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MP3 Going the Way of the 8-Track?

joepa writes "According to this MSN/ZDNet story, MP3 is dying. Overall, the data has not shown a clear trend, but at least one recent study reports that people are deleting MP3s faster than they are downloading them. AAC and WMA, meanwhile, are apparently gaining market share. Is this evidence that MP3 is being used largely to sample music rather than for permanent archival and listening purposes? They still don't think so. "

118 of 574 comments (clear)

  1. Uh no by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    People just realize that when they need disk space, it's easier to delete mp3s because they can get them again anytime they want freely. The same can't be said for most WMA and AAC files which cost money. Once they're gone, you probably have to pay again. I know I didn't archive my music collection in mp3, though. I chose Ogg Vorbis, and may people choose something like FLAC.

    1. Re:Uh no by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      i bet they never considered that they could have been recoreded to CD-R before they were deleted to recover disk space as you say :^)

    2. Re:Uh no by EvilTwinSkippy · · Score: 4, Funny
      You also have organizations, like the one I work for (but will remain nameless), where we get sick of people clogging the RAID with pirated music files and issue a crackdown.

      Marketing data, that we can archive. 2 Live Crew's greatest hits, rm -rf *. If someone wants to back up their music on tape, I recommend casette

      --
      "Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
      --Dr.W.Edwards Deming
    3. Re:Uh no by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Here's what I do: I just pipe the directory of the CD-R to a text file with the CD-R's number as its filename in my library. Then I grep through the text files which are kept in a seperate directory on my HD. Takes very little space, and you can make a command prompt shortcut in Windows that starts in that directory.
      Of course it means you have to remember how the files were named, but usually you just search for parts of titles or artist names.
      Maybe there should be a MP3-grep that searches the ID tags? Maybe it already exists, but my system works fine so far so I never checked.

    4. Re:Uh no by FuzzyBad-Mofo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I haven't encoded to mp3 for years. All my CDs are ripped to high-bitrate Ogg Vorbis format, it sounds better than mp3 and Ogg has no silly patent issues. MSN says WMA is gaining marketshare? Doesn't Micros~1 wish..

    5. Re:Uh no by Cat_Byte · · Score: 5, Funny
      MP3 Going the Way of the 8-Track?

      I'll show them. I'll just burn my mp3's to an 8 track. They'll never take my music! NEVERRRRRRRRR!!!!

      --
      Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
    6. Re:Uh no by FictionPimp · · Score: 2, Informative

      I use DVD's to archive my music. I buy tunes from Itunes and strip the DRM then when I get 4 gig, I burn to DVD.

      so far I've only got 3/4 a dvd.

    7. Re:Uh no by tepples · · Score: 5, Funny

      I delete MP3s when they are riddled with ... beeps

      Techno hater.

    8. Re:Uh no by Issue9mm · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If he thought he was downloading Bad Religion's "Against the Grain" album, and realized that it was incorrectly named from whatever Britney Spears' latest album is, renaming it doesn't make it Bad Religion.

      Deletion is the only option.

      -9mm-

    9. Re:Uh no by mikael · · Score: 3, Funny

      I delete MP3s when they are riddled with ... beeps

      Noooo.... Those are communications from an alien race...

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    10. Re:Uh no by tambo · · Score: 5, Insightful
      I buy tunes from Itunes and strip the DRM then when I get 4 gig, I burn to DVD.

      Good luck with that. Especially since it's illegal under the DMCA. And since future versions of Intel hardware and Microsoft software will put a hard block on your ability to do this.

      Don't get me wrong - I believe that you have every right to do this, and I'm a very strong proponent of completely open media formats (which currently includes MP3, though that *might* go away.)

      My point is that you're putting your trust in two companies that have already publicly stated their intentions to betray that trust in the near future.

      - David Stein

      --
      Computer over. Virus = very yes.
    11. Re:Uh no by mog007 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You can only violate the DMCA if you're a citizen of the United States or one of it's territories.

    12. Re:Uh no by Cat_Byte · · Score: 2, Informative

      Item number: 5725414072 on ebay is all I need ;)

      I was just being funny. But I got a good laugh when I searched for '8 track' on ebay and saw how many pages of hits there were.

      --
      Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
    13. Re:Uh no by ArbitraryConstant · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Good luck with that. Especially since it's illegal under the DMCA."

      That's funny, I thought it was explicitly allowed. Granted that's just Canada... but the US is not the only country out there.

      "And since future versions of Intel hardware and Microsoft software will put a hard block on your ability to do this."

      pffft

      That assumes that every stage of the setup secure, and that details are never leaked. Given that the whole thing is designed by committee on a deadline, and that they're going to be dealing with people that can sniff the bus, I find that unlikely. Indeed, Microsoft claiming they will be able to provide unbreakable DRM is equivilant to Microsoft claiming they can provide perfect security. For example, one of the vulnerabilities that allowed an XBox to play pirated games was in the firmware itself.

      And then, at the end of the day, the best case they can hope for is forcing everyone to use the analog hole.

      --
      I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
    14. Re:Uh no by Cat_Byte · · Score: 2, Funny

      Not when I finish my upgrade to my computer. I'm hooking up one of the old cassette data storage devices and putting the 8 track adapter in it :)

      --
      Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
    15. Re:Uh no by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      > You can only violate the DMCA if you're a citizen of the United States or one of it's territories.

      Like Sklyarov?

    16. Re:Uh no by homer_ca · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It depends how picky you are about sound quality, but I'm less picky about sound on portable players because it's already noisy outside and I play my iPod through an FM modulator. In that case you could always encode your high quality Oggs to a lower bitrate MP3 for portable use. Yes, it sounds like shit converting lossy to lossy, but you'd just treat the MP3 as a dispoable file then, and computers are fast enough these days that reencoding to lower bitrates doesn't take long.

    17. Re:Uh no by FrostByte12 · · Score: 2

      I actually co-developed a file system watcher to track down pirated music on corporate servers. Its fast, easy, and best of all...You can smite the violaters in real time. Muhaha the power of Master Control.

    18. Re:Uh no by badasscat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I haven't encoded to mp3 for years. All my CDs are ripped to high-bitrate Ogg Vorbis format, it sounds better than mp3 and Ogg has no silly patent issues.

      Eh, I took one of those double-blind listening tests and I couldn't tell the difference. All the codecs sounded good to me and I usually consider myself pretty anal about these things. Almost half the time I couldn't even pick out which was the original and which was the compressed version, in any format (sometimes it was obvious, but sometimes not).

      I don't think Vorbis' tiny advantage in sound quality (which would be easily overcome just by using a higher bit rate) outweighs MP3's standardization. I mean argue all you want about open-source, about patents or whatever, I'm talking about practical usage here. I can buy any device out there - even Sony, soon - and know that it plays MP3 files. I don't know why you'd use anything else given how close most of these codecs are to each other.

