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iPod May Not Have The Horsepower For Ogg [updated]
An anonymous reader writes "Gizmodo has an interview with a Rio engineer who speculates that current iPods may not have enough CPU power and/or memory to decode Ogg. He concludes that the Minis might be able to do it, and the next generation iPods will certainly be able to. Of course, just because Apple can doesn't mean it will." Update: 06/06 04:44 GMT by T : csm writes with this rebuttal: "According to Monty from Xiph.org (author of the Tremor codec and OGG itself), it should very well be possible to run Ogg on older generation iPods."
I mean really, Apple, what do you have to lose?
<jedi> There is something funny here. You laugh. </jedi>
An engineer for a company in direct competition with Apple rips on Apple's hardware. Oh, he's speculating on it.
"Engineer Hugo Fiennes took a break from his day job as a hardware and firmware designer at Rio Audio (maker of the iPod competitor Karma player, among other things)"
That's news?
What's next, someone at Microsoft doesn't like Aqua? Ford engineer says Corvette "not as good as new Mustang"? Fiat engineers doesn't care for Ford Focus?
...a standard that doesn't have a lot of real-world support? I mean, if you go onto one of the p2p systems, you find that everything is still pretty much mp3. So there is some incentive there for Apple to provide mp3 support. Why would they want to promote an alternative standard that they aren't selling, though?
Seems to me that Apple wouldn't benefit much from ogg or flac support. So why bother - besides, the article makes it clear that the processor in the older ipods probably won't even support the decoding of ogg due to cpu limitations.
Barking up the wrong tree here, sadly. Ogg has to get some critical mass before Apple would even consider it.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Adding OGG support would be more than enough to convince me to buy an iPod. I can't really see the downside except for increased strain on the system memory, if what the article claims is true.
On
Apple may offend certain groups, such as Linux Users, by not supporting the Ogg Vorbis system, however the majority of computer users will never even consider using this codec. I submit this for consideration: What Operating system has the largest desktop user market share? Windows, obviously, Apple does not need to support Vorbis because Windows users, in general, have no need for this.
Well, true, but nobody ever says "MPEG Layer 3 Audio Only File" instead of just calling it "MP3". The tradition of having a three-letter file type extention usually sticks, and since Vorbis files are .ogg files, "Ogg" is the word that sticks.
This article indicates precisely why OGG Vorbis probably isn't a good idea on your ipod or mp3 player... namely, you get 25% LESS battery life. In a non portable, that's fine, but for a portable player with limited battery life... why in the world would anyone choose to get 75% performance with a negligable increase in sound quality (from headphones)?
Yeah, but so are my FLAC files, and my Speex files, I've also got some video (theora) files that are named with .ogg.
I've also got some of each that don't have any file suffixes beginning with dot
The Rio Karma convinced me to buy one of it's offspring once I found out they supported Ogg. I pre-ordered the Rio Karma about 1 year ago. Now I have 14 of the 20max gigs full with Oggs. That and an account at allofmp3.com gets me tons of music. I also love the way Rio Karma has built in ethernet connectivity. High end features (hey Rio is OWNED by Denon) like Sennheiser headphones and the audio output built in on the cradle made me jump at the chance to own one.
I have read about the mini iPod having the earbud connector get loose and cause distortion. Also I have heard about the iPod's battery going broke. I don't need overpriced Apple hardware, especially when it doesn't support Ogg. There is an open source jihad going on and the bearded hippies now have a way to get ogg vorbis in a portable fashion. I am proud to be a bearded hippie. Not to mention Ogg Vorbis beats all codecs in listening tests. Why buy an iPod when all it is is a overpriced POS. So STFU and RTFM and get a Rio Karma.
Exactly. Mod parent up. Etc.
Why would Apple want to support the Ogg Vorbis format? Call me cynical, and I've said this before, but what's in it for Apple?
