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No WMA for HP iPod
finelinebob writes "In spite of Paul Thurrott's wishful thinking, Wired is reporting that HP will not support the WMA format in its version of the iPod. From the article, according to HP spokesperson Muffi Ghadial, "'We're not going to be supporting WMA for now ... We picked the service that was the most popular (Apple's iTunes Music Store). We could have chosen another format, but that would have created more confusion for our customers.' He added, 'Most customers don't care about the format they're downloading.'" Thurrott's singing a different tune lately, anyway...."
I wonder if Microsoft is threatened HP to restrict the Windows and Office licenses if they made a player that could play WMA and ACC.
/. article around that subject .
Well, I hope that's no surprise to anyone. Although M$ does make good products (and I don't mean to start a whole debate here) they have a tendency to use their monopoly to force products.
Not too long ago, they were threatening Dell of not giving them Windows licenses if IE wasn't the only browser in new computers... here's a
I also wonder if Apple restricted HP from supporting WMA? Yes, Apple does these kind of things too!
Eh, a war of monopolies! They've just found common grounds to fight on...
It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well. - Rene Descartes (1637)
They didn't want to limit their customers' choices.
Jeez, whatever happened to WMA being superior?
is also *ONE* very biased person
who gives a shit what he thinks? not me, probably not you. obviously not apple and hp. big whoop
vodka, straight up, thank you!
I guess that either Apple doesn't actually wants wma on iPod themselves (for business/tech reasons) or, they've been forced to by a certain company which have expressed their dislike of the plan. Either way, there isn't all that much music in wma format anyway online, except other than the iTMS rivals stores...(!)
The iPod supports MP3, which is 99.999 percent of the files that people actually *use*.
From just a few slashdot articles ago:
MS unhappy with HP. Either HP is really sticking it to MS, or MS is sticking it to HP. Either way, it isn't surprising.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
I am not meaning to sound redundant, but isn't AAC an actual standard while WMA is propietary to XP? Why is WMA more popular by Windows users if AAC can do the same drm wise and in a majority of cases sounds better?
I'm so tired of the WMA format. It's like a god damned virus. Just the other day I was explaining the concept of a CD MP3 player to someone I know and when he showed me his digital music collection, it was all in WMA. Now of course it's easily converted, but that's one extra thing I'll have to show him how to do. MP3 is the standard, nothing else should be supported, if only for clarity and simplicity reasons! If anything else is ever supported, it should be OGG because OGG is essentially open source MP3.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
I'm glad they aren't including wma. The more you ignore it, the more it'll die. Ogg support would be nice, but I guess that won't happen.
:)
We could have chosen another format, but that would have created more confusion for our customers.
So I guess that proves that Apple's customers are confused easily
In all honesty I don't really care whether its AAC or WMA. I prefer mp3s for a couple of reasons:
Anyone can play them on their PC
People's old mp3 players are happy with them
192kbits gives me all the quality I can hear
Yes I know that the patents are annoying but that's not come to bite me yet. I shall see. Also I know that I won't find an online store selling mp3s, but I still only buy CDs since, they're not all that much more expensive, you get the album artwork and they look nice on a shelf (I still have them on a computer, since it makes searching faster).
Btw. has everyone seen the mini iPod on Apple's website yet? I wonder what the UK price will be and also when Apple makes it officially compatible with Linux.
I never saw the logic in the iPod having WMA support. Maybe in the future if the market changes, but not now.
Right now, Apple enjoys a 70% market dominance in the online music sales market - and they have significant brand name and mindshare, which isn't going anywhere soon. Walk up to a standard non-geek person:
Question: What MP3 player works with the Apple Music store? (I know it's called the iTunes store, but who actually says that?)
Answer: iPod.
Question: What MP3 player works with Napster?
Answer: Ummmm....
A geek might know the answer, but most people do not.
So, based on that, Apple's move to have HP license the AAC+Freeplay system is a good move - it encourages the use of the protected AAC files, and Apple gets a cut of that licensing technology, whether through direct iPod sales, or through the purchase of "iPod compatible" devices.
