Remember, just because Ogg Vorbis is (royalty) free doesn't mean that the player is royalty free. The point of royalty free is that Ogg Vorbis player manufacturers don't have to pay royalties to Xiph. This (hopefully) gives the end user a cheaper product. Of course it also allows OSS developers to create ogg vorbis players without having to worry about having to pay royalties.
We're heading for the stars. Obviously we still have to manufacture it, but let's be honest, after looking at those schematics does anyone doubt that we'll get there soon? BTW, that @ is me looking out a porthole, wearing a spacesuit.
Yes, well WinModems were designed to be lower cost, yet it didn't end up that way for the consumer. Also HP 820Cse were suppose to be cheaper but it didn't end up that way. What makes you say it's going to be different for these players.
I can just picture someone asking it...
by
zoeblade
·
· Score: 3, Funny
But will it support MP3?
No, wait, that's the other way around...
About time, but nothing special
by
brejc8
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
This isn't that amasing. Firstly this is done using a CPU and a DSP. No ogg specific hardware is mentioned. Secondly the chip isnt even a chip but a FPGA implementation. They can show that it works but mapping it out is another chalange if you want to keep it very power. Basicly what they have done was to pick up a core and stick it on an FPGA then compiled ogg/vobis for that CPU's ISA. Place a bit of a bootloader and something to handle the I/O and its done. No magic.
One more point for the open source community
by
deman1985
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Hopefully this will be just one more step towards commercially available, open source-based devices. I can't wait to get my hands on one of these devices, personally.
I wonder if any of the big vendors will pick them up?
-- bytesmythe Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together. -- Scott Meyer
Wow, very low power!
by
nacturation
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Runs at only 12MHz (!), so this is going to be great news for portable devices which need long play times to be worthwhile.
Now the question is will the Apple Music Store start offering OGG format files? Maybe an iPod update?
-- Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Re:Wow, very low power!
by
.com+b4+.storm
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Now the question is will the Apple Music Store start offering OGG format files? Maybe an iPod update?
Not to be rude, but... Why the hell would Apple do that? As far as the Music Store is concerned, it will not happen - Apple's AAC format works just fine, and it has the lite DRM that makes the RIAA happy while not pissing off customers. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And they won't.
Then there is the fact that Apple primarily targets the 'average' computer user, which is not you and me. Joe iPod Owner does not know or care about OGG, and he has no reason to. His 2GB collection of MP3s and his fledgling assortment of iTunes AAC files serve his needs. Since he does not care, there's little reason for Apple to.
-- "Wow, you're like some kind of superhero able to ward off happiness and success at every turn."
-- Ryan Stiles
Re:Wow, very low power!
by
m0rbidini
·
· Score: 3, Informative
The current implementation (12 MHz) is limited to 64 kbps. For more, a higher frequency is needed.
http://www.xiph.org/archives/vorbis/200307/0242. ht ml
cya
will it make survive?
by
Mr2cents
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
The cost of chips depends mainly on the number of them you produce, so won't the mp3 players be much cheaper? I personally use ogg, but mp3 is still much much more popular. I know people (ordinary computer users) who haven't even heard of ogg! (don't wory, I 'fixed' it;))
-- "It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
FPGA Version?
by
tunabomber
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Does anyone know whether there are music players equipped with Field Programmable Gate Arrays to allow new codecs to be programmed in as technology advances? That would really be nice if they made a lightweight player with a generic FPGA in it so you could burn whatever codecs you want into it without needing a microprocessor and an EEPROM chip.
--
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory71...
Re:FPGA Version?
by
stonecypher
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Not really. IBM's PPC PDA design, for example, has an FPGA for misc. functions like modems.
Yah, they also used to do that with their PCMCIA modems. Wave something or another, too lazy to check. That's a little different: IBM was producing those for a vareity of devices, all being sold at IBM scale, all fairly tiny devices. The part of the modem that's actually an FPGA is relatively small: it's just the encoder, the decoder, the modulator and the demodulator. The rest is still IC. That way, they can pick up new V standards without relying on software running on a general purpose CPU from flash.
