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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. "
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.
What about OGG?
"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."
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.
all the companies producing new mp3 players agree...
[/sarcasm]
So, most of what we download is crap. What's new here?
See what I've been reading.
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.
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.
MSN is reporting the death of a rival format of WMA? Wow, there's a shocker!
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.
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.? :)
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.
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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....
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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.
...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!
I can't tell, my BSD system just died.
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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.
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.'"
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.
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
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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.
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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
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.
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
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.
...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! ;)
Un-news
...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.
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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.
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.
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...
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.
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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!
Of course you could also go and buy it legitimately and avoid that headache.
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
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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.
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'.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
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.
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.
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