Nokia, Sony Ericsson leave Microsoft out in the cold on portable audio. ⇒
3 March 2005, late morning
Their new phones support MP3, M4A and ACC, but no WMA.
This is a post from my link log: If you click the title of this post you will be taken the web page I am discussing.
Smart move. You just left the best codec out in the rain. Well atleast it supports MP3. Does it play the iTunes MP4 variant?
by Sunny on March 3 2005, 7:21 pm #
WMA does a better job then MP4/ACC? Interesting. I don’t see why they wouldn’t support all of them, unless it is costly to license. Anyway, I doubt they are loosing many customers not supporting WMA.
by ramanan on March 3 2005, 7:39 pm #
Yeah WMA Codec 9 is awesome stuff. It has the three qualities (size, speed, quality) of lossy format in perfect balance. But nobody uses it (well Napster).
I am also not so sure of the MP4/ACC superiority. Basically it depends on what encoder you are using. And there are so many for AAC. And AFAIK Apple doesn’t ship the best by default in iTunes. Maybe that will change with Tiger (Quicktime 7).
I am still using MP3s. I use the LAME encoder which is the best damn MP3 encoder out there. Sure the file sizes are bit larger than WMV and AAC/MP4 but you sure can’t beat compatibility. I mean MP3 will run on anything (unless of course you buy Sony). Part of me feels that I should just encode everything with FLAC (a lossless encoder) since in a few years storage won’t matter. But there is very little support for FLAC.
Of course one should keep ‘Perceptual Transparency’ in mind. After 192 kbps in MP3, its really hard to tell the difference in quality. I think you reach that at around 160 kbps with AAC/MP4. BTW, in lower ranges (such as 128 kbps and lower), WMA and MP4 are much superior than MP3. Therefore, perfect for streaming (higher quality, lower size). This is the future as music moves to streaming, internet radio on phones and what not.
So basically the only difference is that AAC/MP4 can achieve ‘Perceptual Transparency’ at lower bit-rates and therefore provide the same quality at smaller file size. Like I said before, storage doesn’t matter anymore. So I am happy with MP3.
Of course the other advantage is that MP3 has no DRM shit. So its my choice by principle.
You are right that WMA is probably not used much. But many may not have a choice in the future. WMA is quite popular among record companies (because of the supposed superiority of its DRM). And licensing terms are not very strict. Microsoft is even giving away the tools to everyone for free.
BTW, answering the quality question, WMA along with WMV is part of the HD standard. So its good.
What do you rip your music to?
by Sunny on March 3 2005, 11:10 pm #
Informative. I rip to 192kbs ACC files using iTunes. When I make ACC files they are unprotected, you can’t rip to a protected file on the Mac. Is there no similar option to make unprotected WMA files? If they are so good why not use those over MP3s?
by ramanan on March 4 2005, 2:55 pm #
Yeah you do have a choice of enabling DRM on your rips. Its off by default.
The only reason I don’t use it is because of compatibility. And all the WMA players suck.
MP3 on the other hand, is pretty clean on that regard. Most compatible format with wide support.
So my choice of MP3 may not be very objective choice. As far as lossy formats go its slow, big, but good quality. There are obviously better ones like AAC. You know what, when I get my PowerBook, I might just re rip everything again.
You have to realize that all of these quality talk is very subjective. You can measure speed, size of files, but how do you measure quality or “perceptual transparency”? Here is a test for you. Rip an album again at 160kbps and see if you can tell any difference? If not, you are wasting bits. There is no doubt that higher bit rate means higher quality but it may not be significant at all!
To me the future is lossless formats like flac. And you can then convert it to the latest lossy fad. So your originals are lossless. You use a lossy format when you are on the go (ipod, streaming in your house, streaming from your computer to your buddies). I might just do that!
by Sunny on March 4 2005, 8:12 pm #
There we go. More streaming love.
But really is it an iPod killer? I see an iPod stream in the future.
by Sunny on March 4 2005, 8:55 pm #