      There are some serious flaws in these results showing a drop on mp3 use, many of which have already been pointed out. The biggest one to me, though, is that mp3's are just far more portable. Download a wma file and what the heck are most people going to do with it? Pretty much your only choice is to keep it on the one machine you've downloaded it onto, unless you strip the DRM or unless you've got one of the six portable players that supports it.

      I have four PC's in my house and I have all of my music on two of them and a lot of my music on a third. That's using mp3. So sure, at some point if I want my disk space back I may delete a few off one of my hard drives. That doesn't mean I'm using mp3 less, that just means the format has given me the freedom to choose where I want to have my music and when I want to have it on a particular device.

      If there's any decline in the total number of mp3's on hard drives, it's probably people like me who have ripped their entire collection from CD, thrown the resulting files on pretty much every PC and portable device they own and are now consolidating. There was that initial rush to rip everything once mp3 became popular, and now that's pretty much done. It's a natural process. But there's no way anybody's using mp3 any less than they were, and that in no way suggests that mp3's are more disposable. I'll take my pristine and clean 320kbps VBR mp3 files over Apple's ridiculous DRM-encrusted 128k AAC files any day of the week!

  2. Other Formats? by sp00 · · Score: 3, Informative

    What about OGG?

    1. Re:Other Formats? by jxyama · · Score: 2, Insightful
      i doubt ogg vorbis is relevant in these statistics. iTMS is selling 4 million tracks a week. and those are paid for so people won't discard them as easily as illegal downloads.

      can you think of a way music tracks on the order of millions are encoded every week in ogg vorbis?

    2. Re:Other Formats? by Quickfry · · Score: 2, Insightful

      In all honesty, it seems that only nerds use the ogg vorbis codec, despite it being technically superior.

      You can search on a P2P network, and rarely see OGG files. It's sad, but true.

    3. Re:Other Formats? by WndrBr3d · · Score: 5, Funny

      You forgot Poland :-(

    4. Re:Other Formats? by jxyama · · Score: 4, Insightful
      >There is nothing illegal about Ogg. It's a great format to rip your CDs too.

      um, what? my point was, since most downloads are mp3s and not ogg vorbis, the way most people obtain ogg vorbis files is for them to encode their own CDs. since we are talking about, among other things, increasing existence of AAC files on the order of 4 million tracks per week at least via iTMS (and that doesn't include people like me who ripped their own music in AAC via iTunes), i couldn't see how ogg vorbis would be statistically significant in comparison. do you think minority people who even know the existence of ogg vorbis would rip so much of their music that it would collectively come anywhere near million a week?

    5. Re:Other Formats? by arivanov · · Score: 5, Informative
      Major problem - no OGG car devices available whatsof***ever and while many ./ readers can DIY 99.9% of the population cant or will not. If I had an option to buy I would not have looked at doing it either. At the same time every major car audio player has an MP3 device (some real, some with conversion to something else in the PC software).

      This is a shame as OGG is a much better format. I can distinguish MP3 immediately even if it is encoded at 192. It has a nasty distortion in the high frequency range that makes dogs breakfast of any good electric guitar. Disclaimer - my hearing is better then the average for 99.9 people of the same age and I have worked on an MP3 implementation so I have listened to it until puking for several weeks.

      --
      Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
      http://www.sigsegv.cx/
    6. Re:Other Formats? by FuzzyBad-Mofo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Major problem - no OGG car devices available whatsof***ever

      Rio Karma + RF adapter works pretty well.

    7. Re:Other Formats? by aneurysm36 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      yep
      until there is a format that is as universally supported (dvd players, car stereos, ipod type devices, etc) as mp3, or until most/all devices will let you install your own codecs, mp3 is not dead.

      --
      ------ hi mom
    8. Re:Other Formats? by hackwrench · · Score: 5, Informative

      Not all free downloads are illegal, thank you very much!

    9. Re:Other Formats? by FuzzyBad-Mofo · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's true that there are much less Ogg-encoded files than mp3 on the file-sharing networks, but the numbers do seem to be growing. (at least on Gnutella, which is the only network I frequent)

    10. Re:Other Formats? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Actually, Emmett was the founder of Time City. It went to shit when he started to get annoyed that people weren't taking the project in the direction he had hoped. He was quite unclear about what he wanted, and from everyone else's perspective, it was a case of people coming up with good suggestions, Emmett going "that's not right", and putting large quantities of "stop energy" into every attempt at progress.

      The fact that the project was little more than a name, a mailing list, and a "mission statement" didn't help, nor the "it's my idea, start your own project if you want to do that" flames aimed at people who were suggesting things he didn't like.

      It just goes to show that you can't build a decent open-source project by coming up with a vague idea and trying to get people to build stuff for you without contributing code or elaborating on your ideas.

    11. Re:Other Formats? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny
      Disclaimer - my hearing is better then the average for 99.9 people of the same age and I have worked on an MP3 implementation so I have listened to it until puking for several weeks.


      Also my dick is enormous, much larger than yours. My car is faster than everybody else's. I own my own island, it's called Manhattan. I have PhDs in everything. Additionally last Wednesday I received my fifteenth Knighthood. And the Nobel prize committee recently decided to change the name of their prize in honor of me.

      I'm right. You're wrong. I'm an authority, you're just an ignorant fucktard.

      Oh yeah, the skin on my ass makes a baby's bottom feel like sandpaper. And my farts smell like fucking cheesecake.
    12. Re:Other Formats? by XemonerdX · · Score: 2, Informative

      I can't go around installing shit on everyone's PC no can I.
      There are plenty of players out there that do not need installing and support OGG, MP3, etc... XMPlay for one (it will even play WMA if needed)... It'll happily run from yer portable HD and play every track on there...

    13. Re:Other Formats? by Kent+Recal · · Score: 2, Informative

      A small shell script should easily fix that.
      Just extract the id3 tag (hopefully the standard id3-util can read it from .ogg?) and use oggtag to properly tag them.

    14. Re:Other Formats? by jedidiah · · Score: 2, Insightful

      An RF adaptor requires a free frequency. This can be a problem in areas that actually have people in them.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    15. Re:Other Formats? by benna · · Score: 2, Informative

      In the first presidential debate in the US George Bush kept telling John Kerry that he forgot POland whenever he would list the few allies we had for the Iraq war. The funny thing is that poland barely provided any troops at all for the beginning of the war.

      --
      "It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
    16. Re:Other Formats? by FuzzyBad-Mofo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      True enough, but I've had minimal problems with mine driving around metropolitan Chicago. It has a slider to choose from a couple of little-used frequencies.

    17. Re:Other Formats? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      EVEN if its ripped at 192?

      Obviously you know shit about mp3, much less spent time developing it.

      192 isn't very good quality, i'm sure at least 50 perecent of the population could tell the difference, if they cared. For mp3 to sound good, you need to use a good encoder (LAME), VBR, and joint stereo. And when those settings are used, its universally accepted that the maximum quality attainable by MP3 is higher than that for OGG. (and MPC beats them both). But OGG is definately a more effecient format (destroys mp3 below 160K), so given enough time/effort to fine tune the psychoacoustic models, it will one day surpass mp3 at high bitrates.

