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Cringley predicts Microsoft Audio will triumph
Chris Siegler writes "Cringley's latest pulpit predicts that Microsoft Audio will prevail over Real/IBM in the fight for distribution of music on the web. MS Audio 4.0 encoding results in smaller files than MP3 by half, with the same quality.
Read the full
article over here. " What do you folks think? Yea? RA's installed base is pretty darn huge-but only MS can compete with that.
I am a little tired of how often people get MPEG nomenclature wrong. Isn't cringley supposed to "get it"?
He calls MP3 "MPEG Level 3" when in fact it is MPEG 1, Layer 3.
He then says that MPEG Level 4 is coming, but that too is misleading. MPEG-2 audio AAC is already much better than MP3 in sound quality/compression.
And MPEG-4 Structured Audio won't actually improve sound quality compared to MPEG-2 AAC (it in fact incorporates it in the standard). MP4 adds audio objects, more or less like MIDI tracks along with as many MP-2 AAC audio tracks as you wish.
Clear?
AL
Most of the word had WordPerfect and tons of WP documents 5-6 years ago.
That didn't slow down Microsoft at all.
A record industry with little need for giant music companies. Of course, PR, touring, etc. will still need large institutions to run, but all of the A&R people and fat cat executives will be rendered worthless in the coming years. The recording industry will NOT SURVIVE the Internet in its current form. RIAA and the corporations understand this. This is why they're battling against MP3 so hard.
A given band may not reach quite the popularity that they otherwise might in today's wretched system under the new rules, but they'll probably make more money since they'll be able to keep the lion's share of their album profits, which currently go elsewhere. More bands making a living == more diverse music and more of it.
Remember - the current music industry is extremely anomalous compared with the rest of human history. Before the 20's or so, there were no real means of recording music (player pianos aside). This is all uncharted territory, but a revolution that puts the artists in control of their material and in closer contact with their fans is ultimately a positive thing.
Anon. coward who should get around to creating an account.
One point missed in the editorial was the recent history of copyright.
Does anyone remember what the cable TV industry did about their copyright violation problems?
As R.X.C. pointed out, a copyright allows the "owner" to protect their property. But that does not come with out major expense. The cable industry would have had to track down each violator, gather evidence sufficient to bring a court case agents the violator. Then, if the case was won, the only amount that could be garnered was the amount of money provably lost. i.e. if they can prove that someone stole cable for 4 months, then that person would have to pay for 4 months of cable and court cost, but they could not charge for their out of pocket expenses of tracking down the violator. This would have to be done on a case by case basis. Positively too expensive to actually implement, and totally a money losing proposition for the cable industry.
So, the cable industry lobbied congress. And congress made a single exception in the copyright law. They made it a federal offense to steal cable. Now, your tax dollars are used to track violators, gather evidence, bring them to court. And the penalties are much greater, including possible jail time.
This is not fair because it applies to only one type of copyright -- cable. Not to books, not to software (more on this in a sec.), not to anything else. Just cable.
Later, this precedence was extended by the video industry. It became a federal offense to copy a rental movie.
Further, Bill Gates also lobbied congress and using these two precedences, and got it to be a federal offense to copy software. (This is only one of the reasons I'm very involved with Linux and the FSF.)
MP3s won't go away, just like cable piracy didn't go away just because it was copyrighted. So, I predict that the recording industry will do the same. They will make it a federal offense to put those MP3s on the net and the FBI will hunt you down!
The version given in the encoder is: 4.0.0.3688.
No it doesn't. I've encoded samples in both. M$ comes out almost 100K fatter than MP3 when encoded on the same bitrate settings. The smaller file size you're seeing in M$ propaganda is referring to their FM Audio codec, which, while not the quality of MP3, still gets some pretty impressive numbers. For them to try to transparently compare their FM Audio codec to "CD" Quality MP3 is sneaky, and very Microsoftian of them.
Here we have a sample 7 minute 27 second song. If you encode using 128kbps on both encoders, MP3 pans out at 7,164,784 while M$ pans out at 7,258,922.
M$'s "32kbps, 44 kHz, stereo" codec (tagged as "FM Audio") smashes the size down to 1.76 MB. The sound is still pretty impressive for that size (remember, this is a 7 minute 27 second song), though it does sound like a low-quality cassette tape recording.
Conclusion: M$ will make new breakthroughs on streaming over low-speed dialup type connections (watch out, RealAudio), but for high quality audio, MP3 is safe for the time being.
To the best of my knowledge, all of the compressed audio formats are proprietary. Read Audio is proprietary, Microsoft's is proprietary, MP3 is proprietary. (I don't know about some of the other MPEG compression schemes). Now it may be true that the MP3 file format is published and that anyone can write a decoder for it, but last I checked there is no way to write an encoder for MP3 without infringing on patents. This makes the format proprietary and thus prohibits a truly free software implementation of it.
If the MS format is as good as they claim (which I doubt) and we can find out the format and algorithm and there are no patents on it, then the MS format might actually be a good choice. So long as we can get a free implementation of it.
We need a compressed audio version of gzip. It starts the migration towards a free format, but has decoder support for existing MP3's and thus is backward compatible.
The anti-copying features don't have to do much. Even a simple one would be enough to trigger the federal law on "circumvention" of a security mechanism and subject the violator to 5 years in prison. Under normal copyright law, only civil penalties would have applied in most cases.
Let me clarify. I'm not suggesting we use gzip to compress audio. I'm saying we a program that does for audio compression what gzip did for file compression. That is, it should work to read files generated under the proprietary MP3 format, but also have it's own native free format as well for which we have free encoders.
Problem with this is, 'audio compression' is not really compression per se. It's done by throwing out parts of the audio that the ear is less sensitive to. So what happens is that these companies do research into what they can throw out or what they can keep, then patent doing that. Now this reeks of patenting a discovery, which AFAIK isn't legal, but it's how things work.
The only way around this that I can see is taking advantage of the fact that the basic concept has been understood for decades. Using 'old knowledge' and implementing it with standard filtering techniques should keep clear of patents and get you file size reduction, but I'm not at all sure that the quality/size ratio would be good enough to make people want to use it.
The other thing to keep in mind (as other people have noted) is that this is not a trivial exercise at the research level. Coding it all up might not take long at all, but figuring out what to code could easily take years.
Ok, gotcha. I don't know if it's possible though. Thing is, gzip implements an already free format. When Phil Katz came up with it, he expressly put it in the public domain. Therefore, any program can use it.
The problem with audio 'compression' is that the means of doing it have been patented out the wazoo, which causes problems with other implementations. In as far as compatibility, if it were to happen, you would probably have to have programs that used the free algorithm and also contained an mp3 decoder.
As time goes on, I'm getting more and more intrigued by the idea of (someone) trying this. It would require a lot of disparate skills, and I don't believe the same filesize/quality ratio as in commercial implementations is possible, but perhaps there is a 'good enough'.
There would be a lot of obstacles, not the least of which is that it would probably be better to develop in hardware then move it over, but I'm starting to wonder if it isn't at least worth trying. Would be fun, anyway. ;)
It's not just Sorenson for the video (that codec that delivers really sharp video but chokes most computers to play back)- there's also audio codecs from Qualcomm which are said to be better than MP3. Of course, I'm not using them for strictly audio, but if I can produce video I'll be using the Quicktime Sorenson and will also use their wizzy audio codecs too. The world is not only Microsoft+MP3/linux/etc. There are other people who can throw money and programmers at a problem besides just the ones in Redmond.
I'm a musician. They'll be putting the screws to me for the encoders. 'MS Visual Audio Studio' for $500, anyone? No fscking way am I letting this company be the middleman between me and my audience. They'll bleed me dry given half a chance- even if they _don't_ charge for encoders, do you think there will be one for my Mac? Even if there is one for my Mac, do you think a year will go by without MS perverting the format so that it takes quad PIIIs running NT to compress it and play it back- and then do you think it will stay cross platform?
I think you get the idea. Sorry, no fscking way, homie don't play that game: I'm with the guys saying 'resist!'. It _amazes_ me how many people are ready and willing to put their heads in a noose for short-term gain. Just say no to selling your future out for a temporary prettyshinything.
Well, either you only listen to what MTV tells you to listen to, or you haven't listened to any of the artists at mp3.com. I don't know what type of music you like, but if you're into industrial, there are several industrial artists there that are at least as good as the radio stuff. Sure, there is *lots* of bad stuff out there, but also some very good unsigned bands. Listen to Painted Blue, The Chain Reactive, Revelation 9, or Burn, they're all quite good (IMHO).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
most people still have winamp or x11amp.
Winamp v2.11, due to be released in a few days (some people already have it since it was accidentally placed on the FTP server prematurely three days ago), has support for MSAudio 4.0 files, so people with winamp can play them.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The problem with RA is that since it's always assuming that you have a 28.8k modem. If the speed gets kicked to ISDN (if you have a cable modem or T1+), the sound is much better.
because, Microsoft can force the acceptance of their technology just by including it on every CD shipped. People who have Windows will have no choice but to accept it. Even though Microsoft Audio will be reluctantly accepted, that doesn't mean there wont be MP3 files available; it just means that the Recording Industry is going to attempt to sell you what you can get for free.
My idea of the future is:
Artists release MP3's for free, they get very popular, they tour to make money.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
I imagine it also takes a PIII-450 to play back these files as well. I don't even wanna imagine how long it takes to encode...heh
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
Their latest verion (G2 or whatever?) is win32-only (okay, Mac finally in beta... unix still not in sight).
Their commitment, then, to being cross-platform's a lot weaker than I'd like it to be.
Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:
Has anyone made an open standard that offers this kind of compression quality?
Posted by christur:
You know what you're missing?
Cheap bandwidth. right now.
Well maybe not you have it, but certainly joe sixpack doesn't have it. Disk is cheap, but you've got to get it there. Yes, cable modems, ADSL, etc are coming, but even Gartner, Zona, etc say it'll be 2002 before it really penetrates.
Joe sixpack isn't going to wait 20-30 minutes to suck a song through his 28.8 AOL connection - regardless of whether he paid for it or not.
50% smaller is a lot to joe sixpack.
Posted by My_Favorite_Anonymous_Coward:
I don't understand, how could the consumers accept another format? Mp3's popular because of the bootlegs. Why would any other copyrighted format suvive?
Nobody (besides geeks) in their right minds want to listen to their state of art music files in the PC. People want portable --which is the only weakness in CD. CD's too big and too short (one hour) The perfect machine to me is that a MD player size box that plays, records, receive AM/FM and has good ui to program the huge song list. The mp3 player of next generation is GOING TO do that, why would anyone else want to try a new format?
Let me get this straight, you prefer paying 3 dollars to download an audio4.0 Hanson new release in half of the download time of the same mp3 song, rather than getting the song free? Unless you just want to buy one single, nobody will choose download over CD, at lease you can give/lend your CD to your friend. Right?
