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AAC Chosen For DVD-ROM Section Of DVD Audio Discs
sootman writes "According to a news post at HighFidelityReview.com: 'The DVD Forum has chosen AAC for the DVD-ROM zone of DVD-Audio discs - the inclusion of a low-resolution (lossy) track suitable for solid-state and portable devices has long been championed by DVD-Audio figureheads such as Dolby's John Kellogg as a way of enhancing the value of the format to all listeners, not just those interested in its high-resolution potential. The selection of AAC came after a number of competing formats were proposed; they included MP3, ATRAC and Microsoft's WMA. Additional formats, such as [Ogg Vorbis] for example, were not put forward for consideration.'"
Lock in? AAC is an open standard and was NOT created by Apple. Of all the next generation audio formats (that aren't open source) it's the most open.
We should be happy.
Actually, you'll probably hear more whining from the four people who know what Ogg is.
Ogg is not an acronym, so don't uppercase it all.
Ogg is not an audio codec, so don't compare it to AAC.
You are probably thinking of the Vorbis audio codec.
But Apple doesn't own AAC and you don't license it from them. It's licensed from these guys:a ac/stan dard.html
http://www.vialicensing.com/products/mpeg4
That Apple utilizes the DRM features of AAC doesn't mean that everyone else is required to use it. Using iTunes, I can rip CD tracks to AAC that *don't* have DRM - which can even be played on a number of Linux-based media players.
RTFA. There's no DRM with AAC either, that's something bolted on by Apple.
There's no DRM with AAC either. Apple added its own layer of DRM, "Fairplay" onto the AAC format. Of course that doesn't mean that the DVD-Audio people won't do the same thing.
ScienceSeeker.org
AAC supports DRM. It does not require it. The DVD forum may or may not put it in. (I would suspect they would, but it is not required.) That may have been a requirement for consideration, or it may not have.
There are other reasons to use AAC besides DRM. It has smaller file sizes for the same quality level as MP3 for instance. (Ogg may be better, but it's open to debate.)
'Sensible' is a curse word.
FLAC is where it is at! I have very discerning ears and even at the highest bit rates, I can still hear audio artifacts with pretty much any codec. However, I do use Ogg Vorbis on my portable audio device because it is the only free(dom) codec that it supports.
You can quite easily rip to AAC without DRM.
Also, the MP3 patent holders are trying to add optional DRM to MP3, so they'll be even more alike in the future.
OGG is an audio file format.
From the Vorbis FAQ:
Ogg is the name of Xiph.org's container format for audio, video, and metadata. Vorbis is the name of a specific audio compression scheme that's designed to be contained in Ogg. Note that other formats are capable of being embedded in Ogg such as FLAC and Speex.
In other words, Ogg is comparable to avi files. And you are capitalising Ogg when you shouldn't. It isn't an acronym.
AAC itself does not have DRM, so unless additional DRM has been added, there is no need to "crack" it.
Apple's implementation does not use any "AAC DRM", they have their own scheme.
Hopefully in this case, you can simply copy the AAC on to your machine, because any transcoding will affect the quality.
My sig is blank, I typed this by hand.
"Finally DVD-Audio offers CPPM, which is much stronger than CSS for DVD-Video."
IIRC, region codes against the newer EU directives, so I don't think they will make it into Dvd-Audio specs.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
Interestingly enough, I found these quotes off a recent AAC/WMA article:
On my mac my unprotected AAC's outnumber my purchased iTunes songs by 100:1.
How? By ripping my existing CD collection.. duh.
AAC ('Advanced Audio Coding') is the MPEG-4 audio standard, a.k.a. ISO 14496-3 -- it's hardly obscure or non-standard.
/ documents/w2670.html out for the ISO 14496-3 draft, if you're curious, or just search for ISO 14496-3 on Google. :)
Several of the digital and satellite radio systems use AAC, and a number of software music players support it; Apple's use of AAC to hold higher-quality-than-MP3 digital audio on the iTunes Music Store and for playback on the iPod is just the most-visible example of it.
You can check http://www.tnt.uni-hannover.de/project/mpeg/audio
--Rachel
It means that when you put it in your DVD-ROM on your computer, you can put the AAC copy on your portable device. You could have figured that out if you RTFB (Read The Fucking Blurb)
Heute die Welt, morgen das Sonnensystem!
