Slashdot Mirror
DRM Reduces Battery Life
gr8_phk writes "An interesting article
over at C|Net claims that playing DRMed music can reduce battery life up to 25 percent. Yet another reason to stick with plain old MP3 files." From the article: "Those who belong to subscription services such as Napster or Rhapsody have it worse. Music rented from these services arrive in the WMA DRM 10 format, and it takes extra processing power to ensure that the licenses making the tracks work are still valid and match up to the device itself. Heavy DRM not only slows down an MP3 player but also sucks the very life out of them."
More on these exciting discoveries at 11 (TM).
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
The article compares MP3 @ 128kbps, with WMA9 @ 192kbps and WMA10 DRM. Spot the flaw in the methodology yet?
Adding CPU-intensive tasks such as encryption/DRM parsing requires more CPU, therefore more power, which therefore drains batteries at an increased rate.
;)
Film at 11!
But in all truth, it's interesting to see just how much more quickly batteries are being drained. It's not surprising that the average person hasn't really thought about this - modern day desktop processors can do anything, man! So obviously, in the mind of the non-technical person, this is something astonishing.
WTF? Do they do a license check after reading each bit?
"No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai
Why is this in the apple section? I'm no apple fanboy but the windows DRMs cut battery life by 25% and apple's cut it 7%, seems like this should be in some other category cuz it's actually a bigger issue with plays-for-sure files...
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
So DRM is a environment unfriendly too above human unfriendly.
Those people must be soo horrible and eat puppies for breakfast >:(
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
And DRM causes Shrinkage.
www.bannination.com Two things float to the top he
Additional processes, consuming additional cycles, and additional overall system monitoring seems to use more power. Who would have guessed?
Next week on Slashdot; Leaving the lights on causes higher electricity bills!
They don't seem to have tested for that question. If it is the newer formats rather than the DRM, the question arises, "Would you accept a shorter battery life for higher fidelity and/or better compressed files?"
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
The test compares DRMed WMA to MP3s. Different file formats will have different power consumption requirements to decode. I'm sure they'd find that DRM WMAs do consume more power than unDRM WMAs, but will the difference be 25%?
" Basically, rated battery life should be used as a guide and never be taken literally. "
And WHO here, is the idiot that went out and bought an electronic device wanting to get exactly the same battery life in their own usage as the advertized 'normal' or 'optimal' usage pattern?
Am I the only one to think that maybe WMA is just a more heavy format to decode in general? I bet you that a 128kbps mp3 isn't going to require exactly the same processing power as a 128kbps ogg file would. Maybe they should try comparing a DRM encoded WMA vs. a non DRM encoded WMA(if such a beast exists) before they start making claims that it is DRM alone causing the extra power consumption. MP3 != WMA.
kyjello is too damn smooth to make a signature.
This has got to be one of the dumbest article submissions, EVER. I expect to see this kind of crap in a local rag, not on a website geared towards individuals who on average have significantly more technical know-how than the general population.
Talk about going to extremes to push a political agenda. Gee Zonk, what do you REALLY feel about DRM. Next there will be articles on how DRM prevents you from storing as many files on your media player (699 vs 700!!!!).
So not only does DRM violate our rights, it robs us of battery life and wastes power. I knew DRM was bad on a social level, but it's even got negative environmental consequences? Holy Eris, how bad does it get?
I noticed this story on digg earlier today, but I'll comment here instead.
As much as I hate DRM, this whole comparison & conclusion is bullshit. They compare DRM'd WMA and AAC to MP3. From what I've noticed from using my underclocked pda, MP3 is much less processor intensive then (warezed, DRM-free) WMAs at the same bitrate. Even if you don't believe me (and I can't be bothered to look for sources), this is still a possibility they didn't address.
"DRM is another cause for global warming. It must be stopped! In fact, laptops are helping cause global warming and the batteries pollute the environment. Apple betrayed our country!! They played on hour fears!!!!"