Mp3 Low quality is bullshit, get a 256kps mp3 file. Audio4.0/realplayer pay format is exactly like DVIX, now only high end disk player can play both DVIX and DVD, low end disk players only play DVD(mp3).
CY
Posted by My_Favorite_Anonymous_Coward:
On another note, how can anyone think this new format is a good thing for preventing music piracy? One can always convert MP3s to MS Audio (Winamp already does this), and hey, it's even easier to distribute, hence the smaller file sizes! If you convert whatever format to this audio4.0, it will insert a secret ID in it, which can only play on your PC (granded it can play on your registered M$audioMen as well.) Do you really want it? Do you want to register again whenever you drop your MSaudioMen? CY
Posted by My_Favorite_Anonymous_Coward:
Disk is cheap. right now.
Yes, disk is cheap, but bandwidth isn't. Don't underestimate the appeal of a format that can compress twice as good as MP3, and therefore cuts download time in half.
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You have to pay for it, dude.
Posted by My_Favorite_Anonymous_Coward:
Unfortunately, until everyone gets cable modems or DSL or whatever companies are promising to bring, mp3's will still take quite a bit of time to download.
And even if everyone had cable modems, think of problems associated with cutting into the Internet bandwidth. Man, it'll still be slow.
If everyone has cable modem, people will start to attach low quality "Seifeld" on email, I honest believe it.
CY
Posted by Threell:
They think i will start paying for songs i download for the net just because i will download this microsoft format which is smaller and of similar quality...
they must be idiots...
Posted by My_Favorite_Anonymous_Coward:
I alreadly prefer the MS Media player over Real. Not becuase it's free, but because I get better sound quality at 56k (mostly 44k) dial up. I got suckered by Real into buying the "Plus" version thinking I was going to get better quality (twice I've done this). Stupid me. Never again.
Are you serious?!? Real Player is free, the plus has the additional feature of recording. Now tell me, can win media player record? Being a sucker doesn't make Real worst than Window.
CY
On first listen, it was easy to hear the difference between the "optimised" MS Audio clips at 56kbps, with the compression that you hear on FM radio, and at 160kbps, where they pretty much approximate MP3 in both size and quality.
And I'm glad to say that after three years of listening to high-bitrate MP3/AAC tracks, I'm in no hurry to make the quality trade-off. And I'm sure that I'm not the only one.
RealAudio, on the other hand, is in trouble.
After three years of listening to high-bitrate MP3/AAC tracks, I'm in no hurry to make the quality trade-off that MS Audio offers. And I'm sure that I'm not the only one.
RealAudio, on the other hand, is in trouble.
The future lies in better-than-CD (24 bit, 96 kHz, for example) audio, not some deft simulation of "CD-quality". RealAudio, MSAudio, and MP3 are good promotional tools for now, that's all. And as long as the only flavors of downloads tend to be Vanilla, French Vanilla, Super Vanilla, and Vanilla 2000, the revolution will not be streamed or downloaded. I wouldn't pay a dime for a scoop of this.
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=8^
Many of your choices are limited to what people put on their server. In the radio realm, a Toronto station just switched from RA5.0 to WMP (still serving an RA stream, I think, but un-Linux-able now); I wrote them two or three days ago, and this little irony was mentioned. They haven't replied, nor do I think they will. Yes, I was extremely polite.
For just ripping-and-archiving your CDs, the file format is up to you, but if sites (large and small) end up signing on to MS-only (and maybe Mac as well) solutions, I'm locked out when it comes to listening to other peoples' music (or talk shows, or news broadcasts, or football matches, etc). What about the openness and platform-agnosticism of the Net?
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=8^
Only 0.01% of artists can make more than chump change this way.
The only revenue stream that is affected is records sales, of which 90% of profit goes to record company anyway.
Not all record companies are crooks; not all companies are parts of giant conglomerates. What about the thousands of indies out there? Either way, that revenue stream is shared with the artist, some times quite fairly as well. If artists and companies feel they have to take steps to defend that revenue stream, I respect that, even if I don't always agree.
Furthermore, for lesser-know bands, CD sales are increased, not decreased, by widely available "try it for free" music from those artists. The only thing MP3 kills is the monopoly the big record companies and radio media conglomerates have enjoyed in deciding who will and will not be successful.
In an ideal world, this would be true; the infrastructure isn't quite there yet. The corporations still rule, for the most part. It may work for some early-adopters now, but I've yet to see some huge Net-only success story; of course, I haven't been looking all that hard.
Remember, these are the same people that gave us the Spice Girls!
And traditionally, the giant profits that a Spice Girls recording generates will embolden a corporation to use some of the money to subsidize recordings that are orders of magnitude more cool and daring than the Spices. If you own a major-label CD by some cool band that hasn't sold eleventy-jillion (or even 50,000) CDs, chances are that their portion of the catalog has been subsidized (in part) by the profits derived from selling chart-topping crap.
Excuse me, but what kind of moron buys something they already own? If I own the CD, I can legally make recordings in any audio format I damn well please, why the hell would I PAY for somebody else to compress the audio, when I can do it myself for free?
A legitmate technical shift will get listeners to buy what they already own. People have replaced old vinyl recordings with the same music (often with bonus tracks) on CD; people will, in the future, do the same when a better-than-CD medium comes along. But the MiniDisc, MP3, and all the other current file formats are not the killer-app sort of technical shift that will induce us to buy something we already own. Sony, Real, and MS are -- to some extent -- Fighting The Last War here; I'm not sure whether or not this is all a bit overhyped. Just a turf war, nothing to see here...
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=8^
With the growing popularity of Linux, and the resurgence of the Mac, I rather doubt that a Windows-only solution will triumph over the cross-platform RealPlayer.
...they claim to have the UNIX G2 player in development. And it will work with Linux 2.2.x!
Is it me or is it getting harder to read Pulpit stories. I don't like it when people predict the future.... They ruin the story for the rest of us.
Last one in jail is a fascist.
Gee, I haven't much hoopla about ActiveX lately
yet Java is still going strong.
PNG is supposedly better than GIF and JPG, yet
still the web is dominated by GIF images.
Even if M$ throws all it's R&D into a proven
better format, Real and MP3 have too strong a
foothold to push aside.
My point is better formats don't always win,
regardless of where they came from.
My point about ActiveX is Microsoft can't shove
another technology aside just by flooding the market with hype about it's own competing
technology.
I've never been pleased with Real Audio. I can run it full out over a T1, with correct program settings and all, and even on higher bitrate streams it just doesn't seem as crisp as streaming MP3s. This was also an old version of the Linux Real Audio player, probably version 5 or so (I don't know what version may be available now). The format is just another proprietary scheme with a single... "lacking" player implementation. I can't even encode the material--why would I want to use it?
Streaming audio:
mpg123 http://www.server.com:7000/
Egad -- this is very misleading! 128 kbps is a data rate. For a given length song, the size of the resulting file is a constant, plus/minus overhead. For your sample 7 minute 27 second song, 128 kbps encoding gives a resultant file size of 7152 Kbytes, which is basically the result you got.
Your fallacy is in concluding that two algorithms using the same bitrate sound the same. You can record a plain wav file at 128 kbps. It'll just be mono 8-bit, 16 Hz, and will sound crummy. You just can't use numbers to compare audio quality at the same bitrate. You have to do double-blind testing.
There is a possibility that the MS 128 kbps codec sounds better than MP3. Than it is a better algorithm. I agree that the "half-size" claim is almost surely false, but that does not mean that they don't have a better scheme.
There's already a format that sounds like a 128Kb/s mp3 at 80Kb/s. It's called .VQF, and it was released by Yamaha, who was using technology from the not-quite-released MP4's, (mpeg 1 layer 4) which has more ugly licensing issues.
I wonder where Microsoft stole this technology...
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Heh. A watermark on sound.
:)
Maybe you'll see it in your winamp plug-ins.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Since MS owns all the major media producers, their victory is ensured. Remember when MS bought CNN and CNN switched to ASX for most of its audio streams. Since MS bought NBC, MSNBC of course serves only ASX streams.
All is not lost, however, since all of MS's audio codecs are really derivatives of mp3.
In a -very- informal test, according to Windows task manager, Winamp 2.10 playing back a mp3 takes approximately 17% of the CPU, Windows Media Player 6.01.05.0217 takes approximately 22% of the CPU. Winamp was playing the .mp3 version of a song, Windows Media Player was playing the same song, converted to a .asf file (same bitrate) with the supplied encoder. When Windows Media Player was playing back the original mp3 file, it used 19-20% of the CPU, so it appears the decoding horsepower required by the .asf decompression process (at least for the Windows Media Player implementation) is slightly higher than for mp3 decoding.
This was on a K-6 233MHz, 128MB of RAM, Windows NT 4.0SP4.
I'm not going to run Windows just so I can buy
:)
music online. As long as I have an encoder (and so does every other non-Win32 user) It won't matter because anyone can encode. With Microsoft you lose that ability.
Finally, it's not like they can outlaw MP3 encoders, I doubt the commercial MP3 companies would stand for that.
They couldn't outlaw CD-R, and floppy disks, after all
----------------- "I have a bone to pick, and a few to break." - Refused -------------------
If they make the best stuff, then why not use it?
In this case(transportable digital audio), the best stuff is defined by smallest file size at a given audio quality level. There are other factors that *might* affect the quality rating such as memory or processor needs of the decoder, but these days, almost anyone has enough cpu and ram to handle just about any 2 channel audio imaginable.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
Microsoft's codecs may be more efficient than MP3, but how difficult is it to compress audio in that format? I am guessing that it takes quite a bit of computing power to encode. Does it work well for all types of music? MP3s currently sound pretty good on a computer system, but I am told that the flaws in the format become pretty visible when the MP3 is played on a good stereo. I am assumming that the new format has the same problems.
We should be keeping our ears open for truly high fidelity formats, like DVD-Audio, not tuning them to "enjoy" sub CD-quality music. DVD-RAM audio-- no that would be something.
> 4. Create a legal atmosphere where
> artists/rights owners get kick backs based on
> the amount of airplay their songs get. (Once or > twice a year, radio stations send playlists
> back to a few writers groups to get money for
> how much their artists are played.)
Already in practice where I come from.
In my homecountry of Iceland there is an organization formed by artists themselves and record companies. It collaborates with the radio board. Every month or so all radio stations send a list of songs played to this org. The org. then does some math and calculates how much each artist should be paid. The radio stations then pay the org. which then pays the artists for their airtime.
IF the radiostations don't pay their dues they will be shut down or prohibited from playing music as a result.
On the downside, besides the lack of a Linux version, there's no provision for live encoding (as RealAudio offers for realtime encoding of radio stations, etc.) and apparently the encoder is extremely CPU intensive. Also, there aren't any feature-rich players for the format (with playlists, EQ, skins, etc.) as there are for MP3.
Even with these limitations, if you want to see the real state of the art, not MS second-rate garbage, check out QDesign.
