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HP Working With Apple To Add WMA Support To iPod
iPod Afficianado writes to a short piece at Connected Home magazine in which Paul Thurrott "is quoted as saying that HP's blockbuster deal with Apple will have one
exciting side effect. The company will be working with Apple to add support for
Microsoft's superior Windows Media Audio (WMA) format to the iPod by mid-year."
Superior??? WHAT??? WMA??? Oh god! Leave it to Paul.
WMA is supported on more devices and players than Apple's AAC (w/DRM) and the iPod. BUT WMA support is IRRELEVANT if the Digital Restrictions Management that infests Microsoft products doesn't allow me to play it anywhere else anyway. I once had a free offer to download WMA files from some music service and found that once the files were copied to any other computer, they were useless anyway. Copying to a player which did play WMAs was fruitless as well. So the DRM (remember it's Digital RESTRICTIONS Management) is the overriding limiting factor, and not whether WMA is supported or not. All the other online music services are music RENTAL right? If so, I won't participate regardless of the format. Microsoft's argument is irrelevant until the WMA-supporting music services offer more lenient restrictions. I don't want my music to stop after I stop paying $19/month, I don't wanna have to worry if I bought the correct license to burn to CD for every single track I buy!
~~~
Did he really have to call Windows Media "superior"?
Yikes! Prepare for flamage!
Fellowship 9/11
Superior? That's a new one.
"...superior Windows Media Audio (WMA) format" ? Superior to *what*, did you say? .wav?
I'm a dreamer, the world is my playpen. But hey, I'm a serious person, I can't dream all the time.
Microsoft's superior Windows Media Audio
Time to stop buying HP stuff as a personal protest.
I also have no immediate plans to buy an iPod. I'll put that money toward an OGG player.
Why don't they just stick with mp3? From my understanding it is a far better format and has better compression (?correct me if im wrong on that). If this is the case, you will just have less songs with a crappier format that no one uses on your iPod.
If WMA is superior, I'll shove a shoe up Bill Gate's ass. Similar to how WMA is shoved down the throats of the consumer.
first of all - superior to what?
secondly: I've had it with the codec wars. Let's let the big music/hardware/software companies keep duking it out and pissing away their resources fighting over mp3/aac/wma. Personally I'm re-ripping all my CDs once and for all to FLAC. If a better lossless codec comes along later, all I have to do is batch process them all and save some space. No worries about finding a new original to avoid lossy reencoding.
As far as my ears can tell, there is no appreciable difference between ANY of the lossy codecs about 192kbps. But they all seem to come with DRM these days, and that's just anacceptable.
Microsoft's superior Windows Media Audio
Will it also run on Microsoft's superior operating system so it can benefit from superior crashes and viruses?
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
its more like Windows Mediocre Audio (WMA)
-Mike
I will resist WMA to the end. I don't have, and don't want the ability to play it.
~ a low user id is no indication I have a clue what I'm talking about.
Paul Thurrott obviously doesn't have any ears if he believes WMA is superior to mp3 at bitrates people would be prepared to "purchase". That aside from the obvious restrictions wma "offers the consumer".
I can see a lot of people complaining about "superior" in the article. Rest assured he meant it to mean larger, as in bloated. We're all agreed to Ogg Vorbis is awesome and M$ sucks, so let's just get back to discussing what a waste of time this is and how much Apple should be opening the code bade to allow for Ogg playback.
The iPod's processor isn't fast enough to play Ogg. It can't even play MP3's in floating point mode without the external decoder chip. Anyone have info on how they implemented AAC?
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Microsoft's superior Windows Media Audio
So a closed source, proprietary format that defaults to a lower bitrate is superior?
that was just flamebait, but seriously, that's quite claim. i certainly think that AAC is superior, it just doesn't have as much industry support.
pirates
What it is! Well...er..
It's about the same as mp3 really.
There isn't that much of a difference.
I'm not sure, but it looks like the article says WMA is superior.
Correct me if I misread it, though. Nobody in the comments seems to have anything to say on it.
- foad
I'd like to see this WMA news confirmed by a few more sources - until then I'll definatly be taking this with a grain of salt. If true however, I guess the only thing I could say is I sure hope Jobs knows what's he's doing. If he goes and supports WMA, it wouldn't be too unreasonable to think the RIAA would want the iTMS to switch to the more restrictive WMA DRM, rather than the AAC I currently favor. If the iPod is going to support WMA, it would have to support the more-restrictive DRM as well.
From a pure "bottom-line" viewpoint, it would mean a big boost to iPod sales, as those people who's entire library is WMA, or even people who use "other" online music services can now enjoy the beauty that is iPod. While not a bad thing, it's still diluting the iPod brand IMHO.
I think I'd rather see the iPod stay AAC only.
I, for one, welcome our newly superior WMA overlords.
Unfortunately, however, this is a *serious* boost to the .wma format's commercial success.
The task of informing the public of the dangers of CRM becomes more important...
The only way we can stop it is by making it unpopular, even hated, amongst enough people to make a serious dent in profits for CRM systems, thereby forcing their hand back into open systems.
I'm a dreamer, the world is my playpen. But hey, I'm a serious person, I can't dream all the time.
I don't think this is far fetched: WMA on iPods. If there's WMA on iPods, then there's WMA in iTunes. If there's WMA in iTunes, then there's WMA in QuickTime.
Maybe HP will go off on their own branch... but maybe not... just a thought.
-Aaron
My name is Aaron Landry, and I approve this message.
Okay. Yes. I realize the guy said that WMA is suprerior. Now, I do have to say that I have recently been playing around with WMA files a bit.
1.) 64-bit WMAs do have a little less quality than 128-bit encodings of MP3's. However, because 64 is half the encoding of 128, this is only to be expected. However, unless you're specifically listening to it, you may never notice it.
2.) The WMAs are smaller in file size (even at the same bit encoding). This is nice. Especially if you plan to put the songs on some sort of MP3 player with limited memory.
3.) Yeah. The DRM thing sucks. I totally agree. This is why I chose not to go with WMAs in the end. (I was considiring converting my MP3s over.)
WMAs are not all bad. In fact, they do even have good qualities. But, the DRM overrides any benefit that they may have.
Yes, I'm sure I will get plenty of replies stating that Vorbis support doesn't matter. Well, sucks for Apple: they're not getting my $400 because they don't support Ogg Vorbis, the format in which my 1,200 CD's/14,000 tracks are all encoded in. But these are the choices one must make, and they've made the calculation that they can do without Vorbis users' money. Time will tell whether this is a good calculation or not.
[ home ]
You don't think the napster Ad next to the article had anything to do with them calling the WMA codec superior, did it?
...Sony also announced today that it's newest CD player will support the superior 8-track and Vinyl formats. In addition, plans are underway to scrap the existing DVD line of products for the ultra-lo definition VHS format.
Its unfortunate that they don't adopt support for DRM free formats. Ogg Vorbis comes to mind.
of Star Trek TNG in the episode where an admiral who has been taken over by an alien says to riker
"It is a superior form of life".
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
um... yeah, so I'm not going to make a big deal out of the in-article troll, but only in an attempt to be original. Did it work? :)
see subject.
Microsoft's superior Windows Media Audio? Who wrote this? It sounds like something a marketer would say. I would say that /. is being astroturfed. It is up to the reader to decide if /. is being duped or if they are going along willingly.
Ogg is way better than WMA. Maybe Bruce Perens could ask some of his friends at HP to add Ogg support. It's worth a try.
I don't know about WMA, but AAC is certainly not a format that requires DRM. I can encode files with iTunes to AAC and share them with others, no problems.
AFAIK, AAC is a completely open format. (enough acronyms?)
For now, most of my files are still in LAME-encoded MP3s, though you have a point about FLAC. The problem is that I don't have a portable player that takes FLAC...
So does that mean iTunes will support WMA? I doubt it. Does it mean the iPod or iTunes will be able to play the particular flavor of DRM used in online music stores using WMA? I rather doubt that too. So what exactly does this get anyone?
And who would want to use WMA in iTunes or on your iPod, unless you were at least going to be able to play a competitor music store's goods.
And why on earth would Apple agree to opening up the iTunes/iPod combo to someone elses store?
You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
...I assume there's no support for us lowly 5gb scum.
I mod down pyramid schemes in sigs.
WMA = Wipe My Ass.
But, how did this get modded up? Good lord, mod down...
who, as near as I can tell, is some sort of sentient appendage growing on Bill Gates' ass. He has a whole site devoted to his particular brand of hyperactive boosterism.
They promote an alternative to WMA in the AAC format, and it seems that incorporating WMA support into the iPod would only hurt iTunes Music Store, since many of its competitors sell WMA files.
I wonder if WMA will be available only on HP's version of the iPod, and if so, will HP's device support the Macintosh?
Blogging Weight Loss, Distance Education, and more at verlin.com
"You heard it here first" sounds a lot like a guess to me.
I don't think it will happen.
You're 5... 4... 3... 2... Late...
FP was ages ago.
i don't get it(cockmaster)
WHY would I want TWO digital restriction management file types to deal with?
This is a bad move.
I don't give a damn about what restriction software other players that I don't own support. I'm not going to use crappy music services anyhow. If they want to sell to me, sell me in the restriction format that my player supports. AAC. If you want to support WMA too, great. Go for it. I don't care.
Now, if you want me to CARE, then support MP3 and OGG!
I heard of this new audio codec called Ogg Vorbis. Is there any more information about it? I'm suprised no one has mentioned it in this thread yet.
Not that I ever met the guy... My guess is wma will be made into aac files. That would give "support" for wma without losing his... precious.
Nobody's telling you to listen to a .wma file with DRM activated. It's quite possible to have a collection of wma files with no restrictions whatsoever.
WMA "superior" to MPEG4Audio.. HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... .. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA.. oh, that's a good one.. pfft. WMA is far from superior to m4a, as many experiments have shown.
And shame shame on whoever modded this up.
Live flamebait and /.ing...
will those MS freaks ever learn?
On a side note, have the vorbis fanbase tried to hack the iPod firmware to manually add OGG support? Efforts are undergoing for ext2/3 conversion, i think... And why not make an iPod client? I'm just sick of having to emulate EphPOD (www.ephpod.com) under wine for my Musical needs. @+
This is my opinion. Everyone has a right to my opinion.
The above poster is a troll.
I thought laying flamebait in the article summaries died with the end of the "but they ruin it all by having a one button mouse" type posts. Anyway, I'm too tired to make a logical argument against it (and many others have done already) so I'll just fall back on an oldie but a goodie from Usenet. Come along kids... it'll be a trip down memory lane.
Drum roll, please...
The company will be working with Apple to add support for Microsoft's superior Windows Media Audio
You misspelled "crappy."
Ba-dum bum!
(Raucous laughter)
Thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much. I'm here 'til Thursday.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
'nuff said.
Goatse link...you've been warned.
Someone at Apple is planning on iTunes someday supporting ogg playback. They've even got an iTunes-ogg icon all ready for when the day arrives. Go digging around in the iTunes package (at least on OS X) and look in Contents/Resources. They've got a bunch of icons there that they use for mp3, aac, wav, etc files there. Included are icons for wma and ogg. Why would they bother creating ogg and wma icons for iTunes if they didn't plan to eventually use them?
