No WMA for HP iPod

finelinebob writes "In spite of Paul Thurrott's wishful thinking, Wired is reporting that HP will not support the WMA format in its version of the iPod. From the article, according to HP spokesperson Muffi Ghadial, "'We're not going to be supporting WMA for now ... We picked the service that was the most popular (Apple's iTunes Music Store). We could have chosen another format, but that would have created more confusion for our customers.' He added, 'Most customers don't care about the format they're downloading.'" Thurrott's singing a different tune lately, anyway...."

iTunes Rocks!

[HedRat]

I have purchased over 300 individual songs, used the "burn" utility to make my back-up copy*, then ripped the back-up cd straight to my Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen NX with the Media Source s/w from Creative. I rip in 198/mp3 format. There is absolutely no discernable difference in quality when playing the mp3's either through headphones on the Zen or using iRock Beamit 400 FM modulator to my car or stereo. Sure, you can buy the whole cd, but I've got 300 individual songs that I WANT without the album cuts I don't but have paid for. Another tip for making back-ups in m4p format...if you dual-boot to Linux, make a tar archive of your iTunes directory (and burn that to cd also).

*You must make a back-up copy because Apple will not replace any files you lose. So you aren't *wasting* a CD and you can play it in the car.

Re:Easily confused

[tfcdesign]

not Apple's customers, HP's customers...

Re:But...

[Fuzzle]

It came from Paul Thurrott [winnetmag.com].

Exclusive: HP Working to Get WMA on iPod
HP's blockbuster deal with Apple will have one exciting side effect, I discovered today. 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. You heard it here first.

and apparently you heard wrong!

Re:iTunes Rocks!

[rigmort]

I have personally witnessed Apple replacing lost downloads due to a hardware failure (hd crash). They do keep records.

Re:AAC vs WMA

[harlows_monkeys]

I am not meaning to sound redundant, but isn't AAC an actual standard while WMA is propietary to XP?

They are both proprietary formats. AAC is owned by Dolby, WMA by Microsoft. You want to make an encoder or decoder for either, you need to get out the checkbook and write a big check (bigger for AAC than WMA).

AAC is available on Mac and Windows. WMA is available on Mac and Windows.

As far as quality goes, in pretty much every blind ABX study published, they come out about the same. WMA is usually slightly ahead, but not enough to be statistically significant.

Re:Less support for WMA the better

[radish]

Crap. WMA may have DRM junk but at the same bitrate it sounds better than MP3. Numerous tests in addition to many people's ears (mine included) have proven this. When it comes to sound formats, sound quality is an important distinguishing characteristic in my book. Which is not to say I'm a great fan of WMA, I prefer Vorbis which sounds pretty similar to WMA, or even AAC (though the DRM'd version is just Apple's take on WMA). But MP3's ONLY advantage is that it's the lowest common denominator.

Still, it worked for GIF I guess.

Re:Thurott == idiot?

[NaugaHunter]

Here's a correction to the " isn't iTunes (win or mac) ALL ABOUT AAC?":

iTunes on both Windows and Mac organizes sound files in any format that Quicktime handles, including MP3, AAC, AIFF, WAV, Apple Sound files, and probably a dozen others I can't think of. It can also convert between WAV/MP3/AAC/AIFF, at different rates, and import any of those 4.

The iTunes Music Store only distributes in AAC to include the Fairplay wrapper. As has been commented upon many times, it is fairly simple to remove this protection if really desired, but enough of a hassle that the person doing so at least thinks about it.

You kind of lumped them together, and I just wanted to make the point that a person can use iTunes on Windows without the music store or any AAC files, and it would even work with other MP3 players. It just won't work with WMA.

Re:AAC vs WMA

[Anonymous Coward]

The question was WMA vs. AAC, not WMA vs. MP3. WMA is indeed superior to MP3, but it's inferior to AAC. If you were following the discussion carefully, you'll find the first mention of MP3 was in your post.

WMA is also superior to wax cylinder recordings of a PC Junior internal speaker. That doesn't make it a superior technology overall.

Re:Less support for WMA the better

[gnuslov]

Actually, there is DRM on WMA files produced from your own CDs. At least if he used windows media player to rip them, the files are tied to that machine, and won't play on anything else.

actually Apple is MAKING them

[johnpaul191]

according to some of the articles it says that Apple will be making the HP iPods with the blue/grey case, not licensing the technology out. It will effectively be the Apple iPod with a HP wrap. It's the same guts as the Apple model (even the Apple symbol on startup), and will work with the same accessories as the Apple one because it's the same form factor.
Points to HP for bucking the trend and using standards instead of the Microsoft assigned format.