The article compares MP3 to DRM'ed WMA and MP3 to DRM'ed AAC. Of course the battery life is going to be different, different formats require more or less processing power to decode. For this to be valid they need to compare WMA with and without DRM, or AAC with and without DRM.
What we need then is some sort of specialized DRM chip-set, something that can do the CPU intensive stuff, but in a very low power way... I wonder if any of the industry leaders have thought about doing that...
Until that perception is corrected, DRM is a fact of life.
So how do we correct this perception? Maybe by being responsible consumers and not "sharing" all digital media with the planet without permission. If the artist, composer or whatever releases it with "redistribute freely", then by all means, post it, share it, copy it. But, if it is released with "no redistribution allowed" then nobody shares it, copies it, etc.
If that were to start happening market forces could then (perhaps) influence the licensing of music, video and other digital media. I do not see this happening anytime soon or even in my lifetime. Therefore, DRM is a live-or-die proposition to content owners. They can either protect it or sell one copy.
DRM has gone from Suck to Blow. Really, this isn't suprising. If DRM increases the amount of processing needed to play the file, of course it's going to drain the battery. Solution? Don't use DRM, or don't buy music from stores that do use it.
I have nothing clever to put here...
If it weren't for every site on the whole damn Internet parroting each other so badly perhaps this never would have made the news. Anyway their "study" is deeply flawed, and while it could be argued that DRM does actually cause your player to consume more battery life than it otherwise would, DRM is not making the power impact they claim and anyone giving the problem more than even five seconds of rational thought would realize this.
The codec is the problem. It takes more power to decode WMA (DRM or not) than it does to decode MP3. Ditto for AAC. The codecs are more computationally intensive and are decoded by general purpose CPU's in many players while MP3 is most often decoded with dedicated ASIC's. Even if all decodes are done in dedicated hardware, the MP3 codec is still likely going to be the most power efficient.
A proper study would have compared identical tracks with identical compression with and without DRM such as an iTunes track played on repeat vs the same track with DRM stripped out played the same way. I'd bet the overhead of the DRM is more on the order of 1-3% here.
It is; however, the DRM that is locking you into using WMA/AAC vs the power-saving MP3 format in the first place, but it's a bit of a stretch to say that it's the DRM's fault that a player running a more complex codec takes a power hit for doing so.
Mp3, as it turns out, is a lot easier to decode than wma and other later-generation formats. The fact that you have to use mpeg4 or wma with your DRMed purchase is just an unwanted side-effect.
That said, it is one reason I only play mp3s on my portable player. LAME has brought a level of quality to the mp3 format that none thought possible, and it keeps up suprisingly well with "more advanced" codecs. I see no reason to use anything else...it plays everywhere, and uses less battery life.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
As I've heard the free and clear Ogg format lowers battery life too.
Finally, a true "iPod Killer."
In Soviet Russia, DRM drains you!
Sorry, somebody had to say it.
No! You got it all wrong! What we need is more consumers with brains - let them keep their protected content; don't prolong the death of the music industry unnecessarily. Instead, support fair distribution and artist compensation models! TFA would be just one more (tiny) reason to do so.
I hope I didn't brain my damage.
Still no idea what this is supposed to be
Can someone enlighten me?
There is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men. -- Boondock Saints
The recording industry finds that their copyrighted material is being pirated, so they implement ways to limit pirating. (No one mentions that most of the piracy is being done in 3rd world countries, costing record producers many times what it costs them in the US, but we'll let discuss that later.)
As far as I'm concerned, LET them. The problem is not the DRM. It's the fact that it's illegal to BREAK the DRM. Wouldn't that defeat the point of having DRM, you ask? For many people, yes. For many people, no. DRM would discourage many people from breaking it simply because it's inconvenient. But being allowed to break it when necessary allows many people to make "fair use" of the recordings in ways that the DRM would otherwise prevent.
