[Digitalbath3737]

Quote:

Originally Posted by doomlordis /img/forum/go_quote.gif AAC has become Apples music format, what the writer hasnt mentioned is that none of the players in the list from wikipedia are capable of playing an AAC file bought from Itunes. He is obviously an apple fan , if he believes that Apple had no part in the decision to develop fairplay he is an idiot. If i bought my music collection from Itunes i cannot play them on any other player than an ipod whether they 'support' AAc or not. Apple are now charging to remove the DRM from your collection as well! , they are in a win win situation, the people who bought from them will mostly continue to buy the slightly cheaper drm versions anyway. What gets my goat is that they are coming out of this looking like they are freedom fighters waging a war on the record companys for the sake of the people.. Apple can *uck off , they are just as bad as microsoft.

Despite you blatant anti Apple feelings you can not ignore the facts. AAC isn't an Apple format. No matter what spin you want to put on it. You can rip a cd into AAC format and play it on any player that supports AAC, which includes the microsoft Zune.

And now you can buy some music off the iTunes store that will play on any player that supports AAC. So honestly what's that problem? Either choose to get your music from iTunes or elsewhere. I don't see why AAC should be seen as Apple's product when it isn't. Basically what I see right now is someone clinging to irrational thoughts. It's a format utilized by Apple, made by an another company and doesn't lock you in to anything. It's as open as mp3. It's quite ignorant to say anything but.

 

[ozz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Digitalbath3737 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Despite you blatant anti Apple feelings you can not ignore the facts. AAC isn't an Apple format. No matter what spin you want to put on it. You can rip a cd into AAC format and play it on any player that supports AAC, which includes the microsoft Zune. And now you can buy some music off the iTunes store that will play on any player that supports AAC. So honestly what's that problem? Either choose to get your music from iTunes or elsewhere. I don't see why AAC should be seen as Apple's product when it isn't. Basically what I see right now is someone clinging to irrational thoughts. It's a format utilized by Apple, made by an another company and doesn't lock you in to anything. It's as open as mp3. It's quite ignorant to say anything but.

well said and yes i am an apple supporter now.

 

[unclejr]

And so just a quick clarification (as most here are undoubtedly aware) the iTunes Store songs with the exception of the DRM free higher bitrate EMI catalog (has that started yet?) are protected AACs, which I think has been the main gripe until this point. Apple would say that you can burn all iTunes purchased songs to a CD and then rerip them into whatever codec you like, which is probably the primary reason why the protected format hasn't been widely cracked. Enough DRM to stop avg joe from blatant distribution but no incentive to do so - basically fairplay rules have yet to be annoying in day to day usage to enough folks.

PS. Many Sony products also have AAC support - however nothing but the iPod family of products will play those protected AACs - which is the whole big deal in Europe, I guess.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Digitalbath3737 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Despite you blatant anti Apple feelings you can not ignore the facts. AAC isn't an Apple format. No matter what spin you want to put on it. You can rip a cd into AAC format and play it on any player that supports AAC, which includes the microsoft Zune. And now you can buy some music off the iTunes store that will play on any player that supports AAC. So honestly what's that problem? Either choose to get your music from iTunes or elsewhere. I don't see why AAC should be seen as Apple's product when it isn't. Basically what I see right now is someone clinging to irrational thoughts. It's a format utilized by Apple, made by an another company and doesn't lock you in to anything. It's as open as mp3. It's quite ignorant to say anything but.

 

[scompton]

Quote:

Originally Posted by doomlordis /img/forum/go_quote.gif AAC has become Apples music format, what the writer hasnt mentioned is that none of the players in the list from wikipedia are capable of playing an AAC file bought from Itunes. He is obviously an apple fan , if he believes that Apple had no part in the decision to develop fairplay he is an idiot. If i bought my music collection from Itunes i cannot play them on any other player than an ipod whether they 'support' AAc or not. Apple are now charging to remove the DRM from your collection as well! , they are in a win win situation, the people who bought from them will mostly continue to buy the slightly cheaper drm versions anyway. What gets my goat is that they are coming out of this looking like they are freedom fighters waging a war on the record companys for the sake of the people.. Apple can *uck off , they are just as bad as microsoft.

I don't think anyone doesn't know that Apple had a part in developing Fairplay. However, Fairplay is not AAC. Any DRM limits the players that you can play protected music on. If your player doesn't support the DRM that Napster uses, you can't play it either. I don't see the difference. I have an iPod and an old Rio. On each I'm very limited to what DRM protected music I can play. Personally, I haven't had an incentive to buy protected music. I want my music in a lossless format so that I can convert it to other formats as needed.