--
Jake
Yes, but bandwidth isn't, and that's the real issue here. If it takes half the time to download, them MP3, RealAudio etc. don't stand a chance, cross-platform or not. Sure, you or I will still be able to encode and play back CDs, but we probably won't be able to download music from the net, and there may well come a time when music is only available in downloadable form. CDs may well not exist in the not too distant future.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
That's a big if. I can't see M$ doing anything other than releasing a zero-cost client. Yes, they'll charge vast amounts for the streaming server, and probably the basic encoder too, but if the public have a free client, they'll start demanding that people supply audio in that format, given it's apparent (in their eyes) superiority. It worked for RealAudio, I have no doubt it'll work just as well for M$ (at the expense of the rest of us).
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
So, I'm looking at Rasterman's esound daemon here, and it has two commands called esddsp and esdmon. The first command, esddsp, lets you route any audio playback application to an esound daemon. The second command, esdmon, dumps the esound output to standard output. So that right there is one way to circumvent any copy protection. kinesis pointed out another way: hook one sound card's digital out to another's digital in. Anti-circumvention law or not, both esound and sound cards have legitimate other uses. It would be impossible to outlaw esound or sound cards without inciting mass revolt. In sum, yes, you are absolutely right, no form of copy protection can ever enforce the restrictions the record companies would like to enforce, unless the copy protection is so severe that it completely prevents the file from being played as audible sound at all.
...and everybody would jump at it.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Antitrust suit remedies must include keeping MS out of these emerging markets.
There's some confusion about bit rates as expressed in this post. If you *tell* the encoder to work at 128kbps then *no matter what encoder you use* it will take up the same amout of space. ie by telling the compressor what the bit rate is, you are actually *specifying* what the resultant file size is.
The line "smaller files than MP3 by half, with the same quality" means that you could encode using MS Audio at 64kbps and get the same quality as an mp3 at 128kbps.
Cool, but useless.
Since when did he say it was? His point wasn't that both types of replacement technologies were owned by Microsoft, but that two technologies that were supposed to replace some other technology haven't yet caught on. ActiveX was supposed to supplant Java and, as you said, PNG was to supplant GIF. His point is that neither of these things has happened yet.
PNG support is spotty. According to the spec it is superior, but no one has implemented the spec entirely that I know of. The GIF decoder isn't the issue, but the LZW compression encoder is.
The Glass is Too Big: My Take on Things
I think the Melissa virus proves that you could get slammed for using a Microsoft proprietary system.
The Melissa virus proves that security holes can exist in pieces of software. It's just a newer version of the Internet Worm, and I don't remember any MS ware being involved in that.
I think ultimately the real solution will be for some enterprising young matematicians to work out a GPLed equation for compressing audio and video. I think when that happens not only will the market be totally broke, but free software might win a huge battle.
Yes, it'd be nice. It's also very unlikely to happen, considering that most new codecs that appear are incredibly complex things, requiring masses of brainpower and development time and money. I keep seeing Slashdot comments about proprietary codecs that say "Well, let's just do a better one and GPL it," like it's a matter of getting 3 or 4 good coders on a mailing list and hashing it out in a month or so, in the style of most open-source projects. It's just not going to happen that way. The best chances of a world-beating free codec come from academia, but with all the commercial funding and brain-draining that goes on I wouldn't be surprised if we never see one.
Cringely seems to infer that bands will be cast into anonymity and desitution once record sales fall below the support level of the distribution network. Is that really true?
What if music really was free? There would still be radio, IP or RF based, and therefore there would still be popular bands. And *live shows*.
That's the ticket: live shows. Live shows could still get 60,000 people to pay $20 a head for nice $12 million per event, even if noone payed a dime for the album. Not bad.
Imagine a world where thousands of bands distributed their tunes *freely*. There would be countless numbers of bands with web sites that distribute their music. There would probably be paid employees of "popular music" web sites (and radio stations) that would scour the web for new music, as well as handle new releases for known popluar bands. I see mp3.com heading full-a-stern in this direction.
And of course, just like now, the best of the best would still make millions from their live shows and drive around in Maseratis (at 185) and eat green M&Ms.
Unfortunately, I don't see this world coming soon. Perhaps the continued work of the MP3 pirates can help bring this world to fruition. I *don't* see how MS Audio can help.
There are still intellectual property rights to be worked out, even if music is free. For example, if I cover a song that was written by another band, I should probably pay them a royalty. Perhaps this could be treated like patents: after 17 years, all music would be royalty free.
This sig washed every five years whether it needs it or not!
:-)
"There's no secret. You just press the accelerator to the floor and keep turning left." -- Bill Vukovich
I have mp3. Right now.
I have aac. right now.
They work. right now.
Disk is cheap. right now.
Do you see a theme here? :-) My point is that I don't really care what the music industry and microsoft do, and I don't think that many other average digital music consumers will either. The MS format is a little smaller. Whoopee. Small price to pay for a lot more freedom. Like I said, disk is cheap.
/dev
"There's no secret. You just press the accelerator to the floor and keep turning left." -- Bill Vukovich
Won't there be a watermark?
--
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
A new type of crime: Audio laundering.
--
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
Not only that, but take a look at the filesizes. The MS Audio format at equivilent bitrate is larger (albeit not by much).
.wav and he's dead on right, the MP3 does sound crisper and reproduces the stereo effect better.
I listened to the samples (all at the same bitrate) as well as the original
Listening to the MS Audio 64k rate (which is indeed 1/2 the size of a MP3 at 128k) is literally painful.
No matter what technology is used, the only way to control copying via watermarking or encryption is to take away the consumer's anonymity. This tactic will fail in a number of ways.
First, watermarking only works if the listener's ID is added every time a track is purchased. CD's don't offer this functionality. It will always be possible to walk into a CD store, pay cash, and get a recording with no traceability whatsoever.
Secondly, people just don't like being registered and tracked. The PIII controversy was just the beginning. Can you imagine giving the RIAA your name and address every time you buy an album? Do you want your kid harassed if his friends "borrow" some tracks and put them on the net?
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
Sounds like a killer app!
The fruits of mp3/net-based broadcast and distribution breakthroughs will not be realized (as I think you suggest) by today's pop stars. If anything, they will 'suffer' to some degree, perhaps, as their parent Industry flips and flops on the skillet trying desparately to save itself at the expense of anything and anyone within clawing distance.
I think your idea of a Nirvana like band breakthrough is right on, and in time, the same Regular Joe's who have grown familiar with buying books direct via Amazon et al, will be buying their cd's direct from artists through low-cost mp3.com type distributors. More power, money and credit will go to the musicians and engineers who actually MAKE the product.
Change is always painful for someone. That's life!
**>>BELCH
Actually, they say in the article that they demonstrated playback on a Windows CE product. Which means either it doesn't need that much power... Or They had some decoding chips included.
Claude Angers
You *are* talking about MS Audio *4.0* right? The one that was demonstrated *THIS WEEK*?
Or are you talking about earlier versions of the codec?
Claude Angers
According to some comments I seen in the trade press, M$ new system can't produce CD standard audio, unlike MP3.
As bandwith and storage prices fall, I would guess that sound quality will be more important than file size. Hence, M$ will have yet another failure on their hands. (The next one is called Windows2000)
First of all, MS Audio at 20kbps blows away any other music audio codec I've ever heard at the same bitrate. It sounds like 64kbps MP3. I think Real will need to play catch up here.
Modern music audio codecs are VERY complex. They begin with frequency transformations, then use perceptual modeling to figure out which frequencies of the audio signal are "masked" by other louder frequencies. Then you quantize the frequency coefficients using Huffman or arithmetic coding. The way you quantize is very important and takes a lot of tweaking. Then comes linear prediction. It's tough stuff! Not that it couldn't be done by a CS grad student though.
Several months ago I wrote to the Bamba manager and received a nice reply noting that Bamba was no longer being worked on. This is unfortunate, as it was a slick tool (including a Java viewer) and we used it to convert a number of inhouse training tapes for electronic ditribution. THe best part was that, using the Java applet, there was no need for the end user to install a viewer or plugin. A very disappointing loss.
* As is generally the case, my opinions do not reflect those of my employer.
Because the quality is generally so bad, I usually only use RA to listen to "radio" stations.
A more important problem for Linux users is that many sites are converting to the G2 format meaning that the VERY OLD (they can't even be bothered to provide a fix for the 2.2 and glibc2 issues) RealAudio player is rapidly making RA a non-entity.
If MS were to release a Linux-based player in short order, I'm guessing many people would use it.
This is another area where IBM really screwed the pooch by dropping Bamba. Had they made a concerted effort, they could have flooded the market with encoders and clients.
* As is generally the case, my opinions do not reflect those of my employer.
> Small price to pay for a lot more freedom.
...not really. Product Y works good enough for me, and it's what everyone else is using."
People don't generally value freedom (for its own sake) that much anymore.
*knock knock knock*
Lemming: "Hello?"
Idealist: "Have you heard about products X, N or B?"
Lemming: "Yeah. Everyone's talking about those. But I already use product Y from vendor Z. You're not selling one of them, are you?"
Idealist: "No. I'm just concerned for the long-term welfare of humanity. Maybe you shouldn't use product Y."
Lemming: "Why not? I like it better. Products X, N and B aren't as good."
Idealist: "Have you used products X, N or B?"
Lemming: "No."
Idealist: "Then why do you say that?"
Lemming: "Because I like product Y and it's what I alrady use. Why switch?"
Idealist: "Well, among other things, using product Y serves to prevent you from using products not from vendor Z..."
Lemming: "So? All I ever use is vendor Z's products anyway."
Idealist: "There are less expensive alternatives to vendor Z's products that work better for most of the things I know you do."
Lemming: "But those don't work as good with vendor Z's products."
Idealist: "Look, using products from vendor Z is denying you the freedom to use better and less expensive products when they're availible? Doesn't that bother you?"
Lemming: "So?
Idealist: "Don't you care about having the freedom to try and use something better (and cheaper)?"
Lemming: "Well, I guess. But I don't really have a choice, because everyone else uses product Y too..."
Idealist: "But you DO have a choice! There are people using other, better, products that all work together. You're choosing to limit your own freedom by choosing product Y. The more people that use product Y, the less free everyone (including you) becomes."
Lemming: "Yeah, but most people are already using product Y with vendor Z's stuff. Could you leave me alone please?"
Idealist: "AUGH&*#@^$*(#@&^$&*#@^"
Lemming: "I'm calling the police..."
DNA just wants to be free...
all the major record companies (sony, warner, etc) have signed up with IBM-not MS. They are going to be the ones who drive the audio market because MS is nothing in the music world
---
>there is no other 20Kb stereo compression out >there that even comes close to comparing to the >new MS codecs
I don't know what the MS codecs sound like, but Mpeg2 Layer 3 sounds quite nice at low bitrates (~24Kbps).
Nah! Sorry! Too many MP3's out now. Standard.
Won't go away.