      But if your hearing is better than 99.9% of the population, then you should definately notice the high-frequency distortion present in all current OGG implementations.

    18. Re:Other Formats? by numark · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "Technically superior" doesn't mean anything when compared to the common standard of "good enough." Putting aside the issue of whether Ogg is even superior at all, unless there's a very good reason to switch to Ogg, most people will stick with the more standard MP3. Since MP3 files sound and work good enough for the vast majority of people, and they can be played on virtually any music player, there's no incentive for people to switch. Debate all you want over such droll things as patent issues, bitrates, etc., the mass public has latched onto MP3, and there's no current valid reason for them to switch to Ogg when it doesn't even work or encode in a lot of music players.

      --
      Want Slashdot headlines on your site? Try SlashHead
  3. evidence? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    "Is this evidence that MP3 is being used largely to sample music rather than for permanent archival and listening purposes?"

    Is this statement evidence that someone's trying to justify illegal activity? Maybe you should try the ol' trusty "Your honor, she was asking for it! You should have seen the way that MP3 was dressed."

  4. Ok by paranode · · Score: 4, Insightful

    AAC and WMA are on the rise, and that makes sense given the current marketing trends with these two codecs. Does that mean mp3 is dying? Hardly. It will be around for quite sometime, despite development of superior codecs.

    1. Re:Ok by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Insightful
      AAC and WMA are on the rise, and that makes sense given the current marketing trends with these two codecs. Does that mean mp3 is dying? Hardly. It will be around for quite sometime, despite development of superior codecs.

      And SO much MP3 music is done under the radar how the fsck would they know ... unless it's on of those "studies" conducted by an interested party to show trends they would like to project as "real" Considering this is on MSN ...

      MusicWatch Digital who track the contents of people's hard drives,

      OK, just how are they supposed to know what's on people's hard drives? Are they running a bunch of zombies or something? Sorry, man, but this sounds like shlock.

      --

      A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  5. obviously by WormholeFiend · · Score: 5, Insightful

    all the companies producing new mp3 players agree...
    [/sarcasm]

  6. Doesn't sound like dying to me by RealAlaskan · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Researchers say the data does not show that MP3 is losing much of its popularity--files encoded in the format are just more disposable than rivals. People are still downloading boatloads of MP3 files--but they are discarding them at an even faster rate, the researchers said.

    So, most of what we download is crap. What's new here?

    1. Re:Doesn't sound like dying to me by drinkypoo · · Score: 2, Interesting

      So, most of what we download is crap. What's new here?

      By that argument, if people are deleting more than they download, more than 100% of the music we download is crap. I do not think you know what that word means.

      There are basically two possible explanations for this, at least in my book. One of them is that people are downloading the same songs in other formats. The other is that people are just realizing that the music they previously downloaded was crap, and that they only downloaded it because they could.

      Of course, if they owned a CD or DVD burner, they could just shovel it onto optical media and save it for posterity... Moving files isn't quite the same as deleting them. If it was, I'd be deleting everything I downloaded, since it eventually makes it onto CD when I no longer need a local copy.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  7. I won't believe it just yet. by GiveMeLinux · · Score: 2, Funny

    Has netcraft confirmed it?

    1. Re:I won't believe it just yet. by tbone1 · · Score: 4, Funny
      Has netcraft confirmed it?

      I can't tell, my BSD system just died.

      --

      The Independent: Reverend Spooner Arrested in Friar Tuck Incident - ISIHAC, Historical Headlines
  8. Does Netcraft confirm it? by jayhawk88 · · Score: 4, Funny

    I think this should be obvious, given the rise of "legitimate" music sites like iTunes none too eager to use MP3 as their format of choice. But MP3 will always be around, given the thousands of people out there who have vast hoards of MP3 collections from the heady days of Napster 1.0.

    1. Re:Does Netcraft confirm it? by Omestes · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Not quite true, my old napster mp3s have completely made way for AAC, both from iTMS and from me reripping my CDs for a higher quality but smaller file size. The few mp3 I've actually kept from the napster days have all been converted to AAC as well.

      I think that, if this trend is indeed real, and if it continues, then a lot of companies will start only handleing the predominant format.

      --
      A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
    2. Re:Does Netcraft confirm it? by toddestan · · Score: 4, Interesting

      My hoard of Napster 1.0 music files aren't going anywhere soon. Sure, they are redundant with other stuff I have downloaded, and many I haven't listened to in years. But going through them would take time, and I never know when I might need that 'Men Without Hats' track. Besides, harddrive space is incredibly cheap, the whole collection is probably taking up less than $5.00 worth of disk drive.

  9. Not so soon. by Milik · · Score: 2, Interesting

    MP3 is not going to vanish any time soon it is cross platform, there are many aplications writen for it. I think that some time in to the near future we will see an update to this standart.

  10. Why? by thedillybar · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Why does it make any difference to Joe Schmoe w/ $20 speakers if it's in MP3, AAC or WMA?

    He's going to download what is readily available, or use the default format of the most readily available CD ripper. Winamp will play them all regardless; you can't even tell the difference.

    1. Re:Why? by Zachary+Kessin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      MP3 may not be perfect as a format, but in general it is "Good Enough". It does the job, sure some other format may have sound thats a little better, or files that are a little smaller or something else over mp3, but not enough better to justify changing. A lot of people have spend money on mp3 players, have collected a lot of mp3s etc. To convince them to move to something new, that something has to have a feature thats a LOT better then mp3. I don't see anything out there that will do that now.

      --
      Erlang Developer and podcaster
  11. Saturation by Dekks · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Could it just be that a lot of people who were prolific in downloading mp3's now have most of the songs they want? I personally don't care about most new music enough to buy a cd or download a track, not that there isn't some good music out there, I just don't feel theres much I'm willing to pay for. And most of the older stuff I'm into I either got in napsters hey-day, or I own on CD, I can't recall the last time I actively seeked a song out. That and as other posters have already said, the mp3 audiophiles and already moved onto ogg and other formats.

    1. Re:Saturation by Tackhead · · Score: 5, Insightful
      > Could it just be that a lot of people who were prolific in downloading mp3's now have most of the songs they want?

      Quite possibly. The first year you discover MP3, you get everything you always wanted, but could never find on CD. The second year, you go back to your first-year tracks, realize that 128/Xing sounds like ass, and redownload them at 192/LAME. The third year, you fill in the blanks.

      And you have a music archive that (as long as you remember to do offsite backup of the hard drive) will be with you for the rest of your life. No DRM. No worries about companies going under. No worries about the DRM or playback software being available on whatever OS you're using in 2018. Ever.

    2. Re:Saturation by pla · · Score: 3, Funny

      The first year you discover MP3, you get everything you always wanted, but could never find on CD. The second year, you go back to your first-year tracks, realize that 128/Xing sounds like ass, and redownload them at 192/LAME.