On the other hand, this guy is talking about taking on whole new audio codecs. Modems don't change a bunch: they're tied to an analog carrier with certain characteristics that aren't expected to change. (That's why Big Blue stopped this tactic for a while - when we switched to 56k, we were really just taking a direct line to the multiplexer at the telco digitally, instead of having a d->a converter in the way like traditional; this implied a lot of new characteristics, and the old whateverwave modems couldn't be upgraded to match.)
A new audio codec could be tremendously larger and/or more complex than an older one. Granted, this is also a problem for GP CPUs; they're finite speed, and what's good enough for something like MP3 can't handle something like VQF; I expect this isn't a fluke. Later codecs will need more horsepower too. But the kind of near-identical situations you get with modems are seriously smaller problems than switching audio decompressors at the scale that these hashing monstrosities work.
I have read bits and pieces on/. and other site about Ogg, but I really don't see the appeal. For example, mp3's are so prevalent and portable recorders for them already exist, why would I change to a new format? Is Ogg clearer or cheaper or have smaller file sizes? Do p2p for Ogg exist? I'm interested to know what the appeal of this technology is.
If someone like myself was going to convert my mp3's (if that is even possible) not only would it take a good amount of time, I'd no longer be able to share files with my peers as not a soul I know owns a single Ogg file.
Enlighten this open mind!
--
-Valiss
Re:Is it needed?
by
n0nsensical
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Is Ogg clearer or cheaper or have smaller file sizes?
All of the above. You get better sound at lower bitrates royalty-free.
Do p2p for Ogg exist?
Not sure about Kazaa, etc., but I do see.oggs occasionally on SoulSeek.
If someone like myself was going to convert my mp3's (if that is even possible) not only would it take a good amount of time, I'd no longer be able to share files with my peers as not a soul I know owns a single Ogg file.
You wouldn't want to bother converting them because the resulting sound quality would be worse than the original MP3s, so you'd have to rip them again. (Since you do own the original CDs, don't you?) Nothing's stopping you from sharing files though, since any self-respecting software player (including Winamp, but I prefer Quintessential) plays oggs fine. Hardware, of course, is a different story.
Re:Is it needed?
by
stonecypher
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Is Ogg clearer or cheaper or have smaller file sizes?
Yes to all three. The sound quality is better than VQF, MP3, AAC, or WMF for the size. It's an opensource codec, so it has no patent encumberments. The files tend to be smaller because people encode (usually) at the minimum size to catch a CD quality track. Moreover, you can thumb your nose at Frauenhoffer.
Do p2p for Ogg exist?
Peer to peer exists for arbitrary files; therefore, for any such question, yes. Hell, you can also share them over the web, on CDs, or with smoke signals.
However, in answer to what I expect the real question is, no, they're quite a bit more difficult to find than MP3s. MP3 is very entrenched, it's the one people that aren't activists know about, and it's the one that nobody wants to spend the time crosscoding from (both because it's time consuming/boring and because the crosscoding leaves you with a file with the errors of *both* formats, and it's a noticable downgrade; people should start from the CD again, but nobody wants to do that.)
To be honest, I believe this chip's strongest market is in players that can handle MP3, Ogg with vorbis, speex, etc, WMF, and so on. The question isn't whether you start over. It's whether you move on with legacy support.
And that's pretty much how we've always done it, right? I don't make MP3s anymore.
I'd no longer be able to share files with my peers
Wrong. It doesn't matter if they have one already. It matters if their player can use them. Almost all players can (Winamp, and... well, who really uses anything else?:D )
I'm ambivalent. On the one hand I don't want to slag off the guy who put so much work into Ogg. On the other hand, I don't support the idea behind Ogg at all. Ogg was created to protect us against the evil of software patents, but in doing so, it legitimizes that same evil. I would rather not acknowledge it at all: I'd rather see it die through a massive failure of enforcement (after all, in retrospect, what was all the brouhaha over the GIF patent good for?).
You're a little wrong here -- Ogg wasn't created to fight software patents; it was created to provide an unencumbered multimedia format. If you want to use that sort of thing, Ogg is your choice. It turns out that Ogg Vorbis is also very good, so it's a good choice even if you're fully willing to use encumbered formats.