It's all about balance. If the DRM people want to use technical means to screw us, we should be allowed to use technical means to unscrew outselves. This is no different from us using SPAM filters to fight spammers. We should be able to use anti-DRM programs to fight the recording industry.
I am reminded of the Chinese policy of charging the family of the executed for the price of the bullet used in the execution. In other words, something bad is done to you and you are asked to pay for the price of the administration of the badness as well as experiencing the badness itself.
The flag just makes more sense than the constitution. - Judas Gutenberg
...... use this as another reason to Open iTunes!
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
A good summary of the CNet study is at http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/13193.
The Slashdot headline/summary is a little misleading. The test showed that Apple's FairPlay DRM caused about an 8% battery life penalty. It was the Zen Micro with the WMA DRM that caused a 25% drop in battery life. In this case, (if you HAVE to have DRM'd music), it seems Apple's scheme is the way to go.
Some people have raised the issue that they compared 192kbps WMA files with 128kbps AAC (i.e. iTMS) files. AAC, in general, sounds pretty good at 128kbps. (Geek Disclosure Time): I've run a few double-blind, multi-listener tests, and most people put 128 AAC about equal with 192 MP3 (constant bitrate). I have no idea whether 192 WMA is overkill - if that's what Napster provides, well, I'm assuming that's comparable sound quality.
I'm not an engineer, so I can't say whether or not the bitrate difference could reasonably account for that great a difference in battery drain. I will, however, note that if you choose to use a less-efficient codec, that's your fault.
Is it possible to encode aacPlus files without DRM? If so, why aren't more people doing so, because for what I understand it outperforms both mp3Pro and ogg. Maybe Coding Technologies have patented the shit out of SBR?
I'd expect at any given bitrate WMA takes more power to play than MP3. Why? More complex format. Same is true for OGG or AAC. They do more advanced processing, and thus require more CPU power to decode. Same holds true for MP3 vs PCM. I remember back in the 486 days, I couldn't play MP3s in full quality mode, but I could play 44.1kHz 16-bit WAVs fine.
Now it might be interesting to see the difference in drain between equal bitrate MP3s and WMAs, however you then have to factor in quality. While WMA certianly doesn't offer the "CD quality at 64kbps" MS likes to say, it does offer better sound than MP3 at a given bitrate.
As the GPP said: A real comparison for DRM is to take an equal bit rate WMA file of the same version, and have one with DRM and one without, and then test them. That's the only way to test it's actual battery impact. If you let confounding factors creep in, then the test is worthless.
Apologies to anyone who doesn't just have CNet on their Google Homepage:
http://blog.wired.com/cultofmac/
Yay, attribution!
Why is this posted under "Apple" if the article talks about Napster and Rhapsody?
Why is this in the apple section?
Because Apple is the market leader with respect to digital audio content delivery, playback, and DRM. I realize it's new and confusing to not be the underdog, but this is the price for being the top dog.
Right, but the format isn't the point. The point (as far as I can tell) is this:
"If you buy your music legally, your batteries are going to die sooner."
It doesn't really matter if this is due to decoding the encryption or the fact that you can't reencode at a lower bitrate; the point stands either way.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
And I think you lack the understanding of what it means to be a Nazi. They didn't just go around correcting people. It was a little worse than that.
They played on hour fears!!!!
I believe those fears to be my newt.
Why is this in the Apple category? Last time I checked, Apple doesn't use Windows Media Player for their store or audio playback.
Or did I miss a memo?
Oh, wait...
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The quality of a 192kbps WMA file is far, far superior to that of a 128kbps mp3.
It will also drink all your beer and give you Dutch Elm disease. Over here is more, equally vital information.
no, because I can choose to encode my legal music in WMA, thus unless it is specifically the DRM stuff in the file that is causing the extra battery dranage, it is possible for legally purchased music to take the extra battery life. WMA != napster and the like
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 Race
12112
Well, unless you buy your legal music in MP3 format, which many indy sites sell. Or if you download your illegal music in OGG or AAC format, which you can also do.