"Belief means not wanting to know what is true." [Nietzche, The Anti-Christ, 1889]
Young grasshopper, you fail to see the point of AAC. There is nothing "open" about it. Just because it's part of an MPEG spec does not make it "open", and it's most certainly NOT FREE.
Consider this: who's seriously supporting AAC right now besides Apple? (crickets chirping). That's right - Apple probably has a special deal with Dolby which allows Apple, and only Apple, to distribute free software (itunes) incorporating the AAC codec.
You know what that is?
PLATFORM LOCK-IN.
Same goes for WMA, Real, etc. The big guys get behind a format and then they get to keep everyone else out unless they pony up.
Say no to proprietary formats. Say no to DRM. It's your music.
It's ridiculous that they would go and have the compulsory meetings, deals, business trips, and so forth to secure the rights for a crooked, proprietary format that barely has any advantages over MP3s. That, plus trying to hack Microsoft's famously esoteric code into an iPod will take a team of software engineers quite awhile.
OGGV has free libraries for both floating-point AND now integer decoding with Tremor. OGGV doesn't require any deal making, as it's not just allowed, but WELCOMED to be used without permission in any software or hardware whatsoever. The way it's written, it would probably only take a few days for a talented coder to get it running.
At the CES expo, Fiorina expressed support for DRM handled by Microsoft. It's obvious OGG Vorbis is considered a threat, so they're giving it the cold shoulder.
nice external link jerk, you just got yourself added to RBL
Get one. :)
The Rio Karma has FLAC support and 20 gigs of space to play with. List price is $350, I got one for $270 at J&R Music World.
Did I mention it costs less than an iPod and (if you care) has WMA support?
So did everyone notice the comments section at the bottom of the article? Well here was mine:
Shame on you! You had a somewhat noteworthy piece of information to pass out. What do you do? You insert what is so obviously your lack of understanding of codecs and specificity to differentiate yourself from an automated teletype.
If you're going to interject your thoughts on one codec versus another, couldn't you at least back it up? Superior how? Clarity? Losslessness? Compression? Or is this just more ambiguous hype to push the DRM "solution". Because we're all thinking the latter, and about replacing you with that teletype.
Lame ending Pal.
Now you try it!
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
In my opinion, Thurrott does nothing to hide his bias against all that is not Microsoft-made. He makes Slashdotters and Mac users look moderate. So view his article with the necessary skepticism of Microsoft propaganda. But hey, we're all entitled to our opinions - I just wish Paul's magazine was entitled "Connected Home Opinion" instead. Perhaps he should go to work for the mainstream media. Whether WMA is superior to AAC or not, it wasn't appropriate wording.
As far as the addition of WMA to the iPod - understand that Apple has a vested interest in selling iPods, not supporting AAC vs. WMA. With all that talk from a few months back about how iTunes makes Apple no money - those interested in Apple's success should be pleased that the iPod can enjoy a wider audience of music stores. As for myself, I agree that having a DRM-Free file format in the iPod other than MP3 is a win for all.
Why isn't OGG there? What costs would be involved in it's development?
Paul, please stop writing technical articles and stick to editorials.
Bill
Secondly, another DRM silliness to fiddle with? No thanks. I'm about to stop buying anything produced by Big Music and Big Film.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
I wasn't aware of any "superior" codec from those clowns..
I'll be sure to start buying .wma files when I get my mini-ipod for less than $100!
Real (who you mentioned in your post) supports AAC, too.
Real is supporting AAC now (as of very recently--they use it in basically the same way they used Atrac3 in the past), but considering that a lot of Slashdotters don't seem to like Real, so this doesn't really say that much about AAC not being locked in.
first of all - superior to what?
1. A kick in the head.
2. Finding your girlfriend in bed with those twins that ride tiny motorcycles and hold the guiness record for the world's fattest men.
3. Poop.
4. Cleaning all the bathrooms in Grand Central Station, but only if all you had was a toothbrush.
5. Contracting one of those tiny fish parasites that swims up your stream of urine if you're peeing into the Amazon and lays eggs in your joystick.
6. Working in sales.
the list goes on...
As for your other part, AAC isn't strictly DRM. It's mp4, with the ability to slap DRM on it when it's made. A normal AAC extension is ".m4a," and a DRM one is ".m4p." I'm guessing they stand for "Mp4 Aac" and "Mp4 Protected."
I just ripped nearly all my CD's to 192 AAC. The general consensus seems to be that the sound quality is indistinguishable from the CD, and damned if I can tell a difference.
c-hack.com |
I was planning on buying an iPod sometime soon, too.
Shame.
Glog!
Heh. Cute.
Rip to FLAC.
Then use this to encode to the codec of the week on the fly.
Yeah it takes more space, but gigs are cheaper than time (my time at least).
I would imagine that only the HP model would support WMA. After all, if Apple really wanted to put that feature into the ipod it would have already. It's not like the engineers at Apple aren't capable of it. After all the kick-ass work they have done on that device, adding WMA would be a walk in the park I would think.
As a side note, I wonder if the decoder on the ipod is in software or on an ASIC (for lower power). If on an ASIC then the WMA decoder would be as well. Maybe that's why HP is involved, fronting the money for a new ASIC that supports both.
In any case, I would almost bet money the Apple version of the ipod is AAC excusively.
That PR page at Apple's site we saw posted on Slashdot a couple days ago had Steve Jobs touting about how great this was since it would mean more customers for the iTunes store. Wouldn't WMA support hurt that? Maybe Apple will give in and have an option on their site: either download the AAC or WMA. Hmmmmm.
AFAIK they're not really. They're piggy-backing on quicktime.
no to proprietary formats. no to drm. yes to ogg. yes to my music.
Sir, you are a dickhead.
How is this really all that unusual? What if Apple released a WinCE version of Quicktime player that let you play Quicktime videos on an HP iPaq? But that iPaq can also play WMV files, so is this smart or stupid of Apple?
I would say smart, because now they have another platform for their content. So isn't the same true for audio? Isn't of looking at it as "Apple is letting WMA infiltrate their iPod!" why isn't it "Apple has expanded AAC to another major portable brand."? You don't think HP has the resources to design their own player? If they had, it would almost assuredly be using Microsoft blessed DRM hobby kit known as WMA. But then HP would need to make decent player software, and find a partner to provide content...by partnering with Apple, they are piggybacking on the success of the existing iTunes client and store. Meanwhile Apple now is selling a player every time someone buys an iPod or the HP version and now has a new customer for iTMS either way.
Apple gets a larger audience used to AAC and iTMS which will someday make a profit, no doubt about it. Maybe right now its a loss-leader to sell iPods, but what do you think will happen next year when music companies post their quarterly reports showing the profits from this major new (and free) income stream? What happens when Apple goes back to renew the contract and says "you know this free money pouring in? Well, you're going to settle for $.30 or we start giving priority placement to indie labels" Not to mention, with the release of GarageBand, Apple is about one puzzle piece away from becoming a completely end-to-end music enterprise, starting with a dude running GarageBand and ending with a thousand people clicking "Buy It Now" on iTMS.
- JoeShmoe
.
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
I think this is only really exciting if they also add WMA support to iTunes. That, would be a really wonderful thing indeed. As much as I think that sites that stream media should offer either a quicktime or mp3 stream, adding WMA to iTunes would at least be a viable work around. Download WMP9 for Mac? NEVER!
There's a chance (albeit small one) that the lossless form of WMA was meant.
platform lock-in?
Nero encodes to AAC, Real encodes to AAC and plays it, and there are a number of flash players I have read about over the last few weeks that are supporting AAC.
AAC is a NEW MPEG standard and it will take time to get the penetration that WMA and MP3 have, but eventually, it will be everywhere.
but I guess open to you means that LAME will encode it?
well LAME is illegal anyway since you have to technically pay for an MP3 licenses to encoded in that format......
have fun with your Ogg files and your 5 pound portable music player....I mean laptop.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
And I thought goatse was disgusting...
Ah... the facts...
.NET Magazine. He writes a weekly editorial for Windows & .NET Magazine UPDATE (http://www.win2000mag.net/email) and writes a daily Windows news and information newsletter called WinInfo Daily UPDATE (http://www.wininformant.com).
m ?AuthorID=879
Paul Thurrott is the news editor for Windows &
from http://www.connectedhomemag.com/Articles/Index.cf
When will we be able to run Linux on it?
Geez, with all the negative comments here you'd think no one has ever encountered unprotected WMA content. I have an entire collection (over 1GB) of song parodies in WMA format that I downloaded, all without any DRM.
...and yes, I own an iPod.
The Xbox also, by default, creates WMA files... What if you did a whole lot of CD ripping on your modified Xbox and wanted to upload it to your iPod?
Let's not forget, Apple WANTS to sell iPods - anything that makes them more competitive is a good thing.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
It'd make some sense. A fair bit of content is spewn out in WMA. The iPod would be the creme de crop (as in, covers mostly every format available) with WMA support. Apple wishes to sell ipods more than it wishes to lock people in to itms..
FLAC looks like a good format for storage of Music since it is lossless and smaller by half of AIFF and WAV
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
How about making copyright reform a central issue in the upcoming election?
Very likely most politicians don't know if the DMCA is fit to eat, feel Disney and the RIAA are important campaign contributors whose requests should be given priority, and music downloaders are simple thieves who deserve every bit of punishment they get.
You can change that. But it's going to take some work. But there are enough people sharing music in America - more people than voted for George Bush - that if you get off your collective asses and get active politically, you can get laws passed to get the RIAA off your back.
In Change the Law, I explain that copyright is not a Constitutional right, like free speech. Instead copyright is allowed (but not required) to serve a useful purpose, a purpose which I feel has long since outlived its usefulness.
I suggest steps you can take to bring about copyright reform, ranging from speaking out to practicing civil disobedience.
One thing I'd like you all to do today is to write your elected representatives to ask their opinion of the current state of copyright law given its widespread abuse by organizations like the RIAA and MPAA, and to urge them to work towards copyright reform. Let them know your vote will depend on a positive response.
When you're done writing that letter, write to the other candidates for each office in the upcoming elections, to ask them the same thing.
Sixty million american peer-to-peer file traders have the potential to raise a lot of Hell with the politicians. I want every candidate to be peppered with questions about copyright reform at every campaign stop and in every press interview. I want the repeal of the DMCA to be discussed in the Presidential debates.
People marched in protest when Dmitry Sklyarov was arrested. Dmitry Sklarov is free now - but the law under which he was jailed is still on the books.
If you agree with me that something needs to be done about copyright, I need your help.
Thank you for your attention.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
I commend Mr. Thurrott on his professional journalism. Now perhaps he'll return the favor and commend my wonderful sarcasm. Or my clever circular logic.
HP's blockbuster deal with Apple will have one exciting side effect. The company will be working with Apple to add support for Microsoft's superior Windows Media Audio
/. poll: What format do you keep the majority of your music in?
I'm not sure how "exciting" this is to the average slashdotter. It doesn't mean jack to me, considering all my music is in either MP3 or OGG.
I think that would make a good
- MP3
- WMA
- AAC
- OGG
- CowboyNeal just sings to me
Thoughts?
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
No no no, you guys are taking the word "Superior" out of context. This is understandable, since he has a few typos. He didn't mean "Superior Quality". Far from it.
