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How MP3 Was Born

Posted by kdawson on from the race-to-encode dept.

Actual Reality points us to an interview in BusinessWeek.com with the man most often cited as the inventor of the MP3 format — though Karlheinz Brandenburg credits many for the development, including in particular Suzanne Vega.

5 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. I perfer the version by Timesprout · · Score: 5, Funny

    where MP2 was recording in studio, gets wasted and gets it on with Suzanne Vega across the mixing deck leading to a bouncing bundle of MP3. It's much more rock and roll.

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    Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
    What truth?
    There is no dupe
  2. Picture of this guy by FredDC · · Score: 5, Funny

    I bet a lot of record company executives have a picture of this guy hanging in their office! On top of a darts board...

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  3. extended and changed by Bizzeh · · Score: 5, Interesting

    the mp3 format has been extended and changed so much, and had stuff added and removed (vbr, abr, and tagging.... tagging shouldnt have even been there, since mp3 is a datastream not a container), over time. its hardly the same format now.

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  4. Fraunhofer: The people who made piracy possible by BillGatesLoveChild · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What isn't mentioned in Herr Brandenburg's interview is that Fraunhofer have been playing both sides. If you've bought an MP3 capable player, you've paid Fraunhofer royalties. But Fraunhofer have been playing both sides: developing tools to track MP3s using watermarks so record companies crack down on piracy:

    http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/securi ty/story/0,10801,108506,00.html
    http://p2pnet.net/index.php?page=reply&story=878

    They've been expanding their IP business too: Next time you run BitTorrent or eMule (they do both), run it with a network tracker. You'll see computers from Fraunhofer affiliates all over the world taking a peek at what you're downloading.

    http://greatinca.net/blog/emule-ip-blocker-hits-04 022006/

    Does this mean Fraunhofer's merry band of teutonic scientists can be both co-defendants and expert-witnesses in your case?

  5. Re:if wasn't this format, it would have been anoth by Yoozer · · Score: 5, Informative

    Really short explanation: FLAC is like Winzip for .wav files.

    Longer explanation: Why you want to do this? You want the originals on your harddisk without bothering about ISO files which you'd have to mount first using Daemon Tools or something (which means you can't play 'm back directly). You don't want the completely ludicrous space requirements .wav demands. This way, you still have the originals - well, at least more "original" if the CD is scratched or stolen or destroyed. It's not even an esoteric audiophile reason; it's just that it works well for archiving (which in turn begs the question why you want to archive something on a portable player that faces risk every day, but hey).

    As usual, Wikipedia has a page on the subject :).