Apple has a 5% market share because they didn't license their operating system - which is fine with them, they make money off of hardware. But licensing "iPod compatible" devices is a way to make money off of every MP3 player sold eventually. If you want to use the iTunes Music Store, and you sell MP3 players, you can either compete against the "de facto standard", or play with it.
If Apple added WMA support, perhaps that would in the short term increase iPod sales since it would work with all the music stores - but in the long term, that's bad for Apple, because then anybody who wanted to switch MP3 players would just pick any WMA compatible device.
Apple can't break into that desktop market at this time - but if they play the cards right, they could become, as Steve Jobs said, the "Microsoft of the online music world". Once that happens, maybe they'll sell more desktops, maybe not - but it would be interesting to see how much money Apple would make from "iPod compatible" devices as opposed to just computer sales alone.
If that became the case, then other online music stores would have to support the AAC+Freeplay "de facto standard" - which means that for every song sold online, Apple would get a cut for the licensing.
So what makes more money: WMA in iPod for short term sales, or take a gamble at getting the whole damned pie?
Eh - just my thoughts. I could be wrong.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
It's HP licensing Apple's technology and manufacturing capability, not the other way around. Apple has the right to support whatever file formats it wants (and can pay license fees for, if appropriate). It also has the right to determine what formats WON'T be played on its devices.
If HP wants to demand WMA support, and Apple doesn't want to budge, HP can spend the R&D dollars to build its own portable music player.
This isn't a Bad Thing. This is a company acting in what it feels are its best interests.
Blogging Weight Loss, Distance Education, and more at verlin.com
Paul Thurrott is and always has been most interested in Paul Thurrott and how the world relates to Paul Thurrott. He used to have a great website, until it got buried behind how much Paul Thurrott loves Paul Thurrott and how much you love Paul Thurrott, too.
The answer to this question, time and time again that it is posed on Slashdot, is a resounding "No." It makes no sense economically for Apple to support those formats, despite whatever you hardcore Ogg Vorbis fans believe, despite that you've encoded your 1200 cds to Vorbis, etc. etc.
Rio Karma plays Vorbis and FLAC, so if you want those formats, support that player (and quit whining about iPod).
We could have chosen another format, but that would have created more confusion for our customers.' He added, 'Most customers don't care about the format they're downloading.
What does the format people download have to do with the formats their version of ipod supports? We already know what format they will be downloading if they are using itunes music store. The question is if the ipod can support formats not downloaded from the store. I think people would care if they downloaded a wma file that wouldn't run in their ipod.
I have purchased over 300 individual songs, used the "burn" utility to make my back-up copy*, then ripped the back-up cd straight to my Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen NX with the Media Source s/w from Creative. I rip in 198/mp3 format. There is absolutely no discernable difference in quality when playing the mp3's either through headphones on the Zen or using iRock Beamit 400 FM modulator to my car or stereo. Sure, you can buy the whole cd, but I've got 300 individual songs that I WANT without the album cuts I don't but have paid for. Another tip for making back-ups in m4p format...if you dual-boot to Linux, make a tar archive of your iTunes directory (and burn that to cd also).
*You must make a back-up copy because Apple will not replace any files you lose. So you aren't *wasting* a CD and you can play it in the car.
They could radically expand their reach if they supported WMA and the various online music stores that are popping up.
....or they could adopt a standard that has a better chance of being implemented on most/all consumer level operating systems (e.g. WMA w/DRM for Linux? never). HP also gets the benefit of working with a DRM system that the majority seem to prefer. I don't see how this is unfortunate at all...but I'm sure someone will reply with a different view!
AAC has one distinct disadvantage against WMA - royalties associated with its use going to various organizations. With WMA, Microsoft either has unlimited rights or owns everything in the format, so it can distribute encoders/players with no per-unit fee. However, if Apple wanted to undermine MS by distributing free (beer) software to encode AAC (aka Quicktime Pro for free)... they would be stuck with a per-unit charge. That's why we need Vorbis so much.