He clearly meant "Superior" as in:
"Superior Officer", you know... the guy at boot camp who tells you to clean his boots with your tounge or he'll kick your ass.
"Mother Superior", the lady who wacks your knuckles with her yardstick and put's soap in your mouth for speaking out of turn.
"Superior", as in "above being affected or influenced; indifferent or immune" BY THE LAW.
They just think they're SOOOOOO superior...
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Consider this: who's seriously supporting AAC right now besides Apple?
Umm, HP, Pepsi, a bunch of record companies, a million iPod owners, and 70% of the online music buyers?
PLATFORM LOCK-IN.
You can get it for Mac and Windows. Sorry, no Linux, OS/2, BeOS or Amiga support, but there's always something you give up when you decide to buck the trend.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
It's technically a bit offtopic, but apparently MS was taken by surprise by the HP/Apple announcement, and wasn't able to put together a good spin quickly enough. The snip below is from a NY Times article:
Thursday the company appeared unprepared for the Apple-Hewlett agreement, which clearly stung Microsoft executives. They said the agreement would limit choice and harm consumers.
"Windows is about choice, you can mix and match all of this stuff," said David Fester, general manager of Microsoft's Windows digital media division. "We believe you should have the same choice when it comes to music services."
Priceless... :)
* * *
It is a dada story -- it has no moral.
Paul Thurrott has a history of bias against Apple and very unreliable rumor mongering.
Windows Media Anything sucks. They are the worst set of codecs ever. The only reason any consumer uses 'em is because 1) the app is installed on the computer to begin with and 2) all the content is delivered in that format. The only reason content makers use 'em is because 1) the app is installed on every computer to begin with and 2) because of that wonderful DRM M$ shoves down our throats.
Superior number of artifacts even at the highest "quality" setting, superior amount of information lost, superior amount of annoyance to a listener with any amount of hearing, superior at convincing people to stick with CDs, etc. etc. etc.
The parent poster didn't whine at all, he was stating his decision to not get an ipod. I think it's you who is whining.
Apple's iTunes service is the BEST one. They don't need to lock people into it to get them to use it. Supporting WMA will let people who already purchased WMA music buy an iPod. It will also make it look like they have choice, even to move to another player if they buy music in WMA. Apple isn't Microsoft, they don't need to block out other choices to succeed.
I have to remember that for the next time someone says zelotry only exists among Linux users.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but, doesn't MS make a lot of money by licensing the WMA technology to other companies (DVD players, Dell [for the jukebox], etc)?
So, if this were to be true, every sale of an iPod would generate revenue for MS.
Somehow I don't think that apple would really let this happen -- at least not to Apple branded models.
-CPM
---You're all I need, When the water runs deep, You're all I need, Now I cry my soul to sleep -- Collective Soul, Needs
base3s-Computer:~ passerm$ ls -1a /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Resources. n .lprojr oja cp.icnsT unes-cd.icns. icns- itms.icnsu nes-mp3.icnsT unes-ogg.icns <-------
i Tunes-snd.icnsn sn esHelper.appr oj
.
.
Dutch.lproj
English.lproj
French.lproj
Germa
Italian.lproj
Japanese.lproj
Spanish.lp
da.lproj
fi.lproj
iTunes-aac.icns
iTunes-a
iTunes-aiff.icns
iTunes-audible.icns
i
iTunes-database.icns
iTunes-device
iTunes-eq.icns
iTunes-generic.icns
iTunes
iTunes-movie.icns
iTunes-mp2.icns
iT
iTunes-mpg.icns
iTunes-nvf.icns
i
iTunes-playlist.icns
iTunes-sd2.icns
iTunes-visual.icns
iTunes-wav.ic
iTunes-wma.icns
iTunes.icns
iTunes.rsrc
iTu
ko.lproj
no.lproj
pt.lproj
sv.lp
zh_CN.lproj
zh_TW.lproj
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
oooo...less than the iPod and I bet it comes with a nice jog wheel and award-winning JukeBox software that lets you seamlessly manage your music?
oh...it doesn't...oh well....I'll buy the iPod.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
I just picked up a Rio Karma, and I must tell you that I love this thing. I could go on telling you about all of the features it has, but I'll keep minimal with only the following four words.
Ogg and FLAC support.
For those of us who don't use Windows, all other OS' are supported through an ethernet connection (and they are working on mass storage through USB as well).
Check out www.riovolution.com for more details.
I think you misspelt suppository.
I own a NomadII player, from Creative, and I really thank the fact that it has WMA support on it: a MP3 that weights 3.5 megs, in WMA can be 1.5-1.7 megs. Since the player only has 128 megs, that amount really makes a difference. But does it really matter when you have 10 or 20 gigs of space? I don't use WMA as my main format to rip audio-cd, either. (OGG is the choice there)... just for the portable player.
:: Andrea
Anime Wallpapers
AFAIK they're not really. They're piggy-backing on quicktime.
I'm not sure about the Windows or OSX players, but a linux build of real's helix player is showing an aac plugin. So there at least the support seems to be native. Never tried playing any aac files though, so I can't say how complete that support is.
Everything will be taken away from you.
So if you look at those icons, you see all sorts of formats. Now look at the 3rd and 6th icons on the last row... WMA and OGG.
Maybe OGG support is comming?
PS: Also of interest, there are icons that are labled "movie", "nvf", and "sdii". Anyone know what those last two are?
PPS: I see that there are two icons for AAC, one that's locked and one that isn't. That's cute ;)
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
nt
Who wants to bet that over 90% of the replies blather about "Superior?!"?
Get a grip. WMA has been proven time and again to be one of the best codecs in both overall sound and in efficiency (sound per bitrate). This is a simple fact.
Now, next issue - DRM. It's here to stay and I don't have a problem as long as the restrictions are reasonable. If they're not - it's an easy solution. Don't use the service.
Finally, Ogg Vorbis. OK - we get it, it's a good codec. Big freaking deal. It's _never_ going to storm the market. It's not even that much better than WMA - most people would be extremely sensitive to hear any difference.
Oh - and WMA keeps improving. I'd take a $200 bet that in 2 years the latest WMA codecs will sound as good or better than Ogg Vorbis. And then why would anyone use OV?
You're basically marginalizing yourself if you use anything other than MP3, WMA, or AAC.
"hyperactive boosterism"...yea, i hate those kinds of websites...
but i still dont see why all the ogg-philes have to complain every time something doesnt support ogg, or why such comments get modded up. Just buy a Rio Karma and get over it!
-- listen to interesting music, support independent radio... WPRB
What I would like to see, is support for ogg/vorbis instead.
I'm just sick and tired of all these proprietary and restrictive formats that lock you into things.
It's time we see a lot more use of open protocols that allow the owner/user the freedom to choose.
1. Write something about MSFT
2. Watch the opensource zealots fart hot flames and pee acid
3. Get more traffic/ad money
Since apple is "so into OSS" they need to go ahead and add .ogg support also. If Apple is trying to sale iPods I think that would do the trick.
superior my ass... that is all.
Ross Winn "not just another ugly face..."
Apple's iTunes service is the BEST one. They don't need to lock people into it to get them to use it. Supporting WMA will let people who already purchased WMA music buy an iPod. It will also make it look like they have choice, even to move to another player if they buy music in WMA. Apple isn't Microsoft, they don't need to block out other choices to succeed.
What I really want to see out of this HP + Apple lovefest is the ability to play iTunes songs on my iPaq.
There is a streaming WMA my school uses for distance education lessons. Sometimes I can not access those pages, as their server is crappy. Other times when there are many people using the server, I get 30 seconds of play then it buffers again. And they only leave a lesson up as long as it is going to be on the next test, then they take down the lesson. Is there ANY way to record a WMA to a hard drive? Please help!!!
What is wrong with MPEG's???? Those are easy to use, save, and play.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
SUPERIOR MY ASS.......
btw, AAC has been shown in a few sound magazines, as well as on Slashdot linked articles as being the superior one.... sooooooo how much money did Billy Boy give you to say it was superior?
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
And the point of this is what?
if i had some mod points, i'd mod you out of the 'troll' rating you have. the post was funny. wtf is up with /.'s moderating lately? first the goatse crap gets modded up and this kidn of stuff gets modded as a 'troll.' seriously dumbass mods around here.
Yes, I hear all you balking at "superior", and I agree that it is not. But even if it were I still have to ask why bother? Mp3 and ACC are good enough. There are things I care more about in a small device than more format options. Perhaps a convertion utility that runs on the host computer would be enough. But how about more options in that little portable doo-dad.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
Paul Thurrott
I use uncompressed WAV, you insensitive clod!
Mod down. Parent is troll link to goatse.cx picture.
Go to Apple's website and watch the 1984 Commercial in the "20 Years of Macintosh" section. You can see an iPod on the hip of the woman throwing the hammer. I recommend watching the highest resolution and checking each frame. You'll see it.
.deviatefromtheabsolute.
Are you sure? Because "iPod Afficianado writes to a short piece at Connected Home magazine in which Paul Thurrott " Sounds like the Rock and/or Bob Dole talking.
Shouldn't it say Paul Thurrott writes...
First time I ever heard someone argue that Pepsi influences IT standards.
Blatant lies are generally considered flamebait, but I'm looking for someone to show the relative merits of the file formats again. The order of quality and efficiency generally leaves WMA on the bottom.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I wonder if uses it as a tax write off?
Look at the source for the site:
, _pl="",_ce="",_ja="na",_rf,_bn,_bv,_x1,_x2,_x3,_ar ,_we;( "PUT")>=0)|| . . .
var _dt,_sv=10,_oe=0,_et=0,_ss="na",_sc="na",_ln="na"
_dt=(new Date()).getHours();_bn=navigator.appName;function _wn(_nm){if((_nm.indexOf("NAME")>0&&
_nm.indexOf
Need I say more?
Hah. Gee, what a shock. Paul Thurrott whores himself out to Microsoft again. I'm SHOCKED, SHOCKED I say. He's only done it a few times before... not so surprising that he should do it yet again. He's just a pro-MS troll who happens to get paid for it.
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Why complain? I like that quote. It let's me know that there's nothing of value in the article and saves me the trouble of reading it. Good night.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The ipod (as beautiful as it is) was only a success due to the evangelism from the geek contingent (not just the Appleratti).
It was the enthusing that saw the ipod sneak its way into the trendwhore set, on to MTV, and finally in to the hearts of the mass-market.
Ensuring the love of the hardcore is the best way of starting a mass-market offensive.
He has a whole site
And I thought goatse was disgusting...
Yeah, but wouldn't Goatse be a "hole" site?
Some highlights:
Lost amid all the hubbub of CES was the start of Macworld Conference & Expo, which opened Tuesday with an unexciting Steve Jobs keynote.
Apple might have to face music of another kind in a class-action lawsuit that will likely be filed this month against the company in California.
Microsoft, the industry's 800-pound gorilla, has just launched an advertising campaign aimed directly at Linux's OSS solution.
Positive MS articles, negative Apple/Linux articles.
I use Macs to up my productivity, so up yours Microsoft!
Has this "reporter" ever done one minute of research? 2 points alone kill his article.
1. Jobs stated in the last conference call (look it up at apple.com), there is no need to work with #2 when they are #1. This was in response to weather or not the iPod would support WMA.