But your purpose is different; Ogg isn't for you. You want to do civil disobedience to protest a bad law. I'm all for you doing that, even though I can't join you (I'm not capable of infringing on this patent even if I wanted to), but you need one friendly warning: the result that all civil disobedience users need to expect and prepare for is punishment according to the terms of the law. I'm not saying you're *not* expecting that, but it's certainly not what you're advocating when you say that nobody should worry about MP3 licensing terms. No, only those who are willing and prepared to pay the price should set out to battle.
But other than that -- go for it. I'll keep using and developing free alternatives where I can, since I don't want to take something that's not offered freely.
What rock have you been living under: Ogg Vorbis is a new audio compression format. It is roughly comparable to other formats used to store and play digital music, such as MP3, VQF, AAC, and other digital audio formats. It is different from these other formats because it is completely free, open, and unpatented.
Ogg Ogg is the name of Xiph.org's container format for audio, video, and metadata. Vorbis Vorbis is the name of a specific audio compression scheme that's designed to be contained in Ogg. Note that other formats are capable of being embedded in Ogg such as FLAC and Speex.
Links to more information...
by
n0nsensical
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Electrocution Warning
by
mofochickamo
·
· Score: 3, Funny
Do not take this Ogg Vorbis player outside in bad weather, as rain can damage the player and also poses an electrocution hazard.
-- Honk if you're horny.
Re:How are they supported?
by
stonecypher
·
· Score: 5, Funny
It works the same way all OSS does. Someone wants it and thinks it should be free. So they write it on their own free time and put it on the net. Somebody else goes "oh, good idea, let's make it do this too," and adds to it. Repeat until you have an audio format powerful enough that a company feels it's worth implementing in a chip.
Now, the company doesn't have to pay anyone, so it's much cheaper than developing MP3 chips. They're gonna make money by fabricating them and selling them to other companies which want Vorbis decoding (It's not ogg vorbis: ogg is the container format.) Or, at least, that's what the fab/design company is gambling on.
Then, the player manufacturer, who bought these chips, puts them in players and sells them to a public for some enormous amount of cash. I say enormous because MP3 CD players are $40 in Target now, and frankly a 10 gig hard drive isn't that many CDs (especially now that CaseLogic sells CD cases whose sides are speakers.) Okay, the 60 gig models still have some appeal, but when we get portable DVD MP3 players, it's *over.*
I mean, shit, then I'll be able to keep my whole audio collection on six discs. (RIAA notice: I still have all the CDs they came from, with the exception of a few which have suffered pets, so back off in preemption, you self appointed gestappo. Do something useful and constructive with your dollar, instead of making yourself the butt of "look what DirecTV/SCO is becoming" jokes. Assholes. Maybe find a musician that isn't paint by number.)
In the meantime, the parent was modded insightful? Interesting I could see (I don't think it is, but there's a sensible stance for it.) But what insight did s/he provide? Do you people pay attention when you moderate?
I'm gonna go back in my cave and grumble at the walls for a while. f'ing rock.
Why would you want this?
by
Mike+McTernan
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I don't see why you would want specific hardware for this. Adding another chip to a product will make it larger, use more power and cost more.
The article says that they have "Hardwared IP and Software IP which [is] needed to build a portable music player" but realistically most portable music players will surely contain a general purpose CPU or DSP, meaning that they need only a good reference implementation which can be ported to common platforms (e.g. ARM) with little optimisation.
-- --
Mike
Reprogrammable? It is.
by
pclminion
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Did you actually read the article?
"Software IP" includes DSP firmware do decode Ogg vorbis and the CPU firmware for overall system control.
Basically, it's designed how it should be designed: seperate CPU and DSP cores, and both are independently programmable. It would be incredibly stupid to design a "pure" hardware solution (decoder in silico) since everyone admits that Vorbis is going to evolve and change, especially right now, during its "adolescent" period.
Don't worry, they've done the right thing:-)
Re:My first official KarmaWhoring action.
by
erikdotla
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I agree.
