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"MP3 death watch" article on CNN.com
haaz writes "CNN.com has a
heavily anti-MP3 editorial called
MP3 Death Watch.
Death watch, huh? What is it with the media? Do they
need something to be on a death watch now that
Apple's back on its feet? "
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Lets look at a few of the arguments the author makes:
1) RIAA will kill MP3.
I doubt this will happen. Should they even manage to shut down the Rio, MP3s on personal machines will still flourish. It is infeasible to sue every single person on the net.
2) Dead as push?
How do you get this? Sounds like FUD to me.
3) Sound quality...
This is my biggest qualm with this article. The sound quality issue is mainly a piece of FUD and requires further analysis.
First of all, I want to state that I don't own a Rio. However, I'm willing to believe that the sound quality is low, and that the software is flimsy, to a Windows user
As a side note, the sound quality may depend more on the headphones. If you use $5 headphones and compare this to a symphony, you are a loser. If you purchase $100 studio headphones, you get a good concert.
4) File size in MB, not KB
Sure, this might be a problem for streaming sound, but the existance of MP3 as a format does not depend on streaming. MP3 *is* a lot more compact than CD audio is. Does that mean CD audio, being 50MB in size, will also die because we don't have the bandwidth? It sure doesn't. The author is surely not looking at the big picture.
With MP3s being just a few MB in size, you can purchase/burn a CDROM with many more tracks than you can using normal CD audio. Why does the author think that this ability is bad? I don't know.
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CNN sure gets a lot of FUD these days. Seems like they will post anything that anyone with deep pockets sends them. shouldn't media *try* to be impartial and not commercially oriented?
-Ben
Reminds me, actually, of a fortune I got the other day.
audiophile, n: Someone who listens to the equipment instead of the music.
Give it a few years and broadcast video will _be_ MPEG, by order of the FCC. Have you ever seen digital television? The quality is _vastly_ better than standard analog television.
I'm not sure what the German standards are going to look like, but 3-4Mbps is the lowest quality of the standard formats for DTV in the US. Basically, you start with something NTSC quality, then compress it... you're sure not going to get anything great that way. US digital channels are going to be 19.2Mbps wide, though, so you can pack 4-6 of those in there... Or you can go to a higher resolution and bitrate and have only one or two multicast (note: this is not the same thing as IP multicasting - I personally think multiplex would be a better word) channels, but a quality that makes NTSC look like the pathetic junk that it is.
I haven't personally seen any of the really high-quality standards (no one's even built the hardware necessary to work with the best quality ones), but with a 720p (that's 720 lines vertically, progressive video, and a 16x9 aspect ratio) picture at a decent bitrate on a 64" screen, you can walk up, stand a foot away from the TV, and it's like looking through a window at something outside... a freshly washed window, at that...
Better formats already exist. The problem isn't with the formats, but with the licensing of same. I can compress a whole cd to a 100k file with no loss, but if I charge too much for it or make the licensing too restrictive or otherwise onerous, noone will touch it.
Even if it's likely that there will be a new format, what is the reasonable probability that the new format will be public domain, or that the licensing terms for the format will be as favorable as MP3?
Just about zero. You have to keep in mind what 'audio compression' really is. It's not so much about compression as about perceptual coding. For example, frequencies below approx. 80 hz are non-directional to the human ear. Therefore, you can save some space by making those frequencies mono instead of stereo. Loud sounds mask quiet ones, so you can skip recording the quiet ones without losing sound quality. It's far more complicated than this in practice, but you get the idea.
The problem is that although the basic concepts have been well understood for several decades, the details that result in the high 'compression' that we see today come from extensive research done by the companies who license these technologies. So in order to ensure a good return on investment, they patent the hell out of everything they can. This might not be a huge problem, but the human ear only works one way. If all the ways to remove information the ear doesn't need/use are patented, then the ability to come up with a useful public domain compression algorithm is gone. And now that it has been shown that there is a large demand for this type of technology, loose licensing is probably a thing of the past as well.
