MP3...in Surround Sound

A number of people sent in the latest news from the fine folks at Frauhofer that they are expecting to have surround sound working for MP3s by July. The details are pretty sketchy in the article, but supposedly it won't be much more space per MP3s, and existing players will work with it.

Comments

Re:How hard will it be to convert?

[Sarojin]

Does your collection already have surround sound data? A bit pointless to convert, no new data to store.

Re:Nothing to see here.

[nacturation]

Who wants to use a proprietary sound format, when they can use a much more appealing open format.

MP3: Everything supports it, which is very appealing for consumers.
OGG: Few products support it, not very appealing for consumers.

This is the old VHS/BETA debate again. Each one has various advantages over the other, but MP3 has already won mindshare and, as a result, is ubiquitous. In the end, consumers don't really care that Apple has to pay Fraunhofer $1 (or whatever) for licensing iPod's MP3 tech instead of $0 for OGG. After all, you'll never see Apple advertising a regular iPod for $299 -OR- you can get an iPod which doesn't play MP3 for $298.

And don't forget...

[Kjella]

One of the places Ogg Vorbis has become surprisingly popular is in soundtracks for computer games. The no licensing fees must be one useful aspect,

No licencing fees doesn't mean just that. It also means no overhead like getting a licencing deal set up, signed, making sure it's paid on time, in right amount, used only in accordance with the terms and so on. I'm seeing this first hand how much time is spent fiddling.

Just the process of going to someone with the authoroty to sign contracts and spend money in the company's name is wasting time, and time is money. That everyone, everywhere can use it for whatever is in itself probably worth as much as the licencing costs themselves.

Kjella