2. Why would Apple allow HP to rebrand their player and gut their online store? Where is the profit? I know the argument of more iPod sales, but if that was all Apple really was after then why bother with the store in the first place? They could have spent that time and money making sure the iPod worked with every format known to man.
TANSTAAFL
Two million people.
1. Pay for ALL of your music.
2. Pay SCO their license fee.
Superior? WMA? My ass it is. How about Microsoft travels the same route as the rest of the world instead of the world plus dog being expected to do it BillG's way. This is a waste of resources. HP is off it's nutter.
If you don't like what I write don't be a CS and mod it down. Refute it.
Yea I can't spell. So what is your point?
It's irresponsible to put this on the front page as if this were news, or even a rumor. If you read the article, you can see that the suggestion that Apple might support WMA in their iPods is merely wild speculation.
Admittedly, the article is poorly written. It's not easy to tell that the first paragraph is based on fact (HP really is licensing the iPod from Apple) and the second paragraph is based on fantasy (Paul Thurrott is really hoping WMA crushes all other codecs.) That probably reflects that Thurrott himself has trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality. Nevertheless, critical readers should be able to make that distinction.
Note that I didn't say I was surprised this ended up on the front page of Slashdot. I'm only saying it's irresponsible.
All that I read into it is that the iPod will be able to play WMA's as it can do MP3's and MP4's (AAC) as it does now. The capability to play AAC's was added to my iPod by a simple ROM update (2nd generation 20 gig).
What's more interesting is that iTunes would have to be tweaked to to be able to know about them to be able to synch them. And if it knows about them, it should be able to play them; I can't see having the ability to organize without the ability to play them. And if it can play them, who needs Windows Media player?
What doesn't make sense is what do they need HP for? You think Apple's going to hand over their ROM code or source code to iTunes to HP? Yeah, right. I'm sure there are still plenty of people who remember how one of their PC partners ended up sticking Apple's QuickTime code into Video for Windows....
And what does HP get out of those? Companies who pee into MS' sandbox usually end up having licensing problems, or price changes on their Windows and Office licenses.
That URL has been disguised like an absolute champion!!. I bow down to your l33t trickery skillz!!
OK, here's a great scientific comparison of AAC, WMA, and MP3, and its all very easy to understand: http://www.tomshardware.com/consumer/20020712/2u4u -04.html
The results: AAC wins. MP3 loses only because it dampens throughout the frequency range. WMA comes in 2nd, but it chops at a much lower frequency than either AAC or MP3. Looks like it gets 2nd place only because its freely available to 95% of the computer users (M$ supporters). Not convincing if you ask me. When asked if he was concerned that Apple only has less than 5% of the market share, Steve Jobs responds by saying that its a larger share than BMW and Mercedes combined have in the auto industry. I love it!
they released a new WMA format superior to the current one. Considering how lousy the current WMA format is, coming up with a superior version shouldn't be too difficult so I'm amazed they've waited so long.
No one is really talking about the real issue here with online music today.
What brand of whore-house crack is Jobs smoking to dream up the iPod mini in all it's 4GB glory for only $50 less than a 15GB iPod. Does he think any of us could give a log of dried dog poop whether it's the size of a business card or if it comes in those ghey colors? What ass-clown is going to choose to buy the mini and get screwed on the storage for a mere $50 bucks? If you are already spending $250, what's $50 more for some real storage? Are we supposed to think it's worth it because they actually include two types of cables with it?
I wanted to punch Jobs in the face when he announced that price, and with a straight face too. Nothing but legions of goose-steppers in that auditorium, clapping for that sort of ram-it-up-your-arse announcement.
Don't even get me started about $39 white ear buds.
Sounds like a really good business move for cupertino. WMA support would also be added to iTunes, since that is the preferred method to interact with the iPod. The goals of iTunes and iPod are the same - to be the gateway between you and your media. This is how Apple makes money. Adding support for as many codecs possible for both iTunes and iPod is in their best intrests, since it only increases the likelyhood that you are buying a product from them. I could see a similar type of convergence between video/quicktime/iTunes and video capable iPods in the Future.
I use Amadeus II for my music editing.
I can't believe I can listen to the files in I-tunes, thanks slashdotters. I know one good thing that came out of this "news" article.
And to add to the confusion, check out the screenshots for the Service Pack 2 preview.
Note the title bars -- "Virtual PC". He's running it on a Mac!
So WTF -- is he a Windows zealot or closet Mac user!?
you don't know much about technology, do you?
technology standards in the same lineage are often in competition with eachother.
Just because ACC has come along doesn't mean that everyone whose been using MP3 is going to stop, nor does it mean that those who do stop will start using ACC instead of an alternative.
Don't beleive me? Well, consider the people who are now questioning whether IPv6, the annointed succesor to IPv4, is going to be widely adopted.
Consider how long Intel has been trying to get out from under the x86 architecture (the Itanium is just the latest in a line of general purpose CPUs Intel has created from the ground up).
Don't believe me? Why is does Microsoft try so damn hard to get people to upgrade to the latest version of Office or Windows?
Why would Apple work with HP to add WMA support to the iPod? Wouldn't they work with ... um, Microsoft? You know, the guys who made the WMA format?
Since when does HP own the code or the licensing rights to WMA format and codecs? Is HP going to act as some sort of reverse engineering source, then pass on to Apple the specs so Apple can clean-room code a WMA compatible codec?
I can't in anny manner understand why Apple would be working with HP instead od Microsoft to implement WMA.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
FUCK YOU MODS.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
I don't understand why a format is bashed for allowing DRM. It makes it a more flexible format. It helps open the door to content providers that would otherwise be scared off by online content.
But WMA != DRM. It simply supports it.
I have over 3GB of legal, non-DRM WMA files on my computer. The fact that WMA supports DRM does not effect my use at all.
First, download the Samba 2.2.7 archive from one of the many mirror sites and extract it as you normally would. Configure, build and install Samba per their instructions (hint: cd source; ./configure; make install). Next, download my module from here, then modify the Makefile to point the SAMBAHOME to the samba-2.2.7 directory and, if desired, modify the INSTALLDIR location where the module will be installed. Finally, run "make" to build the module, then "make install" (as root) to install the module.
Yeah that sounds a hell of a lot quicker than clicking the little triangle button in iTunes.
"The company will be working with Apple to add support for Microsoft's superior Windows Media Audio"
You had me going until you mentioned Windows Media and superior in the same sentence.
I've thought about that before too, and it sounds nice, but it's not going to happen. There is still a little problem of a different copany called Apple, but this one is a record label. To quote FoxNews:
So far Apple has gotten away with iTMS, but I don't thing that becoming a record label (which is basically what you are suggesting), indi or not, would fly any farther than you can toss a yellow submarine.
SCO.com uses Linux
craptastic.
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
So, Apple can either let iTunes die in a decade or so
Or... You can get iTunes shipped on almost every computer on the planet and sublicence iPods, to keep the growth up. Then why would you die in 100 years, much less 10?
iTunes really could be the next eBay (which dispite issues has no other close competitor).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Before more of you go off on a flamewar against poor old Paul - who is a paragon of virtue, by the way - I have taken the time to paste the definition of 'superior' here, and I have highlighted in italics the particular usage that I believe was intended, for the WMP format.
Once you all read this I'm sure it will all make sense.
superior
\Su*pe"ri*or\, a. [L., compar. of superus being above, fr. super above, over: cf. F. sup['e]rieur. See Super-, and cf. Supreme.] 1. More elevated in place or position; higher; upper; as, the superior limb of the sun; the superior part of an image.
2. Higher in rank or office; more exalted in dignity; as, a superior officer; a superior degree of nobility.
3. Higher or greater in excellence; surpassing others in the greatness, or value of any quality; greater in quality or degree; as, a man of superior merit; or of superior bravery.
4. Beyond the power or influence of; too great or firm to be subdued or affected by; -- with to.
5. More comprehensive; as a term in classification; as, a genus is superior to a species.
6. (Bot.) (a) Above the ovary; -- said of parts of the flower which, although normally below the ovary, adhere to it, and so appear to originate from its upper part; also of an ovary when the other floral organs are plainly below it in position, and free from it. (b) Belonging to the part of an axillary flower which is toward the main stem; posterior. (c) Pointing toward the apex of the fruit; ascending; -- said of the radicle.
See? Very clear - the WMP format is an ovary attached to the AAC format, or something, and is just kind of generally flower-like.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Superior is a lake, it's meant as an indicator that the WMA format is drowning. Glad to know someone else can see it coming.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
An interesting use for *.ogg is as music for computer games. You can't really use *.mp3 because of the $50k royalty charge, so games like Warlords IV come bundled with music in *.ogg format.:)
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
And remember this?
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/ 20040107/ap_on_bi_ge/technology_jobs_5
"There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore," Carly Fiorina, chief executive for Hewlett-Packard Co., said Wednesday.
HP's new business plan: Fire American employees and pay Indians $1/hour to add the industry's most restrictive DRM to Apple's ipod!..
Invent!
Indeed.
or fire wire, what it does not, and I have to site around HOW LONG? for my whole collection to be moved over?
I think you are right I stick with the iPod
"Ogg" sounds like the name of a caveman.
I wrote an Ogg Vorbis in DirectSound class which is for DX8 but with a few lines of code changed, it works in 7 as well making it compatible on old hardware. Prior to that I was using MP3s with DirectMedia which also works just fine. What got me to switch was the licensing costs.
Many new games comming out use Ogg as well and probably for the same reason. With programmers it's a simple issue of money.
But with mass market, it's *marketing.* My CD collection is ripped to MP3s because that's what I had. And that's what most people have because "MP3" is considered hip and there are no licensing fees. So the selling point for developers (the big selling point of Ogg) has zero relavence to the mass market. My sound system makes the onboard soundcard sound good. Getting a better sound card is going to happen long before I spend another several hours reripping my collection.
"Ogg" is neither cute nor hip. Which rules out the female and male demographics. "Ogg" support is free except for production costs which some companies apparently feel is made up for by getting that extra geek dollar. But it's going to be a very long time before a player is sold on the idea it has Ogg outside its product details listing
At the very least the Ogg community needs to come up with an AKA for the format that's marketing friendly. And then it needs to be sold on the idea that it sounds better. So much better that it warrents dropping MP3 for it.
Japanese symbols and dragons are are pretty big craze. Pick a cool looking symbol with a nice meaning and a mascot to make it trademarkable (you don't want incompatible players sporting the logo) and then you've got a fashion item. The Napster logo is a very recognizable symbol. And you're not required to charge to use the trademark. You just sue if companies use it on players that aren't Ogg qualified.
You may not like the idea of "selling out" to get Ogg in the mass market but that's what it takes. It needs a catchy name and a catchy attractive logo.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
have fun with your Ogg files and your 5 pound portable music player....I mean laptop.
Whatever. My Neuros weighs less than 9 ounces. It definitely plays Oggs, just like the Rio Karma.
AAC everywhere? How many CD players in cars play AAC? I don't think people will be re-ripping their thousands of mp3s/oggs/whatever into AAC.
Actually, I think that's Virtual PC running on a Win XP machine.
Vonal Declosion
The author can be reached pretty easily.