      Then the third year you realize MP3 in general sounds like ass, and switch to all Vorbis. The fourth year, you realize that not all Vorbis encoders work equally well (same as with Xing vs Lame), and switch to GT3 or aoTuV at Q10. The fifth year you realize that you can hear (admittedly very little, but some) distortion even at the highest possible Vorbis quality you can get, and try using things like AAC, hacked WMV, and other oddballs.

      Finally, the sixth year, you realize that HDD space has grown to the point where you can afford to store your entire CD collection in a lossless format, and rip everything, one last time, to FLAC.

      And on the seventh year, I finally got to rest. ;-)


      Now, of course, 5.1ch 24bps@192KHz will become the dominant PCM format (or something even more exotic and non-PCM, like DSD used by SACD), and we start the entire cycle over. Those damned Jonses, they just keep getting better compression ratios than me!

    3. Re:Saturation by pla · · Score: 2, Informative

      OK, here's the deal: 5.1 music is a fucking joke.

      If you read some of my posts on that very topic, you'll see that I agree with you, for the most part.

      However, where more-than-two channels does matter, you described as the most likely situations in which to listen to music - Moving around the house (better position independant spatial reproduction), in a noisy environment (better resistance to directional noise), etc.

      But no... Sitting at home, in the living room, deliberately "just" listening to music - A good pair of 'phones will do worlds more for sound quality than adding more channels to the signal. No argument there.


      How many people do you know who have a 5.1 system and would sit down and actually listen to music in that environment?

      Several, but I'll grant your point - Still not very many, percentage-wise.

      How many 5.1 systems are installed in cars again?

      I actually see that as the most likely place for 5.1 to catch on... Most newer cars already have digital audio systems, as well as 4+ speakers. The leap to 5.1 (or more realistically, 4.1) would take only a bass tube (a standard upgrade for most car audio systems) and software support.

  12. MP3 death by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful
    MP3 was declared dead years ago by lots of people who didn't like what was happening. Of course people are deleting MP3 files. They download everything and then delete what they don't like. Since you've got to pay for MS formatted stuff, you're only going to buy stuff you know you want and therefore, not delete it.


    Just more FUD.

  13. Go Go Gadget Propaganda Machine by bigtangringo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Study sponsored by Microsoft with their own DRM agenda to push I presume...

    The only thing I'd delete my MP3s for, are OGGs.

    Suck it down you hapless technoweenies, Give me DRM-Free or give me death!

    --
    Yes, I am a smart ass; it's better than the alternative.
  14. MSN Supporting WMA? Never! by mikewren420 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    MSN is reporting the death of a rival format of WMA? Wow, there's a shocker!

    1. Re:MSN Supporting WMA? Never! by That's+Unpossible! · · Score: 4, Insightful

      For those of us who don't have BiasGoggles on and can actually read bylines, we see the article was written by CNET News.com.

      --
      Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
    2. Re:MSN Supporting WMA? Never! by mikewren420 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      For those of us who don't have BiasGoggles on and can actually read bylines, we see the article was written by CNET News.com.

      It could have been written by Dr. Suess, that's not my point. The point is that MSN is predicting the death of an audio format that is WMA's rival. Try reading a little McLuhan; The medium sometimes is the message.

  15. Just a hint of proprietary by stecoop · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Remember when Fraunhofer threatened companies for infringing on certain MP3 license a few years ago? Well, that shook the industry into finding alternate solutions. For me, if it isn't some form of lossless open standard such as Flac than I prefer to pass not only on the sound track but the playing device as well. For me, listening to highly compressed MP3 isn't my cup of tea even if the compression ratio for lossy is higher than lossless.

    I am glade that Wikipedia settled (?) on OGGs rather than MP3s due to the open nature of the format. Hopefully this trend will continue whereby patent encumbrance may not be best solutions.

    1. Re:Just a hint of proprietary by Yokaze · · Score: 3, Interesting

      > Well, that shook the industry into finding alternate solutions.

      Yes, certainly that's why they went for WMA (Microsofts patent portofolio) and AAC (AT&T, Dolby, Sony and, you may have guessed it, Fraunhofer IIS).

      --
      "Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
  16. AAC vs WMA vs MP3 by Mstrgeek · · Score: 2, Informative
    This is a great write up done on this topic hope you enjoy

    http://reilly.typepad.com/cameronreilly/2004/09/aa c_vs_wma_vs_m.html

    --
    Chris Williams clw7500nc@gmail.com
  17. Could it be.... by Vampyre_Dark · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Could it be that the people who are running the spyware for this data to be mined for the research are more prone to losing their P2Ped mp3s when the 128 kilibyte .exe they downloaded thinking it was some game nuked their drive.? :)

  18. Ha! by Schezar · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I guess I'll have to stop playing mp3s on by BSD boxen..

    I frankly don't see mp3 going anywhere in the near future. It's ubiquitous, open, and of high quality. Despite what many "audiophiles" will say to the contrary, a 224 capped VBR0 mp3 will not be perceptibly different from even a the most perfect "lossless" method for 99% of music.

    My 486 can play mp3s. My crappy DVD player can play mp3s. My old-as-hell CD-based mp3 player can play mp3s.

    Sure, someday there will be a switch. Maybe for multi-channel audio, maybe for special neural orgasm stimulation, maybe for quantum compression. But for the time being, no file format exists that has enough of a net benefit over mp3 to warrent a mass-exodus.

    --
    GeekNights!
    Late Night Radio for Geeks!
    1. Re:Ha! by ratamacue · · Score: 4, Insightful
      a 224 capped VBR0 mp3 will not be perceptibly different from even a the most perfect "lossless" method for 99% of music

      Maybe not, but it's quite a different story when you decide you want to re-encode those mp3's into another lossy format. For archiving purposes, there is no substitute for lossless compression. It has nothing to do with sound quality, and everything to do with having an exact, bit-for-bit duplicate of the original.

      To make an analogy, you wouldn't want to backup your CD's on analog cassette tapes. Even if you couldn't tell the difference in sound quality, you still don't have your originals, and thus you have no backup. If it's not bit-for-bit identical, it's not a backup. I'm not saying there isn't a place for lossy compression. I use lossy compression myself for my portable player, and it works great. But that's not a backup, it's only a convienence.

  19. Re:I've got 28.9GB right here that says by pilgrim23 · · Score: 4, Funny

    I prefer my music to have that scratchy tin can sound of my youthful use of a pocket transistor radio tuned to the AM band. So of course my collection is all in Real Audio format. Takes less space, sounds awful, and with Real Alternative I can listen without the adware. Yeah I know, all the other formats: pure pristine sound. Well my other record player is a 78 Victrola....

    --
    - Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
  20. Rule of thumb for political spin of any sort by scrod · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In politics, you proclaim as already true what you would like to happen eventually.

  21. i question these kinds of studies by m2bord · · Score: 2, Insightful

    i can't remember the extesion but the ipod format should be the only format making in-roads against the mp3 format.
    most new electronic devices play the mp3 format but ignore the acc, ogg, wma, etc formats, like dvd players, car stereos, and the like.