That would imply mp3 and 44.1K CD _is_ serious, which is rather absurd: they aren't remotely serious, just fun and convenient. What's so wrong with that? I'm going to stick with 'as long as you're not really _serious_ about sound quality'. One doesn't have to be serious all the time...
CDs already ruin sounds like that, so MP3 isn't significantly worse. Either are more or less okay, as long as you're not really _serious_ about sound quality, and you can also pre-emphasize the input to get as much out of it as you can. For an MP3 this would definitely translate to larger file size at the same bitrate encoding- you'd be basically feeding it more detail, working the decoder like an instrument.
A sample, of sorts- I can do a lot better once I build certain equipment, but that page contains an MP3 excerpt from a long musical piece I recorded.
Go actually read it. The author makes a few points:
1) The Rio doesn't have enough storage
2) "Near CD-Quality" isn't good enough
3) Bandwidth, bandwidth, bandwidth - need more of it
He does, however, make a few bad points:
1) He complains about the poor quality, then complains the file size is too large. Bad bad.
2) Tries to separate a file format from an application.
I don't see MP3 dying this decade. Moreover, I see many formats other than MP3 dying because MP3 killed them - mod, wav, mid. Who needs such well intentioned but obviously limited formats when the nearly perfect sound format MP3 exists? MP3 is an open format that can't be beat.
:)
Nuff said; next question.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
The author makes an excellent arguement. MP3s are an excellent first step into the world of Internet music. However, the author obviously has never downloaded an MP3 encoded at more than 128K. Sound quality at 160K or 192K is much better - even in cheap PC speakers. Now that everyone and their dog (in North America anyway) has a cable modem or DSL line it is increasingly easier to transfer 256K MP3s - which are near CD quality.
Also, many of us have good quality home stereos connected to their computers. We enjoy the MP3 format for what it is. Most of us have an encoder, and those on the Winblows platform enjoy an excellent quality decoder - WinAmp. I've been using MP3s for almost 3 years now, and will continue to enjoy them for years to come. The size and quality of my collection will ensure that. I'm willing to bet that others feel the same.
There will be newer, better audio formats than MP3. However, they will not replace MP3, they will augment it. MP3 created the revolution, but it's up to others to continue the tradition.
Michael.
After reading the article, I had to conclude this will win "FUD article of the year" even though we're only in April.
The author seems to believe MP3 can "go away" or be extended in incompatable ways. This fundamental misunderstanding of what is a semi-open format immediately sounded warnings. Doesn't CNN have technical people all over their company who can proof this crap?
god forbid he reviews Linux. He'd probably declare "they'll be put out of business" or somehow link RedHat to Linux.
Of course, there's always the possibility he is not stupid, but rather he is motivated to write an anti-MP3 FUD story.
It's too bad journalists are not forced to disclose their investments like the politicians are. How can someone be impartial when they have loyalties to the Media, or at least a good chunk of their life savings invested in media stock?
I'm not claiming to know what motivated this aweful story, merely I am publicly speculating what could have gone wrong.
The great thing about all this is time is on our sides; we're NOT a business.. lol!
I encode all my audio files at 192/44, which during lengthy testing was what I found to be the best compression without noticable loss in quality. I tested my MP3's by two methods: linking my Apple PowerMac B&W G3 to the home stereo, and secondly by burning one set of files BACK to CD so I could remove my soundcard and 50 feet of patch cables as a variable. Sounds great!
Admittedly, I store a lot less MP3 at such a high data rate. Oh well. My server is a 20 GB Linux box, and the files are available over my home webserver (primarily used for this purpose since it's not available to the outside world).
On my PC's cheap speakers, I can still tell the difference between 128/44 and the real CD, but above that it's blurred. I really HATE that "pop" the SB cards put before every track, but then again I'm spoiled by the audio in the G3.