Oh, which btw is a Microsoft product now :(
Vonal Declosion
You mean my Rio Karma? You're off a bit on the weight, though; it's 5.5 ounces, i.e. 0.1 ounces less than an iPod with the same disk capacity. That and its list price is about $50 less. Oh, and it can connect via Ethernet, has standard RCA jacks in its docking station so it's connected to my stereo system whenever it's recharging, and has a Java-based connection software so it can talk to any operating system with Java support.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
It simply isn't true.
Why do people believe everything they read on the Internet?
why would you limit your future platform to play those music files?
15 years from now, if ANY of today's music file formats are still supported, odds are it will be mp3.
mp3 is so universal and easy. play it on mac os 9, os x, linux, freebsd, windows, dos, handhelds of all sorts, hardware players like my pioneer headunit, sony walkmans, game consoles.
hey. you want to limit your options...you go right ahead.
keep convincing yourself you made the right choice.
Hey, his home page claims an *entire blog* devoted to non-Microsoft technologies. Intrigued, I cruised over there and was treated to gems like these:
How far behind is Mac gaming?
I had to laugh out loud when I saw MacWorld's hilarious "2003 Game Hall of Fame," which reads like a list of PC games past. Which games made the list, you ask? Well, you'll have to think back a bit, because most of them debuted on the PC one to three years before they hit the Mac. Here are the PC release dates for the mainstream games that made the list (even the bizarro choice, Noiz2sa ["most difficult-to-pronounce" game, duh] was out on the PC first, though I couldn't find a release date):
Zoo Tycoon - Released on the PC October 2001
Unreal Tournament 2003 - Released on the PC September 2002
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2003 - Released on the PC July 2002
Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast - Released on the PC March 2002
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Desert Siege - Released on the PC March 2002
Dungeon Siege - Released on the PC April 2002
Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne - Released on the PC July 2003 (the sole simultaneous release)
The Operative: No One Lives Forever - Released on the PC November 2000
On the PC, we're playing newer versions of these games now (I actually have both Tiger Woods 2004 and Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, for example). But the funniest part of this roundup, of course, is the section titled 'Best Place to Get Classic Games." Clearly, that would be the Mac. But serious game players have know this for some time, so it's not a huge surprise. I just think it's interesting to see it so clearly demonstrated.
posted 1/4/2004 10:55:32 PM
and
More egregiously, Apple still locks its customers into their proprietary music store and crappy AAC format.
(I wondered about this -- isn't WMA proprietary, and AAC open-speced as part of MPEG 4, or am I confused?)
May we never see th
The fact that WMA supports DRM does not effect my use at all.
Yeah, but you don't know all of the subtil and intricate details of the english language, such as the minute yet significant difference between "effect" and "affect," so your opinion is completely and utterly invalid.
And then you've got 3GB of WMA...
Most excellent!!!
and when will the superior new WMA version come out on Windows?
This is a critical listening test I did for the various formats and bit rates.
No one is listening to your cries.
Mr. Turrot is just one of those trolls who happen to write for some MS magazine. Reading other articles, you will see that he is just an MS marketing drone. He even goes so far to say that the Windows vision of seamless computing will bring freedom and choice because there are a lot of companies supporting the MS formats (but he fails to mention that the only freedom and choice there is comes from MS).
subtil ??? Pot...kettle... retard....
Here's why:
I have friends and friends of friends who compose original music. They encoded their recordings as WMA files and wanted to share them. What's that? They can't! No one else can play their files because of the DRM in WMP9.
Which is exactly the reason I oppose DRM. Companies hawking it have no problem with blocking ordinary folks from making music for themselves (because ordinary folks can only be consumers hitting the feeder bar for a food pellet).
Why does the quote mention that the Windows Media format is 'superior' to .acc? .acc is mpeg-4 (.mp4) so i would think it is pretty darn good.
You're not original at all. Don't you think there's enough negativity and cynicism floating around? No need to add to it.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
I wanted a nice MP3 player where all the specs were correct. But it comes with WMA. I'm not using it for WMA now nor will I ever. I'm anxiously waiting a firmware upgrade to be able to play Ogg Vorbis files.
It's a shame though that my buy will be seen in the statistics as a vote FOR WMA. Like I had a choice. I'd take a firmware with just MP3 and Ogg Vorbis any day, instead of some lame Microshaft format.
It is, eh. A not entirely stupid way of running a service pack beta without hosing your main machine.
But not as cool as VMWare.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
You don't HAVE to include DRM in the files you encode. It is an option that can be turned on or off in Windows Media Player.
OK, so that made me left. Someone mod up the parent. Haha, 'hole'...
streaming albums to the internet is a bit more serious than copying those files from one computer to another. am I missing something here?
It's great for iPod to support WMA files-- more PC makers will jump on the bus (like HP). Interesting that it will take Apple's approval for WMA to get anywhere. There's likely more $$$ in iPods than in iTMS, and more in iPod licensing than iPod manufacturing...
It serves Apple's interests to be inclusive-- like picking up USB 2.0 without blinking. Apple should adopt whatever formats have users behind them.
Even without DRM WMA (like most or all Microsoft formats) is still evil.
Imagine that you'd like to switch to another platform, Mac or a GNU/Linux desktop.
On GNU/Linux you're pretty much out of luck. You can probably make mplayer play the files but who wants to have a video player playing their music files? I'm also betting that you can't do it with even Mplayer on non-x86 because it's probably relying on some Windows dlls for the playback.
I don't know that much about MacOS (X or otherwise) support for WMA but I'm guessing that it's playable *for the moment* as there's supposed to be a Windows Media Player version for OS X. But in addition to the fact that WMP is an awful choice of a player, there's no telling when MS will discontinue that player and then you again end up with unplayable files.
Sticking with mp3 or preferably ogg ensures you'll never be left in a situation where those 3GB are useless because you have nothing to play them with. And seriously, what are the advantages? Against the mp3s I guess it probably could sound better at the same bitrate but AFAIK Vorbis fares very well against the MPEG4-based codecs.
So, some dimwit with a woody for MS and an axe to grind with Apple says the iPod will support WMA as a result of the HP deal but does not provide the source for this information and everyone goes into a frenzy? It is highly unlikely that this is true. Apple is using the iTunes/iPod success to push ACC. I predict there will be no WMA on the iPod and this guy will once again be revealed as an idiot.
Actually, he's running it inside of another Microsoft OS so as to sandbox the beta.
Err, you can get VirtualPC for Windows as well. As I can assure you that only XP comes with those hideous maximize/close etc buttons.
I wondered about this
You are right to wonder. Paul Thurrot's diatribe isn't worth reading.
Well, I was drooling over the new iPod, but if Apple is gonna do that they just lost a potential customer. I already have a Titanium G4 PowerBook, and thought the iPod would be a nice addition, not anymore. I'll stick to Linux, and OSX, but I'll get a device that does Ogg instead. Fcuk mp3, and wma.
Yeah, it's cool that they are making their own version of the ipod with help from Apple.
Yeah, it's neat that they hope to add WMA support.
However, I will not buy any of their crap, since they have taken the viewpoint that every single music afficianado out there is a thief, declaring war on the "Sharing Culture" at the recent CES.
I mean, their CEO filled her keynote speech at CES Carly with media piracy rhetoric, saying that consumers are undermining the economy and the morals of this nation by exchanging music.
You want to buy from a company that thinks of all of you as thieves for ripping music, or *gasp* downloading a bunch of 1's and 0's that when put electronically, become music, go ahead. Just don't say you weren't warned.
People Talking in Movie shows.. people smoking in bed.. people voting republican.. GIVE THEM A BOOT TO THE HEAD!
Some facts on WMA:
You can't edit it.
You can't produce it unless using the MS commercial program, or the free spyware one (sends info to RIAA).
You can't save the audio files and play them in a boxen where WMA is not recongnized (you understand what that means).
WMA has hidden "evil bits". Can be used to blackmail pirates.
When WMA becomes the standard, we won't have to worry about piracy at all!!
WMA has certain superiorities....
Why get an iPod? Rio Karma is by far the best. Unless you have more than 20 GB of songs you want to take with you, there is no contest. Only place iPod beats Rio is in capacity, the maximum for Rio is 20 GBs, or approximately 10,000 songs. Check it out: http://www.digitalnetworksna.com/shop/_templates/i tem_main_Rio.asp?model=220&cat=53
You can get one for about $250 online.
which means that apple, is not pro-open-source/open-standards then. right?
If on the other hand, they accepted Ogg, everything would be better.
stuff your iPods.
As for why DRM is bad in the first place, it boils down to a very fundamental debate over property rights and the rights of corporations versus the rights of individuals. Yes, DRM does make new products available, but you have to be remember what you're giving up in exchange, which is ownership and therefore control of the product. The value you place in that exchange is probably related to where you fall on the spectrum between sheparded bourgeoise and intellectual revolutionary pinko. Remember, though, that MS wants their DRM technology to extend through every level of the computer, which is much further reaching than Apple's media-oriented DRM. MS-DRM iniative even bears the newspeak name "Trusted Computing."
------- Was it just a coincidence I got moderator points the first time I logged on to
.. Microsoft is currently hard at work modifying the WMA standard, so that it will NOT function correctly on anything other than the current version of Windows Media Player.
:)
Probably
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
Where are mod points when I need them +3 insightful.
Who said they do?
The question I was responding to was, "Who else besides Apple supports AAC?"
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Dude - I feel for 'ya. NOT! I would never, ever, willfully waste my time encoding audio into a Microsoft PROPRIETARY audio format. I'm sorry, but doing so is just retarded. If you must degrade audio by running it through a lossy compression algorithm, the least you can do is use a high quality *standard* format such as MPEG. (Layer 2, Layer 3, AAC, whatever variety you choose.)
WMA is not just proprietary, its not even very good!*** I can *always* hear high frequency artifacts in WMA at 128k despite dubious "better than MP3 at lower bitrate" claims by Microsoft. In my opinion, the WMA artifacts are actually worse than MP3. (And MP3 at 128k is pretty bad.)
If you must use lossy compressed audio, good options for you are: use MP3 at a relatively high bitrate. (192k is probably good enough for most people. I can hear artifacts on some limited material at 192k so, if you are a super critical listener, it might be worth it to go 256k.) Alternately, consider a high quality MPEG AAC encoder at 128k or 160k. I have listened to 128k AAC and have yet to find obvious artifacts.
Now if your cool you will give up lossy technology all together and go with FLAC. FLAC rocks! And you dont need to worry about compression artifacts because, well, its lossless!
*** note: apparently with the latest and greatest WMA9 PRO (read, probably not what you used to encode your music library) the sound quality is quite a bit better. That's great and all but there are no players out there that can decode WMA9 PRO - other than a PC. And even if there were, it is still proprietary/evil and you should refuse to use it!
Anyway, thanks!
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
Of course you could always just buy a Creative Labs Zen (NX/Xtra), which already supports both mp3 and wma. Also the 30gig NX is about $120 cheaper than the 20gig iPod. Other features include USB 2.0 support, THX audio and replaceable batteries. Now why would anyone buy an iPod?
Because you can totally pirate wmas!@ C'mon this is bullshit, plain and simple. Nobody uses WMAs and after this people will continue to not use "superior" WMAs!
Nero encodes to AAC, Real encodes to AAC and plays it, and there are a number of flash players I have read about over the last few weeks that are supporting AAC.