The point is nothing, the point is this study is worthless. Trying to create some kind of false generlization to legal vs illegal music downloads is just as big a flaw in logic.
On the plus side, content creators' rights are protected from rampant piracy.
That is a plus side...right? Guys? Hello? *crickets chirping*
I forgot, nobody gives a shit about the artists, so we have to invent cute little experiments where files with non-equivalent bitrates are compared, so we can scream "DRM REDUCES BATTERY LIFE!" in some vain attempt to bash DRM yet again. My bad.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Wireless networking and backlights suck the life out of laptop batteries. Best to turn off these features...
My MP3 player doesn't play WMA with DRM, so DRM increases my battery life almost infinitely.
All my foes are spelling or grammar Nazis.
And I think you lack the understanding of what it means to be a Nazi. They didn't just go around correcting people. It was a little worse than that.
All my foes are spelling, grammar, or Nazi Nazis.
Just use Ogg Vorbis and get better quality for less bitrate.
Oh, and forget about DRM or the need to pay evil patent royalties to Fraunhoffer/Thomson.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Windows (R)(TM)(C) always runs your drive ...
microsoft owes me a new laptop harddrive!
damn them..damn them all to hell!
But being allowed to break it when necessary allows many people to make "fair use" of the recordings in ways that the DRM would otherwise prevent.
There is no reason that a properly designed DRM system would prevent fair use. iTunes/FairPlay tracks, to use the best example, are intended to have the DRM removed for those fair use purposes where the DRM cannot be preserved -- the only caveat being that you can't do it losslessly. This, I think, is probably the right way to go. Is there some fair use precedent that says you have to be able to make use of the recording losslessly?
As much as I think the DMCA is a highly abuse-prone law, I think the better and more probable solution is sensible DRM systems that you never need to break to exercise your rights.
We should be able to use anti-DRM programs to fight the recording industry.
Actually, you should use your money to tell them what you will and won't accept. I think that's the way it's supposed to work.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
While this may be true, a typical AAC from iTunes is higher quality than a standard gnutella-floating MP3.
>.>
"Everything worth innovating today will go to court tomorrow."
When you first open up a DRM file to play it, yes a little bit of processing occurs right then doing public/private key decryption to unlock the RC4 encryption key used to decrease the rest of the file. This however is probably about the same amount of juice as is required to play 1/10 a second of audio. During actual audio playback the players are doing an RC4 block cipher decryption operation. That's a linear time operation on par with generating a modulus for 8 bits. Meaning it's basically nothing compared to the horsepower needed to convert from compressed audio to waveform pcm audio. The article review is a crock of crap.
Putting aside for a moment that the article itself is more about battery life of various players than about the affect of DRM on battery life, the few statements made about DRM and battery life came from a very flawed test. The authors never tested un-DRMed AAC or WMA, to account for the higher processing needed to decode the more complicated file formats.
But, in the interest of science, I would like to see DRM's real affect on battery life in portable music players. Here is the test I propose:
Purchase a 128kbps AAC/Fairplay track from iTunes.
Purchase the same track as a 192kbps WMA/DRM 10 from Napster.
Rip the same track from CD, and create five versions:
- 44.1kHz wav
- 128kbps mp3
- 192kbps mp3
- 128kbps AAC (clean - no FairPlay)
- 192kbps WMA (clean - no DRM 10)
Now we have seven tracks to test, two with DRM, two identical without DRM, one as a control, and two for bitrate studies. For each track:
- set the volume on max
- turn off the backlight
- plug in a set of standard earbud headphones
- load the track on the player while the player is plugged in
- make sure the track is the only thing on the hard drive
- place the track in its own playlist and set to infinite repeat
- press play at the moment you unplug the power cord
- time how long it takes for the battery to run out
- plug the player back in and charge to full
Ideally, this test should be run several times for each track on the exact same player, in the same order every time, to correct for possible changes in the amount of charge the battery can hold. It might be interesting to run the test on many different players, as well, and see how they fare.