Why should Apple support WMA at all? Microsoft is their enemy, so why support one of their closed formats? If you want to add further value to your player just support ogg vorbis and FLAC! But don't pump cash into Microsofts pockets 'cause they will know how to use it against you.
-virgo cluster
Ogg is all fine and good, but hardly anyone knows about it, even fewer people use it, and there really isn't any good reason for these facts to change.
I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.
From the article:
"Most customers don't care about the format they're downloading."
I think he meant to say:
"Most customers don't care about the wma format, they're not worth downloading."
Silly HP.
Quoth Thurott:
"When I asked an HP representative how the company would solve the incompatibility problems, he told me, incorrectly, that the Protected AAC files users download do, in fact, work on HP's products and that converting them is a simple task if they don't."
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but by HP's products, doesn't he mean HPs PCs running a version of Windows? And if so, where does such a user get Protected AAC files? Right, iTunes for Windows. Now, isn't iTunes (win or mac) ALL ABOUT AAC? What part of the HP representative's comment is incorrect?
HP machines run windows. iTunes is available for windows (and will be on all HP machines soon). iTunes Music store is the biggest (only?) provider of Protected AAC files. Sounds pretty simple to me...
Are you sure about that? Supporting WMA playback is one thing. Supporting each different DRM version of WMA from each of the different (and in comparison very small) music stores is completely a different thing.
I had such high hopes that Florina and the DEC research lab would be smarter than this.
Carly Fiorina is smart in the business sense; that is, she is the kind of unbelievable bastard CEO who votes herself a $150,000,000 bonus then lays 6,000 people off to "cut costs". In technological matters she is a fool.
The DEC research lab of old is dead. Don't expect too much.
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
I can't figure out why Apple would ever want to support WMA. If they support WMA, then it's just one more reason for people to buy Microsoft over Apple, or anything else.
Once again we see the Microsoft monopoly extending it's grasp. They create WMA and then they set it up so that the built in CD-ripping in Windows will default to using WMA. Most people end up ripping in that format, not knowing any better. Then that becomes the standard for these files.
If that's the standard, then Microsoft can choose to enforce it however they want. They can alter licensing, build in whatever DRM restrictions they want, and since it's the standard everybody has to play ball.
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If MS wants WMA on the iPod badly enough (big if), I wonder if they could write an app that allows users to add the codec to the player? And if so, would it be a violation of the DMCA? Some kinda reverse engineering violation.
Between all the alliances and industry player alignments/supports, MP3 has the best: the pirate industry support -- hundreds of thousands (millions?) of entrepreneurial individuals working out of basements, garages, or simply leaving their machines turned on serving files. I go to a street corner in Brazil and I can find CDs burned with hundreds of songs in MP3. Same thing in all of the "developing world" -- Malaysia, Russia, Paraguay, China. Paying a dollar a song is a luxury that *will* make WMA/AAC (and all DRM) look like Betamax, or Sony's MD.
DRM songs will try to fit in a niche: wealthy countries or individuals which are willing to pay for songs because they "just-want-to", or because of a very slight edge of "coolness" or exclusivity. This niche, though important for the potential margin, will always be smaller than the MP3 choice (or Ogg, in an unlikely scenario). MP3s will survive like cockroaches, and is IMNSHO the only assured bet for a format that will be still be around ten years from now. Trying to "migrate up" MP3 users with cool gadgets like Ipod may be profitable, but will never close the door that MP3/Napster/Kazaa/CD burners opened.
I think that is fine.
Quem a paca cara compra, paca cara pagará.
And according to Mr. Thurrot: And, for what it's worth, I own two iPods and have downloaded more than 200 songs from the iTunes Music Store...
So your way of championing consumer choice is to recommend WMA and invest your time/money in Apple's product and service?
