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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."
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.
I've already mentioned this several times before, but when Linux was first put on the iPod, they had an early version of Tremor (An integer-only Vorbis decoder) running at 80% realtime. Seeing as there have been numerous processor and memory optimisations in that time, not to mention ports to other embedded platforms which don't have as powerful processors as the iPod, I'd say the iPod could play back Vorbis.
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 do know one way in which WMA is superior to both MP3 and AAC. There's support for lossless compression in WMA.
Ironically, this makes it the ideal format for recompressing files that you decompressed in order to remove their DRM.
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
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).
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Paul Thurrott is the news editor for Windows &
from http://www.connectedhomemag.com/Articles/Index.cf
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.
Why would they bother creating ogg and wma icons for iTunes if they didn't plan to eventually use them?
.ogg files in iTunes if you have the appropriate QT plug-in installed, as I've been doing for about a year and a half?
Possibly because you can already play
Don't read too much into the icons.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I wouldn't go so far as to say I hate it.
But, I disklike it. There are many reasons but the main ones are:
1)inferior quality
2)DRM
3)It's being pushed by a convicted monopoly
Point 1 I can easily justify because WMA at the max supported bitrate is the only codec I could detect 100% is a double blind test, codecs tested were LAME VBR with --alt-preset fast extreme, Ogg Vorbis with Oggdrop's max VBR setting, WMA 8 Max VBR setting, and WAV source. Point two should be self explanatory, but if you must know I dislike the idea that I am renting the music from whomever decides my equipment should be blessed to play their format. As to the third I do as much as I can to fight a company that is out to crush all competition no matter what illegal methods they must employ.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
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!"
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!
As opposed to the proprietary AAC format? The only difference is whether you make your check out to Microsoft or Dolby. If you want a non-proprietary format, there is only one choice: Ogg Vorbis.
i've purchased a few albums from iTMS. it comes in at 128k. select the album, burn an audio cd, then put the cd in and re-rip it. sound quality is good. you'd probably need some high grade equipment to tell the difference. okay, so it's not cd quality. fine. but in most mp3 players, i'd say that you'd need some really good ears to notice. and then you can burn an audio cd for playback anywhere without any drm. small price to pay, i'd say. but of course i'm only an afficianado, not a conesieur.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Here is a comparison of various lossless formats:s on.htm
http://home.wanadoo.nl/~w.speek/compari
WMA doesn't come out on top.
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.
AAC is open; you just have to pay licensing fees for it. In other words, third parties can make AAC encoders which yield different results (it looks like Apple's AAC encoder is the best at the moment), but they have to pay royalties. The same is not true of WMA.
Actually, I think that's Virtual PC running on a Win XP machine.
Vonal Declosion
The author can be reached pretty easily.
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.
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
WMA lossless cannot be decoded by regular WMA decoders. Microsoft doesn't even make an embedded WMA lossless decoder.
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.
It is iPod getting WMA support, as others already stated.
But beyond that, I thought this was discussed several times already in response to previous related stories. First of all, iPods fully support MP3 format, so MP3 is in no way "out" and WMA "in." That's pure nonsense. Second, you can add encryption and DRM to any compression method with relatively same level of effort. There is nothing inherent in AAC or WMA that they "support" DRM and Vorbis and MP3 don't. Any of those streams can be encrypted and wrapped around with their respective containers. No DRM for Vorbis? Bullshit! A simple googling would show you otherwise.
So, moderators, stop moderating this trolling as insightful. If you don't know what you are moderating, then either go find out, or move on to the next post.
Because iPod works as a USB or Firewire hard disk. Zen doesn't. To store files on Zen, you have to go through their special software.