10 Failed Technology Trends of 2005

mikemuch writes "ExtremeTech's Loyd Case muses on ten trends of 2005 that never panned out. He points the finger at analysts like himself for waxing glowy-eyed at technologies like the BTX form factor and the 64-bit version of Windows XP. On DRM and the Sony rootkit fiasco: 'Hint to the music publishers: It's not going to work. There have been easy workarounds to every system that's been tried, and the more stringent the copy protection, the greater the risk of having angry customers who won't buy CDs. I suggest you start investigating new business models, as the old ones ride off into the sunset.'"

Comments

Tuppence, happence, anna farthing's worth

[ackthpt]

I suggest you start investigating new business models, as the old ones ride off into the sunset.

Like that's going to work! People who crank out flawed, bombastic, and ultimately wrong business models are trying to keep a job. If any business sat on its hands and coasted along on a simple and functional business model they'd ultimately be defeated by someone with an angle on wedging new business between them and their traditional customers.

Take iTunes for instance. Wildly successful in the face of its predecessors and competitors. The RIAA doesn't like it because it undercuts their old business model (and these people have worked that one a long time to their great profit) Apple's frisky little model says, "give it to them on a flashy little toy and keep it cheap." CD sales plummet. (RIAA biz model sez: Any flattening of growth or dip in sales is due to piracy!) Reminds me of when Detroit, back in the 70's thought they could continue to do business as usual as those japanese cars started to sell particularly well ("after the price of oil drops again we'll go right back to 454 blown dual carb thingamajigs") Funny they repeated the same erroneous reasoning with 4WD's in the late 90's and into the next century and are now closing plants left and right.

While high-definition video and the PC may be natural bedfellows, the content providers and studios are not exactly making nice with the tech industry. The studios are deathly afraid that high-definition content will become widely pirated, adversely affecting an already creaky business model.
...
The iPod and its camp followers in the digital audio player business seem to be the modern incarnation of the 1960s transistor radio. Way back then, audiophiles complained vociferously about how the transistor radio was creating a generation of consumers who couldn't appreciate quality audio. That lament is echoed by industry pundits (me included) who yearn for even higher-fidelity sound than current CD technology can deliver.

High def video and audio. What's funny is people are fine with the crap we have now. Heck, there's people driving around town with self-installed audio systems in their cars which not only sound awful, but bring Lo-Fi to an all new low -- and they're actually happy with it.

64 bit OS, only when you've got apps or a killer must-have game will 64 bit OS be all the rage, even drivers will follow. Until then, like hi-def video and hi-fi audio, it's only in the realm of those who really must have for practical or fashionable reasons.

Digital home: Right. When I was a kid we had this great intercom system that came with our new house, all rooms connected to one main spot, could pipe radio into any room or page anyone. That lasted about a month. After that it was mom shouting up the stairs that supper was ready, someone at the door, etc. Evolution of technology doesn't guarantee it will be any more necessary, but it looks flash and shiny if you've never seen before and might impress the uninitiated. Up to me, I'd worry more about noisy water pipes and insulation in the walls.

"it even comes with high definition squirrels in the attic!"

Re:Tuppence, happence, anna farthing's worth

[MightyMartian]

I suggest you start investigating new business models, as the old ones ride off into the sunset.

Like that's going to work! People who crank out flawed, bombastic, and ultimately wrong business models are trying to keep a job. If any business sat on its hands and coasted along on a simple and functional business model they'd ultimately be defeated by someone with an angle on wedging new business between them and their traditional customers.

The root of the problem isn't guys trying to keep their jobs, but laws which essentially encourage media companies not to adapt. By always getting their way in Congress (and with other governments around the world), media conglomerates won't adapt, and the cost of that will be their extinction. You simply cannot fight technology, and all the laws in the world won't save you in the end. If lawmakers wanted to do these companies a favor, they'd say "Sorry, you're going to have to change your business model. It's not our job to keep you afloat."

In the end some online service, whether iTunes or something else, is going to start directly signing artists, and once that happens, Sony and their ilk will be toast, and it will be the fault of them and lawmakers all too easily bought off.

Re:Tuppence, happence, anna farthing's worth

[ackthpt]

Just how good do you expect the sound to be in a convertible? What's the point of getting anything other than the cheapest stuff when engine and wind noise make it pointless and anything good will just get ripped off anyway? My crap car stereo and iPod cassette adapter are good enough.

I'm referring to typical commuter fare, such as well aged Honda Accords, Toyota Camrays, small pickups, etc.

Bose engineers went at the interiors of some cars to determine the accoustics, which are nothing short of ultra-complex. They designed some very impressive car audio systems. What you have around town is people who consider the installers at Circuit City "factory trained experts", whereas most of these minimum (or slightly above) wage wire jockeys are on a mission to get int hooked up and you and your car out of the way for the next customer. They aren't going around with all manner of reflective sound analyzing equipment, accoustic dampening panels and wot. You can certainly find people who do this, but they likely do it by appointment and charge a pretty penny (and quite a lot of ugly ones, too.)

Audio Fidelity is left to the bass range, which being rather omnidirectional is very forgiving. The rest of the range is probably beyond the tin ears of most drivers, especially those with those exhaust systems which sound like flatulence.

Save yourself the trouble...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the list:

•      The BTX Form Factor
•      High-Definition Video on the PC
•      High Fidelity Digital Audio
•      Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
•      High Definition Optical Drives
•      Copy Protection for Music CDs
•      iPod Competitors Emerge
•      The Digital Home
•      Google's Gmail Service
•      Dual Graphics Cards

Re:Save yourself the trouble...

[dotgain]

I think copy protection on music CDs is a _great_ thing.

I used to buy 80% of my CDs, pirate the rest, and fell a little guilty about it. Now there's no _point_ in me buying CDs. They're useless to me. So I pirate every single one now.

Why do I think copy protection is great (for me) ?

Because I don't feel guilty anymore.

Re:Save yourself the trouble...

[zootm]

I agree with you to a certain degree — I mean, the music industry is actually attempting to fix their product by crippling it for the paying consumer (while having little or no effect on the illegitimate distribution of files). But while there are artists who are embracing new business models, it is presently completely unclear what the new business models for artists will be, and artists who are already stuck (being treated terribly, in many cases) with the existing giants are in danger of being treated even worse by these companies, while having no immediately obvious way out.

I feel guilty if I pirate music because the artists aren't being paid. I don't buy into music which is DRMed in any way, because I refuse to buy a crippled product for what is typically a completely ridiculous price. But when I can buy a traditional CD, I buy it. I mean to start using an online service which does not implement DRM, but still many artists are left out here, and often by no fault of their own — they're musicians, not businessmen, and this is not something they'd ordinarly be able to get particularly good advice on.

Never stop feeling guilty about pirating music, unless you are still buying it from fairer systems. The fact that some companies use unfair means does not give one free reign over media. The artist deserves to be paid for their work in some way, and there is always fantastic music to find at terms you agree with if you're willing to look.