Because the per-unit fee is determined by the terms of MPEG licensing, Apple cannot apply discriminatory licensing with AAC. MS, however, can. This is a huge disadvantage to WMA from the perspective of everyone except Microsoft itself.
For example, let's say Microsoft is licensing WMA support to all the mp3 player creators for about 20 cents a unit. Then IBM decides they're going to start supporting Linux. Suddenly Microsoft decides they're licensing it to everyone for 20 cents a unit EXCEPT IBM, who has to pay a billion dollars for each player sold. They can do this, and they have shown in the past-- with OEM pricing on Windows-- that they are more than willing to do this exact sort of thing..
AAC, meanwhile, is equal for everybody.
Of course the FairPlay DRM is a totally different matter, but I've yet to be able to figure out if Apple is unwilling to license that to others or if just no one's asked.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
... what hurts the industry more is lame-duck journo's trying to make waves with controversy and tabloid tactics in a field which has no truck with these sorts of tactics, usually ...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I keep hearing about how Apple doesn't make that much money off of the music, but instead from iPod sales. I feel that Apple intends to make more money in the future by selling music from independent labels, but at the moment it seems they make very little from the sole sale of music.
If that is the case, then why would Microsoft be concerned with the selling of music? I guess it's a silly question because Microsoft wants to certainly not lose out in the digital lifestyle arena, but what does Microsoft offer that would suffer from this? Media Player comes with every Windows PC, which makes up, when I last checked, about 95% percent of the market.
HP wants to make money selling hardware, like Dell and Gateway, so they should pick what will sell the most hardware. Is HP supposed to do the research and development for Microsoft? And what the hey, they might woo in more people from the Apple camp.
"Ogg is all fine and good, but hardly anyone knows about it, even fewer people use it, and there really isn't any good reason for these facts to change."
Remember around 1994 when folks were saying things like:
"Linux is all fine and good, but hardly anyone knows about it, even fewer people use it, and there really isn't any good reason for these facts to change."
There was reason, and there is reason now. The point is with ogg you can freely install encoders and players on whatever you want without paying anyone anything, and you can redistribute as part of your own product etc. just as you can with linux.
The same is not true of mp3 (without treading dangerous ground legally), just as it is not true of windows.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
Once again, you can see Microsoft using the weight of the monopoly to insure that the consumer has a choice...as long as the choice is Microsoft. Imagine being able to play WMA, MP3, and AAC all on the same player! Imagine being able to boot into BeOS OR Windows...oh, wait. Sorry. I'm awake now.
Boycott everything - they're all trying to fuck you one way or another
"There is no CODEC that is America's God-given right."
3000+ comments meta-modded. 0 mod points awarded.
Lesson for other meta-suckers: Don't believe the hype!
I can copy my mp3s to any mp3 player and they will play.
I can give a cd of mp3s to my mother and she can easily play them on her computer without having to futz around.
I have no need to distribute a product and I would say the same thing for the vast majority of people.
What I can't do is fluff up my ego by telling strangers I use a sexy standard to encode my music. I guess I can live with that.
I always save my last mod point to mod up a good troll. You people are too serious.
Maybe I'm a fanatic about these things but...
What's wrong with mp3's/oggs? The premise on which iTunes is based (that here is a method that allows you to download legally) is wrong; in fact, lots of musicians are putting mp3's out there for free. Look at dmusic.com , IUMA, irate radio and netlabels . Some of the stuff is eclectic, experimental, not mass market, but it's not that far off.
I stopped listening to commercial music 6 months ago (although I still donate to artists with tipjar links). For "open content" listeners like me, all this talk of proprietary locked content only encourages musicians to put their content in locked formats. That is bad for everyone.
Share the Music day ; sharethemusic weblog
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
according to some of the articles it says that Apple will be making the HP iPods with the blue/grey case, not licensing the technology out. It will effectively be the Apple iPod with a HP wrap. It's the same guts as the Apple model (even the Apple symbol on startup), and will work with the same accessories as the Apple one because it's the same form factor.
Points to HP for bucking the trend and using standards instead of the Microsoft assigned format.