You are misinformed

[Anonymous Coward]

At a given bit-rate, every compressed/encoded song will be roughly the same size.

Now, what you're doing is encoding it at a lower bit-rate (probably an ear-numbing 64kb), and saying "Hell, *I* don't hear a difference its fine".

If you're happy at 64kb, congratulations...you have tin ears and that's a good thing because you'll fit four times as many songs on your player as a discerning person.

But WMA can't compress *better*. Its a physical impossibility.

Re:No Reason for WMA in iPod

[GizmoToy]

Ha, except AOL has a deal with Apple! AOL users purchase songs from the iTMS with their regular AOL account.

Anyway, point well-made.

Re:Slightly OT, does anyone use iPod with Linux?

[Lakanta]

I haven't tried it myself, as I just booted into Windows to update my iPod, but check out this. [duke.edu]

I also just purchased a Rio Karma, which works perfectly under Linux using ethernet, using a Java based program that comes with it.

Best of luck.

Re:Less support for WMA the better

[Myopic]

you are ignoring the fact that MP3 is technically inferior to almost all competitors: AAC, WMA, Ogg, from a quality-per-filesize standpoint.

of course, i'd still rather poke my eyes out with pointy sticks than use WMA.

peace

Re:Is Apple or Microsoft forcing HP to do this?

[Curtman]

That's how [gpo.gov]

Re:Less support for WMA the better

[Anonymous Coward]

And it is enabled by default...

Your post is uninformed.

Re:Slightly OT, does anyone use iPod with Linux?

[Hobbex]

I use my iPod with Linux, and have for over a year. In fact, it has never been used with any other operating system, and I have never used iTunes or Musicmatch (or whatever the windows thing is called) so I can't really compare.

Linux firewire support is experimental in 2.4, so getting it working requires your basic linux skills, but I haven't had any real problems. Most firewire cards and MBs use a standard driver, so it is just to compile the modules (and firewire harddisk support) and run. I have never gotten automatic hotplug support working here, but scanning the scsi bus manually isn't that big a deal (and others apparently have). With kernels before 2.4.20 I had a recurring hard lockup while transfering, which was annoying, but that is gone now. And I don't think the drivers are completely optimal so the transfers are slower then advertised (but still many times faster than USB).

I don't know if it is better with the new iPods that support USB2.0, since I have an old firewire only model. And I haven't tried the 2.6 kernel which is supposed to have better firewire support.

The best software for adding and removing music that I have found is gtkpod [sourceforge.net]. It is a nice, easy to use, GUI program that allows you to select music, construct playlists, etc. The page also contains information for getting all the other stuff working.

I am happy with my iPod on Linux.

Re:WMA support in iPod firmware?

[Meowing]

Yeah, it could be done as a firmware update, if Apple needed it. iPod is based around the PortalPlayer PP5002 controller chip, and WMA is one of the codecs that PP's reference firmware already supports. There are other questions, of course, like which iPod models would have enough available memory to make use of yet another codec and so on.

Re:Slightly OT, does anyone use iPod with Linux?

[Hobbex]

I am only using MP3 files, though I understand that gtkpod has some support AAC files as well:

NEW FEATURE: import of AAC files (.m4a) supported, provided the
mp4v2 library from the mpeg4ip project
(mpeg4ip.sourceforge.net) is available during the compilation of
gtkpod. Writing tags to AAC files is also supported. .m4p files
can also be imported, but they are not played by the iPod. .m4a
files work fine.

BTW, never mind what I said about not getting hotplug to work, I just checked it now and got it working fine using the instructions in the gtkpod README file.

Re:Is Apple or Microsoft forcing HP to do this?

[Curtman]

It's been a while, but I have Mr. AC. There's some really good quotes in there:

It is clear, however, that Microsoft has retarded, and perhaps altogether extinguished, the process by which these two middleware technologies could have facilitated the introduction of competition into an important market.

Through its conduct toward Netscape, IBM, Compaq, Intel, and others, Microsoft has demonstrated that it will use its prodigious market power and immense profits to harm any firm that insists on pursuing initiatives that could intensify competition against one of Microsoft's core products.

By refusing to offer those OEMs who requested it a version of Windows without Web browsing software, and by preventing OEMs from removing Internet Explorer -- or even the most obvious means of invoking it -- prior to shipment, Microsoft forced OEMs to ignore consumer demand for a browserless version of Windows.

To the detriment of consumers, however, Microsoft has done much more than develop innovative browsing software of commendable quality and offer it bundled with Windows at no additional charge. As has been shown, Microsoft also engaged in a concerted series of actions designed to protect the applications barrier to entry, and hence its monopoly power, from a variety of middleware threats, including Netscape's Web browser and Sun's implementation of Java.