Re:Save yourself the trouble...

[r7]

Seems like a bit premature to label most of these "failed". We just need
to separate concepts from implementation, that and keep in ExtremeTech's
need to sell papers.

• The BTX Form Factor
  
    Home systems need to be quieter more than cooler. Colo servers are
    better off with larger/fewer drives and more energy efficient cpus.
  
  
• High-Definition Video on the PC
  
    PCs are replacing TV in this respect. People want better content more
    than prettier pictures. Then too there's the problem with bandwidth
    and storage capacities. This is a technology whose time will come when
    the supporting infrastructure catches up.
  
  
• High Fidelity Digital Audio
  
    Demand is there but cheap storage is not
  
  
• Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
  
    Microsoft FUD, just like IPnP.
  
  
• High Definition Optical Drives
  
    WTF? CDs are dead.
  
  
• Copy Protection for Music CDs
  
    RIAA/MPAA/Sony FUD.
  
  
• iPod Competitors Emerge
  
    As the owner of a Creative MP3 player it seems to me that iPod
    competitors have always had better technology but need to match Apple's
    marketing.
  
  
• The Digital Home
  
    Haven't you been eating your X10 spam? Seriously though, this is as
    promising a field as it gets, especially regarding energy efficiency.
    Only reason there's little development is the fear of Microsoft's
    monopoly. Thanks due utterly clueless Republican economic policies.
  
  
• Google's Gmail Service
  
    Privacy issues, spam problems, nothing really new about this service.
  
  
• Dual Graphics Cards

  Preempted by workspace ergonomics, cubicle size, and multiple virtual
  desktops.

Re:Save yourself the trouble...

[Edward Kmett]

I just stopped listening to music.

I gave up and started listening to public radio.

Where's that in their business model? =)

Why rag on Gmail?

[thewldisntenuff]

I find it odd that Case complains about Gmail. He goes on about how hard
it is to add attachments - it's really not that hard.

And why does he bitch about it still being in Beta? Hell,
most of the stuff on Google STILL is in Beta. Besides,
invites are like a dime a dozen now (as I type this, I have
100 invites). But GMail being a "failed tech trend?". Hmph.

BTW, the article layout is disgusting - 11 pages!

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[Hettch]

That may be true, one can't even attach an Access database because of "security reasons," but the article doesn't just focus on that aspect of Gmail. He focuses on Gmail helping free email by offering 2GB of storage. In my opinion, that is the very least that Gmail has done. The interface is simplistic and lovely (IMHO, as opposed to his "sleek outlike like" yahoo mail, which I avoid since Outlook bothers me like no other), the conversation threading has made me not use regular email clients, the search features are fast and effecient (faster than Thunderbird), and the labels and filters are easy to setup. Am i a gmail fanboy? Probably, but to call gmail a failure is ludicrous. I'd guess that he used gmail to send a hello world email, then tried attaching something, and then hasn't signed on since.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[jonnythan]

The problem is that in 2004 we thought it was going to revolutionize email.

2005 came and went with no significant advances in gmail, and it's still in beta mode with some annoying issues. It's basically just another webmail service now.

It was hyped to high heaven in the beginning of the year and ended up being virtually irrelevant. Hence, it's a failed, overhyped technology trend.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[EccentricAnomaly]

Why do you need to send an EXE attachment? Seems like a sane thing to forbid.

Before Microsoft started allowing email to execute code, email viruses were impossible. It seems like a very good policy for google to try and restore something like the original restrictions on email to stop the virus problem. SFTP, WebDAV, etc are for transferring programs... Windows should just make them easy to use like Apple's iDisk and you can just send a URL.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[rob_squared]

I just don't think he's been paying attention, besides, you can get a gmail address WITHOUT an invite nowadays:

https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount

The link is in my gmail sig, which I now use exclusively for email.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[John Miles]

Why do you need to send an EXE attachment? Seems like a sane thing to forbid.

Some people actually work with .EXEs for a living. GMail is worthless to those people.

Before Microsoft started allowing email to execute code, email viruses were impossible.

You don't have to prohibit executable attachments to disallow automatically-executing content. Google has thrown out the baby, bathtub, and half of the house's indoor plumbing.

Microsoft's dumbass move was making everything executable. It's easy enough to tell Grandma not to click on .EXE files, but not so easy when the OS vendor chooses to hide the suffix from her, provides easy ways to disguise the suffix, adds support for some arbitrarily-large number of additional executable file types, and ships a macro engine designed to run the content automatically without asking first.

It's not appropriate to fix any of those problems by preventing me from sending my customers a .ZIP file containing an .EXE. This is a case where Microsoft did some stupid things and Google responded with a hearty, "Hey, wait for me, guys!"

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[Kredal]

If you start typing in the "To:" box, either the first name, last name, or email address of the contact you want to send it to (and you should know one of those three, I'd hope) it starts an autocomplete list below the cursor that you can choose from once you've got it signifigately narrowed down. It really is easy.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[emurphy42]

No you can't:

http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer. py?answer=27440

Does creating a Google Account give me a Gmail account?

Unfortunately not. Gmail is currently in a limited release, so you need to get invited by another Gmail user in order to sign up. If you are interested in Gmail, you may want to check the About Gmail page periodically for updates. If, on the other hand, you already have a Gmail account, you can use your Gmail username and password to sign in to your Google Account.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[rob_squared]

Fair enough, turns out you need a cell phone:

http://mail.google.com/mail/help/landing.html

Thanks for correcting me, I need to update my links now.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[DaChesserCat]

I agree with you on this one. In my book, GMail has done a lot more than just up the ante on disk space.

I use my GMail account as my primary account. I've got three POP3 accounts at various places, plus Yahoo and Hotmail, but GMail is where my "legit" e-mail goes. The Hotmail account gets handed out anywhere I figure SpamBots are searching, so it usually has 200+ messages, all of them crap. Fitting place for it, if you ask me.

We use Outlook at work (company-mandated). I've got Thunderbird loaded on my machine at home (decent RSS aggregation). And yet, I'd still rather use GMail for e-mail functionality. The message threading is simply too useful.

When e-mail clients can match that functionality, allowing me to follow a thread of e-mail messages as easily as following a thread on Usenet, I'll find a reason to switch. When I can manually reorganize message threads (so that messages with different subjects are included), I'll be even happier. You guys at Google listening?

At first, I thought "labeling" messages was a nuisance. Then, I started using it, and promptly found the older, "folders" method to be constraining.

The fact that I don't have to wait for the whole screen to redraw every time I expand a message is simply icing on the cake.

These aren't just "show-off" features, which look nice on the "features" list but never get used. There are plenty of practical, useful and heavily-used features here. The fact that no one else has copied them (yet) doesn't mean they're a failed trend. It just means the rest of the world hasn't caught up, yet.

