HP Working With Apple To Add WMA Support To iPod 840
iPod Afficianado writes to a short piece at Connected Home magazine in which Paul Thurrott "is quoted as saying that HP's blockbuster deal with Apple will have one
exciting side effect. The company will be working with Apple to add support for
Microsoft's superior Windows Media Audio (WMA) format to the iPod by mid-year."
Re:Superior??!! (Score:2, Interesting)
Steve, how could you?! (Score:5, Interesting)
From a pure "bottom-line" viewpoint, it would mean a big boost to iPod sales, as those people who's entire library is WMA, or even people who use "other" online music services can now enjoy the beauty that is iPod. While not a bad thing, it's still diluting the iPod brand IMHO.
I think I'd rather see the iPod stay AAC only.
Re: Not all with DRM (Score:1, Interesting)
I don't know about WMA, but AAC is certainly not a format that requires DRM. I can encode files with iTunes to AAC and share them with others, no problems.
AFAIK, AAC is a completely open format. (enough acronyms?)
For now, most of my files are still in LAME-encoded MP3s, though you have a point about FLAC. The problem is that I don't have a portable player that takes FLAC...
Re:Superior? (Score:3, Interesting)
So, what is the point exactly? (Score:5, Interesting)
And who would want to use WMA in iTunes or on your iPod, unless you were at least going to be able to play a competitor music store's goods.
And why on earth would Apple agree to opening up the iTunes/iPod combo to someone elses store?
This doesn't make sense for Apple (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder if WMA will be available only on HP's version of the iPod, and if so, will HP's device support the Macintosh?
Re:Superior? (Score:2, Interesting)
ogg playback in iTunes (Score:5, Interesting)
Someone at Apple is planning on iTunes someday supporting ogg playback. They've even got an iTunes-ogg icon all ready for when the day arrives. Go digging around in the iTunes package (at least on OS X) and look in Contents/Resources. They've got a bunch of icons there that they use for mp3, aac, wav, etc files there. Included are icons for wma and ogg. Why would they bother creating ogg and wma icons for iTunes if they didn't plan to eventually use them?
Re:Ogg Vorbis (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Steve, how could you?! (Score:5, Interesting)
First of all.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Secondly, another DRM silliness to fiddle with? No thanks. I'm about to stop buying anything produced by Big Music and Big Film.
Probably just on HP (Score:3, Interesting)
As a side note, I wonder if the decoder on the ipod is in software or on an ASIC (for lower power). If on an ASIC then the WMA decoder would be as well. Maybe that's why HP is involved, fronting the money for a new ASIC that supports both.
In any case, I would almost bet money the Apple version of the ipod is AAC excusively.
That PR page at Apple's site we saw posted on Slashdot a couple days ago had Steve Jobs touting about how great this was since it would mean more customers for the iTunes store. Wouldn't WMA support hurt that? Maybe Apple will give in and have an option on their site: either download the AAC or WMA. Hmmmmm.
exciting? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure how "exciting" this is to the average slashdotter. It doesn't mean jack to me, considering all my music is in either MP3 or OGG.
I think that would make a good
- MP3
- WMA
- AAC
- OGG
- CowboyNeal just sings to me
Thoughts?
Gah @ WMA. (Score:2, Interesting)
It makes sense! (Score:1, Interesting)
The nerds are out in force. (Score:4, Interesting)
Get a grip. WMA has been proven time and again to be one of the best codecs in both overall sound and in efficiency (sound per bitrate). This is a simple fact.
Now, next issue - DRM. It's here to stay and I don't have a problem as long as the restrictions are reasonable. If they're not - it's an easy solution. Don't use the service.
Finally, Ogg Vorbis. OK - we get it, it's a good codec. Big freaking deal. It's _never_ going to storm the market. It's not even that much better than WMA - most people would be extremely sensitive to hear any difference.
Oh - and WMA keeps improving. I'd take a $200 bet that in 2 years the latest WMA codecs will sound as good or better than Ogg Vorbis. And then why would anyone use OV?