What is AAC?
AAC is the audio codec used in the MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 standard. Yes, AAC is the same codec used for audio on those DVD movies you own.
MPEG-4's AAC is essentially the same as the AAC defined in MPEG-2, but with some extra capabilities added to make it more useable in the mobile world (such as the 3GPP multimedia format for mobiles phones)
AAC has been with us for a good while... it's nothing new... and it's good to see that it's going to be around for a good while more and has edged out WMA.
Well since your MP3 player has neither >2 channel audio or 96KHz+ sample rate, I can see how MP3 players are useless. If you rip a high resolution source into a low resolution source, you'll get exactly what the article/release is intending to give you: a lower quality version of the tracks on disc.
Heute die Welt, morgen das Sonnensystem!
AAC doesn't include DRM.
Some decisions just make sense...
AAC is a good format (better than MP3, same quality , on average, as Ogg (IMHO) and much better than WMA AT ANY BITRATE)
Not that WMA is bad, but it's too picky... One music in 64kbps sounds very good, another one sounds like crap.
Kudos!
how long until
There are only three recognized formats for audio on DVDs. On PAL DVDs, the compressed format is MPEG-1 Layer 2. On both PAL and NTSC DVDs, PCM (uncompressed digital audio) is used. On NTSC DVDs, the compressed format is Dolby Digital AC-3. The "AAC" you refer to is not the AAC that is sometimes referred to in the MPEG-2 specification; however, MPEG-2 for DVDs is a restricted subset of that specification. In fact, I get paid to show folks how to do this every day, since it's my work.
There's a great FAQ as to the formats for DVD audio.
However, the AAC standard referred to in the article is part of the MPEG-4 standard, and the MPEG-4 AAC does incorporate the formal MPEG-2 specification's AAC as one part of its capabilities.
That's true in a practical sense for North Americans, but MPEG audio is valid under the DVD specification.
If the video is NTSC, a DVD must contain either AC-3 or LPCM. It may also contain MPEG-1, MPEG-2, DTS, or SDDS audio.
See also the DVD FAQ.
-Dave
The point is that this is the format chosen for the computer "session" of a DVD audio disc. Which means that the software will have to take care of it (and iTunes will probably be the first to have it working, I'm sure)
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Microsoft's solution to this is called Secure Audio Path. It requires that the sound card drivers be signed by Microsoft if you want to play protected content. And they would presumably refuse to sign any driver which did as you suggested.
DVD-Audio won't play in regular DVD players or computers, so nobody cares about it.
It's a Simpsons reference. The joke is that it isn't a word at all, but it's used in the context of legitimizing another non-word.
Jebediah: [on film] A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.
Edna: Embiggens? I never heard that word before I moved to Springfield
Ms.Hoover: I don't know why. It's a perfectly cromulent word.
DVD Forum announced provisional support for three video codecs:
Microsoft's VC-9
MPEG-2
MPEG-4 AVC (aka H.264)
Both VC-9 and AVC have substantial, provable enhancements in compression efficiency over the MPEG-4 Simple Profile used in DivX's HD profiles. What's your issue here?
Also, QuickTime is a file format, not a codec. One could easily implement any of these three codecs inside a QuickTime file.
My video compression blog
Not to mention the fact that AAC is part of the mpeg4 standard -its not an "Apple" codec as some seem to think.
AAC is the sound format used on video DVDs. Video DVDs often do at least 5.1 if available. So, um, yeah, it does surround audio. =)
Buy a pair of cheap soundcards (the ADC and DAC quality don't matter in the least). Tap the digital input off card #1's DAC, and send it to the output of card #2's ADC
You really thing the "trusted" driver will let the card play a digital output from the "trusted DVD"? Analog hole is all there is.
Actually, any local band that plays live is where I'll be, I'll be reading instead of listening to music when idling at home.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
Nope, try again. That software is for ripping the audio out of DVD movies, not for ripping "DVD-Audio" discs. They're two very different things.
Carpe Cerevisi - Seize the Beer
AAC with FairPlay is different than AAC alone.
Apple uses the Fairplay DRM to support iTunes and the iPod together. Therefore it fails to meet the business model if you license Fairplay to other mp3 hardware vendors. If things change, then that might change. For now, that's the way it is.