That, and the fact that when laymen try to get involved in the community to get familiar with it, they run into fanatical Linux-types who refuse to answer any question directly without criticising the person's lack of intelligence and unwillingness to find the information themselves, as well as the hordes of fanboi's who respond to everything with "OGG RULES! MP3s SUCK!".
I use WinXP at home because my home box is purely a game machine, no room for Linux. I use Winamp, and fact is, Ogg's take an extra half-second or so to load up than MP3s do, which are nearly instantaneous. The zero-patience attitude of technology consumers does not allow for such sloppiness, which is a strong reason to not convert everything over to Ogg.
That's assuming they know how to convert, or are willing to learn, which most people don't and aren't. And even if they did, everyone has 7 million MP3s from the Napster days, and it takes a REALLY long time to convert just one song to Ogg. Why bother?
MP3 is here to stay for a long time. Unless serious IP issues crop up with it, it'll definitely stay.
Ogg sounds better, but to most people, it's "a little better" or "unoticably better but I trust that it is, since everyone says so."
-- # Erik
Low clock rate != Low power
by
pslam
·
· Score: 3, Informative
It's generally true that low clock speed gives you low power, but when you're throwing a custom core at a problem, that's not necessarily true. The amount of power is basically proportional to the number of gates you have to switch. If you're running at 1/4 the clock speed, but you're switching 4 times as many gates, you'll probably end up with the same power requirement. Put simply: imagine running 4 processors in parallel at 1/4 the clock speed - assuming perfect parallelism, I'd say it'd still take at least as much power. If you run into limits such as having to turn up the voltage at higher clocks, that's another matter, but at these clock speeds it's not a major factor.
The trick is they have is a single issue RISC core (1 instruction per clock) running in parallel with a 4 issue VLIW DSP core (4 instructions per clock). Assuming it's all running at peak rate (which it hopefully will be for the majority of time) that's about 60 MIPS of processing going on there for a 64kbit Vorbis stream. Compare that to an ARM7TDMI (which a lot of players are based on), which requires (ball park) 30-50MHz for the same stream. The figure they state of 74MHz is nonsense - that's the general class of processor you require, not the actual MHz. You'll find higher bit rates requiring most of that 74MHz, though.
If they can come up with a real piece of hardware or a simulation that says it takes less than 100-200mW in an actual system, then I'll be impressed. That's about how much your average MP3 player takes. (Power = Battery mAh * Battery Voltage / Time in hours, work out how much yours takes). Just having a low clock speed is as incomplete a power consumption picture as Intel's use of high clock speeds alone is to performance.
If OV ever gets popular...
by
PylonHead
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Then we'll find out whether they infringe on any patents. Remember this article:
clicky , clicky News.com from 2000
The Ogg developers staunchly defend the notion that they have created everything from scratch, or at least have built their system without using any of the Fraunhofer-owned technology. But their rivals say they aren't so sure.
"We doubt very much that they are not using Fraunhofer and Thomson intellectual property," Linde said. "We think it is likely they are infringing."
Whether this is true, analysts say Thomson and the German company are likely to file patent lawsuits the moment Vorbis appears to be a viable market candidate. By creating a perception of uncertainty around Vorbis' future, MP3's parents could prevent conservative digital music companies from adopting it.
"If you're going to go into a marketplace where people play hardball, that's what hardball looks like," Scheirer warned.
-- # (/.);;
- : float -> float -> float =
Tungsten T/C & Zire 71 can play Ogg for free
by
sjonke
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Palm's OS 5 PDAs can play Ogg Vorbis with the addition of either Aeroplayer or the other one (Pocket Tunes). Aeroplayer is notable for, among other things, being free (as in beer) for use with Ogg Vorbis (registration is only required for MP3 playback.) These PDA's all have an SD/MMC slot and accept standard MMC and SD cards which is better than most standalone players out there which have proprietary memory modules or no expansion possible. Note, however, that the Tungsten C only has a monophonic headphone jack. The Tungsten T and Zire 71 do stereo out of the box. I can vouch for the TT, which has excellent sound quality with Aeroplayer.