Nuff said.
I remember 3 years ago, when Real Audio was really just coming on the scene, listening to screaming audio at 128kbps "Dual ISDN" quality, and it was every bit as crisp and clear as my CD player. Granted, I was at school and had an ethernet connection to the University's T1, but still, it was CD-quality streaming audio.
What I've noticed since then is that every single site that has Real Audio content only has it in 16kbps mono, which is, to be frank, shit. I occasionally try to look long and hard for the 128kbps streams I listened to back in school, but of course they've been replaced with 16kbps items.
I guess too many people complained about not being able to listen to them over their 28.8 modems.
I used to think printing on on Unix sucked. Then I figured it out. Printing on Unix *does* suck. Like a Kirby.
Considering RealAudio's horrible sound quality (at the best of times it sounds like bad speakers played underwater), I am pleased to see some competition for commercial network audio.
Network audio is a good idea. If we can bring the sound quality up to some reasonable standard, it will be even better.
Hopefully Microsoft won't sit on their standards.
I tend to buy CD's. I find mp3's useful for "trying out" music... listening to new bands that I haven't heard before. Mind you--it's mp3 music piracy all the way, but I don't usually archive and replay that music.
I have checked out the free mp3 selection on mp3.com, and like you, found very little high-quality music worth my time. There were both good and bad, but the bad tended to outnumber the good... at least in my humble opinion.
If I find an artist I like, I tend to go out and buy the CD. It's not THAT huge of an investment, really. As a bonus, you get professionally printed cover art, and much improved sound quality.
DVD audio should be cool if it's a solid standard. Plus, the DVD audio machines will no doubt be able to play CD's.. So current music investment is pretty safe.
First, MP3, and I presume 4, are open. That's numero uno. Secondly, I have not read about the LARGE group of MP3 enthusiasts like my friends and I. We rip each other's CD's and cram CDR's with as many as will fit and play them on our workstations at work. I have a Linux development box next to my workstation playing MP3's that I ripped from CD's I own. Screw M$ and their proprietary format. Hopefully MP4 will improve the compression. If MP3/4 goes mostly underground I'll be fine with it. I have no fear that certain companies will keep producing mp3/4 hardware players. The cat's out of the bag and I seriously doubt that M$ or anyone else can put it back in.
EOM
First, MP3, and I presume 4, are open. That's numero uno. Secondly, I have not
read about the LARGE group of MP3 enthusiasts like my friends and I. We rip
each other's CD's and cram CDR's with as many as will fit and play them on our
workstations at work. I have a Linux development box next to my workstation
playing MP3's that I ripped from CD's I own. Screw M$ and their proprietary
format. Hopefully MP4 will improve the compression. If MP3/4 goes mostly
underground I'll be fine with it. I have no fear that certain companies will
keep producing mp3/4 hardware players. The cat's out of the bag and I
seriously doubt that M$ or anyone else can put it back in.
BTW, I had to post this from that Linux box since the Winblows media Player co-opted the ".pl" extension on my NT box and when I hit "submit" it tried to play the Perl file. I HATE M$. more every day.
EOM@
Cringely also takes the record company line, hook & sinker, that MP3 will destroy the music industry by stealing royalties from artists. That's nonsense, just as much nonsense as it was in the 1980s when record company execs testified before Congress in an attempt to get blank audio tapes taxed prohibitively so that people wouldn't make copies of their audio tapes and LPs. (Even Congress didn't believe them, and in return, our people in DC accused the record companies of using unnecessarily cheap material to make 'commercial' audio tapes).
MP3 won't kill off anybody anymore than the VCR or the tape deck did. The record companies need to stop dreaming of 78s and start capitalizing on the new technology, whether through value-add or new distribution techniques. I would say that the VCR and audio tape deck did more for their respective industries in terms of increasing sales, rather than decreasing sales, since their introduction. Like Microsoft, the record companies want to control the playing field, even if that means stifling or co-opting (e.g., encoded MP3 files) the playing field.
--Philip
"It's amazing how our industry is strewn with beautiful, dead technology and bitter engineers." --M. Huyck
What happened to IBM's Bamba? This seemed to offer better quality and smaller files than real, but apart from a few demo sites I have rarely encountered it in use.
I'm with 'The Coward', just like Micros~1 took away Netscapes business model by forcing InternetExploder on the unsuspecting public, we can only destroy them by not buying their software. The more $$$ that goes to Redmond, the more $$$ will be used for things like the MindCrap report on NT kick'n Linux's butt.
Resist! It is not futile.
Locutus
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
I remember when Chicago was demonstrated, only to find out that it was really just a updated SHELL on DOS. MS smoke and mirrors is always used at the alpha stage of development. Why else would the end product always be lacking PROMISED functionality? They could have been playing wav files for all we know, they don't prove what they demonstrate. Look at what happened when they tried that in the Court of Law.....
Smoke and mirrors. It amazes me people believe even half of what spews from Bill Gates' mouth and any of what comes from MS PR.
Locutus
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
There's been talk in the OS/2 news groups that Bamba may find its way into the RealPlayer now that IBM and RealNetworks have joined. Add Xing to that team and you have a more powerful, technically, adversary to the Great Wet North.
IMHO
Locutus
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Don't forget you also can have a MP3 streaming server called IceCast. I've run the port on OS/2 and it is really cool. Build your own home library of songs from you existing library and set up channels of styles. Bingo, a home stereo system replacement. Well, you might want to keep the amp around, AC/DC just doesn't play well at under 40Watts/channel. :)
Locutus
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
How exactly is Microsoft going to "break" my encoders and players? I have a pretty good size data base of MP3s now. When a better technology is available I will evaluate it, but nothing I use is going to destroy the data base that I have already created.
Like I said, no one worth listening to.
Not to burst your bubble, but PE and IceT are has-beens. So is Prince.
Sigue Sigue Sptunik? Hahah.
Any format will need to have strong support and a strong presence in the conventional audio device market.
I would say that this might provide the IBM/Sony system with an advantage, as Sony is a leading vendor or portable and console equipment, but I think they are still more interested in DVD Audio.
On the other hand, MP3 is also dead in the long run. sorry folks, but the selection of artists using MP3 is simply far too weak. Please, no arguments about "the music biz telling me what to like" - that argument is ridiculous. The leading users of MP3 are garage bands who couldn't score a gig playing a bum's funeral.
In other words, its still up for grabs. Whether DVD Audio will win out is the bigger issue.
This article talks about the announcement of Windows Media Technologies 4.0.
Interesting to notice how little industry support Microsoft has on this one. Also, how strong Real is.
Also, WMT does MP3, too.
Disk is cheap, but compactflash card for my Rio ain't...
Yet again Microsoft brings to light the most glaring troubles with proprietary "standards" and abuse of monopoly power: they're hyping up a Windows CE player, and you can guarantee they'll be players for whatever the next desktop version of Windows is, but that's it. Does anyone seriously see them developing players for other operating systems? And it'll be a cold day in Hell before they'll license it to outside developers to design, say, an application to play the files on Linux.
IBM et al. have shown recently that they're truly interested in developing new technologies, both to increase their profits and the gee-whiz value. Microsoft is just doing this as yet another attempt to keep the world strangled in the jaws of Windows.
I'm really starting to miss the old world, where we as customers could decide what products we preferred, instead of having them rammed down our throats before there's even a chance for competition on the marketplace...
Naturally if the files are encoded at the same bitrate, (e.g. 128kbps) they will have (approximately) the same size. What they are arguing is that the M$ format sounds slightly better at about half the bits/second.
I don't know whether it's true, I haven't heard it, but that's what they're claiming. So encode an MP3 at 128kbps and a M$ format file at 64kbps and see what you get.
"I believe that the cult of the particular brings only death - for it bases order on likeness." St.-Exupery
I think you'll find that's SmartMedia. And the 32MB ones are just starting to be advertised for US$99.
Kris.
Win a Rio (or join the SETI Club via same link)
This is how I listen to, purchase & collect music.
Either I; Listen to a national, public, "youth" radio station called "TripleJ" and occasionaly get inspired to buy a CD from an up-and-coming band - often on an independant label, but not always. Then I copy the CD to the MP3 library on my hard drive.
Or I; Check out the new uploads at MP3.com in either the electronica section, or in my local region (Perth, Australia). I download these files into the MP3 library on my hard drive.
Then every few days I regenerate a randomly ordered playlist of all the MP3s in that library and play them on and off during the day using K-jofol. And every day I randomly select 48MB (using RioPump - cool) to load onto my Rio for that day's "wandering and waiting"
Whenever I feel that one of the (new-ish) songs I'm listening to is particularly cool, I specifically try to source some more from that artist.
I have an older PC connected to my Hi-fi with about 250MB for MP3s - it also has a CD drive, for both audio and data/MP3 discs.
I'll be burning my first two volumes of MP3s to free up some space on the hard drive soon - then I'll be adding a random MP3 CD into the random mix described above.
Notice how I quite legally (or at least morally) create my own MP3s from CD. If M$ releases a proprietory system were I have to pay for the compressor, I'm not going to be interested. Anyway, I've bought a Rio, so I've said that MP3 is plenty good enough for me.
Kris.
Win a Rio (or join the SETI Club via same link)
ActiveX is just an automated way of installing plug-ins.
This is useful, but not the last word in active content.
Kris.
Win a Rio (or join the SETI Club via same link)
What Cringley misses completely here is the difference between physical packaging and digital formats. In digital form, it is not only possible, but advantageous to have different standards -- after all, WinAMP can play WAVs and MP3s equally well. All that is needed for the Rio to play the next-generation audio format is a firmware upgrade.
Besides, given that quality is not likely to exceed CDs, people will encode their existing CD collection to whatever the digital format of choice happens to be at that time. No sales there.
The RIAA is just to have to get used to the fact that there's only so much money you can squeeze out of a single product.
- Richie
Man--Music Industry executives and Microsoft in the same room! COOL!
Maybe they can all go to Hell together! They'll certainly be as far from Janice and the Jim's as they can...
You know when I'll realize all this is over? When I can turn on the radio and hear some real *art* for a change.
I especially like the part about buying the same music all over again--has a real ring to it, you know?
Oh--and they most *ceartainly* will be as far from W.A. Mozart as possible. Now *there's* an example of how pigs are so good at throwing flowers in the mud...
--------------Rev. C.C.Chips---------------- For the real truth, visit
It is my understanding that the "half the size" means encoding it at 64kb instead of 128kb. They are claiming that people cannot tell the difference in quality. While that may or may not be true, it's misleading to say half the size of mp3.
"Not long ago, a recording industry executive equated MP3 with the atom bomb, so great is its potential impact on the music business. But it might have been more accurate to compare MP3 to a neutron bomb, since -- like the N-bomb -- MP3 just kills the artists, but leaves their prior work intact."
Thing is, there isn't any real evidence of
mp3s 'killing' artists. It's undoubtedly hurting
the revenue streams of larger artists, and
of back catalogues, but it'd take a lot to
kill the Mariah Careys and Corrs of this world.