What I don't understand is why Apple doesn't make the iPod capable of playing WMA files
I don't see much criticism of other mp3 players, but their own controllers also support AAC. Similarly, they do not enable AAC support in most cases.
I can offer a hint as to why Apple doesn't support WMA. Firstly, along with Real Audio, Windows Media Player doesn't support QuickTime (some earlier versions are supported). Along with Ogg Vorbis, these are essentially the only formats not supported.
Secondly, support of WMA is a bit more than enabling it in software; by "a bit more" I mean the cutting of a check worth a few hundred grand every year to Microsoft.
For Windows software (ie iTunes for Windows and everything else that runs on a Windows OS) the license fee is waived. I don't think it's surprising that iTunes for Windows won't support a format that the iPod or iTunes for MacOS doesn't, though.
In every case, note that "enabling" is not the same as "disabling". Nothing is disabled, instead they are not (yet) implemented, and to enable them requires the cutting of checks.
Microsoft WM Licensing
I modded it informative.. the other mods went against me.. ;(
This post is insightful, I guess, but it doesn't show a real understanding of the formats involved.
AAC isn't some out-of-the-blue format popularized by Apple. It's part of the MPEG-4 multimedia standard. It can be considered in some ways the phiolsophical child of MP3, or at least the next step down the path.
MPEG-4 is a massive, far reaching set of standards that do pretty much anything you could want to. And because they're set by the same standard group that worked out the technology behind MP3, DVD and digital TV, they've got a lot of industry support. It's a no-brainer to put AAC on a DVD-ROM.
WMV and Ogg Vorbis are very nice. But WMV is very new technology in coinstant flux with no real position in the industry and a distinct resistance to multiple platforms. And Vorbis has nobody in the industry pushing for it...it's a bit like a really great local band: doesn't matter how much good it is, it's got no promotion so nobody will hear it except by word of mouth.
And the player issue is kind of moot, as new technology will be needed to read DVD-ROM anyway. But there are MANY high quality AAC players for Windows, several for Mac, and a few for Lunix as well.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
A52 is the number of the ATSC standard where AC3/DD is defined for use by HDTV. Since the standard is freely available, the developer of liba52 presumably used the A52 standard to develop the AC3/DD decoder.
Lots of solutions have been suggested -- VMWare, a self-signed root certificate, various driver hacks, and hardware hacks all the way down to a quality microphone.
For that matter, what about ReactOS? And what about user feedback?
Most users would not buy a DVD that required them to play it on a computer. Somehow, I'm guessing the hardware on any "trusted" DVD player will be _very_ easy to hack -- something like a modchip? Add to that the fact that we already have non-compliant DVD players, and most of us don't want to go buy a new one.
As for me, I will quietly sit here borrowing CDs from people and ripping flac files (or buying them from magnatune), and as soon as DVD burners or terabyte storage gets cheap enough and a good format is available, I'll be ripping full-quality DVDs.
Once they've got us all locked into an Orwellian DMCA scheme, I laugh and pull out my multi-terabyte archive of stuff, release it onto Kazaa, start giving away burned copies on street corners with only a license that insists that for each copy I give to someone, they must burn two for someone else...
This is not because I'm evil, and I hope that I will never end up doing that. I would rather use something like Magnatune and actually pay the artists and be completely unrestricted in how I use the music. I would rather still use Creative Commons licensed stuff, but honestly, I haven't seen The Matrix nearly enough times. Fatboy Slim, Prodigy, and Jimi Hendrix are all still damn good. I don't need to buy new music, and so I would start the piracy like mad if I ever thought that such things would be limited in their use.
I would probably choke to death on rage when I could no longer listen to classic songs about freedom, or even songs from ICP and Limp Bizkit about breaking heads for no reason in absolute disrespect of authroity, without surrenduring my freedoms to a central authority -- without playing them all on some offshoot of Longhorn.
I almost did anyway when I heard Metallica bitching about Napster -- I wanted to throw some of their own lyrics back at them. Lyrics like "So fucking what?" was my first reaction. My next reaction was somewhat longer: "All the justice pain and greed money talking" but I'm not sure that's actually what's being said. Either way, the whole song "And Justice For All" rebels against exactly what I thought of Metallica as doing.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!