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[ChrisKnight]

> Some people actually work with .EXEs for a living. GMail is worthless to those people.

Here's a nickel kid, go download yourself a copy of WinZip.

-Chris

Re:Why rag on Gmail?

[Mark J Tilford]

I think GMail checks the contents of a .zip for executables.

At least, I had trouble mailing inform source code (.inf) because gmail thought it was a Windows registry file (also .inf); trying to hide the file in a .tar.gz or .zip didn't work; I ended up having to compress it then rename the executable. (Though compressing it twice, and passwording the latter might also have worked.)

The list of tech trends that never go out of style

[Anonymous Coward]

One tech trend then will never fail:-

Vaporware

Gmail

[JonN]

Alright so let me get this straight about Gmail. First:

First off, the Gmail screen still reads "BETA." Will it ever not be beta? Who knows? That means that you still need to be invited to, uh, participate in the beta.

Alright, so it is still in beta. To most people (the author seems to forget this) this means that there are probably little bugs or issues with the service. It may have been in beta for quite awhile, which could mean that they are still working on bugs, but then again most geeks are quite fickle about release dates (The author of TFA even admits this when he discusses Windows x64). Next, he goes on to say:

Gmail is inconvenient in many ways. Managing a mailing list isn't trivial. Trying to send legitimate attachments with executable files is damn near impossible. Even ZIP files are a chore.

Wait a second...Didn't we just determine that Gmail is still in beta? Don't we all know that beta == issues? Alright, so we have a service that shouldn't be in beta, but that has issues. Gotcha. Perhaps the arguement should be that there aren't enough resources going into Gmail, then perhaps I would buy the arguement.

Re:Gmail

[karuna]

Just add some other extention like .xxx to your exe files and it will go through. People may not use gmail so widely because you need invitation (it is still beta) to sign up but I see that more and more people who require reliable email service use it more and more often. To have yahoo or hotmail as your primary email for business dealing was considered as a sign of incompetency or computer illiteracy and thus not bringing any trust. Today you can proudly announce your gmail address and be regarded as the power user and as an expert in your own field.

Re:Gmail

[jonnythan]

Today you can proudly announce your gmail address and be regarded as the power user and as an expert in your own field.

Unless it's "hot_pants@gmail.com" that is.

Re:Gmail

[GeorgeH]

Wait a second...Didn't we just determine that Gmail is still in beta? Don't we all know that beta == issues? Alright, so we have a service that shouldn't be in beta, but that has issues. Gotcha.

Does that mean there aren't legitimate criticisms of Gmail's functionality? By slapping the word "Beta" on it, does Google absolve themselves of any shortcomings?

Maybe Microsoft should permabeta the next Windows to avoid any quality concerns. "Oh, don't worry about that IE security flaw, it's just beta."

Ok well that's a stupid list

[Sycraft-fu]

XP-64 is a failure? How so, because it's on on every desktop? It's not supposed to be. 64-bit at home is still in it's infancy. However that doesn't mean it's not desirable to have 64-bit OSes. At this point, the main point is for developers to be able to convert apps and drivers to 64-bit and get them well tested, ahead of widespread adoption.

However even for that they aren't useless to the end user. HFSS supports 64-bit XP and that's real useful if you want to solve really large problems.

I think it's a mistake to say a technology has to immediatly take off to be a success. Some things are introduced ahead of time, with the knowledge that it'll be a slow adoption process. Id' much rather have 64-bit Windows and Linux NOW when there's still only a few chips on the market than not for another 4 years when we all have the hardware but are starved for software that can use it as happened with 32-bit chips.

Re:Ok well that's a stupid list

[BCW2]

Win XP 64 is still not ready for prime time. The problem is drivers. To get an HP printer to work requires hacks, finding drivers is no fun at all. Since 80% of all the computers I've built in the last 6 months are AMD 64's for home use, this is a problem. If they insist on Windows, they get the 32 bit version. If there smart, they get Suse 10.0 which is a 64bit OS and works out of the box with very few driver issues, (high end video cards will always be a pain it seems).

Re:Ok well that's a stupid list

[jellomizer]

I think it was a failure for 2005 because after its release it didn't create a surge of 64 bit computer buying like when Windows 95 was released, where people rushed to upgrade their 286s with DOS to 486s and Early Pentiums with Windows 95 to take advantage of the 32 bit processing, and get past the 64k of ram.

It will be a little longer until 64bit will become popular, and 64bit systems will be around for a long time. Until the average system needs over 4 gigs of RAM cheaper 32 bit systems will probably still be popular. Right now 2GB of ram for a desktop system is considered high end. Next year it will probably be 3GB and 2007 It will be 4GB so by 2007 and 2008 64bit systems will start really getting a foothold. 64bit systems right now are for Real Power users and Servers but for desktop the need for aditional Ram will be the main motivation factor.

Re:Ok well that's a stupid list

[(H)elix1]

I'm one of those early adopters / evangelists they lost. Since I've got both an AMD64 CPU and a MSDN universal subscription (via work), I gave it a spin. Several times... Drivers were OK for me - Nvidia video card and nforce 4 chipset both had pretty solid driver support. I've also got 4G of RAM, and it picked it all up without any issues. Should have been an easy sell.

Things fell apart once I started to install programs. Can't remember if it was Rational Application Developer or some other tool/program, but it had problems with the changes they made for the legacy (32-bit) install. Had my normal stack worked - LDAP, DB, App Server, and IDE just worked, I'd be pounding out more 64-bit specific C/C++ code as well. Games were also problematic. Installing stuff is all end user problems. Had things worked reasonably well in XP-64 and/or 2003-64, I would have used it for my primary Win development system and made sure things degraded nicely to Win32 platforms. To be fair, there were plenty of growing pains on the 64-bit Linux side of the fence, but those were a good bit easier to sort out. That, and many people had already pounded that road smooth before I got there. Had things also worked well with legacy applications, I would have also recommended friends and family that have AMD64 to take advantage of the *free* (plus a bit of shipping) offer Microsoft made to swap out copies of WinXP with WinXP-64 this spring. Instead, people got the same 'don't go there' speech I gave them when WinME came out.

I would not use it, nor would I recommend those I give a damn for use it. AMD absolutely nailed the legacy support, making 32-bit OS's run on a 64-bit platform. Had Microsoft been able to do the same, you would have seen a ground swell. As is, I'd say others agree WinXp-64/Win2003-64 is half baked as well.

Re:Ok well that's a stupid list

[dangitman]

64bit systems right now are for Real Power users and Servers

What about the iMac G5? it's not a "Power User" machine and sells quite well.

lossless

[JonN]

"While a scant few players do support lossless compression formats (mostly FLAC), lossless formats are generally unavailable for portable players."

I don't see how lossless was meant to be mainstream or an explosive technology. It is generally for audiophiles, geeks, and nerds. Would they call Linux a failed technology? True it could be easy for producers to make portable players capable of playing FLAC or similar, however since when do they play to the minority? This is capitalism, and FLAC is not for the mainstream as most people can't tell the difference, or even care. Minorities rarely win in capitalism.