Real encodes to AAC that only works under Real.. won't work on your ipod.
Think before you speak. Although that may be asking too much around here.
...at any comparable bitrate. I've listened to them side-by-side using studio quality DAC and hi-fi headphones (Grados and Sennheiser HD-580). WMA blew Ogg Vorbis away in terms of quality. I'm too lazy to compare WMA and AAC, but I wouldn't be surprised if WMA blows AAC away, too.
Yes, but WMP9's codecs are virtually unplayable on non-Windows platforms, DRM or no DRM. In no small part because of the DRM - backwards engineering being nice and illegal if a copyright protection method is even involved.
Yes, AAC is open, but I don't think FairPlay, the DRM component, is.
Unless Microsoft reverses their position on open source, I doubt WMA/WMV is going to achieve parity.
I heard that IBM and Apple have started giving bogus information about non-existant but plausible projects to employees not involved in important, genuine projects, in order to identify NDA-violators.
Could this be an example ?
Maybe we deserve this world ?
Thank you for making me marginally on-topic; here's a quote from Thuggott's WinSuperSite, about the task-centered approach being touted for Longhorn. Again, this is mostly off-topic, but pause for a second and consider the almost inevitable consequences:What a great idea: "Daddy, what happenned to this man's bottom? In the pictures, next to the girl showing her hoo-haa, Daddy!"
(Incidently, this mis-feature isn't even unique to Microsoft: I'm typing this on a Sharp Zaurus, which also dynamically searches for documents. It becomes clear what a bad idea this is when you mount a remote 32GB partition, and the OS blithely decides that needs to be searched too, every time you want to open a document.And don't even think about multiple files with the same name in different directories, when "task centric" means "forget distracting canonical names".)
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
with AAC. Dolby has quite a bit of clout in the audio industry, and I think more people (who are perhaps less knowledgeable than the Slashdot crowd regarding audio file formats) would take AAC more seriously. Perhaps if the iPod has a Dolby logo in reference to AAC or something. I am sure a lot of shoppers would go, "Hey! This AAC thing is Dolby technology! Cool!".
I am sure some people look at AAC, and see that iPod is by Apple and think, "AAC... Must stand for Apple audio something... Must be proprietary, maybe I should go with this WMA standard... It's supported by so many players, it must be more open!".
-B
Since they don't pay for music anyway. HP and Apple know what the markets want and are doing whatever is necessary. Too bad it doesn't fit in with your "philosophy".
yeah gimme my oggs back, who stole my ogg?
Portable music players are in their infancy. There are over a billion PC's out there, yet merely a paltry few million music players have been sold.
We've got many millions of new customers coming into the market which will drive new music players, new music formats, new music distribution systems, etc.
So far all we've seen is the early adopters playing around with iTunes. By no means has iTunes "crossed the chasm". Once mainstream people really understand DRM music and how it is "resolutionally challenged" crippleware that sells for full price, there are likely going to be big changes in the online music world.
By "crippleware" I mean that you, the buyer, cannot do what you want to do with it. That is why people are using funny workarounds like snagging the temp files from Toast so they can get the unencrypted versions of their songs.
The rate of broadband adoption is slowing in the US. And for the most part, all affordable broadband is very low bandwidth compared to the rest of the world. So at least in the USA as disc-based music gets better and better (DVD-Audio, SACD), the value delivered by the disc will continue to improve vs. what is delivered via the wire.
Finally, at least vs iTunes, actual CD's seem like they are cheaper and easier. You get full songs, no DRM, any/all formats, and to top it off... you get a readymade CD, already printed cover art, already printed track listings, and a jewelbox. All for just about the same price as iTunes, especially if you buy used CD's or Universal's new more affordable CDs.
All in all, it is too early in the portable music player market to worry about the small moves that are being made today. WMA will never be popular in Asia, so it will never be a world standard. There is nothing to fear there. The RIAA-friendly abd special-interest friendly USA and EU are a different matter, though, where Microsoft can use their mu$cle to drive adoption of their format.
I'm a professionnal sound technician and AV technician, I have been a teacher and technical supervisor in a sound design school, i am a consultant for musicians and project studios. I have to my credit over 5 complete studios which I conceived and built.
Means, I have a very good hearing, my ears are quite sharp, I pick audibly what most people don't seem to hear. If I measure said waveform what i hear is there, so I do not "hear things".
Why all of this intro, to be sure you do not sonfound me with the type of geek with no ears that tell you a soundblaster is the best sound card and that WMA sounds better than AAC.
Professionnaly I can, without any doubt tell you that WMA is one of the worst audio codec. Remember I am not a raver kid fiddling with Reason thinking that I gosh darn know a lot about audio. I know a lot about audio and have the background to attest it.
I will then repeat what I just said: WMA is one of the worst codec for audio. Audio encoded in such a format displays serious phase cancellation across the spectrum, the bass are rumbling and quiet passages present some serious quantization artifacts and a awfull lot of granulation noise, plus the file, if properly measured, won't play back at the same speed all the time, the difference is subtle (most of the time being under a sec. but it can reach 2-3 sec.) but measurable, I do not kow if the slow down is due to heavy computation but I have never seen that kind of artifact in another codec.
WMA is NOT a good codec and it DOESN'T sound better than AAC and ATRAC sounds better than those two previous ones, Squeezer sounds better than the above 3.
AAC code is open but the format is a patent minefield.
:-)
WMA is completly closed apart from some reverse engineering work recently. It most likely is also a patent minefield.
So far Vorbis is the only truly open format for music. (Unless you count MOD
And I thought goatse was disgusting...
I guess his site should be renamed Gatese.
Even lame-encoded mp3 at 320k isn't perfect for some specific types of music for me. Charlotte Church's Enchantment, for example.
I'd rather see flac support on the ipod than wma. I wouldn't want to encode my entire music collection to flac though. My ipod only has the 10 gig drive, and most music sounds identical encoded at 256k.
Frankly, I'm at the point where I consider anything by him to be an attempt at astroturfing, nothing more.
Seriously. Take a look at what the guy's done. He runs not one, but two of the major Windows "enthusiast" sites. Design elements on these two sites are so obviously taken from Microsoft that it's a miracle they haven't sued him... unless he is already on their payroll.
I'd say it's time we stopped taking him seriously, were it not for one thing: he's Microsoft's most successful marketing tool ever, in that he's actually managed to garner some measure of respect. That makes him dangerous enough to watch, even if his arguments can be easily exposed for the marketing bunk that they are.
If you think OGG is so good, why not use ac3, it gives you 5.1 as well, and your AMP plays it /decoders it directly, no PC decoding. So its as close as digital as you can get to the speakers.
remember 5.1
I say ac3 wins.
Whether its 64kbps or 384bps, we dont care, disk space is cheap.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I have here on my good-people list for daring to state the blantantly obvious.
What a pitty so many people here prefer to put head on rear.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
DO people really care if LAMe is legal?
:)
How does that seriously impact peoples daily business, they just CLICK, run the app, encode, bingo its done, legal or not, doesnt change how the universe works, its done. How it was done is lost in time , in the past with no record.
mp3/ac3 is my choice.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Why in the hell would Apple need HP to put WMA in the iPod? All the would have to do is license it from Microsoft. Therrott is just trying to do whatever it takes to keep the number of hits up on his site so he can continue to get the press passes to Microsoft happenings.
The guy's site is so one-sided and pro-Microsoft, anti-Apple, and anti-Linux that he makes Fox News look "fair and balanced".
If you ask yourself if you are confused or Paul Thurrott you spent too much time on his site.
Ok so HP is making a deal with apple, but wheres this exciting side effect they talk of?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
1. Apple doesn't lock people into their music store; noone else has come up with a music store for Apple that I know of.
2. AAC isn't their format, and it isn't crappy. AAC is MP4 - Fairplay is a third party DRM tech that Apple licensed. But this guy Thurrott is so obviously an astroturfer I don't know why anyone is bother to post his stuff.
WMP? superior? How could something that reminds me of the word WiMP.. be superior?
"You don't HAVE to include DRM in the files you encode. It is an option that can be turned on or off in Windows Media Player."
You say that as if you're nervous whether the option will still be there in a year's time...
..given Carly-the-whore's comments last week???
-- I am. Therefore, I think!
They were "convicted" of illegally using the influence granted by their monopoly.
Monopoly's aren't illegal. Using the influence that monopoly grants you in certain ways get's you in trouble. In fact, it's doing certain things that would be perfectly legal for you to do, if you weren't a monopoly.
Would you trust anyone who works for Winnet Mag? Do they know what a winnet is?
n net
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=wi
Argh my freaking eyes!
Superior my arse.
HAD
to another lossy format (.mp3/ogg), you're going to lose even MORE information.
I hope that OGG finally gets the support it deserves.
To my ears it's a much better codec than WMA.
Well, it may be weird to you people not in Japan right now, but as someone currently living outside Tokyo, where *every* car I've been in or seen in showrooms has an MD Player and a DVD navigation system, it seems kind of natural to me.
The only reason I *don't* use Vorbis is because of the lack of player support (and the fact that, on the Mac, I've had too many issues with the Vorbis quicktime plugin that allows iTunes to play the files). Slashdot is about choice, right? If people choose WMA, that's *their* choice. I like AAC at 160; that's *my* choice. If you want to use Oggs, you should be able to excercise that choice and shouldn't be hampered by the wants of the majority.
That said, if you choose a non-standard format (and yes, OGG is non-standard, unless you're one of the, what is it, 2% of total computer users running Linux as a desktop OS?) you're essentially giving up a lot of the freedoms you'd enjoy if you went with the standard. It's a double-edged sword.
Also, while Apple might add WMA support to iPods (thus enabling Windows users who don't know better about ripping CD's to transfer their music collections), Apple will sell more iPods. Period. However, I'm pessimistic that such support will be seen on any but the HP iPod-a-likes. I'm still waiting for someone to reverse-engineer the firmware and add unofficial OGG support...
- Cloud
This guy is, at BEST, an unobjective journalist and at worst, a complete MS stooge. Consider anything that comes out of his piehole thusly.
Interesting... and all this time, we were ;)
using iWMA (inferior-WMA). I had a hunch Microsoft
could do better than what we see from them today..
Microsoft finally got off their Duff, and released
the sWMA format. w00t! Where can we find sWMA
players and media?
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
my eyes, my eyes are burning! is paul thurrott on the MS payrole? that site is a lovefest! i can feel my iq dropping, everythings going black... tell my folks... to use linux.. guhk.
Jack the sound barrier. Bring the noise.
...what about the BATTERIES??? Think of the batteries! Please!
Here are just a few iTunes/iTMS/iPod-related picks from Paul Thurrott's blog over past half year:
July 22, 2003:
"So BuyMusic.com is live. Like the excellent iTunes Music Store, it offers digital singles and album for download. The layout of the site is, perhaps, overly similar to iTunes. The similarities end there. BMC offers more songs (300K vs. 200K), better sound (WMA 9 vs. AAC), better prices (singles start at 79 cents vs. 99 cents), much better PC compatibility (it reaches the 97 percent of the world using Windows, not the ~1 percent using OS X), and better device compatibility (slew of devices vs. just a few on iTMS). The much ballyhooed problem with BMC--various DRM-related "limitations"--are not a problem: Most songs have unlimited sharing capabilities, or very reasonable limits (i.e. a limit of 10 CD burns. Oooohhhh.). In other words, iTMS, excellent though it is, is now officially toast. Apple should have supported Windows from Day One. Now, it's too late."