And smaller groups are flocking to what is
effectively a free worldwide distribution
channel.It might be nibbling away at the
profits of record companies, but it's only
doing good things for music.
Microsoft's new format's already been
technically rebutted in this thread, but one
more criticism that could be added, relating
to its marketing. Mp3 has a young and funky,
vaguely risque quality that is a marketing exec's
wet dream when it comes to selling to teens
and young adults. A format that places
emphasis on things like digital watermarking
and copyright protection is doomed in the
13-30 bracket.
K.
-
--
To the extent that I wear skirts and cheap nylon slips, I've gone native.
-- Proud descendant of semi-nomadic cattle-herders.
MP3 is dead, except in the hands of the people that use it, which is just about every "real" computer user I know of. I have half my CD collection dumped into MP3's and sitting on my server, where only I can get to it. 60 hours of music is readily available with just a click of my mouse. I can't tell you how much that's worth to me.
So they distribute music in a new digital audio format. We take it, decode it, encode it again in MP3. Is it illegal? Yes. Should it be? I don't know.
What about the people that make the music? How will they make their money? How will they live? Remember those days a long time ago when bands had to "tour" to support themselves? Remember the days when bands actually had to have talent? (unlike the Spice Girls and other bands that I can think of)
Cringely makes a comment that MP3 is like the neutron bomb, leaving the artist's works and killing the artist. I don't believe that's true. The artists will find some way to make money. Who MP3 will kill is the record executives, and if you look that's who's complaining the loudest!
I would rather pay 2 or 3 dollars directly to my favorite artist then have to pay 14 dollars to the record company for the same thing.
Who would you rather your money went to?
(I was only an egg, but then I cracked)
That's like equating the automobile to a neutron bomb, since -- like the N-bomb -- automobiles just killed the horse and buggy manufacturers, but left their prior work intact.
Sucks to be obsolete.
You can check out
http://www.gigawatt.net
for a new punk rock streaming radio network... They are using Real to stream the audio but if you want, download the songs in MP3 format as well...
I don't think the audio on the site is hooked up yet but the web master told me the site should be working in a couple of weeks...
RateVegas.com - Vegas Reviews
PNG is supposedly better than GIF and JPG, yet
still the web is dominated by GIF images.
Since when is PNG a Microsoft format?
An old version of the PNG specification is here. The credits list this document, at least, as being (c) MIT.
PNG was specifically created to be a
It's a nice idea. You could send MP3s in native format using this; just write an MP3 decoder in their DSP language. Likewise, you could effortlessly translate anything else that's stored in a presently-used format. The only problem is that, for anything complicated, your processor can't make the decoder run fast enough to give decent quality on present hardware.
They offer a pretty thorough suite of development tools. If anyone wanted to port this to Linux, they could quite easily (it's just a Small Matter of Programming).
there could be something similar to JIT's for this.
I haven't looked at the actual code, but the mechanics of this vitural DSP is probably much simpler than a Java JVM.
And therin lies the problem. High-level code can be compiled quite efficiently on multiple platforms. However, if I understand correctly, the code presented is essentially DSP assembly code (I might be wrong about this, as I still have to read the format documentation). You would have to cross-compile it to the native platform and hope that the architectural differences don't make it too inefficient.
This would give a speed boost over interpreting it, but would still in my estimation give a factor of 2-3 slowdown. This might be acceptable, or it might not - it depends on how difficult the format is to decode. The bright side is that you wouldn't need a just-in-time compiler per se; you could cross-compile everything once at the beginning. You could even cache the compiled code in case you encountered another file with the same codec (very likely, actually).
So again, we'd have to see what kinds of codecs actually get written in practice. And what kinds of players. A really good cross-compiler that optimizes for the target platform is not trivial to write.
Assuming, of course, that the standard gets adopted. IMO, a good way to speed that up would be to write a good converter of the type described in my original message, and then write a cross-compiling player good enough to let you play the resulting files at reasonable quality. Finding the manpower for this will be difficult.
[Point about a microsoft format that wasn't widely adopted.]
[Point about PNG not being widely adopted.]
[Bashing MS for being stupid about trying to get their formats adopted.]
[Point about a microsoft format that wasn't widely adopted.]
[Point about PNG not being widely adopted.]
[Bashing MS for being stupid about trying to get their formats adopted.]
The implication is certainly there, whether or not it was intended. If it wasn't intended, then I retract my statement, but I won't apologize for it.
Yes, but that's not how they caught the guy. They actually got him because AOL coughed up his home phone number.
The GUID only showed that he built the virus from other, already known viruses.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I wrote this as a reply to crigley (too bad the message board on his site stink):
- ----------------------- .
I think traditional MP3 is going to rule the waves for a long time to
come.
the reason is that mp3 is everywhere.
and I when I say "everywhere" I mean it in more then one way:
1) everywhere - IE on all major computing platforms. apple/mac/unix
apple is putting it into QT4 (so every mac will have it). Even microsoft
can't bring out new software that works for all platforms at once (linux
users will not touch it even if they did, and apple users will use QT4
instead, anyway.. and it will be announced at nab this weekend, as you
probably know)
2) everywhere - on all portable players (I find it hard to believe that
the casio machine you mention is not going to include traditional MP3
functionality, will it?).
Hardware manufacturers are going to shoot them selves in the foot for
not including traditional mp3, no one is going to leave out 99% of the
market.
3) everywhere - and the most important factor: content.
MP3 content is BIG. And I don't mean just pirated stuff. I mean
original material (BTW, that is the biggest error in your analysis). MP3
is being branded as the "medium of piracy" by the RIAA, record company
execs, and by record company PR (as well as the companies that want to
exploit digital media for their own uses like IBM and AT&T). But that is
crock.
My estimate is that from all Mp3 downloads at least 50% are legit.
>From Mp3.com, goodnoise.com, at all. The artists that published on this
sites (including me BTW) are fast coming to the realization that record
companies can't stand a chance against this - Unless they get with the
program and support mp3. They are more afraid of loosing the control
over the artists then loosing some spare change from piracy, and for
good reason.
In the record business there is one universal truth: the artists hate
the record companies. Well.. most of them do. music production is
becoming cheaper and cheaper and yet CD prices keep climbing. And Only a
few artists actually make money from record sales (AFAIK, most make
their living from gigs).
the rise of Mp3 is a chance for musicians to take control over their
own music distribution through sites like mp3.com. the primary source of
revenue for musicians I think will not be from direct sales of music.
I believe it will be from advertising.
http://www.amp3.com is doing just that - paying artists per download
while they get money from advertising. I think that is going to be the
model that will work in future since it will make everybody happy. and
record companies currently don't fit into this model.
The big differentiating factor record companies have from individual
musicians and mp3 sites that house artists like mp3.com is basically PR
power, connections, and capital power. All of these can be summed in one
word: MONEY. record companies have more of it.
that's going to change when mp3.com IPO's hits wallstreet in the face.
I'm pretty sure it's going to brake the records when it happens sometime
this year. sequoia, as you know, are not dumb, they are not in the habit
of giving 11 million dollars in VC for no reason.
Microsoft is FUDing the scene, and you should be more aware of this.
The reason is to hit Mp3.com and co. not IBM (who are dead already in
this market, and so is at&t)
I also find it hard to believe that Inet portal sites will not jump
into the fray at one point or other. Record company execs will be lured
over by head hunters, and PR firms will be hired who have experience in
the record market (some of the biggest acts use PR companies, not record
company PR, btw..)
some big name artist who might be free from contractual agreements at
the time will be lured over to, say, mp3.com or mp3.yahoo.com for stock
options or cash or what ever.
so what will happen to the record companies?
they might get swallowed by the portals. or realize that there is more
money in the ads, and convert to mp3 altogether). I just don't see
anyone buying music on line.
another thing.. you say, microsoft's standard has a better encoding
ratio and better quality..
since when has anything "better" meant anything in the high-tech
industry (especially involving microsoft)..?
the biggest reason this is not going to make much difference is that
MP3 content is hugh. that's it. game over. in much the same way as
microsoft beat apple in the os wars. there is more software. in favor of
MP3 there is more players, more hardware, more encoders, more tools, and
most importantly: more people who can listen to it.
and anyway: MP3 is good enough for most people. a 1:2 ratio is not
going to make the difference since it is basically on the same scale.
but off coase.. I could be wrong.
--
---------------------------------------
Eitan Shefer, eshefer@scso.com
---------------------------------------
the site: http://studentim.site.co.il
the music: http://www.mp3.com/eshefer
---------------------------------------
--------
check out my music
you might actually like it.
Net music is going to be big. and everyone will use it. it's just a matter of time.
.
--------------------------------
check out my music
you might actually like it.
Anyone know any good books, articles, web sites, etc about practical thorey of sound and sound compression? I honestly think it is BS to say that it is to complex for one person to figure out. It isn't like it's the first time, most of the work has been done and should be documented. One of my complaints against mathmatics is it takes simple things and makes them complex for the sake of math. Math is nothing more than one symbolic computation system. It is sort of like assembly language. There are always other ways to do the same thing and often they are easier to comprehend and work with. This is my lesson from studying AI. You do the same thing, you just do it in a different way. :)
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
MP3 has all the content you want. I can find almost any song I want as an MP3 in half an hour, most take about five minutes. I never bought CD's before I started listening to MP3's, the only reason I buy them now is to rip them and I only buy cd's that have a large number of songs I like. Something that is rare. As I recall from ancient software pirating flame wars there is a code of ethics. It is okay to copy and use something but if you sale it you are a bootlicking slimey bootlegger. I know lots of old ladies who copy there friends cassettes and cd's of church music and oldies. Maybe we should bust them for pirating. They are hurting society and stealing from those rich companies! Yeh right. I have x amount of money, a small portion which can be applied to entertainment. If I can only afford one cd per week w/ that amount of money then obviously I'm not hurting the profits made by those companies if I copy two of my friends cd's also. I couldn't have bought them anyway. And BTW, I listen to lots of those worthless MP3's at MP3.com and they are just as good as commercial music in many cases. 1 in 10 songs I listen to I like. Just this way I don't have to pay for the other nine.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
This may be the best thing that ever happened to bootleggers: Microsoft setting the standard. It's as likely to be secure as NT is, so I suspect that someone will be able to reverse-engineer it (which is probably illegal). If not, a virtualized soundcard driver will let you get at the data anyway.
Its just another Netscape. Microsoft is working against Real rather than with them. And Microsoft will win.
They'll win in the same way, too. Windows 2000 will include IE, Media Player, and native support for all things Microsoft Audio. What average user will bother downloading anything else?
Only the court case could change anything. But does anyone seriously believe that it will?
-- mind over pixel
> Won't there be a watermark.
Yes, probably, but when you encode the data as an mp3 after getting it via your driver, the mp3 encoding process removes most of the data that doesn't produce a noticeable audio effect. This means that the watermark probably gets removed.