Having said that, since I don't like listening on headphones (gives me a headache), I find that there is little value in a portable music player that does not have enough space to contain your entire music library. In that situation (use only hooked up to car and/or home stereos) the constant need to swap songs out renders even an overpriced 512 MB SD card pretty pointless - the same can be achieved more conveniently with a handful of (much flatter than a Tungsten|T) CD-RW Audio CDs or less than one MP3 CD-RW with an appropriate CD player (which are cheap as dirt these days). Moreover, the loss of a CD-RW disc is inconsequential while the lose of a Tungsten T or even just an SD card would be quite distressing.
Better still, and what I do, plug your PowerBook into your car stereo's AUX input and control iTunes or what have you with Salling Clicker and a T68i or equivalent bluetooth phone. Talk about geek cool.... Further I'm considering acquiring an old G3 or G4 tower to mount in the trunk of my car - I envision automatic music syncing via an 802.11b connection with my home iMac jukebox when I get in range. Surely someone has done this already?
-- ---
What?
Re:Car audio player soon
by
pchan-
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I don't mean to sound like a troll, but...
by
fobbman
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
...why would Joe User consider buying an Ogg portable player? I just pulled up my Netjuke and it says that I have 189 mp3-encoded albums in there, encoded that way because I have a portable mp3 player. I sure don't want to go through the bother of re-encoding my music. Why would any user want to go through the bother of a) re-encoding all of their CDs in Ogg format when they won't notice the difference with their crappy Walkman headphones, or b) re-pirating all of those songs that they like in Ogg format (as if they would find them)?
I just don't see a compelling reason for the portable music crowd to want to do this, and I don't think that there are enough./ fanatics to make it financially viable for a company to produce.
Re:How are they supported?
by
Anonvmous+Coward
·
· Score: 3, Funny
I mean, shit, then I'll be able to keep my whole audio collection on six discs. (RIAA notice: I still have all the CDs they came from, with the exception of a few which have suffered pets, so back off in preemption, you self appointed gestappo. Do something useful and constructive with your dollar, instead of making yourself the butt of "look what DirecTV/SCO is becoming" jokes. Assholes. Maybe find a musician that isn't paint by number.)
Slashdot Mirror
Seems to me the chip is not a reality.
A design for it is.
Which is merely one step past "idea".
By now I know i dont have first post, but shout outs to whoever does.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
But will it support MP3?
No, wait, that's the other way around...
This isn't that amasing. Firstly this is done using a CPU and a DSP. No ogg specific hardware is mentioned.
Secondly the chip isnt even a chip but a FPGA implementation. They can show that it works but mapping it out is another chalange if you want to keep it very power.
Basicly what they have done was to pick up a core and stick it on an FPGA then compiled ogg/vobis for that CPU's ISA.
Place a bit of a bootloader and something to handle the I/O and its done. No magic.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
One already exists
Hopefully this will be just one more step towards commercially available, open source-based devices. I can't wait to get my hands on one of these devices, personally.
I wonder if any of the big vendors will pick them up?
KappaStone
The Vorbis team is working with the makers of Neuros to update the player's firmware to decode Ogg Vorbis files.
It's nearly complete.
bytesmythe
Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
-- Scott Meyer
Runs at only 12MHz (!), so this is going to be great news for portable devices which need long play times to be worthwhile.
Now the question is will the Apple Music Store start offering OGG format files? Maybe an iPod update?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
The cost of chips depends mainly on the number of them you produce, so won't the mp3 players be much cheaper? I personally use ogg, but mp3 is still much much more popular. I know people (ordinary computer users) who haven't even heard of ogg! (don't wory, I 'fixed' it ;))
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
In not sure if it will hold for much longer so heres a mirror.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
Does anyone know whether there are music players equipped with Field Programmable Gate Arrays to allow new codecs to be programmed in as technology advances? That would really be nice if they made a lightweight player with a generic FPGA in it so you could burn whatever codecs you want into it without needing a microprocessor and an EEPROM chip.