Maybe I *am* buying fewer CD's these days, but it's because I'm more informed after having listened to more tracks of a CD due to MP3. I have a lot of CD's I never play because I bought them on the false assumption the rest of the CD was as good as the tracks I heard elsewhere.
I truly hope the artists exploit this technology. There's just NO NEED to force an artist to deliver 8-12 songs when the artist only feels good about 2 or 3. The artist needs more control.
Too bad this article is stale now.
If what you say is true (I'm not doubting you), then your post should be a follow-up article submitted to Slashdot...
We have to expose selective reporting with an agenda.
Could you please enumerate "massive speedup ... in most major cities"?
There's already a post here from someone in Seattle... no cable modem. Hardly anyone in the StL area has cable modems. Most areas in the chicago metro area don't have cable modems. That's three major cities already...
CDs aren't an artifact of the unconnected days... not until we have tons more bandwidth than we have now.
"Don't underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon filled with tapes" and don't underestimate the bandwidth of your local CD shop.
Most of the areas around where I live (STL), you _can't_ get cable modems or DSL. (Although SWB promises DSL sometime soon.... whatever.) And then figure in all those people who don't live in the city... burbs tend to be spotty and if you get any further out, give up.
Well, actually, most people don't choose Excel,
they're forced to use it because everyone else
is using XLS files. So the file format IS
important - but not its internals, of course,
just the compatibility issue.
MiniDisc is an excellent format, and is still growing. It was a commercial failure, sure. But we're still seeing new professional devices that use minidisc, and the portables are still far cooler than any MP3 portable on the market. Look at the stats...
:)
Rio:
32MB storage (1 hour of shitty audio)
Very expensive removable media
Long battery life
Small size
Immune to physical shocks
Slightly less expensive than MiniDisc player
Does not record
No standard digital audio I/O
MiniDisc:
150MB storage (74 minutes of very good audio).
$10 for 74-minute re-recordable media.
Long battery life.
Small size.
Slightly more expensive than Rio.
ALMOST immune to physical shocks.
Most units can record directly.
Standard S-PDIF audio I/O.
Hardly dead.
A format to store mp3's on minidisc might be cool.
The article should be titled "RIAA lameness deathwatch" since it talks more about the death of the lameasses' attempts to kill MP3 rather than the MP3 dying off. Just look at their poll: "Are the music industry's attempts to stop or supplant Internet music downloads doomed?"
Furthermore, I don't see anything anti-MP3 except the comment that the quality is usually not CD-quality. Although this is true, it's not the format's fault. You can create practically CD-quality MP3s with almost the same compression ratio, provided that you use the right software.
Well.. just my $.02. As a conclusion, here's a quote from the article: "But what of MP3? In the short run, the format is likely to flourish. Its expected inclusion as a native format in the RealPlayer and the support it receives by all but the very top tier in the music industry ensure that the flow of MP3 files onto the Net will remain unchecked."
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He says the Recording Industry folks will fail in their new format, and in suppressing MP3. Then he says the MP3 format is inferior to CDs, and will eventually be replaced by something better. "Don't be fixated on a file format" is a rough paraphrase of his argument.
... just like cassettes. It takes a real quantum leap to totally replace a format. Hey, there are even some people who cling to vinyl records.
As far as I can tell, few to no slashdotters would disagree with these points.
I will say, though, that I found his Excel example ridiculous. He claims people buy Excel because of its features, not because XLS is a universal format. I would say this is most definitely false; the reason people standardize on Microsoft Office is because everyone else uses it, not because it's good or bad. That makes me think MP3s are going to be around forever
D
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For instance, gun control advocates actually argue that because someone might shoot someone else with a handgun, that all handguns should be illegal for citizens to own. We might as well ban any sharp instrument, because I might have a mind to walk out and jam it into someone's eye socket.