    --
    Is it 5:30 yet?
  22. Just because we are deleting them by Maudib · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Doesnt mean mp3 is dying. There are so many bad mp3 files (due to bad nameing, RIAA subversion, etc) and just so much lousy music that most of the mp3s on P2P are not worth saveing.

    Also think about how many times you say "I want song x", and then your search on p2p turns up 40 different versions, thirty of which are covers by some irish tenor?

    They probably are missing its increased utility, in swapping amongst friends. Whenever I am at a friends house, I rip all of their cds to mp3s, and most of the people I know do the same. This kind of use with the increasing prevelance of iPods and other players is definitely on the rise.

  23. yeah, right... by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    that is why mp3 players are not selling.
    Oh and I see lots of home stereo players that will play DRM'd music... My audiotron will play WMA's until you get to the DRM variety.

    mp3 is as popular as ever, hell the new phone system here uses mp3 exclusively for voice messages, background music and voice prompts.

    Oh and when was the last time you saw a car stereo that would play any DRM'd music??

    mp3 is solid as a format.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  24. There is a huge spike in MP3 deletions... by TiggertheMad · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...because I just moved my 80+ GB collection to a bigger drive and cleaned off the old one.

    Gotta have room for all the new quality music comming out of the music industry, you know.

    --

    HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
  25. Maybe neither (dying/sample) by Lars+T. · · Score: 2, Informative

    But just because many MP3s on P2P simply don't cut it (too low bitrate/pieces missing/fakes/etc.)

    --

    Lars T.

    To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

  26. I still make MP3s from my CDs by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    On the rare (RARE!) occasion that I buy one. Why? Because I can actually play them. See, WMA, AAC, OGG or the codec-of-the-week might be superior to MP3 but everything that plays compressed digital audio plays MP3. It's an issue of what will play where. When everything I have plays OGG, I'll probably switch to that. It'll probably be a long while before I replace my DVD player with one with OGG support though.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  27. Evidence, man. Evidence! by Weaselmancer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As much as I dislike starting an argument with a logical fallacy, you should really look at the article a bit before making any claims as to the death of MP3.

    First of all the article page loads with the title "MSN Tech & Gadgets". This is noteworthy, especially seeing as how MS is trying to break into this market. Of course they'd say MP3 is dead, especially when they're touting a DRM enabled propriatary format.

    Also, we have this gem from the article:

    According to researchers at The NPD Group's MusicWatch Digital who track the contents of people's hard drives, the percentage of MP3-formatted songs in digital-music collections has slid steadily in recent months, down to about 72 percent of people's collections from about 82 percent a year ago.

    Aside from this being really creepy, it's a biased sample. Anyone who would let someone put monitoring software on their PC (assuming it's not spyware) would probably not have a lot of MP3 files on their machine, if you know what I mean *nudge nudge*.

    To sum up: Article is bogus advertising spin. Nothing to see here, move along.

    --
    Weaselmancer
    rediculous.
  28. MP3 is dying by IGnatius+T+Foobar · · Score: 5, Funny

    It is official; Netcraft confirms: MP3 is dying

    One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered MP3 community when IDC confirmed that MP3 market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all music files. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that MP3 has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. MP3 is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive audio test.

    You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict MP3's future. The hand writing is on the wall: MP3 faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for MP3 because MP3 is dying. Things are looking very bad for MP3. As many of us are already aware, MP3 continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

    Open source MP3 is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time MP3 developers Frauhofer and Philips only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: MP3 is dying.

    Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

    Due to the troubles of Frauhofer and Philips, abysmal sales and so on, Philips went out of business and was taken over by Magnavox who sell another troubled audio system. Now MP3 is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

    All major surveys show that MP3 has steadily declined in market share. MP3 is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If MP3 is to survive at all it will be among audio dilettante dabblers. MP3 continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, MP3 is dead.

    Fact: MP3 is dying

    --
    Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
  29. Vinyl more like it by Himring · · Score: 2, Interesting

    8-track? I think vinyl would have been a better analogy. Mp3s will never go completely away since they still have, and will still have, some use. But 8-tracks were an actual offense to music (yes, I'm that old). I don't remember any other format that violently cut a song in half so that the friggin thing could switch to side two. Once casette tapes came out, 8-tracks were dumped hard by everybody. By contrast, while vinyl majorly died off, it still holds a nostalgic quality and has its niche purposes among enthusiasts who just can't give up THE sound a vinyl album produces (I prefer "The Wall" on vinyl -- it's hard to stop thinking of it as four sides to two vinyl disks).

    The days of the 8-track is like a bad memory to me....

    --
    "All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
  30. Old formats don't die by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Just as my copy of Open Office still reads DOS format text files just fine, my hardware solid state music player that I buy in 2050 will still play MP3. Unlike 8-track and Beta (hardware formats), there's no barrier to force old software formats out of the market.

    --
    SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
  31. One reason people delete most mp3s they download.. by zapp · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Thanks to assholes out there (RIAA, dumbasses, etc)... you have to download 10 copies of a song just to find one that isn't cut, low quality, a different song mislabeled, the chorus looped over and over, or simply static.

    --
    no comment
  32. Who cares? by east+coast · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Thankfully (for MP3 fans) this is a software technology. Even if MP3s lose market share and are not available from subscription services like e-music or the late mp3.com the technology will still always be there.

    Not much different than an Atari 2600 emulator.

    And certainly the format will continue to get support from most major software and hardware manufacturers. I doubt the day is on us when we can by a WMA head unit for the auto that doesn't support MP3.

    For God's sake there is a C=64 web browser. What's the chances that MP3 is going away?

    --
    Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
  33. Re:Kinda makes sense by EvilTwinSkippy · · Score: 2, Interesting
    The 8 track analogy is just plain silly. With digital recording you can store music on memory sticks, portable hard drives, mini-discs, CD's, DAT, and even battery powered RAM. Even if an embedded device won't play MP3s in the future, your computer will be able to translate the signal into a future format.

    With 8 track, the tapes only worked with 8 track players.

    --
    "Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
    --Dr.W.Edwards Deming
  34. MP3 is like FAT by jandrese · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Have you ever noticed how almost every small storage technology uses the horribly limited, slow, badly designed FAT filesystem? There is a reason for this: FAT is the most compatable FS available. Few people use it anymore on their main filesystem (because it sucks), but almost everything else seems to use it.

    I see the same thing happening with MP3. People just digitizing their music so they don't have to pull out CDs all the time will use whatever has the best sound/size tradeoff (or whatever comes with the system). If they're encoding their music for use on joe random device, they'll use MP3.

    --

    I read the internet for the articles.
    1. Re:MP3 is like FAT by pjrc · · Score: 2
      Regarding FAT:

      "horribly limited" = file size limit not an issue on small media. FAT12/16 main directory size limit usually not an issue either, for most small media applications still using FAT.

      "slow" = cluster chain traversal for random seeking in files is what's slow about FAT. Not usually an issue for mp3 players, cameras that read or write files as a continuous stream.