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
I have read bits and pieces on /. and other site about Ogg, but I really don't see the appeal. For example, mp3's are so prevalent and portable recorders for them already exist, why would I change to a new format? Is Ogg clearer or cheaper or have smaller file sizes? Do p2p for Ogg exist? I'm interested to know what the appeal of this technology is.
If someone like myself was going to convert my mp3's (if that is even possible) not only would it take a good amount of time, I'd no longer be able to share files with my peers as not a soul I know owns a single Ogg file.
Enlighten this open mind!
-Valiss
What rock have you been living under:
Ogg Vorbis is a new audio compression format. It is roughly comparable to other formats used to store and play digital music, such as MP3, VQF, AAC, and other digital audio formats. It is different from these other formats because it is completely free, open, and unpatented.
Ogg
Ogg is the name of Xiph.org's container format for audio, video, and metadata.
Vorbis
Vorbis is the name of a specific audio compression scheme that's designed to be contained in Ogg. Note that other formats are capable of being embedded in Ogg such as FLAC and Speex.
Here are the "more information" PDFs so you don't have to fill out the form...
Press release on 2003/7/15 (English) Ogg Vorbis Player System
Press release on 2003/7/15 (Korean)Ogg Vorbis Player System
Ogg Vorbis player system product summary
Do not take this Ogg Vorbis player outside in bad weather, as rain can damage the player and also poses an electrocution hazard.
Honk if you're horny.
It works the same way all OSS does. Someone wants it and thinks it should be free. So they write it on their own free time and put it on the net. Somebody else goes "oh, good idea, let's make it do this too," and adds to it. Repeat until you have an audio format powerful enough that a company feels it's worth implementing in a chip.
Now, the company doesn't have to pay anyone, so it's much cheaper than developing MP3 chips. They're gonna make money by fabricating them and selling them to other companies which want Vorbis decoding (It's not ogg vorbis: ogg is the container format.) Or, at least, that's what the fab/design company is gambling on.
Then, the player manufacturer, who bought these chips, puts them in players and sells them to a public for some enormous amount of cash. I say enormous because MP3 CD players are $40 in Target now, and frankly a 10 gig hard drive isn't that many CDs (especially now that CaseLogic sells CD cases whose sides are speakers.) Okay, the 60 gig models still have some appeal, but when we get portable DVD MP3 players, it's *over.*
I mean, shit, then I'll be able to keep my whole audio collection on six discs. (RIAA notice: I still have all the CDs they came from, with the exception of a few which have suffered pets, so back off in preemption, you self appointed gestappo. Do something useful and constructive with your dollar, instead of making yourself the butt of "look what DirecTV/SCO is becoming" jokes. Assholes. Maybe find a musician that isn't paint by number.)
In the meantime, the parent was modded insightful? Interesting I could see (I don't think it is, but there's a sensible stance for it.) But what insight did s/he provide? Do you people pay attention when you moderate?
I'm gonna go back in my cave and grumble at the walls for a while. f'ing rock.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
I don't see why you would want specific hardware for this. Adding another chip to a product will make it larger, use more power and cost more.
The article says that they have "Hardwared IP and Software IP which [is] needed to build a portable music player" but realistically most portable music players will surely contain a general purpose CPU or DSP, meaning that they need only a good reference implementation which can be ported to common platforms (e.g. ARM) with little optimisation.
-- Mike
"Software IP" includes DSP firmware do decode Ogg vorbis and the CPU firmware for overall system control.
Basically, it's designed how it should be designed: seperate CPU and DSP cores, and both are independently programmable. It would be incredibly stupid to design a "pure" hardware solution (decoder in silico) since everyone admits that Vorbis is going to evolve and change, especially right now, during its "adolescent" period.
Don't worry, they've done the right thing :-)
I agree.
That, and the fact that when laymen try to get involved in the community to get familiar with it, they run into fanatical Linux-types who refuse to answer any question directly without criticising the person's lack of intelligence and unwillingness to find the information themselves, as well as the hordes of fanboi's who respond to everything with "OGG RULES! MP3s SUCK!".