I am glad that HP isn't going to support WMA format. I am glad that Apple isn't even really considering it. There are so many mp3 players out there and a few online music stores, but HP did it right, and licensed the iPod technology from Apple, and is going to use the iTMS. Plus, I am sure that Carly heard how bad WMA format is. I tried it once, and really, I couldn't believe how horrible it was compared to MP3 at 128, and even at 96!
Now, only if we can get Apple to relize that making OS X for x86 machines would be profitable...maybe HP would be selling OS X on there machines....what a wonderful world that would be..
eh, this sucks, I am going back to bed....
At a given bit-rate, every compressed/encoded song will be roughly the same size.
Now, what you're doing is encoding it at a lower bit-rate (probably an ear-numbing 64kb), and saying "Hell, *I* don't hear a difference its fine".
If you're happy at 64kb, congratulations...you have tin ears and that's a good thing because you'll fit four times as many songs on your player as a discerning person.
But WMA can't compress *better*. Its a physical impossibility.
They could radically expand their reach if they supported WMA and the various online music stores that are popping up.
That's exactly what HP has done. They've actually expanded support and given users an additional choice. You can use what came with Windows to handle all the WMA stuff (songs, online stores, portable music players) just like all the other PC makers, or you can also choose to use iTunes and the iTMS and an iPod -the industry leaders at present.
I really don't understand how HP adding iTunes and selling a rebranded iPod can possibly be said to limit choices.
In Thurrott's latest article(mentioned above) he claims that WMA is "a feature that's natively enabled in the iPod's firmware but that Apple disables before the units ship to customers". I've never heard of this before. Is there any truth to this claim?
I haven't tried it myself, as I just booted into Windows to update my iPod, but check out this.
I also just purchased a Rio Karma, which works perfectly under Linux using ethernet, using a Java based program that comes with it.
Best of luck.
They are normal WMA files by default. Which is to say, yes you can play them on anything capable of playing WMA, but then that's a standard Microsoft controls. This means that Apple and HP would ultimately be beholden to Microsoft if they support WMA. If WMA becomes the de facto standard then Apple and HP would have no choice but to support it and that woudld give Microsoft control over them.
As it now stands, WMA is not de facto. People became used to MP3's being the standard for digital music before WMA came into this scene. Whether it remains that way or not going forward remains to be seen. If all players support it and the majority of people are ripping wma files, then it's quite possible. At that point, then Microsoft controls the world of digital music.
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I use my iPod with Linux, and have for over a year. In fact, it has never been used with any other operating system, and I have never used iTunes or Musicmatch (or whatever the windows thing is called) so I can't really compare.
Linux firewire support is experimental in 2.4, so getting it working requires your basic linux skills, but I haven't had any real problems. Most firewire cards and MBs use a standard driver, so it is just to compile the modules (and firewire harddisk support) and run. I have never gotten automatic hotplug support working here, but scanning the scsi bus manually isn't that big a deal (and others apparently have). With kernels before 2.4.20 I had a recurring hard lockup while transfering, which was annoying, but that is gone now. And I don't think the drivers are completely optimal so the transfers are slower then advertised (but still many times faster than USB).
I don't know if it is better with the new iPods that support USB2.0, since I have an old firewire only model. And I haven't tried the 2.6 kernel which is supposed to have better firewire support.
The best software for adding and removing music that I have found is gtkpod. It is a nice, easy to use, GUI program that allows you to select music, construct playlists, etc. The page also contains information for getting all the other stuff working.
I am happy with my iPod on Linux.
I am only using MP3 files, though I understand that gtkpod has some support AAC files as well:
.m4p files .m4a
NEW FEATURE: import of AAC files (.m4a) supported, provided the
mp4v2 library from the mpeg4ip project
(mpeg4ip.sourceforge.net) is available during the compilation of
gtkpod. Writing tags to AAC files is also supported.
can also be imported, but they are not played by the iPod.
files work fine.