Failed!

[The 13th Duke]

Spreading a rather thin article over a multitude of pages so we can be sure to see all the ads.

Multiple Standards for DVD

[ozmanjusri]

From TFA: Consumers don't want multiple standards. DVD was successful because there was only one standard.

One standard? What about +R, -R, DVDRAM etc? Manufacturers love competing standards. They get to sell to early adopters, then sell another unit with identical functions to the poor sods who jumped on to the wrong standard.

Re:Multiple Standards for DVD

[georgewilliamherbert]

If you RTFA a bit more carefully you'd notice that they contrast DVD (the ROM format) with the various DVD writeable formats, pointing out that DVD ROMs caught on with now nearly 100% market penetration (prerecorded VHS delinda est), but instead of DVD writeables killing off VHS for recording, Tivo did. And basically because of too many DVD writeable formats.

The original CD (ROM), and original DVD (ROM), were both excellent, universal, and well liked formats.

What happened with the writables in the DVD space is an object lesson. Unfortunately, one now being emulated by the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray folks.

Re:Multiple Standards for DVD

[kisielk]

I don't see the big deal is in this DVD format argument. I regularily use both DVD-R and DVD+R disks without usually giving it much thought, and I've yet to ever come across a situtation where I was not able to use a disk in a particular player, regardless of format. And where the heck do you even see DVDRAM these days or whatever the heck the other format was? I don't think think that writable DVD's failed to kill off VHS recording because of too many writable formats, that's just a silly argument. What really happened is that people who used to record TV shows on VHS started using PVR's because it's simply more convenient. You don't have to worry about changing disks, and usually portability is not an issue, and most of the devices can automatically record your favorite shows in case you forget. DVD recording is still widely used to convert home movies and the like in to a portable format and duplicate for family, friends, and whatnot without loss of quality. In that respect DVD has replaced VHS. It's simply a matter of using the best tool for the job.

Re:Multiple Standards for DVD

[Tim Browse]

My favourite stupid thing about DVD-R and DVD+R, is that DVD+R was produced (think I have this the right way around) by the DVD ReWritable group, which was a breakaway/different group from the DVD Consortium.

So, impressed by their own cleverness, they get people to stamp their logo on DVD+ format discs. Which puts you in the situation I was in where I'd bought a spindle of DVD+R discs (precisely to avoid RW compatibility issues) only to take one out and find it had the letters 'RW' stamped on the disc in a prominent way.

This was not to indicate that the disc was re-writeable - it was to indicate that the disc was in a format of a type specified by the RW group. It took me a few minutes of googling to confirm that I did in fact have R and not an RW disc in my hand.

I mean, what a bunch of goddamn muppets.

No lossless?

[outZider]

He makes a jab at the iPod by talking about how larger capacity players add video capability, while ignoring fidelity by not offering lossless. While it isn't the longer-running FLAC format, the iPod does support Apple Lossless, which is just an extension of the standard MPEG4 Lossless Audio format. It works great, and my iPod Video certainly doesn't have a problem playing those as well. :P

Dead on: Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

[cvd6262]

As it turns out, driver availability has been the main Achilles' heel. While graphics cards, chipsets, and audio drivers have been readily available, drivers for newer printers, webcams, and other common peripherals have been MIA.

I bought a laptop with a Turion64 processor and secured a copy of XP64 Pro from my work (the surprised tech had to dig in his desk for it). I got it up and running, but....

No drivers. No trackpad driver, no video driver, no sound, nada. Not even on the manufacturer's site.

Well, good thing Ubuntu64 works just fine.

Re:Dead on: Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

[(startx)]

Yeah, I tried out XP64 and Slamd64 (64-bit Slackware port) on my desktop for a few months recently, and I've since switched back to Win2k and regular Slackware. Some of the brokenness that forced me to switch back include:

• Windows:
  
• Services for Unix (SFU) has not been, and will not be, ported to XP64. I need NFS.
• x86-64 programs are put in C:\Program Files, and 32bit programs are put in C:\Program Files (x86). Many old windows programs (including the steam installer) can't handle parenthesis in a path.
• NVidia's windows x86-64 driver installer doesn't support my gf4 ti4600, although modifying the .inf file allows it to install and run fine.
• Useful things like Daemon Tools don't work because of driver format changes.

• Slamd64
  
• /usr/lib and /usr/lib64 confuse some programs
• some poorly written software (like mplayer) assume 32bit pointers and won't compile
• Shell script game installers blow up very, very badly. So badly, in fact, that I've been unable to run any of my native games (Q3, UT, UT2k3, etc)

Overall, neither OS is ready for everyday use, but MS should be asshamed of themselves for charging people full price for beta(at best, probably alpha at this point)-quality software.

about high definition video

[circletimessquare]

this year it became possible for independent film makers to make high quality 16:9 films for the first time... economically

yes, the sony hdr-fx1 and jvc's offering came out in 2004/ 2003, but dual core became economical this year (really necessary for the editting environment and importing the mpeg stream) and sony introduced it's low cost cmos hdv camcorder

i'm talking economical in something a middle class high school kid could set up with a little help from his parents and some after school jobs: under $5K

that really means something for 2005

the author gripes about hdv content distribution and the big cable and studio players wary of rights management, but that's not really where the story is in hdv: it's in creation

Congrats on the +5 insightful,

[soupdevil]

but your example is flawed. CD sales have not plummeted. While total sales are down slightly, labels have axed their research/product development, and numbers of artists. Their sales per release are up, and their profits are way up. Digital downloads are currently a drop in the bucket. People with iPods generally still buy CDs. They are filling up their iPods the same way we filled up their glove boxes with mix tapes in the 80s: by copying our CDs, and our friends' CDs. Except that, thanks to P2P, we all have a lot more friends to share with.

Re:Congrats on the +5 insightful,

[Saige]

I know my amount of CD purchasing has went up lately. But it's not mainstream crap that I just can't stomach, but more and more independent stuff that has nothing to do with the RIAA. But that's cause Last.fm has directed my music tastes in a new direction that is decidedly not mainstream. In fact, I think I'm going to get a handful of new CDs soon - The Cruxshadows, Icon of Coil, Autumn's Grey Solace, and Collide. Take that, RIAA, they're all artists that you don't have anything to do with. :)

Re:Congrats on the +5 insightful,

[geekoid]

you keep advertising like that, some label will pick them up and they will become mainstream. And you hate mainstream! what will you do?

Re:Congrats on the +5 insightful,

[heinousjay]

Call them sellouts and feel superior for knowing them first?

(Not the OP, just guessing.)

