). I can't see how they can detect this.
The answer is that Microsoft are saying that they'll limit the quality of recordings made using the built in software, not those made on Windows XP. Use something else to encode / your mp3s, and you're fine.
I'd mention the fact that this story could have been written more carefully, but that's getting cliched. ;)
This looks like the software built into XP (Windows Media Player) will suck for ripping MP3s, but will rock for recording Windows Media Format files. This does NOT affect third party programs like MusicMatch, etc. except for the fact that people may not want to buy or download another music program if XP already has one (think I.E. vs Netscape).
However if people are already used to the MP3 scene and have invested lots of time creating a collection (and buying portable mp3 players) then this tactic may not work as expected. If Microsoft did start messing with third party software then I would expect that antitrust lawyers would have a field day.
Read the WSJ article, emphasis and comments added:
Under Microsoft's new restrictions -- which prevent its built-in software from recording MP3 files at fidelity rates higher than 56 kilobits per second -- MP3 music "sounds like somebody in a phone booth underwater," says P.J. McNealy, an analyst who researches Internet audio issues for Gartner Inc. in Stamford, Conn.
(Existing versions of Microsoft's audio software don't allow consumers to record music as MP3 files of any quality.)
[And so nobody uses them!]
The new restrictions in Windows XP won't prevent other vendors' software applications from recording MP3 music at a higher fidelity, but early testers of beta versions of Windows XP already complain that the most popular MP3 recording applications -- which compete with Microsoft's format -- don't seem to function properly
[Maybe because MS is using its typical anticompetitive dirty tricks?]
apparently because of changes Microsoft made to how data are written on CD-ROMs under Windows XP. Microsoft says that while other software vendors' products may not be "optimized" to run with Windows XP, those products should run acceptably with the operating system.
Whoever at MS thinks Joe User will stick to 56kbp is smoking crack. Everyone will simply use Winamp or one of the hundreds of other MP3 tools. If MS wants to make sure nobody uses its software, this is a great way to do it!
(Compare Apple, whose excellent iTunes is user-friendly and MP3 only.)
sulli
RTFJ.
The only new information in this Reuter's article is that the audio recorder built in to XP will only allow the recording of low-quality MP3s. You can still use whatever you want to rip your CDs.
True, Microsoft is trying to guide users away from the MP3 format, which is despicable, but this isn't some heavy-handed move to ban MP3s from XP altogether.
By the way, here's another story from StreamingMedia.com that reports things very differently . . . according to this one, Microsoft has not yet decided (as of March 28) whether to include MP3 encoding abilities in Media Player.
1. They don't work in MacOS X
2. They don't work in BeOS (x86)
3. They obviously encode very slowly ("PIII/700 laptop about 3x real time", geesh kinda slow, my 266 encodes mp3s (160) at 2.5X).
4. What happens when someone cracks the "copy protection" in the WMA format? Is MS gonna change it without regard to compatibility?
5. Even if I could use those files (meaning had Windows), I couldn't share them with anyone in my family, much less listen to them on any portable player.
6. Last but not least, from what I have seen of WMP (as limited as that is) in WinME, it blows nutz UI wise, is slow on anything other than a 400P2, and wastes LOTS of valueable screen space by default.
Burn Hollywood Burn
You are a troll, but thats okay. Trolling can be a fun experience. Let me give it a try. ;)
"I can't enjoy certain anime because I don't read nor understand Japanese.
You don't have a right to it.
Nor did I say I did. Don't read into a statement what is not there, makes you look like a reactionary fool.
"You post sounds like 'I want it all now! And I blame MS for it and not market forces or technology'."
"Market forces", I damn near cracked a rib reading this. Do you honestly think consumers WANT copy protections? Do you honestly think consumers want old formats to be "updated" as often as possible so people with new computers have more trouble sending files to people with older computers? You sound like the type of person who would say IE is more popular than Netscape because it is "better' (which, btw, runs totally against what MS planners thought). I really just don't understand how people can honest believe MS is where it is at because it is the "best". I really don't understand what "market forces" are at play other than "monolopistic bundling" when MS uses its ownership of Windows to try to kill a file format. People use what came with Windows. Most don't trust or even understand downloading enough to seek alternate players.
The ONLY reason MS wants to add copy protection to Windows is so they can get part of the theoritcal money people will pay to download music. The software industry has gone unchecked for too long. Most of the industry is consumer unfriendly, writes buggy code, and is trying to redifine what fair use is. I don't want to tell my children about the good ole days when we were actually able to buy music in a unencrypted form, make a copy for the car, a copy for the office, and loan it to friends to listen to. But, at this rate I will, because everything will be "encrypted" (even if its only ROT 26), the DCMA will stop people from breaking that encryption even if they want to merely want to play their files in their car. Not only that, if in the highly likely event that WindowsXPv12 (2010 release,build 5million) dies and you have to reinstall, your computer might suddenly think all those files you have backed up are pirated and refuse to use them (cause Windows is fucking STUPID and requires a FORMAT to reinstall). If the OS can identify your computer uniquely and .NET plays out, every time you visit goatse.cx, MS knows.
Sounds like a shitty idea, if you ask me. I'll stick to formats that don't have any level of prevention in them. XP might look harmless now, but don't think this is nothing more than a baby step towards destroying fair use.
Burn Hollywood Burn