Apple support MP3 because it's vital to their business model to get people with MP3 collections on board. Apple supports their own DRM-encumbered format so that they can sell you tunes via iTunes that you can't then share for free.
What's in it for Apple to support a new format that has no DRM? DRM where they want you to go. MP3 is just the bait.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
Seriously, who cares about Vorbis outside the faction of *nix users with +1 Amulets of OSS Awe?
Apple's primary market are the throngs of not-quite-but-almost-technologically-literate end users out there who see gadgets as tools, not lifestyles. Does this afforementioned throng care about Vorbis? No. Should Apple therefore care about Vorbis? No.
Get the fuck over it, already.
when I see Ogg Vorbis I think: vagina, egg, orb, salmonella, disgusting, muck.
That the name Ogg and/or Vorbis is being used to refer to ANYTHING is proof positive that the open source crowd should stick to what it knows (making things work) and stay as far away from marketing (making people want it) as possible.
Think about it. You're never going to see a marketing campaign with this tag line: iPod - new and improved with exciting Ogg Vorbis support!
Sheesh.
Or 'seriously, 99% of people don't care',
or 'it's still compressed you fools, so what if it supposedly sounds 1% better',
or 'Rio thinks using ogg will make them cooler than Apple'.
I feel a bit better now. Seriously now though, portable devices are mainly designed to be portable and easy to use. Musical fidelity, albeit important, is really not going to shine through with the crappy little in-ear headphones that people will invariably choose to use. The fidelity is irrelevant and this claim by the Rio chap is more of a drawback of Ogg Vorbis than the iPod in my eyes.
Because in the case of .avi files, there are many different encapsulated formats. Raw DV? DivX? Something else? But if you see a .ogg file, you can pretty much bet it is Vorbis. .ogg has a (virtually) 1-to-1 correspondence to Vorbis.
The specs for the microcontroller chips discussed in the article are available at the vendor sites for download.
So unless you're just another ignorant Apple fanboy, refute the guy's arguments. Or write a new version of ogg that can be made to work with the iPod.
If you can do either. Otherwise, stop whining.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Why is Ogg Vorbis format so good if it requires such extensive resources to play? Particularly when the most popular digital audio player doesn't support it?
This, to me, is evidence of the problems with Ogg Vorbis, not of problems with the iPod...
Philip Sandifer's academic website
I would just like to point out that 128kbps mp3's are unlistenable on my iRiver IHP-120 + MD33s's due to the annoyance of MP3 artifacts. However, OGG's are good to 96kbps. Itunes AAC is simply out of the question. Paying more for instant lossy encodes? I'm sorry, thats just moronic. and I'm not one of those guys that "just wants one song from an album" because I only give artists money when they have the ability to produce an entirely good album.
You bet they could manage?
They are engineers, not miracle workers. There are finite limits to the technology here. Even assuming that it is doable, would they make enough profit by adding it to offset the development and support costs involved?
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
I don't share these at all. Because big olde RIAA/MPAA might just come a knocking. I only use them for my personal use.
greg, REMEMBER ED CURRY!!!
Yeah, you know me!
... they're happy with the sound quality. MP3 is huge 'cause it was first and it was free. ACC is huge because it's tied to iTunes and iTunes is the first pay-per-use DRM system. Unless OGG can offer something new, it'll have a hard time gaining support.
I think OGG's major hurdle is that it's trying to solve a problem that most people aren't aware exists. Storage is cheap, and getting cheaper. For the vast majority of listeners
If I do that I am still a subordinate to Apple's format and their non-free software. I'd rather spend my money on a machine that runs on free software and directly supports the formats that let me keep my freedom.
Digital Citizen
what has the user's personal choice of filename got to do with usability? If you name the file "foo.ogg" it's your choice, if you name it "this_is_an_ogg_container_holding_a_vorbis_audio_s tream_named_foo", that is, similarly, your choice. The Operating System can work out what it is easily and quickly from the contents, or extended attributes can indicate the MIME type.