You're basically marginalizing yourself if you use anything other than MP3, WMA, or AAC.
Re:Superior? (Score:2, Interesting)
I wanted it. My brother wanted it. I own a Neuros and he now owns a Karma. Entirely because of the Ogg Vorbis support (I got my Neuros a few days before it became the first player to support Ogg Vorbis because they said they were supporting it and I said I'd buy the first player with support so I did). I spent a bit over $400 on my Neuros, which is what an iPod would have run me. Apple would have gotten my money if they had had Ogg Vorbis support because I don't use MP3.
Everyone who asks me which portable music player they should get is told the Rio Karma. Most people that ask me then end up getting a Karma instead of an iPod. And it's all because they chose to support Vorbis and Apple didn't.
My band only offers downloads in Ogg Vorbis too. I suppose that a few people don't matter, but it adds up. Rio and iRiver support it so it must mean something (they are by no means small players...remember when Rio came out with that weird device that could store half an hour of music in MP3 and only cost...). And I know that Rio isn't the same Rio that it was when it was started and they went through some bad times and all that lives on is the name.
Re:stupid formats (Score:3, Interesting)
I doubt it. Most likely, by the time a better codec is in POPULAR use, nobody will be using 16/44.1 CD audio anymore, and you'll be reripping your entire collection from SACD or whatever.
I really don't get these people who prepare for nebulous eventualities that may or may not come to pass some time in the future.
Why not just rip to 256bits/s MP3. Save yourself the time of reencoding your stuff every time you want to take it with you and save many many gigabytes. So what if you lose a few bits. Chances are you'll lose everything in a hard disk crash anyway, between now and a few years time.
There is nothing rational about preparing yourself for an event that is less probable than slipping in the bathroom and breaking your neck.
1984 Commercial at apple.com has iPod in it. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Superior? (Score:2, Interesting)
big deal, I can decode many formats to lossless formats like wav/aif and then encode into the best lossy codec: ogg
They just buffer the decompressed data--or pipe it---or save it to a temp file.
Its a software feature, not a format feature. You can directly transcode many formats out there with a lot of software.
I have an iPod; I can play aif/wav on it if I want. I don't see how this is really any different, since all my software & hardware support both formats.
Re:ogg playback in iTunes (Score:3, Interesting)
But you can't stream them from a website.. make an m3u, but a url to an ogg.. itunes will just sit there, confused.
Kind of sucks since I use Zina (http://zina.sf.net) to organize all my music (way better than any mp3 player I've used)
Re:Superior? (Score:5, Interesting)
I probably would go so far... and what's more, from a strategic standpoint I don't see why Apple wants to do this.
People are buying iPods - not WMA players. If that's the case, it *makes sense* to tie them to the Apple store.
The number of people downloading from the other stores, when all combined and added up, do not match those downloading from the iTunes store.
So, you're tacitly acknowledging the other standard (and there are no other players that do the same for the AAC standard), and you're encouraging people to download from the other stores.
There are two potential explanations I can come up with: Apple is looking at the iTunes store as nothing more than a figurehead, it's not going to make them money and they want to transfer customers out; or two (and way out in leftfield) HP is acting as a proxy for MS so as to get the #1 portable music player compatible with WMA.
Whilst sure, WMA on the iPod is a good trick to have up your sleeve, right now it just doesn't make sense for Apple to do it...
-- james
It kinda makes sense...and not. (Score:2, Interesting)
All that I read into it is that the iPod will be able to play WMA's as it can do MP3's and MP4's (AAC) as it does now. The capability to play AAC's was added to my iPod by a simple ROM update (2nd generation 20 gig).
What's more interesting is that iTunes would have to be tweaked to to be able to know about them to be able to synch them. And if it knows about them, it should be able to play them; I can't see having the ability to organize without the ability to play them. And if it can play them, who needs Windows Media player?
What doesn't make sense is what do they need HP for? You think Apple's going to hand over their ROM code or source code to iTunes to HP? Yeah, right. I'm sure there are still plenty of people who remember how one of their PC partners ended up sticking Apple's QuickTime code into Video for Windows....