Does anyone at Slashdot own a player that can handle all three formats, and would be willing to conduct the tests?
For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
You missed the point of the article completely. I don't care if the AAC or WMA DRM encryption takes up more processor power than non DRM AAC or WMA files. Or if they use the same, i couldn't care less. What Matters the most is that when you are listening to an MP3, and then you downlaod the same song on iTunes, and the battery life is 8% less.
Nobody in their right mind would use AAC or WMA for non-encrpyted files, so why would that be the only fair comparrison? WMA/AAC files do not work in most DVD players. WMA/AAC files do not work in most in-dash mp3 players in cars. WMA/AAC files do not work on most portable devices such as phones and PDA's. WMA/AAC files do not work on almost ANYTHING other than their respective x86 operating system/applications combinations and their respective portable players (Sandisk/Creative -> plays4sure and ipod -> Fairplay)
While it might be interesting to see the actual battery life on a nonDRM vs DRM WMA or AAC file, it has nothing to do with every day usage and it has nothing to do with practical real world use. It is simply a benchmark that would never be reflected in the real world. So the article stands correct, legitimate, and honest. I suppose they could have used VBR mp3's, or 192kbps mp3's, but we all know that the outcome would be the same (192 doesn't make much diff over 128).
Your ignorance is infinitely greater than you realize.
"Apple: DRM Reduces Battery Life" Looked at first like Apple was saying this. Bad "journalism" style.
> Heavy DRM not only slows down an MP3 player but
> also sucks the very life out of them
Much like a lack of DRM sucks the very life out of the music industry.
For my pithy comment, I humbly await troll, flamebait, or other downmodification by angered, hmmmmm, let's ensure it by poking at the sacred cow, await downmodification by angered five finger discount specialists.
I raise my chin and expose my throat in your general direction.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
A way to think of it more objectively is to consider that the DRM files force you to use this specific codec (either WMA or AAC) at this specific bitrate. You have no choice in the matter if you are going to use these files. Whereas, if you use regular mp3 files (or another format of your choosing, mp3 happening to be the most popular therefore most benchmarked against) then you get a better battery life. The article is comparing regular files which are readilly available and the most popular vs. DRM'd files which you have no choice in bitrate or format. Since nobody would be encoding their music using AAC or WMA when not forced to use DRM, then why should the control group (by definition, the group using no-DRM MP3 files) be forced to use a proprietary format which is not readilly available for use and is not going to be used in the real world?
.01% of the population rather than pretty much everyone who is already using MP3's.
You missed the point of the article completely. It doesn't matter if the AAC or WMA DRM encryption takes up more processor power than non DRM AAC or WMA files. Or if they use the same. What matters is that when you are listening to an MP3, and then you downlaod the same song on iTunes or walmart.com, and the battery life is 8%-25% less.
Nobody in their right mind would use AAC or WMA for non-encrpyted files, so why would that be the only fair comparrison? WMA/AAC files do not work in most DVD players. WMA/AAC files do not work in most in-dash mp3 players in cars. WMA/AAC files do not work on most portable devices such as phones and PDA's. WMA/AAC files do not work on almost ANYTHING other than their respective x86 operating system/applications combinations and their respective portable players (Sandisk/Creative -> plays4sure and ipod -> Fairplay)
Sure, you could make a control group which uses WMA files and then compare it to the variant group which uses DRM WMA files, but then you would be focusing your study on about
Your ignorance is infinitely greater than you realize.
In one of the TalkBack posts, James Kim (the author) wrote,
It's true that an apples-to-apples comparison (ie WMA vs. WMA DRM) would have been more telling... We will continue to test players and soon do a true and more complete comparison of WMA vs WMA DRM, AAC vs Fairplay AAC, and so on.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
everyone knows ogg vorbis is in chuck norris format.
for a minute there, i lost myself...