Re:Congrats on the +5 insightful,

[Richard_at_work]

CD sales havent plummetted? They havent? Really?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4566186.s tm

And to all those who say that the Music Industry needs a new business model - why should they get one? THe old one works fine when people ACTUALLY PAY for the product rather than infringing copyright and getting it off someone else. Just because people want their product for free doesnt mean their business model is broken, it simply means people will get for free whatever they can.

As a consumer, you have two choices - buy it or go without. There is no justification to the third option that people on here assume - take it anyway.

BTX should die

[mal3]

I have to say I'm glad to see BTX on this list. It seems like it was developed soley to make up for the stupid amounts of heat generated by the P4, with no regard for making anything else better than ATX. How about standardizing all those case connectors into one block of plugs, or consolidating the 3 power connectors I have to hook to my motherboard. If I'm going to switch form factors, I want these obvious things taken into account.

Re:BTX should die

[TheHawke]

BTX as a attempt by Intel to corner the form factor market that had one foot in the grave even before it entered preproduction. All that they did with BTX as to flip the bloody board 180 degrees on it's Y axis. What's the big deal about that?

Intel and Dell entered into an agreement to make custom boards and backplanes where the standoffs are 2cm offset from the ATX standard, invalidating any attempt by anyone wishing to upgrade the system to a better board and chip. Talk about waste management! If the user wishes to do anything about major upgrades, they are forced to pull all the accessories save for the main board out of the case and throw it away. It's next to useless.

Re:BTX should die

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell me, did you just pull that comment out of your arse, or what?
BTX is NOT Intel proprietary, it is a freely-licensable formfactor just like ATX before it (see www.formfactors.org if you don't believe me). Far from attempting to "corner the formfactor market", Intel would be delighted if AMD-based motherboards appeared in BTX.
And what's all this shite about "..the standoffs are 2cm offset from the ATX standard.."? Have you even seen a BTX board? No? Well don't go spouting such rubbish, then. BTX is an attempt to significantly improve the airflow through the system case, and does this very well indeed, by putting the hottest components at the front, right behind the ambient temperature air intake. Sheesh, I really despair. You remind me of the people who, back when ATX was introduced, whinged about that, too. In fact, I seem to recall that the complaints about ATX at the time were along the same lines.. "it's an attempt by Intel to lock us into their form-factor", "Baby AT is still perfectly good enough for me".
Now, go off and read the BTX spec, then come back when you think you can talk sensibly with the grown-ups.

List is Windows-Centered

[EccentricAnomaly]

- The BTX Form Factor

I'm writing this on a powermac now with the same sort of cooling system...

  - High-Definition Video on the PC

this one looks like it's only delayed... the content is now showing up on iTunes... and since it looks like it's going to be very successful, it's only
a matter of time before they offer HD too. ...maybe on the MacIntosh New Year in two weeks

  - Windows XP Professional x64 Edition

Tiger has been a huge success. (it's 64-bit)

  - iPod Competitors Emerge

What's so wrong with the iPod that they're wishing for competitors. None of the competitors really care about mac users, so why should I care about their products? And why do we want WMV to win the DRM battle? And why is the iPod entry level?

ExtremeTech my ass. more like WhatTheGuysWorkingAtBestBuyThinkIsExtremeTech

Shit I wanna see the Mac user list of top ten disappointments....

10. Market share still sucks
9. iPod still can't do bluetooth
8. Market share is what 3% or something now
7. Turns out the G5 wasn't a supercomputer on a chip
6. No Civ IV
5. Have to wait more than 3 months for 10.5
4. Mac mini turned out not do have anything to do with Tivo
3. Damn, that market share sucks
2. OS X still can't read minds
1. Fucking market share

Re:List is Windows-Centered

[Yahweh Doesn't Exist]

>6. No Civ IV

since crippling copy-protection means that even legitimate versions don't work, that's not so bad.

Re:List is Windows-Centered

[Blakey Rat]

Top 10 OS X disappointments?

How about:

1) Finder's crappy UI. (Even worse with Spotlight... ugh!)
2) Finder crashing.
3) Apple products (like DVD Player.app) stealing focus away from my typing, constantly, and not being fixed after years and years.
4) iSync somehow *losing* support for my Motorola v180 when upgraded.
5) A bunch of other stuff I can't think of right now.

Yes, I know OS 9 sucked. But at least the Finder in OS 9 had a good UI and didn't crash all the time.

Re:List is Windows-Centered

[nxtw]

Tiger has been a huge success. (it's 64-bit)

It's not completely 64-bit. It's capable of running 64-bit software on a capable CPU, but much of the OS is still 32-bit. I believe you can't have 64-bit software that uses the GUI.

The current Intel OS X builds are 32-bit. Assuming Apple is indeed going to be shipping Yonah-based notebooks, this won't change (as Yonah does not support EM64T/x64.)

Compare this to the x64 versions of Windows XP/2003, which are actually 64-bit, use 64-bit drivers, etc., and can run 32-bit and 64-bit GUI software simultaneously. The shell (explorer.exe) is 64-bit, as is most of the OS software (notepad, all the services, etc.) Both 32- and 64-bit versions of IE and Win Media Player are included, for compatibility with old codecs/plugins/etc. You can run a 64-bit Internet Explorer and a 32-bit Firefox simultaneously with no issues.
Still, just about every program I use is 32-bit only or runs the same way in 32- and 64-bit.

Re:List is Windows-Centered

[shawb]

10. Market share still sucks
This really only affects no. 6: the selection for games isn't all that hot.

9. iPod still can't do bluetooth
Why would you want your iPod to do bluetooth? transfering music at 2-12 MB/s would be painfully slow compared to Firewire or even USB2.0. And that wire you plug in? It recharges the iPod. Unless you want to transfer the music FROM the iPod via bluetooth, which means it has to be compressed far enough to push it through that little pipe: yuck. That leaves... a bluetooth remote control. Yippie, that would be SOOO useful.

8. Market share is what 3% or something now
See number 10.

7. Turns out the G5 wasn't a supercomputer on a chip
Have no comment, as I'm not really a mac hardware guy.

6. No Civ IV
Yes, Macs have been known to lack on games, especially since Bungie has been drawn over to "The Dark Side." I thought the macintosh was a hip and trendy tool for getting stuff done, not a toy for playing games. Games go in the living room, not the office.

5. Have to wait more than 3 months for 10.5
How long do Windows users have to wait till Vista? Will there actually be any new features?

4. Mac mini turned out not do have anything to do with Tivo
I thought it was just a little Macintosh. Taking the iMac concept without the builtin monitor. Perfect for a living room media box (play mp3s you downloaded^H^H^H... err... AACs purchased from iTunes.

3. Damn, that market share sucks
So... are YOU happy using your Mac? Now you get to gloat over being exclusive and not part of the unwashed masses. Besides, I really doubt Macintosh as a single company would be able to consistantly handle production of such a high volume of computers and maintain such tight integration of their hardware while keeping prices reasonable. PCs are primarilly so ubiquitous because of all the different companies offering piecemeal upgrades to individual components: this really doesn't fit into the Apple perspective of tight integration between hardware and software (I've never seen driver hell on an Apple like I have on a PC.)