And what does HP get out of those? Companies who pee into MS' sandbox usually end up having licensing problems, or price changes on their Windows and Office licenses.
AAC wins hands down (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The "superior" quote comes from Paul Thurrott.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Note the title bars -- "Virtual PC". He's running it on a Mac!
So WTF -- is he a Windows zealot or closet Mac user!?
Re:Superior? (Score:5, Interesting)
My husband is one, and he definitely can tell the difference between something encoded as MP3 and something encoded as
This is why he's got
Clown shoes? Shehyeahright...
Re:Superior? (Score:2, Interesting)
Indeed:
Re:stupid formats (Score:3, Interesting)
Ahhh. You're running non-free software! Then you must, indeed, take every necessary precaution against the vendors taking your data away from you.
If that sounds like I'm gloating/playing the fool, that's half true. But your remark did serve as an eye opener. It just didn't occur to me. It's been a long time since I've had to consider those kinds of issues.
Re:In other news... (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, encoding to digital will lose you some data, and CDs aren't ideal. The use of a linear codec instead of a logrithmic one seems to me to be it's biggest mistake (this causes some problems at low volumes, which isn't exactly a strong-point for records either).
Most people who think vinyl is a better medium than CDs are under the mistaken belief that a) CD's can not reproduce an analog signal of an exact frequency (they can, up to their 1/2 the sampling frequency of 44.1KHz, ie 0 to 22.05KHz), or b) that the best records and sound system CAN exactly reproduce the amplitude of the sound wave (the signal to noise ratio of even the very best records and sound systems is not as large as the dynamic range of a CD).
Of course, as mentioned above, a more exact reproduction of the original does not always equate a better "sounding" copy.
AAC vs. MP3 vs. OGG listening test (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Superior? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: DRM- That's an option with AAC too, so
Re:superior (Score:3, Interesting)
So it really should be possible.
Re:Superior? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Superior? (Score:2, Interesting)
Probably not a good idea for quality's sake.
AAC->CD->(MP3|OGG|*) loses quite some data. An explanation (OGG->MP3) here [vorbis.com].
I think Ogg is actually worse than WMA... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Superior? (Score:4, Interesting)
Scoff all you want, but Microsoft has done it before. Multiple versions of Microsoft Windows shipped with last-minute updates that were designed to break Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect.
Microsoft has also done it plenty of times to QuickTime in recent history. Issue an update that "mysteriously" disables some function of QuickTime, requiring Apple to update QT, another update comes out and QT is disabled again, etc.
Re:Superior? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The "superior" quote comes from Paul Thurrott.. (Score:1, Interesting)
Unless Microsoft reverses their position on open source, I doubt WMA/WMV is going to achieve parity.
Re:The "superior" quote comes from Paul Thurrott.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Thank you for making me marginally on-topic; here's a quote from Thuggott's WinSuperSite, about the task-centered approach being touted for Longhorn. Again, this is mostly off-topic, but pause for a second and consider the almost inevitable consequences:What a great idea: "Daddy, what happenned to this man's bottom? In the pictures, next to the girl showing her hoo-haa, Daddy!"
(Incidently, this mis-feature isn't even unique to Microsoft: I'm typing this on a Sharp Zaurus, which also dynamically searches for documents. It becomes clear what a bad idea this is when you mount a remote 32GB partition, and the OS blithely decides that needs to be searched too, every time you want to open a document.And don't even think about multiple files with the same name in different directories, when "task centric" means "forget distracting canonical names".)
Re:Quote from Microsoft: Windows is about choice (Score:2, Interesting)
You have to open a different file player they say, it may damage Windows if you remove/replace their own file player they say... or they say you wont be able to play their format on other platforms because they incidently don't support it because their market is too small.
I read a post about this guy who was tired about audio codec wars. It reminded me that MS tries to get the same sentiment across: "why fight?, let's just use the same format, how about ours..."
