aacPLUS - Tomorrow?

[Yvan256]

I scanned most of mine but when I couldn't be bothered I used Walmart and Buy.com, their scans are 500x500 and usually decent quality. Here's a comparison:

Achtung Baby @ Buy.com
Achtung Baby @ coverkingdom

Indeed, the Buy.com scans are very nice! (big size and high-quality).

Thanks!

 

[CyberG0th]

If you want to check out the codec, then you could grab the new VLC 0.8.0 from
http://download.videolan.org/pub/videolan/vlc/0.8.0/macosx/vlc-0.8.0.dmg, install it and start it. Then open a network connection, select http and type in one of these URLs:
http://war.str3am.com:7800 (Soma FM Groove Salad)
http://205.188.234.35:8012 (Soma FM Tag's Trance trip)
http://sc1.abacast.com:8000 (Boomer Radio Classic Mix)
http://sc1.abacast.com:8002 (Boomer Radio Acoustic Café)
http://lsac1-0-s07.shoutcast.net:8002 (Trippers Scratches Mix)
http://lsac1-0-s07.shoutcast.net:8004 (Trippers Breaks Mix)
http://64.62.133.50:8000 (5.1 Audio Test)

If you have RealPlayer 10, then you could also check out Virgin Radio and Virgin Classic Radio:
http://www.smgradio.com/core/audio/real/live.smi?service=vraac
http://www.smgradio.com/core/audio/real/live.smi?service=vcaac

Real Player supports only AAC+ in a MP4 Container (They call it Real Audio 10) and via RTSP, VLC only AAC+ in the ADTS Container and via http.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Real Player supports only AAC+ in a MP4 Container (They call it Real Audio 10) and via RTSP, VLC only AAC+ in the ADTS Container and via http.

Ha! Real clearly can't be bothered to develop their own codec, so they take an excellent one (AAC+), wrap it in a container for a different codec (MPEG-4), and call that their codec.

On a completely different note, what's ADTS? I've never heard of it.

 

[dashiel]

Ha! Real clearly can't be bothered to develop their own codec, so they take an excellent one (AAC+), wrap it in a container for a different codec (MPEG-4), and call that their codec.

as i understand it MPEG-4 isn't a codec, it's a standard designed to wrap up unrelated codecs, multimedia sprites, description/meta data etc... that's why the originally, pretty crappy, video codec is getting replaced by h.264 without having to call it MPEG-5, or something else.

 

[Krevnik]

as i understand it MPEG-4 isn't a codec, it's a standard designed to wrap up unrelated codecs, multimedia sprites, description/meta data etc... that's why the originally, pretty crappy, video codec is getting replaced by h.264 without having to call it MPEG-5, or something else.

No offense, but do you consider DivX or XviD a crappy video codec? Both of those are compliant with the MPEG-4 standard pre-H.264. I actually create MPEG-4 content using XviD long before I would use Apple's tools for it, or even DivX. The quality that you get out of it depends on the encoder quite a bit, and a nice XviD encode in an MP4 container with some reasonable bitrate AAC audio beats the traditional XviD/MP3 in an AVI container for streaming and file I/O performance (which affects frame rate) without breaking a sweat, and can be played back in Quicktime without any additional codecs with good quality.

 

[idkew]

The way I read this is that you'd get near CD-quality stereo separation at 48kbps, not near CD-quality sound. But I suppose I could be wrong. 48kbps sounds too good to be true.

i agree. isn't cd quality something like 1440kbps or someting?

i have a hard time believeing 99.9666666% of the info on a cd is not necessary when compressed.

 

[roadapple]

This would make any ipod storage increase 2x as good!

 

[h00ligan]

you guys are hilarious.. i bet you also believe that aac @ 128 is superior to vbr extreme encoded with lame. it's the same speel year after year after year..

mp3 128 is near cd quality

mp3 @ 192 is near cd quality
wma 128 is near cd quality
aac 128 is near cd quality.


if you guys can't hear a difference between anything at 128 and an extreme encoded vbr mp3 based on the lame codec.. you need to either stop critiquing sound quality or get a better speaker setup. there is NO WAY they can cut that much from redbook and get it to sound even remotly close..

and btw.. how many of you think normalizing rips is a good idea?

 

[Rantipole]

Hey, H00ligan!

And, while I'm at it, is there ever going to be a VBR AAC?

Seriously, what do you use to do the LAME encoding? And, are the files playable on an iPod?

 

[h00ligan]

i use a pc with lame.. or sometimes itunes vbr at 224 which is loosely the same.. or i purchase tracks from "that russian place" wher eit's a penny a meg and you get to choose the encoding

 

[roadapple]

I think this is apples most important release with the flash based ipod's

 

[Rantipole]

Based on what I read on that one web-site, it did sound like really only the low bit-rate sound quality is what gets improved. But, my question is, what is "low bit-rate"? 64? 128? At what point is AAC+ no different, or even worse, than regular AAC?

I'm bumping this so maybe someone who may know the answer to this may see the question.

Also, with the additional rumors flying around regarding a flash-based ipod, what do you all think about the chance that, along with everything else, an iTunes 5 appears in January, with this AAC+ ability?