The only potential problem is that the human sensory system is so complex that there are many ways to remove different bits of data and have the same percieved sound. If the MS Audio format removes data that mp3 keeps, and mp3 removes data that MS Audio keeps, you're left with an mp3 which contains almost no data. This mp3 will sound awful (a few bubbly sounds, some clicks and beeps, and maybe a consonant or two).
That's how to stop piracy (until the official encoder is reverse engineered and the encription is figured out - and you can produce MS Audio files that look like official ones from the record labels). The mp3's produced from ripped MS Audio wont be useable.
This method of encoding could also force individual artists to sign with a record label - there will be *NO* independant artists. This is because if MS Audio becomes a "standard" by mass acceptance, all music would have to be released in that format to be playable for most people, and independant artists wouldn't be able to encode their songs in this format (except for playing on *their* CPU).
Embrace and extend-o man!!
Half the size of MP3, huh? On a propriatary format, that you have to license to code for I bet... Hmm.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Yes it's true: GENUINE MP3 players are here to stay.
t ion/consumer/mas.html
t m
All the existing MP3 players are tiny & light & simple. They are everywhere. They work.
They are breeding. They are understood inside-n-out. They are in use now. Real products that we want.
Unlike the winceable MS audio unit that was "shown". Without a far superior to MP3's _existing_ hardware formfactors, MS audio is a dead end encoding facade compared to MP3 as-is.
Home use is completelly different than mountainbiking to the ChiliPeppers. So why have your tunes encoded and thus attached to the ball-n-chain of MS? They will allways play MP3, and so does all portable hardware out now, so MP3 wins.
MP3_HW = Instant tunes a button away. A GUI that grandma understands. In stores yesterday.
MS_HW = Boot. Login. Start the music "application". Then: "license" music securely.
MP3_HW = Tiny featherweights with 1 AA batt. Ergonomics. Embedded micros. Lots of cheaper-n-cheaper media.
MS_HW = Windows Palm, Lap, and desktop computer systems.
MP3_SW = Convert your yards of vinyl and CD's to play on your MP3_HW, and much more. Play with or improve the source code too. Give generously.
MS_HW = "Microsoft's features to protect intellectual property, to enable e-commerce, file protection, crippling of files, digital watermarking, and other features to make any record company executive sleep easier." (Cringely)
I'll add mine: "A Microsoft's Wizard will register
on a customer by teenage-customer basis the equalizer settings, website address and history corelation to MS's database, so that the cost of new speakers cables and 900 number testimony escaro, and 24hr Liquor delivery that can be automagically sellected to match the style and
profile of music experienced by whom at what hour"
(Not exactly as D.I.Y. as MP3 eh?)
The proposed MS solution depends on thier OS. Yikes!
MS may consider a laptop to be a portable music player,
or a _wince_ (of an un-appealing) palmtop.
I dont.
MP3_HW_GUI = Buttons, knobs, sliders.
MS_SW_GUI = WinCE "standard" (A very graphic user indeed!)
Is Alt-TABing three or four times to get to the mute check box with the glide pad a digital music solution that we asked for? No.
A MS "wearable" _WINCE_ is NEVER going to beat even a vanilla RIO for exercising to 140+BPM Techno. Wince for Digital Audio is lamentable, not portable.
They lose the HW solution equation.
Earths MP3 players are in use now and they are growing in features and functions. They wont go away either. Every aspect of MP3 SW&HW improves daily. MP3 improvement and elegancy is massively parallel worldwide.
The MS vaporwearable that was "shown" is'nt.
MP3 HW Semi-factoids:
Zillions of elegant silicon MP3 players have intermetall's MP3 chip at thier core: The MAS3507. It bootstraps as a MP3 decoder. Cool feature is the re-programable DSP core for ADPCM, CELP, etc. (Nautilus!?)
The 1st chip: http://www.intermetall.de/pages/product_documenta
The latest MP3 chip:
Now that experts agree that MP3 is the way, mega-company SGS thompson is spewing out thier hardwired MP3 decode only chip, the STA013, here: http://us.st.com/stonline/books/ascii/docs/6399.h
It's a simpler MP3 only decoder.
Gee, I wonder why they would set MP3 in silicon stone now?
Asia must have some need for _just_ that kind of audio solution.
Like $279 5-MP3CD home players perhaps.
Boom-boxes and Car radios perhaps? Gimmie-Gimme!!!!!!!
Or has MS "shown" a _better_ solution for eternal music?
______________Bottom line_____________
It's over. It's MP3. Get used to the idea billy.
P.S.to Microsoft; Please dont try and replace JPEG, #2 pencils, or Beer. Ok?
Joe Torre - X - HardwareEngineer @ Amiga Inc & ZapMedia Amiga, AmigaDE, BeOS, Linuxz, QNX, Rebol, Windoze, ZME: So
I'd like to how Microsoft has implemented the copy protection. How much protection does it really offer...
At some point the music has to be decoded and unencrypted. Even if we say that only their player will be able to get it there, couldn't we still attach a digital recording device to the digital out on our sound cards?
Also, if they managed to get this animal working on the Mac, it's (theoritically) possible to nab bits of unencrypted, uncompressed music right out of the player's memory space.
I don't mind paying for a song once, but I don't want my player to one day alert me that "Your music has expired. Please buy it again. VISA, Master Card, American Express or Discover?"
Does anyone know what barriers MS has thrown up to prevent us from buying an MS Audio 4.0 song and then getting it into a free(dom) format?
Although he mentions it, Cringley has missed the point: EVERYONE can MAKE MP3 files, put them up on their web page or, if they're a band, sign up with MP3.com or Goodnoise for distribution. The big companies are no longer the only content providers--everyone is. Until pundits understand this, they won't understand how the Internet has really changed things.
"... I declare our city to be a free and independent state to be named Tri-Insula!" --Fernando Wood, Mayor of NYC 1861
Haaaaaaha... This is great.
--
is this:
Why does the music industry even think that it is possible to have a copyright preserving audio format? Nobody can stop me from decompressing it and recoding it to mp3. If you can play it, you can decompress it. I seems impossible to me to prevent this. My SB64 has a digital out or I could write a fake audio device driver which captures the digital data.
Only one brave soul on the Internet has to buy the song and recode it.
The problem with M$ is that any technology that they invent is for there own operating system, so if they get a new format on teh web, people on other platforms will not be able to hear it unless M$ wants them to...
I hope that since real is already a big player tha it stays that way, and I am waiting for them to port G2 player to linux...
Only 'flamers' flame!
One of the editors for PC Gaming World (UK) maintains a personal ramblings site, and he did head to head comparisons between WAV, MP3 and MSA with tough source material. The encoding results are downloadable from his page:
http://www.mats.net/plan/
Here's a bit of the accompanying text:
I was doing a bit of testing and found some really harsh material on a Fat Boy Slim CD. The first is the start of Kalifornia has a vocoder that relies on the phase shift from left/right to sound like it does. There's *no* compression scheme that sounds remotely like it. That's mp3 or MSA. The second is a bit of fairly dirty percussion in Built it Up. This mp3 reproduces quite satisfactorily but sadly MSA makes a complete and utter pig's ear of at any bitrate. Listen for the truly disgusting melodic ringing as MSA struggles to reproduce white noise. It's far less pronounced in the 128k MS Audio track but the horrible echo effect is still there. Um, if it's superior to MP3 I'd really expect infinitely better at the same darn high bitrate of 128k!
Well then, how about we come up with some really good GPL code that implements a really good equation.
Digital Wokan, Tribal mage of the electronics age
There is room for all formats. The more choice the user has the better. Just like there is no one true operating system. All of them combined make the computer world a better place.
The user will chooses the format that is most widely available. Face it the [il]legal copying is mostly done by the home user.
In the end the format I uses will be my choice. If no one else make the same choices as me that is fine. It is nice when people agree with you but it isn't necessary.
Leknor
http://Leknor.com
"So many idiots, so few comets"
Just because compression format allows for IDs and shit, doesn't
mean the player has to use this info. If the format is sooo good
it will be hacked, so the players could be made to ignore the IDs.
This will not work.
;-)
They cannot grab a market with a proprietary file format,
when an open one exists, and is VERY popular.
Microsoft knows well that a large userbase, is more important than quality,
and that's assuming that MSAudio actually works as they said it would.
(they said that win98 runs faster with ie -- under oath!)
The "pirate protection" is stupid in many ways.
it won't hold, since i can always decode ms4 to mp3 and distribute,
and people will use mp3 as alsways "since ms4 doesnt allow pirating"
The current ternds are another block in their path.
We all know the microsoft-bashing trends have become rather popular among mainstream press.
The trial has made some people understand (hopefuly the judge
that closed formats can harm, and actualy hold back innovation,
so starting a new closed "nobody has a clue how it works" format, is against them.
(I assume the court won't allow bundling of MS4 "winamp airsupply cutter" product with windows)
Finaly,
I think the market share of MS4 wouldnt rise much until aac (aka mp4) is alive and kicking.
by syaing alive and kicking, I mean:
a. winamp (most popular player) will play it well.
b. it can be encoded by a free utility.
c. music sites start using it
And that is not far away, if it is what it's suppose to be.
(free format that has the mp3 qulaity in 70% of size, lowering MS4 "advantage by size" factor)
BTW,
Do you remember Yamaha's VQF proprietary format?
Wasn't such a success, was it?
I know Microsoft has much more leverage than Yamaha,
but lessons should have been learnt.
---
---
I'm going to live forever, or die in the attempt.
It seems that rapidly growing access to Broadband technology like cable modems would make the whole file size argument moot, wouldn't it? At that speed, who cares if the file is 1.2 Meg vs. 3 or 4 Meg for MP3?
Besides, if QuickTime streaming is everything it's cracked up to be, most of us will be recieving streaming MP3 files within the month anyway.
The music is not in the piano -Clement Mok
>Conclusion: M$ will make new breakthroughs on
> streaming over low-speed dialuptype connections
> (watch out, RealAudio), but for high quality
> audio, MP3 is safe for the time being.
That implies a large installed user base - with a MS decoder as thier *default* - that means a proliferation of recordings in this format - that means people with more bandwidth getting the decoder so that they can access the content - that means another MS controlled standard.
I hit the "remind me later" button every time I use it...
Not this time - all you have to do is look at which major labels have signed on to which standard - Microsoft: 0; Real Audio: everyone
- "Bill Gates once told me that the way to make money in the personal computer business was by setting de facto standards. This is a classic M$ FUD technique, right up there next to "corrupt the standard while insisting on superior quality", and "pay for the benchmark you want", "twist, distort, and deny the results of other independent benchmarks", etc.
- "The other has already failed." The other being Real & IBM, and by implication - MP3....hmmm. Last I looked (see other posts regarding file size, etc.) MP3 is still the champ, technically and in mind and market share. And since M$ is not going to support alternative OS and platforms in any kind of a timely manner, has very low credibility with the non-corporate crowd, I don't see that changing much because as consumers it is in our best interest NOT to let M$ get their hooks into audio file format controls.