Worse that Fairplay or any other DRM is the rootkit that Sony put on some CDs. I got a CD out of the library to listen to at work. My only CD play is the one on my computer. The CD wouldn't play and it messed up the CD player. I haven't bought a Sony CD since and probably won't knowingly buy one for a very long time.

 

[craiglester]

AAC is ok as a format, but MP3 is playable on a greater variety of players. It's 'Fairplay' that's the apple DRM grief that I wint touch. As Fairplay comes with the AAC's from apple, I wont use that format. That and the fact I don't Own an Ipod

I'll stick to encoding my own MP3's with Lame.

 

[austonia]

.

 

[scompton]

Quote:

Originally Posted by craiglester /img/forum/go_quote.gif AAC is ok as a format, but MP3 is playable on a greater variety of players. It's 'Fairplay' that's the apple DRM grief that I wint touch. As Fairplay comes with the AAC's from apple, I wont use that format. That and the fact I don't Own an Ipod I'll stick to encoding my own MP3's with Lame.

How is Fairplay different that any other DRM?

 

[craiglester]

it ties you to one manufacturer of portable audio. WMA can be played on a few different companies players. Fairplay is limited to ipods

 

[grawk]

It's different because fairplay encoded tracks can only be played back on 95% of daps on the market. WMA is much better, because the remaining 5% can play them. And if you use default settings for WMA encoding, you get to DRM your own encoding, too. Yay WMA!

 

[blessingx]

If you look at the costs involved, it's a wonder every player doesn't support MP3, WMA, AAC and Ogg Vorbis. While I agree ultimately Ogg would be best if everything else was equal, I'd need to see power demand comparisons before I'd push that route. MP3/Ogg comparisons always mentions battery hits with Ogg unlike MP3/AAC comparisons. AAC reportedly uses greater processing than MP3 so maybe Ogg Vorbis and AAC are more similar here than public perception, but if not, I'd rather go the AAC route especially on portable devices. Similar performance and greater battery life.

 

[krmathis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by blessingx /img/forum/go_quote.gif Here is an article I thought some of you may be interested in.

Thanks for the link!
Interesting reading, even for a Hydrogen Audio member like me (since 5 years).

Quote:

Originally Posted by austonia /img/forum/go_quote.gif AAC is alright, much better than MP3... but I'd rather keep pushing for OGG, since performance is equal or better, and it's free.

You're not aware of the differences terms, it seems...

AAC and MP3 are lossy audio codecs, while OGG are a multimedia container (just like WAV, AVI, MP4, MKV, ...). The OGG container can contain both lossy (Vorbis or Speex), and lossless (FLAC) encoded audio.

 

[grenert]

Quote:

Originally Posted by austonia /img/forum/go_quote.gif The iPod and Zune are pretty much the only 2 mainstream players that support AAC, while all modern players from Samsung, Cowon, & iRiver support OGG. Meanwhile... the dumbf.cks at Creative, Archos, Sony, and Sandisk can't seem to pick either one.

Dunno about Creative, Archos or Sandisk, but all of Sony's recent players will play un-DRM AAC.

 

[oicdn]

It's not accepted because you can't play it with a default player on a PC. Same reason many of the Linux (superior) formats aren't accepted, because it's not readily playable without DLing another player/program...

Microsoft is the one to blame for crappy audio and video quality if you want to look at it that way

Sorry had to chime in.

 

[Rambaud]

I am happy with AAC for non critical listening - all bought via iTunes store: £100 vouchers are available for £25-£30, which means that a £7.99 costs just under £2.00 which seems a pretty good deal.

I convert them to mp3 format to stream them through my SqueezeBox.

 

[mdarnton]

Unless there's a law that I'm not aware of that requires me to encode my music at a certain rate, I think the "who's better" question has nothing to do with bitrate. I encode at the bitrate I need to hear what I want to hear.

The issue for me is which format can I get the most use out of, on every piece of equipment I use. Having been shafted by encoding in Microsoft's format and then buying an iPod, I'm not about to repeat that mistake with AAC. So far MP3 is the ONLY format named that plays on everything. When that changes, I'll think about changing what I do.

It seems like this issue is really important only at the top of the encoding pile, with methods = to or approaching lossless, and which point the whole issue and the players involved narrows considerably.