I use WinXP at home because my home box is purely a game machine, no room for Linux. I use Winamp, and fact is, Ogg's take an extra half-second or so to load up than MP3s do, which are nearly instantaneous. The zero-patience attitude of technology consumers does not allow for such sloppiness, which is a strong reason to not convert everything over to Ogg.
That's assuming they know how to convert, or are willing to learn, which most people don't and aren't. And even if they did, everyone has 7 million MP3s from the Napster days, and it takes a REALLY long time to convert just one song to Ogg. Why bother?
MP3 is here to stay for a long time. Unless serious IP issues crop up with it, it'll definitely stay.
Ogg sounds better, but to most people, it's "a little better" or "unoticably better but I trust that it is, since everyone says so."
# Erik
The trick is they have is a single issue RISC core (1 instruction per clock) running in parallel with a 4 issue VLIW DSP core (4 instructions per clock). Assuming it's all running at peak rate (which it hopefully will be for the majority of time) that's about 60 MIPS of processing going on there for a 64kbit Vorbis stream. Compare that to an ARM7TDMI (which a lot of players are based on), which requires (ball park) 30-50MHz for the same stream. The figure they state of 74MHz is nonsense - that's the general class of processor you require, not the actual MHz. You'll find higher bit rates requiring most of that 74MHz, though.
If they can come up with a real piece of hardware or a simulation that says it takes less than 100-200mW in an actual system, then I'll be impressed. That's about how much your average MP3 player takes. (Power = Battery mAh * Battery Voltage / Time in hours, work out how much yours takes). Just having a low clock speed is as incomplete a power consumption picture as Intel's use of high clock speeds alone is to performance.
Then we'll find out whether they infringe on any patents. Remember this article:
clicky , clicky News.com from 2000
The Ogg developers staunchly defend the notion that they have created everything from scratch, or at least have built their system without using any of the Fraunhofer-owned technology. But their rivals say they aren't so sure.
"We doubt very much that they are not using Fraunhofer and Thomson intellectual property," Linde said. "We think it is likely they are infringing."
Whether this is true, analysts say Thomson and the German company are likely to file patent lawsuits the moment Vorbis appears to be a viable market candidate. By creating a perception of uncertainty around Vorbis' future, MP3's parents could prevent conservative digital music companies from adopting it.
"If you're going to go into a marketplace where people play hardball, that's what hardball looks like," Scheirer warned.
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Having said that, since I don't like listening on headphones (gives me a headache), I find that there is little value in a portable music player that does not have enough space to contain your entire music library. In that situation (use only hooked up to car and/or home stereos) the constant need to swap songs out renders even an overpriced 512 MB SD card pretty pointless - the same can be achieved more conveniently with a handful of (much flatter than a Tungsten|T) CD-RW Audio CDs or less than one MP3 CD-RW with an appropriate CD player (which are cheap as dirt these days). Moreover, the loss of a CD-RW disc is inconsequential while the lose of a Tungsten T or even just an SD card would be quite distressing.
Better still, and what I do, plug your PowerBook into your car stereo's AUX input and control iTunes or what have you with Salling Clicker and a T68i or equivalent bluetooth phone. Talk about geek cool.... Further I'm considering acquiring an old G3 or G4 tower to mount in the trunk of my car - I envision automatic music syncing via an 802.11b connection with my home iMac jukebox when I get in range. Surely someone has done this already?
--- What?
sooner than you think.
the phatbox and kenwood music keg already support ogg.
volkswagen and audi sell these as dealer installed options. and they are compatible with a wide range of car stereos.
here's how to play ogg files on it!
...why would Joe User consider buying an Ogg portable player? I just pulled up my Netjuke and it says that I have 189 mp3-encoded albums in there, encoded that way because I have a portable mp3 player. I sure don't want to go through the bother of re-encoding my music. Why would any user want to go through the bother of a) re-encoding all of their CDs in Ogg format when they won't notice the difference with their crappy Walkman headphones, or b) re-pirating all of those songs that they like in Ogg format (as if they would find them)?
./ fanatics to make it financially viable for a company to produce.
I just don't see a compelling reason for the portable music crowd to want to do this, and I don't think that there are enough
That was worth an instant replay.