2. OS X still can't read minds
I suppose you have a point there.

1. Fucking market share
Tell me, how do you really feel about Apple's market share? I think you're holding back. Oh, and regarding iPod competitors emerge:
eh. again, I felt the article was saying that the tight integration between iTunes and the iPod made it a winning combination. It was the video aspect that they felt was entry level, and the author didn't even specifically say that it was entry level for portable video players, could have meant video players in general (probably stretching here.) I have no experience or authority to comment on this feeling, as I generally think that portable movies are a bit too extravagant. But they also felt that, unlike the WMV versions, the iPod video is not painful to use.

But yeah, whenever the author mentioned Apple, it seemed to be saying "Hey PC industry, you're doing this all wrong. Look how Apple did it." Oh, and it makes sense to be PCcentric since the website is modder/gamer focused which, sorry to say, falls mostly outside the realm of Mac enthusiasts. probably because 1)Macs are generally built to be less user servicable 2)macs are already designed to look nice and 3)Well, let's refer to point number 6 that you made. There's not a whole lot of video games on a Mac. But fear not, because I feel that those used to the macintosh Aesthetic would be pleased playing video games on this. I mean... color scheme, simple layout, and that controller just screams "think different." And you know the Revolution will have Mario Kart, and that Macintosh people actually would have friends to play it with. And imagine the realism if they would import the fishing mini-game from Zelda Ocarina of time to the Revolution.

Re:List is Windows-Centered

[(H)elix1]

>>9. iPod still can't do bluetooth

Why would you want your iPod to do bluetooth?

Headphones. Wireless headphones. Possibly link to a bluetooth car audio system as well rather than some rf modulator.

Re:List is Windows-Centered

[shawb]

Yeah, after looking into it that would probably be enough bandwith for decent sound. Especially considering the source is going to be compressed anyways. But I thought the white cables was part of the "iPod chic." Especially if you wear all black.

Offtopic, but one of my friends dressed as an iPod commercial thing for halloween. Man, that was creepy. She literally blended into the shadows, as her clothing was black and all exposed skin was painted black. I'd be talking to someone else, and all of a sudden she was just there right next to me.

Re:List is Windows-Centered

[maglor_83]

How long do Windows users have to wait till Vista? Will there actually be any new features?

Well that depends on whether you consider it a bug or a feature :D

Re:List is Windows-Centered

[LoRdTAW]

I will say one thing and that is SCREW EXTREMETECH. My reason is more personal and OT but hell I will tell it anyway. Few years back at PC Expo here in NYC Extremetech had a booth. They were offering a top of the line athlon PC to the winner of a contest. All you had to do was stand in line. Well the would-be contestants (including myself) all lined up for a chance. The slots quickly filled up and unfortunately I did not get a spot. The Extremetech staff then made the following announcement "There will be absolutely no more entries today come back tomorrow at 10am sharp for a chance". The contest was simple, a bare pc case with motherboard and power supply was given to each contestant along with ram, video card hdd etc. You then assembled all the parts as fast as you could and if the pc properly booted to windows 98 you won. Well the next day came and I was about number 13 on the line. After number 12 was given his slot the staff then informed the rest of us in line that the contest was now closed. Closed? Most of the people in line including myself asked why it closed so soon. The extreme tech guy then said that later on yesterday they started taking in more contestants. When I got home me and my brother put together a near exact setup they had on stage. My time in assembling was 1:46. The next day the winner's time was about 2:30 and was not only awarded the new fancy Athlon system but also a trip to California to appear on TechTV.

Yea I sound bitter but the people in line and I was all lied to due to there poor management. Plus the guy who won was a cocky prick (everyone in the crowd watching wanted to punch him).
Mod me down if you like but I am just telling my little story.

Save some clicks

[technoviper]

Here is a link to the print version of the article, less clicks and only one ad! http://www.extremetech.com/print_article2/0,1217,a =168194,00.asp

How about the N-Gage?

[Toxicgonzo]

The N-Gage was a complete failure, and is in fact a joke among gamers. For instance, on the gamefaqs board you can insult someone's intelligence by saying "You bought an N-Gage didn't you?" Recently there was a topic posted on the boards whose title was "I...got...an...NGAGE...for...Christmas". The topic got over 250 responses (most topics don't get more than 20) nearly all of which were other users who wrote "LOL" or some form of condolense.

http://biz.gamedaily.com/features.asp?article_id=1 1198

pretty stupid list

[Tibor the Hun]

BTX form factor? didn't it just come out? it's a good form factor, but in this age of reusing old and outdated inventories to keep the prices down it'll take a year or two for BTX to be accepted. (just like not all cars have side-impact airbags...)

HD video for PC? I'm on a mac, with broadband, so I enjoy HD trailers all the time. Works on PCs too. The problem is not in HD or PCs, the problem is in the low DVD resolution. Once HighDef video discs come about it'll be better. (720p pr0n torrents are pretty popular)

HD optical drives? they haven't even started selling them. WTF?

GMail? sure, it doesn't give you a BJ every time a new message comes in, but otherwise it's pretty nice. (Quick & Dirty)

Dual Grapics Cards? most macs can support 2 displays on the existing card. Windows users can't seem to think that browser tabs are a good thing, why would they want dual displays? (Sure, 2 graphics cards can still work on a single display and share the load, but people who need that, apart from gamers, already have Macs...)

Anyway, I'm not trolling, it's just not a very well thought out list.

Re:pretty stupid list

[Agarax]

Dual Grapics Cards? most macs can support 2 displays on the existing card.

ALL modern graphics cards have dual output (three if you include S-Video).

You use dual graphics cards (SLI) for GAMING.

Thank you for trying to sound smart!

Re:Sturgeon's Craw

[starling]

I get so tired of people who quote "Sturgeon's Law" as if it meant something.

Hear, hear. 90% of Sturgeon's Law is crap.

Like hell it's still a beta

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Writing "beta" on something doesn't make it a beta test version. The term "beta test" has a pretty specific meaning in software development, though sadly few people remember what it is and why it's important these days.

If you release a piece of software to the general public and charge for it (as in Microsoft) then it's not a beta, it's a product. If you advertise a web service widely and get loads of people to use it routinely (as in Google) then it's not a beta, it's a live service.

The use of "beta" on everything, even things you're treating as a real product in all other respects, is just the latest meaningless buzzword, and a pathetic attempt to avoid taking responsibility for the quality of your product or service. It will sting Microsoft and Google alike soon enough, as neither customer opinion nor (if applicable) commercial partners or courts ruling on disagreements will give it much weight.

He missed one...

[rewt66]

SCO

'Nuff said.

Gmail a failed tech trend?