July 23, 2003:
"one of the best features of iTunes (and I've now downloaded 157 songs from the service) is that Apple lets you copy songs to up to three Macs"
July 24, 2003:
"I have a 5 GB iPod [...] the reason is that Apple refuses to add (the free) support for Windows Media Audio (WMA) 9 format, probably because it's afraid users would notice the quality difference if they had AAC, MP3, and WMA all running on the same player."
July 28, 2003:
"it's clear that Buymusic.com is going to stomp all over the iTunes Music Store. WMA is the right technology, Windows is the right platform, and Buymusic.com supports a much wider range of PCs and devices than does Apple."
August 03, 2003:
"Anyone want to take bets on when Buymusic.com surpasses iTunes' sales? I'm guessing it happens before Apple releases the Windows version of iTunes."
December 09, 2003:
"iTunes sales dropping significantly as holidays near [...] a cursory examination of Apple's publicly-revealed sales figures and the dates of those announcements reveals that iTunes sales are actually falling through the floor."
January 03, 2004:
As the owner of both a 1st generation (5 GB) iPod and a 2nd generation (30 GB, dock-based) iPod...I purchased over 200 songs from the iTunes Music Store. Bravo."
---
So keep on spreading the FUD, Paul.
I'll be watching you, asshole!
You can't accept statements made by people if there are subtle and common mistakes which reveal nothing of a person's true intellect (not even considering the fact they may not be native speaker of English).
/. if you haven't noticed. We're not writing doctoral theses here - we're chewing the fat.
Besides, dude, this is
In sum - you're a prig. Your opinion is the most irrelevant, I'd say.
to add support for Microsoft's superior Windows Media Audio
Oh PUH-leeze. This guy - Thurrott - is trying to outdo himself in being provocative and nasty. Even Vegas shills have more decency and dignity than this creep. Perhaps he's desperate to get visitors to his incredibly yucky 'super site'. The pics of him and his wife and kids and dog - are we supposed to be lured into thinking this is a nice guy?
If they ever make a movie out of this, I think Brad Dourif should play Thurrott - he already did such a good job with Grima Wormtongue.
..to go into a codec discussion fit as I get from the posts here, so I'll add in an interessting tidbit: /.er.
There are countless slashdotters here discussing WMV, Ogg, MP3, analog records, tape, magnetic wire and whatnot and which is superiour or not, I'm not gonna be the next fool to state that I have enough expertise in the field to give a judgement over audio quality. Only a few things:
1) The german CT - afaict on of the best computer magazines in the world - tested all formats a few years ago and - being a good IT magazine - they didn't have a winner but actually recomended Ogg amongst others. They also had a listening test marathon with sound engineers, editors and world class muscians attending. Sorry, but I actually trust the CT more than I trust any
2) I have exactly one (1!) CD in my collection where the manufacturers put additional audiotracks in a 'PC' codec onto it so one wouldn't have to go through the encoding hassle. And they used ogg.
Why would they do that? Easy: Costs them exactly zilch to do it. And this is the reason I don't believe those who say Ogg is dead. It's like that Computer expert saying Linux will never be mainstream because there's no company behind it. As if that's the reason why people select other products.
Free (beer, speech, etc.) and open will allways have the edge by being just that: free and open. Ogg won't go away anytime soon and could very well become standard once all non-computer based audio thingies leave the mainstream.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Sure...you don't have to include DRM - so what? Tell me, if I encode my son's birthday party in WMA - content I own, and later want in another format, how would I do that? Guess what - I CAN'T! Not legally. The format is legally bound up so that you have to use MS tools to read and write it legally, and the licenses for those tools, last I checked, won't let you produce another digital copy in the same quality. Maybe I could burn and then re-rip a CD of it - unless MS can convince the market to forgo that as well...and what a dumb-ass way to have to do it in the first place. WMA does even leave you with rights to your own content, let alone purchased rights to someone elses'. Like cattle to the butcher we march, herded by corporate shepherds anxious to feed of us and our children...
The heights of genius are only measurable by the depths of stupidity
Ogg is better.
did you miss the word EVENTUALY
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
He reported on the iTMS exploit by DVD Jon, for example, and he threw in this:
"Apple's primary competitor, Microsoft, created its own DRM scheme for its popular Windows Media Audio (WMA) and Windows Media Video (WMV) formats but built renewing capabilities into the technology, which helps Microsoft survive security exploits."
Not sure I agree that MS is the main competitor in online music sales (yet), and if you're talking about the two of them you might want to acknowledge that one reason Apple's DRM took off was because it wasn't perceived as being as odious as MS's. Still, he did at least close with: "...Apple has worked hard to strike deals with the recording industry and did a fantastic job of jump-starting the concept of inexpensive, downloadable, legitimate music. Let's hope that this DRM breach won't cause record companies to reverse their decisions to work with online music services."
Not a troll, just a big bad bias? He seems to have said basically positive stuff about Mozilla, too. Still, there are more than enough statements like:
"When you aggregate all the Linux distributions, Linux, not Windows, has had the most security vulnerabilities, year after year."
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Oh, by the way. A question. What exactly does "subtil" mean? Or did you mean to type "subtle" by chance?
-sloppy
It doesn't sound that good.
You can always tell a WMA, because in addition to the usual loss of phase that always identifies an MP3, it also sounds muffled, like I'm listening with blocked ears.
Amazing that they could make a codec that sounds so poor.
"The magic's in the algorhythm."
There is no magical algorithm. 128kb is simply not enough for high quality music. Its good enough for ear buds, but if you like to sit quietly and listen. Not just background music, but listen.
And you'll understand.
Apple has no more magic than Microsoft. You may want to believe it does, but both AAC and WMA are not capable of magic.
I know that it upsets your world-view. But it happens to be true.
There is no magic in a codec. 128kb is not enough bits to represent music for critical listening.
And I thought goatse was disgusting...
I guess his site should be renamed Gatese.
Yeah, because it's a huge stretch!
I don't understand the religious fervor over codecs. I'm 34, I was in high school and college when listening to rap and/or hair metal at high db in a small car was cool. I worked in the construction industry to put myself through school. With my abused ears, I can't tell the difference between 128 bit WMA, AAC, MP3, Ogg Vorbis, or original source. Plus, I've got kids now, who cares how high quality the latest Kindermusic or Barney CD sounds when ripped. That's all I get to listen to at home anyways. All I care is that all the stuff I've ripped over the years can be played in my favorite portable music player. Unfortunately it's a little too late, I reripped everything to stuff it on the iPod, but I can see how this would save a lot of HP customers some serious time. It's a good thing.
" WMA is supported on more devices and players than Apple's AAC (w/DRM)"
Yeah, but so what?
MP3 support is on every player, so why would you get music in a format that locks you into a handful of players.
We can argue all day about what sounds better than what, but MP3's have the capability of sounding excellent if you crank up the bit rate high enough, but more importantly, they'll be playable for as long as anybody cares about them, since they aren't dependent on the permission to play.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
"The copyright holder legally holds all the rights on their work,"
No, they most certainly do not.
Copyright restricts the ability to copy. Its that simple.
You see, copyright is trumped by the first sale doctrine. Lets see why:
1) You buy a CD.
2) You listen to CD
3) You get tired of CD
4) You sell CD.
Whoa. How can #4 happen if the copyright holder holds "all the rights".
it can't. Therefore your statement is false. And a little further research will quickly lead you to the conclusion that copyright is essentially a limited monopoly on distribution of a work to allow the author to profit from that work. The intent is to encourage authors to create "more stuff". That means that I can buy a CD, make it into a copy so I won't scratch the original. Loan it to my children to listen to, take it to a friend's house. All without the permission of the author!
But to say that copyright holders have all rights is merely a wet dream of media conglomerates. Its simply not true today.
MP3 sucks. I'm not one of those audiophile idiots who spends hundreds of dollars (or more) on cabling, but even I can tell the difference between MP3 and CD audio. The gap in quality is enormous. AAC and WMA aren't perfect, but they're much, much better.
there's a market for about a dozen computers in the world. Your prediction is just that, and they are proved wrong all the time...
Thomas Watson (IBM chair in 1943) said "I think there's a market for maybe five computers." He wasn't wrong at all, though the quote has been maligned in years since.
First of all, "computer" is a tricky word to interpret in this case because it can refer to both the concept of a computing machine, and the actual physical manifestation of such.
If Watson meant it in the sense of the physical object, he was dead accurate. And even if he didn't - his wasn't a prediction for the future, it was an accurate observation of the present.
No matter what this M$ fluffer says, there is no way Apple will be supporting WMA.
Now some kind of on-the-fly conversion of WMAs to AAC? That is FAR more likely...
Dude I think you're not only paranoid, you're stupid.
WMA licenses are NOT locked to MS tools. Anyone can go out there and license WMA, just like they can license MPEG4, or MP3, etc. What's nice is though that you do not have to pay for a license if you are decoding on a windows box. (Since they give you a license as part of the purchase of windows.) If you are working on non-windows machines or on DSPs, etc, you can pay the per-unit fee which is MUCH cheaper than MPEG4/AAC.
That's why so many new DVD players support WMA but not MPEG4/AAC. WMA is a LOT cheaper so most major DSP manufacturers pay the fee and include it on their chips.
"I too work in audio for a living"
Just working in a record store doesn't give you any special insight into music.
I've never heard anyone not related to Microsoft sing the praises of WMA. I've not heard a good rip in WMA *ever*. At this point, I'll assume it inherent in the codec.
If you look in the resource files of iTunes you'll see there are Ogg and WMA icons already included.
...)
That doesn't mean Apple *will* support it, but in the past, browsing through icons has been a good indicator of future supported stuff (think ichat AV, wireless keyboards/mice,
And on the article, let me just add this: big applause (crapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrap)
I think, therefore I am...I think.
At the end of a story on the HP-Apple deal, the WSJ reports 'Apple executives say their company has no plans to relent' on the subject of WMA. It also quotes Jobs as saying, in regard to Apples strong position in the player/download market, "I think that favors the largest player, which is us by a mile."
Apple has no incentive to support WMA and every reason not to. If the iPod can play WMA, it becomes the defacto standard and AAC is dead.
The difference is this: Anyone can go and read the MPEG4 standard, but if you implement it you have to pay the license fee.
WMA - if you want the full spec you pay the license fee and you get it.
Commercially, there is absolutely no difference between WMA and AAC except for the cost. WMA is a lot cheaper.
So AAC being an 'open standard' is really a misnomer. Sure you can look at it, but do anything with it and you're paying a whole lot of $$ for the privlege. How is this any different than WMA? Ask major electronics manufacturers and they'll tell you it's not.
Like... I know. It's like, not white and there's not even any chrome and stuff. That's like, so 1999. Come on...
Sit troll, sit. Good troll.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
You simply have bad ears if you think WMA is "good". Its probably my 3rd choice for lossy compression.
of course, listening to anything at 128kb is grating. Bump all of them up to 192 VBR and then do the test.
But at 128kb? Its like listening to cassette tapes.