The Clinton administration's stance that encryption allows some miniscule percentage of the population to inconvenience law enforcement in their attempts to bug known drug lords simply doesn't justify the danger of exposure of unencrypted data that the rest of us have to put up with, thanks to Cold War thinking.
RIAA doesn't seem to have any problem with me buying a CD, and copying it via a CD-rewritable widget, so that I can have a copy for my car. As long as I don't give the copy to anyone else, they should shut up and go back to counting their royalties.
The author makes a very valid point that, sooner or later, MP3 will be left to twist in the wind for the sake of the Next Big Audio Thing. After all, only the insane among us will fail to admit that our most Holy of Holies, Linux, is a passing thing, too. If you are at least 30 years old, then you may remember, for instance, when Microsoft was going to save us from IBM.
The idea, however, that intellectual property is a nonworkable concept, rubs my Capitalist fur the wrong way. If you want to give away your talents to anyone with a tape recorder, and starve to death, to be buried in an unmarked grave next to Joan Baez, well, go ahead.
What I've found is that, by and large, Humanity is Lazy. Less than 10% of us create new content. The other 90% copy it, consume it, or ignore it, but don't contribute to it. So, the heck with them! Since our primary rate of exchange is money, then make the sheep pay for what they yearn for.
I'm willing to bet that almost everyone who has anything, doesn't want to share it; and those that have nothing, want everyone who has stuff to be required to share it.
"Any property that must be propped up by the State is not property in my book."
This includes a great deal beyond just intellectual property. This would include land ownership, enforcement of contracts, etc. A 'pure' system, would be anarchy. A system where only might makes right. Without government enforcement the system simply would not operate as smoothly as it does. In regards to the intellectual property issues, please do yourself a favor and read some Adam Smith. Without his research our current system today would not be in existance.
Most of Adam Smith's theories still hold today. While it may be true that the US has adopted Keynesian economic policy and a few other ideas, these for the most part leave Smith in place. His arguments for intellectual property still very much hold. I have no objection with a group of people who wish to collaborate to create free software, in fact, I support it. However, I take extreme exception to people who would attempt to abolish all forms of intellectual property. This demonstrates ignorance to me. Atleast if they're going to espouse these ideas, they can demonstrate that they've read some economic texts, not just FSF propaganda. The problem with people that advocate destruction of IP, is that they don't have it all together thought out. I don't have time to get into it, but one of the biggest problems is that there is some considerable need to reward to innovator.
While many geeks may be happy with 'free software', I can't think of any 'free' software that really serves the end users' needs and wants. How does this help people? This of course goes well beyond just software. More significant industries are ones where large investments are required to bring a product to market. Such as the Medical technology industry. The arguments against intellectual property in MedTech may appear to be superficially stronger than it is in software, because people can theoretically be priced out of treatment. Most MedTech markets take millions of dollars to research, more to develop, and more to get through the FDA, not to mention liability issues. There is a great deal of risk involved, you simply need intellectual property, or you will destroy 99% of the MedTech advancements. Without the 'government granted' intellectual property monopoly, the money would never be spent on MedTech research. Not only do the companies need a chance to recoop their direct investment but you need to look at the industry on the larger scale. The fact is that like 1 out of 10 of these ventures fail, those ventures which succeed must pay off a great deal. While many geeks froth at the mouth in the defence of free software, yet they don't contribute to worthy causes such as Aids research. Even if they did, the available research dollars would be a fraction of what they are now.
The RIAA was denied a temporary injunction against Diamond, but the case isn't over, last I heard.
A temporary injuction is awarded based on a quick preliminary injunction if the judge is convinced that a permanent injunction is likely following the trial. (I'm not sure how strongly the judge has to be convinced, but the idea is to prevent additional dammages while the suit is being argued.)
Hence, the RIAA failed to convince the court in their initial briefs and hearing that they would win, so no temporary injunction was issued.