[dogbreathcanada]

Gmail a failed tech trend? What? As far as I can tell it's been wildly successful. Everyone I know who uses it, has been slowly moving all their email capabilities to it. For the past few months I've been forwarding all my email from all my various accounts to my Gmail account. I haven't opened Outlook Express in a couple months. Sure, it takes a little while to get used to Gmail, but I found that the more I used it, the more intuitive it was as an email service. The labeling is far better than the directory/folder paradigms from other email systems. I prefer it's filtering structure. The search functionality is the best I've come across (which you'd expect from Google). So, Gmail a failed tech trend? I think not. Hell, Gmail sort of launched the new AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML) tech trend (or if you want to argue over the semantics of "launched", at least brought AJAX into the forefront of web development). Besides, how can any email service be considered a trend?

Oooh, Shiny!

[ColdWetDog]

Notepad is a 64 bit application?

Sign me up!

The man is a shill.

[twitter]

He makes a jab at the iPod by talking about how larger capacity players add video capability, while ignoring fidelity by not offering lossless.

The article is full of hype driven and M$ friendly contradictions. He claims to use FLAC and says that nothing else will do for him. Me wonders where he gets better than CD quality Audio. Two pages later he recommends formats for the hoy-palloy:

To be fair, Microsoft's WMA standard has a lot going for it. The audio quality of WMA files is generally pretty good, and the DRM can be pretty flexible.

Sure. Windoze is good enough for you, so suck it and that DRM up. Like that's advice I want.

You will both have to excuse me while I avoid all of that BS by running Debian from ARM to 64bit and beyond. OGG too can be lossless, but I can't tell the difference and don't bother. Apple is beautiful and works, but my freedom is more important to me.

Unusually vapid rant

[mnemonic_]

For anyone who's confused about what this guy's trying to say, I'll translate:

Changing business models doesn't work because constant models fail due to the success of changing business models[?]. Normal people, not enthusiasts, drive the market.

Great insight? If so, I don't get it. I'd guess neither did the mods.

Re:Uh

[gasjews]

Windows XP x64 is a gigantic failure. Where are the masses of 64-bit apps? What about drivers? Sorry, they are pitiful and few.

As it stands, I can't even get 64-bit drivers for half of the devices on my Athlon64 notebook, despite it being sold to me as "64-bit ready" by HP. Hell, half of the drivers for 32-bit Windows haven't been updated for over 1.5 years (my mistake for buying HP, won't do it again!).

The average desktop user doesn't need 64-bits. Maybe when software becomes so bloated that the minimum reccomended RAM for a PC is 10GB it will catch on. Otherwise, it was premature. Hell, Intel still makes processors that are only 32-bit.

FLAC is useless to almost everyone

[h3llfish]

This guy mentions twice in the article that he's a big fan of losless audio compression. That's all the proof I need that he's a hype-driven goofball who really has no clue.

I've been a musician for over 20 years. I can easily hear the difference between single coil and humbucking pickups, and between a fuzz pedal that uses germanium trasistors and one that uses silicon. Those are subtle differences that the vast majority of people can't hear. What I can't hear is the difference between a properly done 192kbps/44khz mp3 rip and one made with FLAC. Now, I'm not saying that means that no one on earth can. I'm sure there are golden-eared freaks out there. But I would seriously crap out a brick if this dillhole Case could.

And before you let me know what a moron I am, be sure to conduct a blind A/B test yourself. It has to be blind, or it's just not scientific. Have a friend play two different versions for you, one a high quality mp3, and one FLAC, and see if you can tell. Since the odds of guessing correctly are 50/50, you need to repeat the experiment several times to be sure that you weren't just lucky. I'm here to tell you, it's a rare, rare person who can choose correctly ten times in a row.

And yet this guy is surprised that hardware makers haven't put these lossless codecs into their players? Most people are happy with FM audio quality, let alone FLAC. Case is useless, as proven by the fact that he hyped so many technologies that went nowhere. Extremetech, indeed - extremely stupid.

GMail...

[OneFix]

The biggest reason I use GMail...well, 2 reasons...and they're pretty big...

1) They let me use POP3...I know fastmail.fm does too, but they make you go in and delete spam through their web interface....and not to mention they don't give as much storage space...

2) Gmail Filesystem...

There are of course other benefits to GMail over other "free" e-mail services...Spam protection, Virus protection, they let you forward messages for other addresses through their service, etc...

As far as it being Beta ... Google's search became popular while it was still in beta...it doesn't really mean much that GMail is still in beta...I'll pull a page from this guys book... "How many of you were using FireFox as your primary browser before it hit 1.0? Raise your hand..."

Then again this is exactly the reason why GMail is still in beta...Google is smart about making sure things work before they take them out of beta...

Why Gmail is still in beta:

[porkchop_d_clown]

because they haven't figured out step #2.

1. Give away huge free email accounts and make it hard for anybody to permanently erase their e-mail. As a bonus use an invitation-only model to attract the geekiest nerds out there.
2. ???
3. Profit!

64-bit computing is old news

[JimmytheGeek]

This retard seems to think that 64-bit computing will arrive when windows supports it. I've been doing real work on 64 bit platform for 4 years.

Windows is backwards. So is the columnist.

FINDER IS SUK.

[solios]

How's this:

10.3 : Finder kept and displayed Classic MacOS icons. Old photoshop files? 32x32 preview icons, scaled up. Looked like ass but they were there.

10.4 (WITH SPOTLIGHT!!!1oneoneomfg) : Finder not only ignores Classic MacOS icons for images, it now builds new previes for these images regardless of rather or not they have a classic macos preview icon or not. If the document is a few megs, no problem. If it's more than ten, you get some grind - you get a LOT of grind if it's fifty or more megs, while finder/spotlight shits its pants trying to get an idea of what it's looking at. Not only does this preview-building take for-frigging-ever, Finder DOES NOT CACHE THE RESULT . So every time you roll over that image in column view, grind, grind, grind, GRIND, GRIND...

The end result is that column view is now vastly less useful in 10.4. Go Apple.

Yeah, you might care fuckall, but some of us own macs specifically for how the graphics apps handle... and I really do not have the time or patience to reprocess seven years (100+ gigs) of Photoshop documents just to see what I'm fucking LOOKING AT in a modern OS when I had no problems to speak of last year. :P

It's an issue. We're gaining features and losing functionality. Verily, I am irritated.

A pro audio engineer writes . . .

[ElephanTS]

I can tell the difference between the two easily. Cymbals particluarly will warble and shimmer - you can hear the resolution of the limited audio bands in the top end. Bass response of mp3 at any rate is always bad, careful A/Bing should show that. Having said that I archive non-important stuff at 224kbps AAC and can detect practically no audible difference between that and master (perhaps something in the bass-end but hardly anything). Mp3 is just not as good as AAC anyway. Of course iPods can play lossless audio (ALE) with no problems. The article misrepresented the difference between audio compression and digital compression. This seems to be a hard concept for people to grasp and the author doesn't seem to either. Clue: audio compression affects the dynamics (squashing all the ampliudes to the same kind of level), digital compression reencodes the signal into freq bands but doesn't (usually) affect the dynamic range. 16bits is completely adequate for a master recording and no real difference can be noted at 24bit in any normal listening environment. What would be good though is a higher sampling rate like 96KHz. People would notice that. On 96KHz systems the filtering can be soft slowly tapering down to nothing to prevent aliasing. At 44.1KHz a 'brickwall' filter has to be used which tends to produce a constrained sound.