1) ATRAC is not really a good compression format... not ambitious or flexible enough. It reminds me of AC3, but with less features.
2) Properitary media. THIS IS REALLY RETARDED.
If 1) was fixed, you could fit more music on the same media. If 2) were fixed, you would see support for the formats all over.
Neither of these choices would help improve Sony's marketshare. I think they should just stick to making consumer devices that integrate well, as opposed to trying to lock you in with non-competetive, brand-name abusing stuff.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I've never understood why so many people like it, because I've *never* liked MP3.
Haha!!
No. Far from it.
Claims to be about 30% better than MP3 at 128k. That's nowhere near lossless (and the algorithm does not intend to be either).
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
But you're one of those idiots who encode at 64 and 96kb and think 128kb is CD quality.
Hint...you've got to encode at 192kb with any codec for anything more important than background music.
HP makes no mention of WMA in their press release... http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2004/04010 8b.html
Could this "you heard it here first" nonsense really be just a bunch of wishful thinking or outright lies ?
Check the sources. This is all flame bait.
The coding is too "loose". The model is simplistic, which is good for home theatre because you want to have as much clarity as possible, even for non musical things, and to carry information like reverberations properly.
:-)
It's probably a good alternative to FLAC if you're not anal retentive. Personally, I would like smaller files so that my battery-powered players get longer life.
Besides, getting an encoder is hard. You can find implementations of the spec, but they are slow, and you're still technically supposed to pay Dolby for the privledge.
I'm not...
I have found OGG to be a competent middle ground. Competetive with AAC, but on solid legal footing for me to do whatever I want with it. Also, picking encoding settings is very unfussy.
I pay upfront for a portable, and use a digital connection to my stereo. No problem there.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
"It's just the best format that's going to be available on the iPod. "
I thought the iPod natively supported FLAC?
"well LAME is illegal anyway since you have to technically pay for an MP3 licenses to encoded in that format......"
Thanks, but I tend to ignore patents on mathematical equations.
I also tend to ignore any rules Microsoft has. But then, I try to think for myself.
Except on slashdot.
but I never heard of anyone going after anyone who has informally used the technologies for her own purposes.
This is mainly because the people the members of the MPEG4 working group want to pay for the privledge to use the tech are companies who make set top boxes and sell telecom software packages.
Any other uses just spread the technology, and increase demand.
I guess depending on the scale of your commercial operation, you may stick with WMA, or choose between the two if you can afford it.
I can't afford to pay for WMA information, however, so having support for it in my iPod (or whatever else) is irrelevant to me.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
If you don't like MP3, then I would encode with OGG. WMA and AAC may be completely dead in 15 years, but since OGG is open source I can bet the files will still be playable in 15 years (without running 15 year old hardware).
However, I find MP3 just fine. I find 192kbps with LAME is indistinguishable from the CD, and I really have to try to hear the difference at 128kbps. But use a crappy encoder and I can hear the difference. The only reason I use OGG to rip my own CDs now is the space savings.
I think it was pretty obvious that by platform lockin, I was referring to the iTunes/iPod/iTMS platform, not the operating system.
Heh, I think faad2 works juuuuuuuust fine. Plus there's always the mplayer+quicktime libs combo if I need to bypass DRM.
Sigh, so unsophisticated...
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
However, as it turns out, when you do turn up the bitrate to a significant fraction of MPEG2, MPEG4 (well, H.263) starting looking BETTER than MPEG2. This was completely unplanned.
Thus we have the newer profile, H.264, which helps close the loop and focuses on maintaining quality with a marginal gain in bitrate.
When they were trying to come up with the new HD-compatible DVD replacement, MPEG4 was one of the things many players wanted to use. You could increase the resolution and peg the bitrate.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I think this is a scam by Thurott to raise the number of webhits his site gets so he can get money from his advertisers...
Say something stupid. Get it posted on Slashdot.
Have your website "slashdotted" - increase your webhits - Make money !
It's better than stealing underwear !
He's really bad as he comes off as not even close to being objective about anything.
t ic le/ArticleID/41423/windowspaulthurrott_41423.html
see this link for his "pro ms" ces wrap up.
http://www.winnetmag.com/windowspaulthurrott/Ar
and I quote for one of his little bits.
Predictable Open-Source Advocates Decry Microsoft Anti-Linux Ads
Microsoft's recent ad campaign that pits Linux against Windows has engendered an unintentionally hilarious but predictable reaction from the open-source community, with various Linux advocates crying foul over what they call Microsoft's misleading analysis. The biggest problem seems to be that Microsoft commissioned some of the reports the ads cite, but the company has been upfront about that situation and claims that such funding is a common industry practice. Watching the open-source guys fall all over each other trying to be the first to disprove the Microsoft claims about Linux is what I find really funny. We get it, guys; you don't like Microsoft.
I don't know quite how the business model works with Apple and the recording industries; however, how would implementing Ogg NOT save them money? No royalty fees for the encoding technology, etc. I'm sure this has been discussed before, so if it has, someone kindly remind me. =)
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
With a pair of headphones, can you really tell the difference?
Actually, Microsoft invested / gave away a lot of money during the browser wars and also in their battle with AOL.
They invested $200M in Best Buy in 1998-99 and gave them tons of free software/services so Best Buy would push MSN over AOL...look it up, there were press releases at the time.
So, does Microsoft own Best Buy...Did Microsoft prop-up Best Buy...NO and they didn't with Apple either.
I don't know that much about MacOS (X or otherwise) support for WMA but I'm guessing that it's playable *for the moment* as there's supposed to be a Windows Media Player version for OS X. But in addition to the fact that WMP is an awful choice of a player, there's no telling when MS will discontinue that player and then you again end up with unplayable files.
I found this really cool audio player for MacOS 9 & X called Audion. It plays WMA, Mp3, OGG, and just about anything else you could think of.
"The moment "pride" is lost, "freedom" is also lost." - Ramza.
First off, the WMA specification is available on Micro$oft's web site - M$ allows you to license it for free: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/crea te/licensing.aspx
I don't think they can make many changes to it without breaking the world.
W.r.t. Microsoft breaking Quicktime. If QT's anything like Real, every time that Real complained that Microsoft mysteriosly disabled Real, it turned out that it was because Real ignored the documentation (On at least one occasion that Rob Glaser mentioned in testimony to Congress, it turned out that Real was using an undocumented netscape plugin mechanism instead of using the documented mechanism, and Real misused the mechanism - they didn't follow Netscapes rules for the use of the registry key).
I can't speak to whether M$ broke QT purposely, but EVERY time Real whined about M$ breaking them it turned out that they had screwed up themselves.
You probably encode with the wrong encoder at the wrong bitrate. Faster is not better (Xing, anyone?)
I paid for my Frauhofer Pro codec and encode everything at 256Kbit HQ setting and it's slow. I am an audio buff and I can't tell the difference between that and a CD being played through the same high quality audio card.
Yes, it is bigger than a 128Kbs file, but who gives a damn when you have a 30Gb HD in your MP3 player?
MP3 is going to be here for a long time.
And the same thing could be said for Ogg Vorbis. It wasn't until fairly recently that the codec was available for processors without floating point units (the kind used in essentially all portable players) so it hasn't had a huge amount of time to get market penetration. It's getting there, though, with support on the Rio Karma and several players from iRiver. Furthermore, Vorbis support should be cheaper than AAC in the long run because there are no royalties for supporting it. I'd expect that it will be very well supported EVENTUALLY.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
In order to support wma(ss) they would have to write some kind of code it into QuickTime itself and for that reason alone I know this rumor is false. Its not about hardware (the HPod is proof of this) its about the audio code; Apple needs to maintain its hold in this particular area if it wants to survive in the portable audio playing consumer market.
A GOOD pair of headphones is better than any stereo setup because you don't have to deal with reflections, echo's, etc. So yes, I can tell the difference. And it doesn't take a lot of money to get good headphones. My first pair of Sennheisers was only ~$50 and blew away any stereo sold at a normal retail store. Then I upgraded to a pair at ~$150 and it sounds as good/better than the monitors at the studio I mastered my friends album at.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Da Blog
I don't know why people on this board are bagging WMA. To my ears it's superior to MP3 in the compression/quality stakes.
.WMA file encoded at 160 kbps sounds as good as an MP3 encoded at 192 kbps or above! You only have to try it on your computer.
.MPC by MusePack, though it's not supported by any hardware player.
I'm real fussy about how my music sounds, too
I did a test the other day encoding some music files to different formats and rates.
A
I think a lot of folks don't change the setting in Windows Media Player from the default 64 kbps encoding rate.
I have a Creative CD/MP3 player that plays both MP3's and WMA's. You get far more music files on a CD in WMA format with no (to my ears) loss of quailty.
eg, One More Robot by The Flaming Lips encoded with LAME at 192 kbps creates a file size of 7,021 KB. The same song encoded into WMA at 160 kbps creates a file size of 5,892 KB with better quality sound.
I read that the BEST lossy format is probably
da5id
While not exactly the simplest way, you CAN use an iPod under Linux using WINE:
http://www.cs.duke.edu/~geha/ipod/
I haven't tried to see if iTunes for Windows can be used with WINE as well, but it might work.
VPC for Windows 2004... the control icons for VPC Mac look quite different. One good example... no USB displayed.
"It makes it a more flexible format. It helps open the door to content providers that would otherwise be scared off by online content."
Thanks for stating the real point of all of this. Everyone is so busy screaming at the top of their lungs that Microsoft and DRM and WM* is so evil that they forget that there is business behind all of this.
Wait 3 years until IPODs move to DRM-only formats and everyone here will forget exactly which bandwagon they were on...
I like MD and am a Minidisc user, but it's a hassle to deal with Sony. Having the reencode all your Mp3 files to ATRAC is a bother for consumers, degrades quality, and wastes hard disk space. With the new Hi-MD format the minidisc player is just a data storage format. Sony needs to give it up on forcing ATRAC on us and just let us play Mp3's in their original form. All it would require is a decoding chip in units and a couple minor software changes.
Absolutely right - in terms of frequency response, lack of colouration, dynamic range and transient response headphones are LEAGUES ahead of ANY loud speaker - even low energy storage types like electrostatics. The only downside to headphones is a difficulty in conveying good stereo imagery, but much music is poorly recorded/mixed these days for image anyway, so it may not be much of a handicap. For really outstanding transparency I'd recommend some ultra-small earbud type 'phones (though not those horrid shove-in Sony EX 71s that I bought, unless you like to listen to mechanical noise from your own body).
That was classic intercourse!
Not unless anyone can develop and license the patented parts of the encoder/decoder, rather than having to get it from them. It's like the Sorenson codec. It may be great technically, but I don't want to deal with it, especially as a developer or system integrator.
I'd rather use the open standard, even if the quality is inferior at rate.
Besides, the difference isn't that great. And "proper" MPEG4 support means a lot more than video too, which is nice for the DVD making folks (interactive stuff, menus, metadata).
Am I wrong about the licensing on VP6?
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
n/t
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
"When the iPod plays wma files,"
Microsoft will get a little check
for every one that gets sold!
Microsoft will not mind at all.
There is a product that solves the issues of the "special s/w" issues mentioned. Granted for a Zen NX, the fee is $25, but I've still saved over $100 plus have 10GB more than the ipod.