- Driven by a combination of greed and fear, the music recording industry is rushing toward choosing a standard for the safe and sane distribution of copyrighted music over the World Wide Web....The fear part is simple, too: MPEG level three (MP3) audio recordings are already flooding the Net with songs for free -- songs of artists whose copyrights are being violated.
Properly used, MP3 gives more artists a chance to gain an audience and thereby profit more -- they can release a song or album at "radio quality", to the internet, then place the higher quality MP3 on a page requiring paid access. (yes, I know, people could still repost them illegally) My point is simple: Don't be fooled. Microsoft and the big record companies are THE ENEMY, not our friends.Without dwelling on the issue much, consider this analogy: I can currently record any music I hear on the radio just by hooking a recorder to the FM receiver -- and get pretty good quality -- until you compare it to CD. This isn't about trampling the rights of artists here -- it's about controlling distribution and reaping gross profits from the results of that control. [Consider that the cost of stamping and packaging a CD is under a dollar after the initial setup charges [which, speaking from experience, are not all that much.]
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
I'm not so sure that 'MP3 is dead in the long run'. I think that you're right about there being a lack of big name bands that release their stuff on MP3, but I also think that that's a transient phenomenon. Artists like Petty and Public Enemy have released music in MP3 -- and nobody was paying them to do it. Of course, in Tom Petty's case at least, he was forced to pull the song from MP3.com by his record label.
The only real impediment to the success of MP3 as a distribution format is the record industry. And all it takes to beat them are a few artists who are willing to buck the tide and release their music on MP3. The record industry monopoly is an unsteady equilibrim at best, and once the balance is tipped, it will probably rapidly swing in the opposite direction.
Even if this doesn't happen, and artists DON'T decide to release their music on MP3, why would MP3 die? You can encode your own, and trade them. I hate to point it out, but MP3 has been growing rapidly for the past couple years with NO major artists actually releasing music on it. It's going to be hard for anybody to kill that.
darkmagus
I can understand why streaming audio is desired by content providers, they want people to have to return to their site. But real, as far as I'm concerned, sucks, and there must be a better way.
-Begin Evan's Dumb Signature.....
rooooar
most people still have winamp or x11amp.
most people still have windac or a similar cd-ripper.
most people still have bladeenc or a similar encoder.
guess what? mp3's gonna be around for a while...
Most people only play content... very few author information. And neither do you - Real requires $$$ for an encoder. If you have ever downloaded their "free" encoder, you'd discover that you have to record blind (unable to monitor the signal), and you can't edit the end result. I do a radio show (the kind broadcast on real radio waves) and encode the shows, and the "free" encoder stinks. If I mess up a hour encoding session with a blip at the beginning, I have to do it all over again.
Beyond that, the "free" encoder is your ticket to one of the most aggressive spam lists out there. Owning my own domain, I sign up to various things via a new email addy each time. real@timewarp.org gets spam from EVERYwhere, plus gobs from Real themselves. I've never gotten email sent to msmediaplayer@timewarp.org, and this latest download I didn't even have to sign up.
And yes, I also note that Media Player seems to give much better playback. That's in comparison to Real G2.
WinAmp and Shoutcast/ IceCast blows them both out of the water... but most of my listeners demand realaudio by name.
--
Evan E.
http://www.timewarp.org
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Not commenting on whether or not MS will dominate the audio distribution scene also, but I must say this new audio format looks cool (except for the copyright protection shit, but hey :).
If MS Audio can really compress songs into half the size that MP3 can, then I'll welcome this format with open arms. However, I fear it's going to be a closed, Windoze-only thing. Will Linux hackers be able to hack the codecs and bring MS Audio to the Linux platform?
On another note, how can anyone think this new format is a good thing for preventing music piracy? One can always convert MP3s to MS Audio (Winamp already does this), and hey, it's even easier to distribute, hence the smaller file sizes!
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
Even if the MS Audio format produced better-than-CD quality sound with twenty times the compression of MP3 and was absolutely bugless, I wouldn't get it. Now that my bias is out of the way....
MS may very well win against Real Audio. I'm not rooting for one side or the other in this case, mainly since I'm not a network music junkie. MP3 will remain a viable format for some time to come because it's entrenched. There's loads of support for it from many different vendors, and plenty of tools for you to enhance your listening or make your own MP3s, all for about the same as you'd pay for a popular CD (or less, if you hang out in warez rooms). In other words, Microsoft has been beaten to the punch. The only way for them to make any sort of inroads against the MP3 market is to force Windows users to use their format--the same way that they did as well as they did against Netscape.
Void the Warranty
How does their copy protection work?
.waw and copy that one.
Can you REALY prevent sound copying, the way I see it you can always put the sound to a
Cringley does miss the point here. Microsoft can try to Set The Standard all it wants, but the times, they are a-changin':
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
Although the MS-Audio 4.0 format is impressive and yes is 1/2 the size of MP3 while maintaining relatively good quality, I've sampled it with not as promising results. The artifacting is back with a vengence. I listened to cymbols that were on MP3, WAV and MS-Audio 4 and MSA4 just brutalized it. Oh well, stick with MP3 for now =)
Somehow, installed userbase doesn't seem to be an issue here. My idea is that whoever will get the most interesting content (music, video's, whatever) out there in their own, preferably usefriendly, format will win this battle. People can't be bothered about whose technologies they are using. They will get whatever they need to see what they want to see or to hear what they want to hear. One great example of this is the huge impact the new Star Wars trailer had on Apple Quicktime downloads.
beauty is only a light switch away
I have to say that one thing I find a bit anoying in the aticle and many of it's kind is that they seem to miss the most obvious point of all:
;-) I just want something better if I have to pay for it.
I sure as hell won't pay for these songs!
And I don't mean that in the sense that I want to ruin the artists. (Can't say that I care much for many of the Record Labels though
If the RIAA start spreading songs over the net you can be sure that they will be more expensive than what they are worth (Most songs already are, and now they can't do the old, "one good song on the CD" trick anymore.) and if I have to pay for it I'd actually like something physical as well. Not just a bunch of data using space on my computer.
In order to make the songs cheap enough to have the same market penetration as mp3's currently do they would have to be ridiculously cheap, and then what's the point? I mean, really the point?
I sure as hell won't pay to get a song and then have to buy an empty CDR to burn it on and print the covers (paying for paper, print, ink) and put it together... People do that now, sure, but the point is that now you don't pay for the *songs*, and I bet many people are ignoring other costs when they burn MP3's on cd (As normal audio), they still see it as "saving money".
And the songs that are the most attractive to purchase this way is those "one hit wonders" or Pop songs that you don't want to buy on CD. And they are generally played to death on the radio anyways. And in this area DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) is on the way. Put a computer with a DAB card and you've got the best MP3'er you can have. (Encode cd quality music on the fly and they send you the artist/title in the package)
I just don't see what the fuss is all about. Not that I mind that they put loads of manhours into creating higher quality codecs, but do they really expect to get all the invested money back?
Its not dead, or losing, or anything like that. And I doubt its going to go anywhere soon.
The reason is because too many people support it. I don't mean really big companies, I mean the oridary people.
I doubt people are going to just dump there MP3 collection just cause MS says that hey we got something better only you gotta pay $200 for the OS, who knows about the player, and you owe us $5000.94 if you want your exsisting collection.
Besides, how many want to bet that it will be an MS only application?
Given that the goal seems to be to help the RIAA make even more money, what are the odds that the encoder for M$Audio will be either non-existent or hopelessly crippled...
Oh, and if it is, what platform will it be available on?? Anyone?
Where the value of X-Mailer: is the true measure of a man...
Puhleeze... I suppose next you will tell me that it's going to run over kids with your new snowblower and cook meth in your kitchen. I think not.
More likley M$ will follow it's trend of competition by elimination by buying out Real, the only real commercial competitor here and slowly phazing their product out.
You know, this sour grapes crap is the one thing that I hate the most about the Linux "movement."
There is no BEST operating system, at least not one that I have found. I use both NT and Linux at home, and they are both good for different things. Yes, you can use Linux as a domain controller in an internal network (ala the MS Domain model PDC/BDC/Etc.). Yes, you can use NT as a web server. But it's much easier to administer a domain with NT and it's much easier to run a web server under Linux. (IIS, anyone?)
If all the M$ bashing Linux hippies would get off of their horse and instead of wasting all thier breath exhaulting Bill Gates as the devil they would exhault Linus as the god maybe there would be some progress made in this "movement."
Asbestos Suit On...
-=-Andrew
The technical issues of which is better/worse are completely irrelevant.
Once Microsoft bundles the software with their OS, they have won. This is all there is to it, and is the only factor involved. Firstly, only a tiny percentage of users are interested in downloading 3rd party software. Secondly, content providers will very quickly "standardize" on the standard that comes bundled with Microsoft Windows.
That's ridiculous, either it can read the bits or it can't. If it uses a cheap laser that doesn't work right, you don't get any sound at all.
The difference between a good CD player and a bad one (aside from reliability and toys like play-order memory) is in the mixer and amplifier.
However, since the DVD reader is more expensive than a plain CD reader, you can expect to pay more for equivalent sound quality while playing CDs (naturally implying that, for the same price, the plain CD player will sound better playing CDs). Of course, logic like this doesn't always work out in reality.
this is the thing that really bugs me about the deal is that the record industry is a choke point on good musicians, i mean shit is so mass-marketed and contrived that they wouldnt know a good artist if they fell on them. the internet is all about CHOICE and hopefully this digital music scene will allow artists to make a buck without pandering to the lowest common denominator...
-- your knees hurt, don't they?
Yes, disk is cheap, but bandwidth isn't. Don't underestimate the appeal of a format that can compress twice as good as MP3, and therefore cuts download time in half.
If this is the future of on-line music, count me out.
The way it reads to me, it doesn't necessarily look to be comparing the filesize directly to mp3. It's not really stated what the filesize is half of. It almost appears that at CD quality audio the MS files are only half the size of the actual CD. And then at MP3 quality audio, the files would be one-quarter the size of an audio CD. That would make them larger than mp3s. Hmmm...
I guess, as most others have stated, it'll be a wait and see type thing.
You're right, except that mp3 is MPEG-2 Layer 3 not MPEG-1 (that's what all my mp3 players say anyway).
And I think MPEG-4 is supposed to improve sound quality at lower bitrates compared to MPEG-2.
I've notice that people have registered mp4.com etc., but wouldn't music compression still use layer 3? Then mp4 is kinda meaningless.
Check out the official MPEG Committee website at http://drogo.cselt.stet.it/mpeg/ All you ever wanted to know about mpeg there :)
The Melissa virus proves that security holes can exist in pieces of software. It's just a newer version of the Internet Worm, and I don't remember any MS ware being involved in that.