Eric Engstrom, a Microsoft executive with responsibility for multimedia development, wrote to his superiors that one of Microsoft's goals was getting "Intel to stop helping Sun create Java Multimedia APIs, especially ones that run well (ie native implementations) on Windows." Engstrom proposed achieving this goal by offering Intel the following deal: Microsoft would incorporate into the Windows API set any multimedia interfaces that Intel agreed to not help Sun incorporate into the Java class libraries. Engstrom's efforts apparently bore fruit, for he testified at trial that Intel's IAL subsequently stopped helping Sun to develop class libraries that offered cutting-edge multimedia support

I could continue, but you can just read yourself I think.

While we're at it, there's a smaller speech titled WHAT IS COMPETITION? [usdoj.gov] by William J. Kolasky, Deputy Assistant Attorney General - Antitrust Division U.S. Department of Justice.


look up the definition of monopoly
This one? [microsoft.com] "The legal definition of 'monopoly power' is the ability to control prices and the ability to restrict output"

Re:Slightly OT, does anyone use iPod with Linux?

[Wooo]

I also use Linux to transfer files to my iPod, and the program I use is gtkpod [sourceforge.net]. For the most part it is a painless process, since you can auto mount/umount your iPod when you start/close gtkpod, but it's not uncommon to have gtkpod freeze up in the mounting stage or not umount properly. Then the only way to get things to work again is to reboot. Hopefully when I upgrade to the 2.6 kernel things will be a bit more smooth.

WMA is NOT about choice

[Anonymous Coward]

"Windows is about choice," Microsoft General Manager of Windows Digital Media Division Dave Fester said during the recent 2004 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada. "You can mix and match software and music player stuff. We believe you should have the same choice when it comes to music services." Indeed, this choice characterizes the PC market. Whether the choice is Musicmatch Downloads, Napster 2.0, the Wal-Mart Music Store, or virtually every other online music store, each service uses the same WMA format for the songs users download, and all the songs are compatible with the same range of software and devices--including, incidentally, all the devices, portables, and Media Centers PCs that HP makes.

What choice is WMA offering? You have to pay licensing fees to Microsoft to use it. You do not have to pay Apple licensing fees to use AAC. Apple pays licensing fees to Dolby for AAC. Anyone else could do the same. MP3 is not free either. Licensing fees have to be paid for consumer devices.

Format is not the issue. AAC is no more proprietary than WMA. One can argue that it is less so since reverse engineering would not be required to produce an independent codec from scratch that does not use Apple QuickTime. The M4A format that wraps the AAC encoder is not that complicated. No more so than WAV.

AAC has the advantage of being a true standard supported by ISO. It is part of MPEG-4. What is WMA?

Quite frankly, the only thing preventing a free AAC codec for Linux/BSD/whatever is the patent license. MP3 actually has the same problem, but people have skirted the issue.

Re:AAC vs WMA

[dcaulton]

First, AAC is an MPEG standard, but that's not what Apple is selling. It wraps it in a proprietary and unlicensable DRM format (Fairplay) thus shutting off all other devices and software from playing it. AAC itself has no DRM capabilities. Fairplay is a solution tailored to the apple music store. WMA and WMDRM have much more flexible rules - you can do timed rentals, trial downloads, unlimited download subscription plans, etc... This is why it's being adopted by most other music services.

Re:Slightly OT, does anyone use iPod with Linux?

[Hobbex]

USB Mass Storage. The standard protocol for USB harddisks.

The grandparent is half wrong about the iPod - it does work as standard mass storage (at least over firewire, less sure about USB 2.0 on the newer models), but to add music to it needs to be in a special directory and the song info needs to be added to a metadata file. The special directory is annoying (because it mixes the files, so you need to use a program to copy from the iPod and get album directories back), but the metadata file makes sense since searching the entire FS and reading id3 tags sucks.

How much better would not CD-MP3 players be if there were a standard index file that one placed in the root directory on the CD, allowing interfaces like the iPods?

Re:You are misinformed

[sl3xd]

No, the bitrates are in fact equal. There is in fact the same amount of data (at least approximately). The reason why MP3 sounds 'worse' is because some of the data is 'wasted' so to speak because less was understood about human perception of sound when MP3 was written compared to newer codecs. In other words, the newer generation of codecs (OGG, AAC, WMA) manage to make those bits more meaningful to the human ear than MP3 does. (Note, that an important part of this is the human ear; not a microphone or spectral analyzer.) A spectral analisis may actually show that something that sounds 'worse' to humans is in fact closer to the original signal. It's usually not so much the actual accuracy of the compressed audio to the original as it is the understanding of what the human ear will perceive, and to maximize what the ear will perceive.