Of course, a temporary injunction or the lack thereof can often persuade people to settle. If that happened here, I missed it.
I can compress a whole cd to a 100k file with no loss
Wanna bet? Let me create 650Mb's of prime numbers and see if you can get it down to 100k with no loss. You may be able to compress "a cd" down to that small, but you can't compress any cd down to that size. If you can then for what should be obvious reasons your brain is worth far too much to risk posting silly comments on slashdot (in case The Man is reading).
"Cause there's 40 different shades of black, so many fortresses and ways to attack, so why you complainin'?"
Perhaps there is a use for Intel's SSE, for the average consumer.
Speed ups of MP3 encoding. That should very nicely accelerate the acceptance, growth, and potential of the music format.
However, the point the article made is very good.
Better sound quality is necessary, but I think the fault currently lies in poor/bad encoder implementations in which short cuts and 1/2 degree approximations are used, and a better faster encoder would help immensely. Perhaps even better source data would help too, but we can't actually do much as CDs don't come at 56kHz 32bit sound quality or something...
An alternative to the RIAA would be necessary for the industries involved to embrace such an open and free standard.
I would think, perhaps, that a customizeable CD service might flourish. Download 96kbps songs, which would be acknowledge as lower quality, with 196kbps samples to emphasize the difference, for users to preview, keep, and enjoy.
The same site would also offer the ability to pick and choose any of their songs to be encoded on a CD, at 196kbps, with customizeable source art. Another possibility perhaps is a dual mode CD; one track would contain the mp3s and another the data in CDA format, to be useable in CD players and in PCs. Perhaps they could even offer this on a DVD to utilize 256kpbs quality mp3s, CDA music, and 2 'free' songs in both formats to encourage you to try alternative songs...
One possibility for the mp3 format.
AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
I think Rob's comment was misleading. The article does prophecy the death of MP3, but for a very good reason. The author is not against compressed music format, or even a protection-free such format -- in fact, he sounds like he is all for the idea. What he is saying is that MP3 will die because it will be replaced by another format or similar nature but superior quality.
Think about it in these terms. The bandwidth grows very fast -- think about the discrepancy between the 300-baud modems and ADSL/cable modems. Storage devic capacity grows at astonishing speed as well, I am not even sure which one is growing faster.
What this all means is that we are already now approaching the wide availability of technology to use less space-saving, but higher quality, format, space-wise; we are very close to approaching this point network-bandwidth-wise. The whole reason for using MP3 format -- disk size and bandwidth -- is vanishing. I am merely a poor student, but I have enough free space on my HD to store 10 CDROMs (12GB disks are not that expensive these days); with ADSL and cable modems, and the rollout of InternetII, we are approaching the time when I will be able to download the abovementioned 10 CDs in minutes (another couple of years, tops, and we'll be at least at a point when I can download one CD in minutes).
The time is just about ripe for another, less lossy, format to become popular. MP3's death IS imminent -- simply because the limitations it was designed to overcome, are vanishing in front of our eyes.
--
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Victor Danilchenko
.XLS is NOT a universal format. The only thing that can write and read reliably from it are Microsoft products, and it changes every two years or so. That's a Bad Thing.
Note that Excel has many known bugs importing and exporting other spreadsheet formats...why do you suppose that is? Because Microsoft wants to foster the ignorant end user's dependence on them. That's a Bad Thing too.
Of course file formats aren't important. My DATA is important. I wouldn't care if computers recorded my data on wet clay tablets with a pointy stick as long as it was fast, durable, portable, inexpensive, and reliable (all of which would present substantial engineering challenges for wet clay storage). MP3s (or whatever good fidelity portable digital music format exists this week) ARE going to be around for as long as I have an audio source and a ripper. I have zero loyalty to the MP3 file format...it's here now, it does the job, and there's currently nothing better. Tomorrow is probably going to be quite different.
I think WinAmp is pretty cool, though. : )
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
More like $3 for Minidiscs. Thats the MOST I ever pay.