AAC is an open format (wich you have to pay royalties to publish a player like mp3) part of the MPEG-4 consortium composed of many big players in the industry, Microsoft refused to join. It was proposed as a replacement for mp3 (MPEG layer 3), an industry standard that doesnt also happen to be owned by a single monopolistic platform vendor like WMA is. For those defending free trading, the MP3 format succeeded in starting the digital music revolution by being -not being owned by MS-, because of that hundreds of players and other applications (ie. peer to peer) were written because the format was open. MS at the time didnt see it coming, but now they are trying to kill AAC in the egg. Some had hope for something like Ogg Vorbis to be the open non-MS mp3 replacement, but like it or not, AAC on the iPod and iTunes opened a breach in the MS plan to control audio content formats. The #1 music player plays AAC and have 1/3 of the market and with the endorsement of HP and Real, this is the only chance to get a more open audio format not being controlled by a single company. Its far from finished...100 milion free AAC songs is a good start...
This is Paul Thurrott, guys... (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously. Take a look at what the guy's done. He runs not one, but two of the major Windows "enthusiast" sites. Design elements on these two sites are so obviously taken from Microsoft that it's a miracle they haven't sued him... unless he is already on their payroll.
I'd say it's time we stopped taking him seriously, were it not for one thing: he's Microsoft's most successful marketing tool ever, in that he's actually managed to garner some measure of respect. That makes him dangerous enough to watch, even if his arguments can be easily exposed for the marketing bunk that they are.
Paul Therrott is a Microsoft whore (Score:3, Interesting)
The guy's site is so one-sided and pro-Microsoft, anti-Apple, and anti-Linux that he makes Fox News look "fair and balanced".
Re:Superior? (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems to hip... (Score:3, Interesting)
There are countless slashdotters here discussing WMV, Ogg, MP3, analog records, tape, magnetic wire and whatnot and which is superiour or not, I'm not gonna be the next fool to state that I have enough expertise in the field to give a judgement over audio quality. Only a few things:
1) The german CT - afaict on of the best computer magazines in the world - tested all formats a few years ago and - being a good IT magazine - they didn't have a winner but actually recomended Ogg amongst others. They also had a listening test marathon with sound engineers, editors and world class muscians attending. Sorry, but I actually trust the CT more than I trust any
2) I have exactly one (1!) CD in my collection where the manufacturers put additional audiotracks in a 'PC' codec onto it so one wouldn't have to go through the encoding hassle. And they used ogg.
Why would they do that? Easy: Costs them exactly zilch to do it. And this is the reason I don't believe those who say Ogg is dead. It's like that Computer expert saying Linux will never be mainstream because there's no company behind it. As if that's the reason why people select other products.
Free (beer, speech, etc.) and open will allways have the edge by being just that: free and open. Ogg won't go away anytime soon and could very well become standard once all non-computer based audio thingies leave the mainstream.
Re:It seems to hip... (Score:1, Interesting)
Personnaly I prefer a high bitrate AAC to Ogg, only because it doesn't screw up my high end (phase cancellation, oscillation) like most mp3 or mp3 derived encoders do. Keep in mind that no studios works on compressed audio anyways so my choice is mainly due to the platform I work on and have at home (hint: the Mac, I'm an audio pro after all...).
Re:It seems to hip... (Score:1, Interesting)
The only studios I have seen running on the PC are the ones built by raver kids or ex-students from Trebas (equivalent) that believes that Cool Edit Pro is a mastering tool and are completely clueless on audio, they read future music and masturbate over their gear.
I do not know of any pro studios (music or post-prod, game studios uses a lot of PCs) working with a PC (windows) because it is giving them troubles (with synchronization, the main flaw of the WinBoxes when it comes to pro medias).
Anyways, Ogg is a great codec like I said but "to my tastes" I prefer AAC, a good monitoring system (not altec lansing or klipsh) would show less oscillations and cancellations in the high end than with Ogg.
Do not believe me, fire up Spectrafoo or Smart do a spectrum analysis of the original file followed by a spectrum analysis of the Ogg file followed by an analysis of the AAC file, you'll see by yourself, no need to read PC mag or slashdot (which, I would like to remind you, isn't a pro-audio community).