PC Mag: "MP3 Grows Up"

[Kent Pribbernow]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1573041,00.asp' target='_blank'>http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1573041,00.asp</a><br /><br /></div>"You can rip, copy, or play an MP3 file, but one thing you can't do is get more than two channels of sound out of it. Soon, you will be able to, although you may have more trouble copying the file. The Fraunhofer Institute, originator of the file format that brought the music industry to its knees, is adding surround sound and copyright protection.<br /><br />Expected this summer, the MP3 Surround format is based on Agere Systems' technology. "What we do is take the original surround-sound signal," explains Peter Kroon, Agere's chief multimedia architect, "and we down-mix that from 5.1 channels to stereo." Rather than capturing all the additional channel information, however, the encoding uses psychoacoustic techniques to capture only spatial and speed information for additional channels, thus preserving compact file size. The MP3 Surround files are backward-compatible, so they play back as stereo tracks on existing players; updated hardware and software will play the files back as surround sound for 5.1 speakers."<br /><br />I'm not quite sure how to interpret this news. Why bother with MP3 anymore? The future of digital audio is going to center around other formats, particularly Microsoft and Apple standards. MP3 is yesterday's audio format. I don't even like the audio quality it offers anymore. Higher bit rate WMA offers far superior quality, in my opinion. As does AAC. Music services are jumping on the WMA/AAC bandwagon. Do we still need MP3?

[Gary Sheynkman]

Id say that LAME MP3s are better than AAC but that is just me. Plus MP3 are compatible with EVERYTHING...they wont go out of fashion for a while

[Zack Mahdavi]

I think mp3s are like analog TV broadcasts... sure, they're not the best, but they're mainstream. One thing's for sure.. they're not going to disappear for a while, no matter how much better the other formats are.

mp3s have a cultural following. People aren't going to rip in anything else unless the software manufacturers force them to. This is analagous to the government's hope to standardize on digital broadcasts soon.

[foldedspace]

The are 'good enough', they don't carry any brand-name stigma (or DRM), and they are ubiquitous. I listen to music in my car and on a personal player. Neither of these could do much with more channels or better quality.

[Kacey Green]

I thought they found a way to DRM MP3. It wasn't popular (is any DRM?)

[Philip Colmer]

I would have to agree that one of the most important things about MP3 is that almost anything will play it. You just cannot say the same about AAC & WMA, although Microsoft are working hard to make WMA as all-pervading as MP3 currently is.

Of course, if the hardware & software people supported more formats, it wouldn't be such as issue :wink:

--Philip

[Jonathon Watkins]

Same here - with MP3 I am guaranteed everything will play it. Plus, at 192Kbs it just sounds good! 8)

[Suhit Gupta]

Same here - with MP3 I am guaranteed everything will play it. Plus, at 192Kbs it just sounds good! 8)
Well put, though ogg for me.

Suhit

[Zack Mahdavi]

Same here - with MP3 I am guaranteed everything will play it. Plus, at 192Kbs it just sounds good! 8)
Well put, though ogg for me.

Suhit

Suhit, I thought you owned an iPod? Have you figured out a way to play ogg files on your iPod?

[Suhit Gupta]

Same here - with MP3 I am guaranteed everything will play it. Plus, at 192Kbs it just sounds good! 8)
Well put, though ogg for me.

Suhit

Suhit, I thought you owned an iPod? Have you figured out a way to play ogg files on your iPod?
Aww, cmon, have you not heard me rave about my iRiver :)?! No iPod for me, I have the iRiver iHP 140.

Suhit

[Zack Mahdavi]

Suhit, I thought you owned an iPod? Have you figured out a way to play ogg files on your iPod?
Aww, cmon, have you not heard me rave about my iRiver :)?! No iPod for me, I have the iRiver iHP 140.

Oooh.. nice player... sorry about the mixup.. :)

[Jonathon Watkins]

Hey, they both start with 'i'! :silly:

[ctmagnus]

I have an 'i' player as well!

(only it ends with 'q' :P )

[Suhit Gupta]

ipaq? What flash card do you have? 1GB SD?

Suhit

[Jonathon Watkins]

I have a 1Gb CF and a 256Mb SD card for my X5. Works for me. :wink:

[ctmagnus]

ipaq? What flash card do you have? 1GB SD?

Suhit

I wish. I usze a 256MB SD Lexar. But it holds eight albums, so that's enough to last me for a while. When I need more music, I take my (now almost painfully hefty) NJB3.

[Zack Mahdavi]

ipaq? What flash card do you have? 1GB SD?

Suhit

I wish. I usze a 256MB SD Lexar. But it holds eight albums, so that's enough to last me for a while. When I need more music, I take my (now almost painfully hefty) NJB3.

This is going to sound kind of PocketPCThoughts-ish, but what else do you store on your memory card? Is it solely dedicated to music?

[Suhit Gupta]

That is a good question. Because when I used my PocketPCs flash cards to store music, I could usually only store about 4 or 5 albums (mp3s or oggs at 192). This was very annoying because I would exhaust the playlist in only one trip home on the subway. This would mean that I was forced to replace music on an almost daily basis. And here is where the sucky part comes in - I didn't have an SD reader so I tried to do this over Activesync and that was painfully slow.

Suhit

[ctmagnus]

I wish. I usze a 256MB SD Lexar. But it holds eight albums, so that's enough to last me for a while. When I need more music, I take my (now almost painfully hefty) NJB3.

This is going to sound kind of PocketPCThoughts-ish, but what else do you store on your memory card? Is it solely dedicated to music?

I've also got the last two Sprite backups, my Egress channels, 7-8 ebooks, a selection of pictures and some personal documents.

the My Documents folder is ~11.5MB, the two backups are ~8.3MB each and my 89 WMA files occupy 189MB. I currently have just over 24MB free on the card.