"Yet another reason to stick with plain old MP3 files."
?!?! Was there ever a reason *not* to choose mp3 (or ogg, e.g.)?
More importantly, was there ever a reason to choose WMA+DRM (or WMA even w/o DRM...)?
your nick.
Well played sir, well played.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Argh! I got the idea after the first 142489.4 replies. Can people are least quickly flick through comments when they've made such an obvious observation, thinking they're so clever, and explaining it in that calm but nerdy +5 manner? How can something be "Insightful" if every bloody person sees the same thing!
EpiAdv - if you like Pokey the Penguin, try this comic!
it does offer better sound than MP3 at a given bitrate
Unless you're like me and have double blind tests that show that LAME sounds better. Of course, this is to my ears, but your milage may vary. Just because something has a more complex format doesn't necessarily mean that it's "better quality" at a lower bitrate.
Guy asks a question and gets answered, but the answer is marked as redundant. Moderation trolling at it's best folks.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Bingo, couldn't say it better myself.
Brett
It's just a fact of capitalist greed and blatant disregard for the consumer. The record company is doing fine, they should cut their losses instead of making a move that is likely to backfire entirely.
EpiAdv - if you like Pokey the Penguin, try this comic!
MS likes to say, it does offer better sound than MP3 at a given bitrate
Does it? I've always found it hard to tell the difference between work of a really top quality mp3 encoder, and Microsoft's WMA encoder. Like most things "lossy", it really depends on which encoder you use. Use a shitty mp3 encoder and you'll get crap.
WMA, being a next gen format along with Vorbis/AAC etc etc, probably has more headroom... but I'm fucked if I can tell for most things.
The 128kbit AAC file is still noticably more lossy than a 256k VBR MP3 file.
I tried having iTunes resample my MP3s to give fairness to my Shuffle, and it was not worth the quality loss.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I own a Sony Hi-MD Music Player. I bought this unit before the rootkit fiasco, and to be honest is one of the best purchases I've made in electronics.
I bought this because I'm a clutz with electronics. In 2001 I changed cell phones 4 times. All of them I misplaced, lost or utterly destroyed. I'm lucky that my employer changed them every time. So I figured that my music player should have very few moving parts. Back then flash players were a bit limited. The iPod Nano was at least 8 months away.
So far my experience has been good, if you set aside that Sony's first Connect software was utter trash. The current version (3.4) is quite good. I don't buy music online from Sony, or from iTunes for that matter. Most of my burning I do from my own collection, and some Podcasts. Often, the software won't transfer MP3's to the discs but this happens 90% of the time on Podcasts
The player takes a single AA battery. This often lasts for up to two+ weeks under normal use (e.g.: Bus/Train to and from work, at work). I don't know what kind of processing power the unit has but I don't think it's too much.
And in case you're wondering, I get 1GB per Hi-MD disc (350MB per normal MiniDisc). I've squeezed 20+ CD's in a single Hi-MD.
the future is but past forgotten
Even if you overcame the technical hurdles, there are other problems... if I want to sell my DRM'd songs to someone else, in theory, this is easy. I'm un-authorized and the buyer is authorized. But in fact, the record companies don't do this and consider it a *feature* that I can't transfer ownership.
I frankly think they'd be better off with digital signatures of songs that didn't prevent any amount of copying. Because most people wouldn't be willing to put a song on the P2P network if it had their name and address embedded in the file. But again, one of the "features" of DRM is that it does limit my legitimate use and allows the record companies to control how and when I listen to my songs.