      "badly designed" = simplicity. Just what you need when it's gotta be implemented in a small microcontroller that's already tasked with doing lots of other stuff... all at minimum cost (memory) and minimum power (max battery life).

  35. Way of the 8-Track? by HaloZero · · Score: 3, Funny

    You mean I'm going to have to deal with my dad constantly shifting his boxes of 8-Tracks AND MP3s around the attic and complaining about not 'being able to find a decent player anymore'?

    --
    Informatus Technologicus
  36. Re:Insert obligatory RIAA joke here by Sylver+Dragon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Heck no, they will use this as proof that all of their laws and tactics are working. Now, all they need to do is get copyright extended again to infinity-1 years, pass a much stronger version of the DMCA, get that INDUCE act passed and the world will be right.

    --
    Necessity is the mother of invention.
    Laziness is the father.
  37. Dying But Never Dead by phobos13013 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    First off, as digital music becomes the norm which it practically is, people are becoming more savvy to it. With tapes, vinyl or 8-tracks, there was one quality essentially and thats it. But when you get into encoding its a whole new ballgame. There have been many comparisons of the current big formats. In the end, unless you listen ONLY to simple electronic music (dance) and encode at very high rates, mp3 is pretty crappy at replicating the source. Most tests show WMA as the best, which i personally find hard to believe, with aac and ogg performing in the middle neither having any strong advantage over the other unless you consider specific music types.
    But the strength of mp3 lies in its accessibility, space impact, and reach by having existed for so long. I dont see a reason to replace mp3, and i doubt it will, but i wouldnt rely on it for EVERYTHING.

    At the end of the day, mp3 wont be the one and only thing, doesnt mean its dying, it means there are more options. Not need for the doom and gloom on mp3. You can just say, its not the 100 lb. gorrilla it once was.

    --
    ...and it should be known by now
  38. Don't Ask Me... by Trolling4Dollars · · Score: 3, Informative

    ...I use Ogg Vorbis and it works just fine. All my music is in one place and, it's all legal (ripped from CDs I purchased) and I can listen to it anywhere thanks to icecast+OpenVPN. Power to the people baby! ;)

  39. if AAC and WMA are on the rise... by sootman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...it's probably because that's what iTunes and WMP, respectively, rip to by default.

    I don't care how common WMA is, or that AAC is technically a "standard." MP3 is the only thing I know of that will play on every device and every computer, period. Hell, I bought a $79 AIWA deck for my car and it'll play MP3s from a CD. But not WMA, AAC, or anything else.

    MP3 will die--right after Apple & BSD.

    --
    Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
  40. Good Point by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The manufactures are still marketing the products as "mp3" Players even though they have support for different formats. So people might buy things like the rio karma and the dell jukebox because they are "mp3" Players, odds are they'll end up putting wma's on them. As the story says, many people don't know the difference and don't really care that much.

    --
    Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
  41. But its a dumb choice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ogg is fine, I have no tchnical quarrels with it, and as a free codec, I think its fabulous.

    however, if I decided not to use ogg, WMA would be about the last choice. Think about it:

    1) WMA is not playable in an iPod and is difficult on non-windows platforms

    2) WMP10 plays and RIPs MP3

    3) MP3 is probably the best choice for people who need to move it amongst platforms.

    4) unemcumbered AAC's are the best choice for people who own an iPod.

    5) If you really care about the music and dont' want to be a slave to the flavor of the month, choose flac or ape.

    6) WMA's are probably the last choice you'd make. No, check that. ATRAC is the last choice. But WMA's are close.

    Seriously, you can rip in MP3. Make it your default in WMP10. Better yet, use your brain and use the FREE version of WinAmp 5.x. Better quality, no lock-in.

  42. Re:I've got 28.9GB right here that says by kfg · · Score: 2, Funny

    Well my other record player is a 78 Victrola....

    You kids these days with your 'records.' Wax cylinders were good enough for me when I was your age, and they're good enough for me now.

    By the way, your sig is the cat's meow.

    KFG

  43. Not at all what I expected! by rpdillon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This trend is very alarming. It basically proves what I should have known all along: the technical merits of a format, along with how laden it is with DRM, do not matter at all to the general public.

    I thought that Xiph was doing a great thing with Ogg and I moved my entire collection over to ogg vorbis. I love it, and it sounds good. I thought it was a matter of time for the move from MP3 to Ogg to happen, since MP3 is larger, has more audio quality issues, and is not "free". Boy was I wrong! I thought people would be moving over to the smaller, higher quaity, free-as-in-speech codec.

    Instead, we're seeing the opposite! People moving to more restrictive codecs (although the quality may still be better). I knew most people didn't care about free-as-in-speech that much, but this is sort of alarming...

  44. That is still under hot debate by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Real audiophiles (no that does not mean they have sex with their hi-fi) use analog because they claim that CD's loose to much of the music. Just because we don't "hear" it doesn't mean we don't "hear" it. Apparently.

    Those people claim that the sounds CD's and mp3's cut are still part of the overall experience and their absence can be heard.

    Are they right? Wtf do I know, I can't tastes brands of coffee but don't doubt coffee tasters. After a few glasses I can't even tell if I am drinking whiskey let alone wich blend but I don't doubt the experts. I can't tell colors apart but am smarter then to argue with a girl about it.

    The simple fact is that humans have different ears. Just as some people can see the flicker of those tube lights and others of crt monitors some people have a lot better hearing. I just find flac amusing since it is used to rip cd's. Whats the fucking point? CD's are already leaving sound out. If you want to rip the real sound you gotta at least start at LP's.

    So yes flac is kinda pointless, real audiophiles don't want it because it is still only cd's and people with mp3 players don't have the space or hardware.

    But don't discount the difference in sound just because you don't hear it. Others may have better hearing.

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

    1. Re:That is still under hot debate by Gadzinka · · Score: 4, Funny

      Real audiophiles (no that does not mean they have sex with their hi-fi) use analog because they claim that CD's loose to much of the music. Just because we don't "hear" it doesn't mean we don't "hear" it. Apparently.

      Are those the same people who also claim that CDR-Audio sounds better than Audio recorded on CDR-Data?

      Robert

      --
      Bastard Operator From 193.219.28.162
    2. Re:That is still under hot debate by uncitizen · · Score: 2, Informative
      While it may be true that the imperfections of analog may make it sound 'better,' saying that vinyl has a lower 'sample rate' than any digital platform is false. Analog has an infinite sample rate. For those playing at home, the sound wave on analog recording sound ways are curved, while digital sound waves are just steps representing that curved line. Eventually, no human can tell the difference the two, but at 16 bit 44.1 khz it is some what noticable.

      Also, analog does have another bonus, which is related to the "spikes" above. When you push digital/solid state too hard, it clips, ie, that crappy loud pop/click noise. Analog, on the other hand, will just naturally compress--which is really great when you're looking for the 'wall of amp' sounds in hard rock/heavy metal. Max out the board and you have instant, music compression.

  45. Re:Who needs MP3s by uhlume · · Score: 2, Funny

    MP3 is piracy, piracy is wrong. If you pirate music, you are a criminal and belong behind bars.