\
This article is not anti-mp3 by any stretch of the imagination. He is analytically evaluating the commercial possibilities of mp3. I have been an #mp3 op on irc (undernet) for 3 or 4 years now, and I must agree with most of what he said. The Diamond Rio is not for the main stream and mp3.com is not going to make the big bucks. Mp3s will only thrive in certain niche groups. eg: college students and technically literate individuals who have convienient access to illegal mp3 copies, nerds, anti-establishment types, people who want to sample small bands, etc. I'd say the compressed internet distribution method will live on, even if mp3 dies. Like he points out, mp3 is just a means to an end. I don't imagine marginally superior encoding technologies supplanting the existing fringe mp3 user base.
However, mp3s as it stands now it simply can not supplant audio CDs. It needs broad commercial support. It will only make it big if one can go to a certain web site and download(or purchase) just about everything they want. There is nothing technically wrong with the mp3 format, or the current mp3 playback devices. The problem is the distribution method. There is no central place where the uninitiated can go and find what they want, when they want it. While the recording industry will never be able to effectively stamp out the fringe mp3 crowd, as long as it keeps up the pressure, it can make mp3s undesirable for the average user. Thus I would not bet the farm on mp3.com.
I can easily see some alternative format coming into the commercial market like gang busters. While the recording industry is not omnipotent, I think it would be foolish to under estimate their power. Given the fact that mp3s will not take the industry any time soon, it is just a matter of time before something else slips in. The recording industry knows that it needs to find a way to slip its foot in the Internet door. I don't believe it would be too hard for them to do so. With a minimal investment, they could collaborate and setup ONE central online music site on the internet. Put everything they have into that format, and make it readily available. They would probably also have to give the market confidence that they plan on sticking with it. And they'd probably have to make the media cheaper than CDs to encourage growth. But I could see it happening. All they'd need is to find some niche consumer market, and hardware manufacturers would jump in. Hell, with Sony and what not a member of RIAA they'd probably have a model developed before the site is even up.
I think the media defines death of MP3 as the lack of support from any major consumer electronics companies. These companies may manage to institute some alternate RIAA-friendly format for consumer electronics, but they won't stop people from using MP3 in computers or devices from small companies.
I wouldn't really describe this article as being "heavily anti-MP3." He kind of don't worry about the format, worry about the functionality and the freedom associated with it. He even made fun of the RIAA and their pathetic attempts to abolish the Rio and MP3. He simply says that sound quality almost as good as sound quality that was good ten years ago isn't good enough. :) Intellectual property is wrong.
Admittedly, though, he does miss the mark on a few things. Like MP3s don't sound any worse than CDs if encoded properly. And MiniDiscs actually sound better than CDs (don't believe me? Buy one or check out www.minidisc.org)...
And the VCR point was excellent. Stupid RIAA has no vision... And the one thing that bothers me the most about the RIAA is their excuse that they're just looking out "for the artists." As an artist I fully embrace MP3s as a chance to be heard (www.mp3.com/atomly).
Anyway, music isn't something you should pay for anywway
-- atomly
What this article says (quite plainly, I think) is that while the concept of a compressed, readily exchangable digital audio format -- of which MP3 is one embodiment -- is clearly here to stay, notwithstanding the best efforts of the RIAA, kiss this particular embodiment of the concept goodbye the minute a better mousetrap comes along.
Ask yourself: If a new MP3-ish format came along with better sound quality, better compression rates, or -- last but certainly not least -- a public domain algorithm, wouldn't you switch in a heartbeat? If not, why not?
That having been said, here are some real questions to ask the author:
I'd be very interested to hear someone with some knowledge of audio compression theory, audio hardware, etc., speak to these issues. (I'm sure there are other issues I haven't thought of.) The less said about how CNN is trying to crush MP3, however, the better, because that's clearly not the point of the article.