That's why DRM will never really work with the public at large. It makes something simple (listen to a CD, loan it to a friend, rip it to use on iPod) into something complicated with rules that never existed before.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Make the oblivious end user think that DRM is evil and with enough idiots it could make a difference. Just imagine all the pod people: WHAT?!! YOU MEAN DRM STUFF DRAINS THE JUICE OUT OF MY IPOD FASTER??!!!! ITS EVIL AND HAS TO BE STOPPED!!!!!!111! Maybe then the people could steer the impending DRM overlords away from the subject by brute force.
Dipshit said
Sorry, somebody had to say it.
No.
People parroting the same halfwit jokes time and time again do nothing but boost your post count and shit up thr thread.
If you have nothing to stay, say nothing.
The iPod doesn't use a CPU to decode anything it plays; it's all done by an ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) which handles the mp3, AAC, WAV, Apple-lossless, etc decompression.
I suspect that the power used to decode equal-bitrate MP3 and AAC files is imperceptible...
Please help metamoderate.
zap your battery before you recharge it? Just run DRM-managed stuff for 1.5 hours via a script...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
The first time I saw this post was in an article on Enigma.
On the other hand, from what I've read of Enigma, that guy's post isn't Enigma-encrypted. I could be wrong though.
It's probably an encrypted GNAA troll.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Ogg Vorbis, due to it being a superior compression format needs quite some CPU power to decode. That's the reason not all players support it - because not all have the electronics to do it. FLAC is easiest - for obvious resons. The others are all spread somewhere inbetween.
However I'd kinda expect Sonys ATRAC, the MiniDisk Compression format, to be the most power saving.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Burn DRM files to music CD.
Rip music CD to MP3.
Listen to MP3.
Laugh.
Sam
www.qsopht.com ~q
It seems that both AAC and MPC are faster cpu-wise than mp3 decoding. Vorbis is apparently slightly slower. Charts don't mention WMA. Why do you people assume newer standards use more CPU?? a newer, better algorithm will usually be faster, not slower, besides having better compression/quality results.
I disagree that testing should be DRMed WMA vs non-DRMed WMA. Why should we use WMA, unless the DRM locks us into it? It should be DRMed WMA/AAC vs the best non-DRMed format available for comparable quality, since when we are not locked into a technology by DRM we can choose best-of-breed technology.
That's a nifty bit of shell/awk-fu. Thanks!
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
No, he apparently gets paid to proselytize that if you are against DRM in any way for any reason, you're a low-life, scumbag pirate who wrings your hands wondering from your waking hour how you can steal money from the artists' pockets. This also includes reasons that are 100% legal and are not meant to deprive artists of their rightful due, such as making backups for personal use. Doesn't matter. If you're against DRM, you're a pirate in his eyes.
Think that's flamebait? Look at ANY post that he makes regarding DRM. He's a pro-DRM extremist and if you gdon't agree with him, he does everything that he can to label you a thief.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
I would have never guessed that computing drains battery power. How long did it take them to figure that out?
Leftists are against DRM because they think everything should be "free". I am against DRM because I think that leftists make too much money over there on the left coast.
I think we should take their "cribs" in Beverly Hills and Malibu and redistribute their wealth to the homeless that travel up and down Wilshire Blvd.
Ask them if they think Robin Hood "did the right thing," first though just for kicks.
I'd say that's a bit of an overstatement. While I personally still use MP3, I know several people who have made an informed decision based on their own usage and decided that AAC fits their needs best. I don't know a great deal of Windows users, but I imagine there are some out there that actually enjoy WMA.
The CPU is going to keep cycling, whether you're playing music or not. Am I missing something here?
The bits on the bus go on and off... on and off... on and off...
Sound Check is not DSP. Your iPod simply adjusts the gain on a per-track basis (not in realtime) based on metadata.
The bits on the bus go on and off... on and off... on and off...
Dupes.
Dupes reduce battery life more than DRM.
You can't handle the truth.
Congratulations, Slashdot. You have run 3 (three) duped articles in a row.
Congratulations, Slashdot. You have run 3 (three) duped articles in a row.
dummies!