    Now, see, that's what I love about Slashdot: the finely nuanced and rational discourse. It's good to know that we provide a forum for debate in which Tucker Carlson would feel right at home.

    --
    SIERRA TANGO FOXTROT UNIFORM
  46. Re:One reason people delete most mp3s they downloa by Trolling4Columbine · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Of course you could also go and buy it legitimately and avoid that headache.

    --
    Socialism: A feeling of discontent and resentment caused by a desire for the possessions or qualities of another.
  47. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  48. JPG Going the way of 8-track? by megarich · · Score: 2, Funny

    "According to this MSN/ZDNet story, JPG is dying. Overall, the data has not shown a clear trend, but at least one recent study reports that people are deleting JPG'S faster than they are downloading them. GIF and BMP, meanwhile, are apparently gaining market share. Is this evidence that JPG is being used largely to sample pictures rather than for permanent archival and viewing purposes? They still don't think so. " Only time will tell...only time will tell.

  49. Consider the source by siskbc · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So lemme get this straight, the maker of WMA (MS) issues a report that MP3 is dying, to be replaced with (among others) WMA? Big shock.

    --

    -Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat

  50. Dear MP3... by BallyHigh · · Score: 2, Funny

    Dear MP3... Even though experts have decreed that you will soon be replaced by a new and better way of doing things, I wouldn't worry. Signed, IPv4 Coca-Cola Classic

  51. Default settings help increase market share by botono9 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    iTunes, by default, rips CDs to AAC files. Windows Media play rips CDs to WMA. Most users do not change their default settings, and so any CD ripped with their primary listening software will be stored in the corresponding format.

    I use iTunes and I changed the settings to rip to variable bit rate MP3. But I'm a power user, and I imagine that most users don't even know what variable bit rate means.

  52. This reeks of corporate politics by Gogela · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I doubt very seriously that MP3 is going anywhere but on my hard drive. Changes in media formats have a direct relation to the added benefits the incumbent technology provides. AAC and WMA do not provide a significant improvement in flexibility or quality. The popularity of MP3 is a function of bandwidth. There are still people out there without computers JUST coming around to MP3s. From a marketing standpoint, MP3 is just hitting its stride. Here's the deal, from a marketing point of view: you were an "early adopter" if you downloaded MP3s off of FTP servers before Napster. If the Napster era was when you hopped on board, you are part of the "early mainstream." (Note to those of you not in marketing: the early mainstream crowd is STILL part of the market introduction.) Now we are at the very beginning of the mainstream segment of the MP3 'product cycle.' We are JUST starting to see MP3 incorporated into car stereos, home DVD and CD players, and walkman. However, I can still walk into my local electronics store and find the majority of players don't support MP3. It's a feature you have to look for, and is generally found on upper end systems. This is the EARLY growth phase of MP3 technology. As long as people are still coming on board and there's money to be made from electronics that support it, MP3 will stick around. Now that's just one angle from a manufacturing standpoint. Also consider how many people the world over have adopted a single format. No regions, no copyright protection, and total flexibility. Has that ever happened before, or on this kind of scale? Given this, one has to start questioning the validity of this kind of report. Gosh, do you think there may be alternative motives at work by The NPD Group's MusicWatch Digital? Hmmm... I wonder who cuts THEIR paychecks...

    --
    A hungry man will tell you anything if you give him a cookie.
  53. 8-tracks? by Sean+Johnson · · Score: 3, Funny

    Why is mp3 going the way of the 8-track? Why do people want to start putting mp3's on 8-track now? That erases any portability gains. Also, 8-track sucks. In case people don't know, 8-track is so old (like 1960's and 70's) it's not even funny. Now I am gonna have to shop around at flea markets for an 8-track player just so I can enjoy my myraid of MP3's. Those things suck up battery life like no-one's business too. Well I hope I can get one of those GROOVY models that have built-in speakers that split the one speaker apart so you can have better stereo. Ooh! I want one with additional speaker jacks so I can have QUADRAPHONIC sound. That would be totally kicky-blast and wailin'.

    --
    >>>>>> Chewie, take the professor in the back and plug him into the hyperdrive.
  54. Check the sources and call BULLSHIT on this one. by TyrranzzX · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seriously, did they break into people's computers and do searches? Did they use P2P searches (which are about as reliable as a slashdot poll)? Did they run around a small part of the US looking for information? No, the story says "analysts" and "researchers", without naming names as far as I read.

    You know what this is? This is akin to the old conspiracy theorist FUD model of writing, with a journalistic twist. The conspiracy theorist fud model simply states that you state the problem, in as worrying as words possible, every 2 or so sentances inbetween prooving it. For example:

    "Researchers at NY university said that an asteroid is going to hit the earth within 2/3 months. This asteroid will wipe out ALL of the life on the planet. It is the size of texas."

    Ect, ect ect and so on. Journalists write it in a journalistic way, however, instead of having the FUD every 2-3 sentances, they restate their thesis in a different way, then proceed to use words such as "researchers" or "analysts" over and over to somehow give it credibility. So, how did they get the information?

    The "analysts and researchers" are "NPD group". They have a spyware app called "music watch digital", you know, the one that is put onto EMI's CD's and loaded onto the machine via autorun. You know, the one that can be disabled by the shift key? Yea, that one, the one that catalouges a persons harddisk and sends it back to whoever.

    Now, the next question is, why would ZD net have a MS sponsored article written by a CNET staff member? Oh, wait, there's a second article at the bottom of the page, talking about a "maturing" mp3 market. You know, the market that is now going towards paying for DRM'd disabled music online? Notice the mention of sony, apple, and MS's players which will undoubtedly go towards people looking into these players and music services?

    This equates to "our spyware app says that the mp3 may be dieing. People are using these players". Must be a slow news day or somethin'.

  55. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2, Informative

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  56. Re:LPs, you have to be kidding by sahala · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Some people do hear better than others. however LPs are terrible. I had lots or records and great turntables (AR and technics). Records were a nightmare. Static, cleaning dust with disc washer etc.etc.. Making sure the needle was wieght right. Then the sound was pretty excellent. Even with all that pre CDs still sounded better.

    An playing LPs in your car was always easy.

    No wonder they still selling millions of albums on "vynl"

    As a DJ I've bought and still buy a significant number of vinyl records, and in fact probably own more LPs than CDs. I love my 1200s and crates of records, but I still wish vinyl sounded as good as CDs and didn't require maintenance. My shoulders, back, and arms also wish the 12 inch records could magically go on a diet and trim down to CD sexiness.

    Sure, there are some aesthetic listening qualities to playing stuff on vinyl. Some people like the slight static/crackle sounds and the other random artifacts that they'll call enhancements. After spending way too much time previewing records in reference headphones for years I think I could do without such artifacts.

    That said, whenever I'm playing out at parties or a club I've noticed that no one wants to see someone spin CDs. There's some aesthetic aspect of nightlife that makes people think that 12 inch rotating dics look cool. And somehow spinning vinyl appears to be an artform, whereas using CDs is relegated to the respectfulness of queuing up something in winamp. Oh well.