Re:A pro audio engineer writes . . .

[h3llfish]

I think you sorta prove my point - you're a pro, so that puts you in that less than one percent that I would expect to hear the difference. I don't think Apple is going to worry about making their ipods to please the audio engineers of the world.

But now that you say warble and shimmer, I'm curious if I can note that same effect. Can you think of a particular audio track where the difference is noteable? Something that I have a decent shot at finding in both lossey and lossless formats? Not that I usually download music illegally, but this is different - it's for science!

Also, another thing that hasn't been mentioned is the fact that if you are ripping from a CD that has already compromised the audio, then lossless compression isn't going to give you back what was lost. I've heard people mention that the cymbals on The Who's "Live at Leeds" sounded good to them on the original LP, but the CD version is butchered and just provides layers of noise where the ride was being, well, ridden particularly hard.

And that point brings me to my next question, which is that if 44.1 KHz produces a constrained sound, doesn't that mean that all CDs are constrained? I've heard people say that 48KHz was much better, but I thought that the CD format just wasn't capable of that. So in essence, you could make an original recording at that rate, then compress it with FLAC and preserve the full range, but with a CD, that info is already gone. Your thoughts? And thanks for post - mod this dude up, informative!

Re:A pro audio engineer writes . . .

[ElephanTS]

Hi, as for 'warble and shimmer' try a live recording that you have on CD with a fairly open drum sound. Live rock gigs that have been well recorded are good (Led Zep that kind of thing, The Who etc) - most recordings from the 70s have better dynamic ranges than today so it's a good place to start. Then use your favourite MP3 ripper (I use iTunes) to generate a few rips at different bit rates. Try 48, 64, 96, 112, 128, 160, 192, 256k. When you listen to the 48k one you'll notice resolution breaking down in the top end where the cymbals are - you should be able to notice distinct bands appearing. That's how MP3 works - it gathers the sound around a freq band into one seperate frequency and so effectively quantises the audio spectrum (continuous) into discrete bands. As you move up the MP3 bit rates you'll notice this effect dissappearing although it never entirely disappears. Once you've learned what this sounds like you'll be able to hear it at higher and higher bit rates. Also, what we call 'transients' -- the speed of attack in drum sounds --- tends to slow down with MP3 at any bitrate. The stereo image particularly in the top end can move around a little too.

I do think 44.1KHz conversion adds all kinds of nasties into the sound and tends to strip the sound of some life. That's due to the very unmusical digital filters that need to be applied to prevent aliasing (where the top end become bass again - the old wagon wheels on film problem if you know what I mean). Like you say even 48KHz would be better but 44.1KHz was chosen as it's a sub-carrier of the PAL frequency format. It was in my mind a bad choice but one that we've had to live with for 20 years now. Most projects now are recorded at 96Khz, 24 bit and then mastered down to 44.1KHz, 16bit. That's where all our lovely work gets really chopped down to size and is definitely the most lossy stage of the recording process today. So I do think CDs do have a constrained sound and modern multiband digital compression tends to make it even worse. Sometimes it's refered to as a 'plasticky' sound - somehow it's not quite the real thing. I used to work on 30ips multitrackers (analogue) that never suffered in that way - always had a lovely non-constrained open sound all the way to where only dogs could hear. (Typically flat response from 30Hz to 35KHz on a good recorder)

Having said all this unless you have high quality sound cards and monitors it can be hard to hear what I'm talking about. The iPod has a pretty good sound though especially when put through some hi quality headphones. My soundcard is a MOTU 828MkII at home driving some Mackie HR824 monitors - that's probably too much for most people just for audio.

Re:A pro audio engineer writes . . .

[ElephanTS]

Yes you're right - if the data wasn't there in the first place you'll never get it back. I guess the mus-biz is just waiting to provide remasters at 96kHz, 24 bit as the last step in the selling of the back catalogue. Trouble is though (as I'm sure they know) most people won't really see the benefit or care that much. Another thing is that on remaster collections everything gets compressed and re-EQ'ed anyway which is what probably accounts for the live Who cymbal thing. It's possibly true that standards in audio engineering are slipping a little and sometimes really nasty top end gets through in remasters. The record companies couldn't really care less in my experience. Here's a story about that: when they rereleased the Beatles on CD they took the 2trk masters and thought they were stereo splits and made the CDs with it's characteristic hard left/right pan placing (eg Ringo's in one speaker and George is in the other) by the millions. In fact the 2trks were meant to bounced into mono and were actually the final part of balance/control for the mastering engineer not for public consumption. George Martin realised the mistake had been made and told EMI to redo it. Guess what? - To this day they're still sold as split pairs not mono as they should be.

I don't really post much about this kind of thing and prefer reading /. to reading about work. Some of the pro-Audio magazines have fairly high-level discussions about this kind of thing which you can check out on the net. EQ magazine and others.... Or Sound-On-Sound magazine can occasionally be worth a look but it seems to be kids making the same mistakes over and over.

Re:FLAC has its uses

[typical]

Did you do the test?

A double-blind test, yes (A friend ran a program that randomly played a clip, then I called out what I thought, and then he told me what it was). I had decent headphones, but nothing amazing from an audiophile standpoint (about $70, Radio Shack, closed circumaural), and I'm certainly no musician. The test clip I was using had drums and cymbals. I could tell the difference between .wav and .mp3 consistently at 256 KBps CBR (encoded with LAME). Cymbals started to sound "swishy" -- they start to pick up unpleasant patterns.

With Vorbis, I could tell the difference all the way up to the maximum quality setting (to my surprise). With Vorbis, cymbals didn't sound different (to my ear, at least), but percussion sounds slightly different -- a little bit flatter, maybe.

I still preferred Vorbis, because the MP3 artifacts sounded *unpleasant* -- swishy cymbals sound bad -- but Vorbis's artifacts don't.

Note that I was using CBR with LAME (because at the time I was interested in CBR results), though that isn't what I'd use in real life.

When listening on my little computer multimedia speakers (about $25) I've found that I can't distinguish between .wav and MP3 at a lower bitrate (but I don't remember the precise results, and in any case, that wasn't a double-blind test).
Note that this was two years or so ago, and both encoders may have improved since then.

What about the cell?

[to6o]

Now that's something that should definately be on the list. Remember all those articles how the cell was going to be the biggest competitior for PCs and how we were going to have cell processors in everything and link them and do all sorts of cool and weird things? Well, suddenly, nobody talks about it anymore...