I believe he was referring to statements that they caught the guy (at least in part) using the unique M$ id that is embedded in each and every Office document. I have had trouble finding stories that mention this specifically, but have seen it a couple places. Time, of course, didn't say a thing about it other than mentioning a couple M$ products were involved.
+&x
A little thing called MP3Spy. I don't know if many of you use it (Win), but this thing is AMAZING. It basically adds DMX service over a decent bandwidth connection. Including IRC, file-transfer, skin support. This might sound like a hard sell, but this thing is just amazing. Basically finding servers streaming MP3. V1.0 came out last week and I'm expecting a law suit before the end of the month.
M$ had a _long way_ to catch up before they can offer something like this, if they even want to try. MP3 hasn't even really hit the mainstream yet, which explains the lack of major artists (who, controlled by the BIG5 record co.s, can't) releasing MP3 versions of hit songs. What will kick it off is some garage band, like Nirvana, that just happens to hit the right sound at the right time. They release their album on MP3 and it spreads like the proverbial wildfire.
But anyway, back to MP3Spy (which is cooler and easier to use than Quake/GameSpy!, and made by the same guys) this type of software (with Shoutcast or Icecast on the other end) would allow situations like a band releasing/showcasing thier music 24/7 on a dedicated server. Since the music is arranged by genre someone might just stumble onto them and boom there's one fan.
I don't think M$ has the clout at this point to force people to give up MP3. I'm sure (because it's their M.O.) that they just plan on new users, and upgraders, to just accept MSAudio as the default and establish insurmountable markey share from the desktop. What MP3Spy allows, through tight integration with WinAmp, is a simple alternative from end to end. I think (with a good connection) you can go from nothing to DMX on steroids in about 15 minutes. That's freakin' amazing. And will last until right about 30 minutes after the RIAA finds out about it and sics their attack dogs on 'em. Lawyers are the most dangerous threat to freedom in this country. Anyway, there's 12.5% of a quarter for ya, my own of course.
+&x
Even Microsoft can come up with a good algorithm occasionally. If the hype is true, what do I care if it was invented by Microsoft? If you don't want to run MS software or Windows, wait for the independent, free, open-source Linux or *bsd port.
If they do something stupid like patent parts and refuse to let others use it, well then they've screwed themselves and it won't matter.
Do you people refuse to use Samba because it's based on an MS protocol?
...they must not be any good, right?
By that logic, if a program is given away rather than sold, it must not be any good.
I know I'm taking some pretty obvious flamebait here, but I can't believe anyone thinks that recording contracts have ANYTHING to do with quality.
Record companies are interested in selling records. They give contracts to people who are marketable. That's not the same thing as being talented.
Yes, a lot of unsigned artists suck. A lot of signed artists suck, too. Haven't you noticed? Someone just decided that they could SELL the sucky signed ones.
Then there are the unsigned artists who are not interested in recording contracts. The fact is that it's possible to have a very good recording studio in your own home today for not a whole lot of money.
I saw more power to 'em!
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
"I saw more power to 'em!"
:)
should be
"I SAY more power to 'em!"
-- Someday I hope to learn to use the "preview" button before firing off my hot music opinions.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
Your comment is very insightful, because it points out what a PITA it is to deal with all the various things required to do mp3 work well today. (and yes, I'm aware of things like MM+, etc.)
As long as MS controls the OS distro market and is allowed to "extend and innovate" in such a way that anything they choose is part of the OS and must be distributed by the OEMs with every new PC, they will win by fiat. Look folks, if they've killed Netscape, what makes you think they can't control a corner of the market like audio??
Until someone can stop MS from copying competing technology and giving it away as part of the OS they will continue to walk over both Internet content and delivery. Remember Bill's first and strongest reaction after his "Internet epiphany" a few years back: He was furious not because MS didn't have a browser, but because there was so little information on the Web in MS file formats! Control the format, control the game - this is one thing he understands well - don't expect him to give it up.
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
But then you don't get CD Quality!! People only transmit 128kbs or better MP3's for a reason. If people wanted to spend a shorter amount of time for less quality they certainly can with MP3! But for CD Quality, this MS Audio 4.0 is pretty much the same file size. Why would you switch to a MS player that doesn't have the same nice interface as your favorite MP3 player? Thats why we have so many different MP3 players to choose from, BECAUSE MP3 is a open standard!
But bandwidth isn't cheap.
Unfortunately, until everyone gets cable modems or DSL or whatever companies are promising to bring, mp3's will still take quite a bit of time to download.
And even if everyone had cable modems, think of problems associated with cutting into the Internet bandwidth. Man, it'll still be slow.
If it takes half the time to download, them MP3, RealAudio etc. don't stand a chance, cross-platform or not
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You are missing the point, if you have to pay for MS Audio then it still doesn't stand a chance. M$ doesn't have the pull to remove something from hundreds of thousands of people worldwide, and as long as those people choose to d/l music it'll be MP3 until something else free and better comes along.
As for bandwidth that problem is already being adressed. But a discussion of that would be off-topic.
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Can We trust the future - Flesh99
I think the Melissa virus proves that you could get slammed for using a Microsoft proprietary system.
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The Melissa virus proves that security holes can exist in pieces of software. It's just a newer version of the Internet Worm, and I don't remember any MS ware being involved in that.
I think he was refering to the fact that the programmer of the Melissa virus was caught because of a Big Brother Bill tracking number that is inherent to all documents created with MS Office.
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Can We trust the future - Flesh99
Lets See
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Chuck D. and Public Enemy
The Beastie Boys
Sigue Sigue Sputnik
Ice T Who offers his newest only as MP3
Tom Petty
The Artist Formerly Known As The Artist Formerly Known As Prince
And this is about twenty seconds of looking,in one publication (links are to the articles) but all these poor garage bands who'll never get a real gig. Right ? Hell the beastie boys are streaming MP3s........
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Can We trust the future - Flesh99
As a DJ, I know full well the PE and Ice T are has beens, but the other artists listed ( and yes SSS's Love Missle F-111 is still on of the most requested dance tunes ) they are not has beens at least not in the publics eye._ ____________
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Can We trust the future - Flesh99
Wavs can be encoded to be stereo, 16-bt, 44 Hz man using the software that comes with a Sound Blaster 64.
I happen to agree somewhat with this posting. I personally don't believe that there is one best computer operating system for everyone. Those of us who have experience with computers and, in my opinion, know better use a UNIX derivative. I personally use Linux (and I happen to not be a hippie). However, I also see the need for Microsoft's operating system for the people who know nothing about computers in general and just want something that works. I know I don't want them booting up Linux and asking me pitiful questions that could be answered simply by reading a manual page.
I also am of the same sentiment as the person who posted the first reply to this in that I will not support Microsoft in their practices by using their products. I would much rather stay with mp3 than go to a Microsoft made standard. I haven't gone so far as to stop listening to a radio station, though, but that's just my preference.
Thank you for being thoroughly bored in reading this post.
"I swear I won't break you if you let me take you where the willows never weep" -- Switchblade Symphony
Microsoft may not win this war,
The majority of people who listen to net music, (mp3's etc) are people like us. 99% of people who use windoze only will be barely aware of net music if it all.
The more enlightened user (like us) will vote with his feet, and enligthened users take alot of convincing to move from a product that has worked well and exchange it for an MS product.
Microsoft have alot of convincing to do
Regards Redemption
As a consumer why do I care about any proposed "standard" ??
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Well, here's how the industry works. They might be a bunch of separate companies, but they're all in it together as a money making scheme to keep their distribution network to themselves. Among the methods they use currently are:
1. Create unique ways of getting CD's and tapes on store shelves so that only "approved" groups can get into the distribution network. (This is slowly changing as companies that specialize in distributing independent artists have emerged.)
2. Create bizarre ways of getting music played on radio and MTV. (Just try getting a song played on radio that isn't being pimped by a big record company.)
3. Create a legal atmosphere where they get a kick back on every blank piece of recordable or re-recordable audio media sold.
4. Create a legal atmosphere where artists/rights owners get kick backs based on the amount of airplay their songs get. (Once or twice a year, radio stations send playlists back to a few writers groups to get money for how much their artists are played.)
Everything that's done in the music industry is to control and manipulate profits. They're worse than Microsoft. Did you ever wonder how much the actual artists get for a CD you buy of theirs? They're lucky if they make more than a buck.
On the other hand, artists who have made it and go direct can get over $4 a CD.
Now, you tell me if the record companies are protecting the artists or themselves? Hopefully, the internet will allow artists an even playing field in order to promote themselves without having to give away 75% of their money to record companies. (Not to mention having their original recordings being owned by the labels. Hell, Prince had to re-record 1999 in order to sell it himself!)
You should care because the record industry has already proven their power to get legislation passed that seals their place in the music industry. Imagine a $2 fee added to every MP3 player to recoup the dollars supposedly lost on pirated material. It is not outside the range of possibilities because they've shown in the past they can get $ for media. Well, since the internet erases the media, they will go for the player.
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In the wonderful world of cats, Mr. Fus
Right.....like the "beastie boys"?
those losers couldn't get a gig to save their life.
: P
-- Please buy it again. VISA, Master Card, American Express or Discover?"
Gee... that sounds familiar... Can you say DIVX?
I think that the Microsoft standard will only result in a horrible fracturing of the market, and it ultimately will have a small effect on the average end user. This issue is really pirating. With a unique user ID on ever Microsoft audio file, I doubt many pirates are going to use its products instead of MP3.
In the long run, it will be who can steal the most music which will determine who wins, and not who has the best compression. Lets face it, if you're running an MP3 warzes site now, I doubt that you're going to jump on the MS bandwagon and land yourself in jail really soon...
I think the Melissa virus proves that you could get slammed for using a Microsoft proprietary system.
I think ultimately the real solution will be for some enterprising young matematicians to work out a GPLed equation for compressing audio and video. I think when that happens not only will the market be totally broke, but free software might win a huge battle.
but that's just my little opinion.
Cross-platform RealPlayer my foot. The RealPlayer 5.0 for Linux was not very well done, and they have yet to release a G2 player for Linux. Their Mac player is in Beta, and so is the Windows Media Mac player. Their server software is cross-platform, but not the player yet.
you missed something, though. encode your 128Kb/s mp3 and encode again at 64Kb/s in MS Audio and compare the sound quality. i've done a lot of side-by-side tests of this myself, ripping wav files and encoding the same wavs into mp3, MS Audio, and G2 audio. i personally think the 64K MS file isn't *quite* as good as mp3, but the next step up, 80Kb/s i believe, is as good as mp3, and still smaller. with G2, you have to go higher yet, to 96Kb/s, to get close to mp3-quality sound.
but what i think the true benefit of this is, is that at 20Kb/s stereo, there is no other 20Kb stereo compression out there that even comes close to comparing to the new MS codecs. mp3 at those low bitrates sounds awful (worse than older MS or RealNetworks codecs).