MPEG-4 Audio

[arn]

News.com (http://news.com.com/2100-1023-869087.html) posted a story that the Internet Streaming Media Alliance (ISMA), as well as Apple are supporting the MPEG-4 Audio Licenses... which do not share the per-use fees associated with the Video codec.

[Mr. Anderson]

Anyone know the deal with DivX? Everywhere I go lately the movie clips seems to be more and more in this format, which you can only view on a mac, not encode.

[DavidCL23]

yeah, divx is free and awsome! I backed up all my dvd's into divx cds at my friends house. It took about 2hrs to encode for every hr of video. I guess thats what pcs are good for, brute processing power. Are you sure you can't encode with your mac (I never tried to, when my friend can do it so easily for me)?

[Mr. Anderson]

I've been to the DivX website and the Mac version isn't available yet. But for getting great results on compressed video you can't beat it.

That's what I was wondering about before about Mpeg-4. It would suck for Quicktime not to pick up DivX.

[TechLarry]

Originally posted by dukestreet
I've been to the DivX website and the Mac version isn't available yet. But for getting great results on compressed video you can't beat it.

That's what I was wondering about before about Mpeg-4. It would suck for Quicktime not to pick up DivX.

DivX is somewhat of a rogue format, and is generally seen as a way to make copies of DVD's that will fit on a CD-ROM Drive.

And it does a pretty good job of it.

However, I'm not so sure that something like this will ever see true commercial success because of it's roots.

Also, the latest version has taken an unexpectedly wild swing towards commercial, though free/adware supported versions are also available, but with limited feature sets.

Divx has gone kinda weird on us.

TL

[Rower_CPU]

MPEG4 should kill DivX.

It has AAC audio encoding, providing for higher quality, lower data rate audio.
Its video codecs will be much more scalable, providing video from cell phone quality up to DVD, at data rates suitable for the web.

DivX is a non-standard codec, and causes problems for IT people like me who have to try to make video that people have encoded using DivX work for some web-based instruction and testing. People complain enough about Flash and QT plug-ins. Codecs are even worse...

I agree with TechLarry, DivX's rep for being used for pirating movies and distributing porn will prevent it from being accepted as a commercial solution.

[Choppaface]

but doesnt AAC have that dirty © protecting encryption crap?

[Rower_CPU]

choppa:

I don't really know. Are you referring to audio CDs or other types of digital media?

[Choppaface]

well i know a guy told me that in Europe theyre already doing it to audio CDs, but i thought somebody here mentioned that AAC was going to have the same sort of crap

[Rower_CPU]

I think you might be confusing it with some of the measures that the RIAA is trying to enforce with some new audio CDs.

As far as I know, AAC is just the codec that they will use. It compresses the files to about 1/16 of the original file size while keeping original CD quality.

Anybody else able to clarify this?

[kungfu]

a employee at my school who is a member of the adc (apple developer connection, it costs a few g's), tells me that itunes 3 development versions (still in way early development) have built in mpeg-4 audio support.

they also tell me 10.2 is scheduled for release at the ny macworld.

does mpeg-4 support in itunes mean that the ipod would have that as well?

[Mr. Anderson]

Since iTunes and the iPod automatically update each other when their plugged in, its a good guess that the update will work on the iPod. Unless your friend has info on that, you might have to wait until July to find out.