BTW, never mind what I said about not getting hotplug to work, I just checked it now and got it working fine using the instructions in the gtkpod README file.
And for Apple, that's the "bingo". The first time someone goes to buymusic.com and buys a WMA file and tries to play it on their iPod, they say "Oh - damn, this sucks!"
Guess where they're going to go next time they buy music online?
Either way, Apple wins. You buy the iPod, you use their file format. You use the free iTunes, you download a song - now you need an iPod or "iPod compatible" player.
That is what Apple - and Microsoft - is shooting for: that you support their format, or you feel pain.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Bottom line is, the more formats the player supports the more they'll sell.
I disagree. How many people are there who will ONLY buy an iPod once it supports OGG? Very few, I imagine. AAC sounds just as good, and is also a cross platform, industry standard file format with freeware encoders and decoders. In fact, the only people who need OGG on an iPod would be people who had massive libraries already converted to OGG. Are there enough people with OGG libraries who don't already have a portable music device and would prefer to get an iPod to cover the cost of producing an OGG plugin for itunes (both PC and Mac), an OGG plugin for the iPod, and cover support of both?
Absolutely not. Ogg is a hacker's format, and hackers do not buy the iPod because "it is too expensive." Apple's not stupid.
Flac, on the other hand, I could see, because I'm sure lots of show traders would love an iPod. But at the same time, Flac is hardly the only solution. A lot of people use Shorten, and other formats, which are incompatible with each other. Maybe when the lossless sector settles down a bit, you'll see one of these guys on the iPod. But at the same time...you have your CDs for lossless sound, guy. Transcode your Flacs into AAC -- that's what i do with my Bitchin' Tenacious D shows -- and play those on the iPod, which is (in fact) a lossy audio format player.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
From the article:
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.
I don't get it. Are they adding support for WMA, or for a superior format?
Mike van Lammeren
It will challenge your head, your brain, and your mind.
No matter what you or any other Ogg Fanatic says, Ogg probably violates the patents on psycho-acustic modeling that created the mp3 standard.
The owners of those patents haven't sued anyone over Ogg support yet, because no device with Ogg support is being made by a company with any significant ammount of money.
But you can bet your ass that if Apple supported Ogg on the iPod, they'd not only have to fight a lawsuit for patent infringement, but they might also lose their license for mp3 technologies used elsewhere (iTunes encoding, etc...)
Right or wrong, supporting Ogg just isn't worth the potential risk to Apple.
I also use Linux to transfer files to my iPod, and the program I use is gtkpod. For the most part it is a painless process, since you can auto mount/umount your iPod when you start/close gtkpod, but it's not uncommon to have gtkpod freeze up in the mounting stage or not umount properly. Then the only way to get things to work again is to reboot. Hopefully when I upgrade to the 2.6 kernel things will be a bit more smooth.
When life gives you lemons, you squeeze the lemon juice into your enemies eyes and steal his apples.
Format is not the issue. AAC is no more proprietary than WMA. One can argue that it is less so since reverse engineering would not be required to produce an independent codec from scratch that does not use Apple QuickTime. The M4A format that wraps the AAC encoder is not that complicated. No more so than WAV.
AAC has the advantage of being a true standard supported by ISO. It is part of MPEG-4. What is WMA?
Quite frankly, the only thing preventing a free AAC codec for Linux/BSD/whatever is the patent license. MP3 actually has the same problem, but people have skirted the issue.
USB Mass Storage. The standard protocol for USB harddisks.
The grandparent is half wrong about the iPod - it does work as standard mass storage (at least over firewire, less sure about USB 2.0 on the newer models), but to add music to it needs to be in a special directory and the song info needs to be added to a metadata file. The special directory is annoying (because it mixes the files, so you need to use a program to copy from the iPod and get album directories back), but the metadata file makes sense since searching the entire FS and reading id3 tags sucks.
How much better would not CD-MP3 players be if there were a standard index file that one placed in the root directory on the CD, allowing interfaces like the iPods?