  57. AAC is important for me by PureCreditor · · Score: 4, Informative

    Aside being an iPod owner myself, I like AAC for a variety of reasons :

    1) it's ISO-standardized
    2) it's the default codec for MPEG4
    3) it's embraced by Apple and iTunes Music Store
    4) it's sound beats mp3 by far
    5) it's sound (at 128/192), in my opinion, is slightly superior to WMA
    6) by not using WMA, i'm not tied to Microsoft's future changes in licensing agreements

    currently i have mp3's by far, but I rip all new CDs to AAC (m4a, not m4p).

    Ogg Vorbis is unsupported by most mainstream hardware, and WMA excels only in low bit rates of =64, which I don't rip to. MP3Pro is barely embraced, and mp3's psychoacoustic model is aging, thus leaving AAC good for quite some time to come (at least until the replacement of AAC arrives).

    Surprisingly, while MPEG4's AAC is widely adopted and available, few people have access to MPEG2's AC3 (possibly due to licensing issues with Dolby). Sony's ATRAC3+ is so proprietary it's not even funny.

  58. No, they've got it wrong: by torpor · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Music gets boring fast. People aren't hoarding it any more.

    Its not something you put on the shelf.

    Some say, its something you 'make for yourself', and thats the true spirit of music.. not the mighty buck...

    Sure, there are always classics, but generally, stuff gets old fast. Who cares about keeping it around any more?

    There's tons of it, old and new, to be had.

    --
    ; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
  59. What about MP4's? by skiman1979 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've made copies of a couple CD's onto my hard drive (for backup of course) and the files got created with an MP4 extension. I've never heard of MP4 before. Is that just a mistake in the application (I believe it was Nero)? Or is MP4 a different format from MP3?

    --
    Having a smoking section in a public restaurant is like having a peeing section in a public swimming pool.
  60. Re:One reason people delete most mp3s they downloa by rainman_bc · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Try using www.mp3shield.com - works well and you at least you don't have to listen to the crap to get what you like - it'll tell you you've downloaded crap. I swear by it.

    --
    09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
  61. Uh, ever heard of WMA Lossless? by WilliamGeorge · · Score: 2, Informative

    I don't understand what the big deal is about formats. Here on /. I hear all the time about how great AAC or Ogg is, but to be honest I never have heard of them anywhere else. Now granted, I'm not am music buff. When I wanted to put the few CDs I own on my PC (to make them easier to listen to / organize, not to share) I went to WMP and looked, and here was this thing called WMA Lossless. Takes more space, but it mathematically lossless, so you have full CD quality at less than 1/2 of the space it would take for pure .wav files. So that is what I use, and if I want to listen to them on my MP3 player I just plug it in and it converst them to either 320kbs MP3 or 192kps WMA, whichever I feel like, and puts them on the player. Ta-da. No extra software, nothing. Works like a charm, and the lossless files on my hard drive are excellent. So what is it everybody has against WMA?....

    --
    William George
    1. Re:Uh, ever heard of WMA Lossless? by WilliamGeorge · · Score: 2

      Hmm - in the same vein: To hear ACC on a Creative Labs MP3 player, click here. To hear ACC in WMP, click here. To hear ACC on my 5.1 surround sound home theater system (which happens to be made by Creative, and plugged into my Sound Blaster), click here. Really, I guess it comes down to what hardware/software you prefer to use. For MacOS or iPod people, ACC must be the way to go. However, I will never own either a MacOS (at least until I can build it from scratch with whatever hardware I want) or an iPod (unless someone donates it - they are too expensive, even compared to Creative's harddrive players, and they are UGLY!). So for me WMA is the way to go. ACC would not work for me, and even if it did there is no way that I can imagine for it to sound better than WMA Lossless (they would come from the same source (CD), and neither could be better than the source, right?). One interesting thing this brings up, however, is downloadable music. My wife, for example, thinks it is great to just be able to download the songs she wants, rather than buying a whole CD. I, however, do not want to sacrifice the music quality. Is there anybody out there offering full CD quality music downloads? I'm talking a lossless format here, not that "this many kbs will sound just like a CD" crap. I think there might be a big market for it in some demographics, and since its nature is lossless (in whatever format you offer it for download) it could be re-encoded to any other format without quality loss. That alone would make it great, and if the downloading/purchasing app had a converter to all the major lossless and losey formats built in it could be a real winner. What do you guys think?

      --
      William George
  62. OFF TOPIC! by Eric_Cartman_South_P · · Score: 4, Funny
    I, for one, welcome our new hard-drive-monitoring overlords.

    This is NOT about Google Desktop.

  63. Explaination for the trend is pretty easy by xnot · · Score: 2, Interesting

    (1) Geeks know there are better codecs to rip to then MP3. (2) iTunes makes getting the song you want relatively cheap, so there's less of an excuse to use p2p, where most of the MP3s are. (2) "Average people" don't know about p2p and so they are getting their files from legal sources, sources which don't publish in MP3 because MP3 doesn't have DRM. It looks like the industry's quest to kill MP3 and get DRM into everything is finally starting to pay off. However, I predict the trend against MP3 will reverse when people finally discover just how restrictive DRM is. It hasn't happened yet, but once all CDs have copy-protection and it becomes a pain to do what you want to do with your music, the subject will get more and more attention.

  64. A Microsoft-owned media outlet says DRM preferable by rfc1394 · · Score: 2, Informative
    MSN, which is owned by Microsoft (a company which wants to encourage use of its proprietary, royalty collecting DRM format over others), has a story how people (supposedly) prefer a DRM-locked format over an open one. How amazing and unusual that such a story would come out. It couldn't be that they have biases, oh no! It's like that there clearly isn't any question that the issue of restricting reproduction of digital broadcasts through the FCC's mandating of digital TVs to honor the Broadcast Flag is unimportant by the fact that no television network or broadcast TV station has devoted even 30 seconds of TV news time to the issue all year. We all know the media isn't biased, right?

    Despite this, I note that the original story indicates that MP3 is still more popular than any DRM-locked format, and that purchased (proprietary DRM-locked) songs are a tiny percentage of what people have around.

    What's interesting is they are talking about people's habits in deleting files (which means nothing). Of course, people are less likely to delete files they have paid for over MP3s of files they may have ripped from their own CDs or have downloaded off a file-sharing service. If you didn't pay anything for the copy and you get tired of it or don't like the song, you might (or are more likely to) delete it. You're less likely to do that (even if you don't like it) with a song you paid hard cash for the copy. Witness the number of people who throw away / donate / give away used paperbacks they paid under $1 (and especially 50c and below), versus people who keep brand-new paperbacks and don't toss their new ones away as quickly.

    --
    The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
  65. Of course a report from MSN is going to say that by loupgarou21 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    While I can concieve of an increase of popularity with aac because of iTunes I'm a bit suspicious of the report because it specifically mentions DRM formats. My guess is Microsoft is just trying to push the lie that people want DRM.