More on iPod and WMA

[The Reaper]

Everyone's missing the obvious!

there is a simple way for apple to successfully adopt WMA: allow the iPod to play WMA files, allow iTunes to play them, but do not include the ability to ENCODE WMA in iTunes. so most people will use the built in encoder in iTunes (AAC or MP3). a few WMA geeks will use another app to convert their music into WMA, then import it into iTunes, but these will represent a minority of all users.

Note that iPod sales and iTunes adoption increases, but the number of WMA files in the world does not. so WMA stagnates because no one is encoding new files (at least not as much as AAC).

 

[pgwalsh]

I don't really see the HP deal being a big deal.. It's a good way for HP to play it safe and get a piece of the pie without having to go through the steps of developing a music player and a store... They're just riding the Apple iPod bandwagon until the ride stops... Apple gets more legit with a PC partner in the windows world, but other than that. Big F_______ Deal.

 

[desdomg]

Not read all the posts here so sorry if I am repeating a point already made.

Given that WMA and AAC are in competition with each other I don't see why Apple should start supporting WMA - particularly when 70% of the legal DL market is currently in AAC. Surely it should be the other way round - M$ should support the number one legal DL format which is AAC?

I think you start to consider supporting the competitions format when you have 30% of the market, not the other way round. I don't see M$ making Word documents available in an open format, nor WMP nor WMA, etc. etc. At least Apple are using an open format.

Apple needs to support its own business, which is AAC files from the iTMS - not WMA files from M$.

As to the issue of Fairplay not being an "open" standard, I dont see how it can. Unlike Open Source software or an agreed compression format, doesnt DRM have to be kinda secret to be effective? I mean cmon fellas - doesnt it defeat the object of the DRM if anyone can just have a look under the bonnet?

 

[radiofreak]

There is two ways to look at adding WMA to the ipod.

1: People should be able to buy the best mp3 player in the world and have their choice of music store.
I have an ipod. I love itunes but it is not perfect.
I still use walmart,Napster,etc for the songs not sold through iTunes. Now,I have spent $9 at Napster/WM combined and approx. $150 at iTunes, so 98% of the time I will use itunes but I would like to have hassle free alternatives for the times my song is not in itunes.
Of course I have to burn to cd and then back into the PC in mp3 and yes there is a very slight degrade in quality (not near as bad as some claim) and yes it is a extra step that I'd prefer to not have to do.

My point is,it would be nice if we had the option to search 3 or 4 music stores..buy the songs we want and then download them onto the mp3 player of OUR choice. If a person could buy from any music store.....and use any player....I still think the ipod would still dominate..it may even make it a more attractive buy.

2: The longer Apple refuses support of WMA..maybe the chance increases that these other music stores will get their head out of their butt and use something other than WMA for their content.

It would be nice of all involved used one format.
However,as long as I can burn WMA songs to a cd and then back to mp3 it makes no difference to me.

 

[desdomg]

Originally posted by radiofreak
There is two ways to look at adding WMA to the ipod.

1: People should be able to buy the best mp3 player in the world and have their choice of music store.
I have an ipod. I love itunes but it is not perfect.
I still use walmart,Napster,etc for the songs not sold through iTunes. Now,I have spent $9 at Napster/WM combined and approx. $150 at iTunes, so 98% of the time I will use itunes but I would like to have hassle free alternatives for the times my song is not in itunes.
Of course I have to burn to cd and then back into the PC in mp3 and yes there is a very slight degrade in quality (not near as bad as some claim) and yes it is a extra step that I'd prefer to not have to do.

My point is,it would be nice if we had the option to search 3 or 4 music stores..buy the songs we want and then download them onto the mp3 player of OUR choice. If a person could buy from any music store.....and use any player....I still think the ipod would still dominate..it may even make it a more attractive buy.

2: The longer Apple refuses support of WMA..maybe the chance increases that these other music stores will get their head out of their butt and use something other than WMA for their content.

It would be nice of all involved used one format.
However,as long as I can burn WMA songs to a cd and then back to mp3 it makes no difference to me.

Yes, it would be nice. It would have been nice if VHS video players played Betamax, or DV Cameras played DVPRO, or Euro DVD players played USA DVDs .... but a mixture of business and technical reasons mean that often these things arent possible. The idea behind markets is that you have choice, not that everything is the same - use it. And may the best product win.

Or if you dont like the market deciding this sort of thing you should support the universal adoption of open agreed standards. That way there is a level playing field at least.

 

[travishill]

Originally posted by The Reaper
allow the iPod to play WMA files, allow iTunes to play them, but do not include the ability to ENCODE WMA in iTunes. so most people will use the built in encoder in iTunes (AAC or MP3). a few WMA geeks will use another app to convert their music into WMA, then import it into iTunes, but these will represent a minority of all users.

Wow. I totally agree with this- what's the downside?

Pro: People who would've been hesitent to convert to iTunes/iPod because of WMA support no longer have to be.

Pro: AAC is still the default format for ripping, and obviously all iTMS purchases are also AAC. It does nothing to further the WMA format while still allowing people to join the fold...

 

[singletrack]

If Apple's major interest is selling iPods and they make no real money on iTMS then I don't see why they don't just allow iTunes to transcode WMA files into AAC. That way windows users with legacy WMA files can convert their libraries of old WMA songs easily enough and have them play on an iPod. Kind of like when you install a new browser and it converts your old IE Favourites.

WMA based online stores like Napster are still going to be less popular as their DRM is more restrictive than Apple's iTMS and they aren't a simple click away in iTunes. Apple doesn't need to support WMA on the iPod but a conversion tool for the PC to bring your files back from the dark side would be cool. Over time, less and less people will want to use that horrible WMA format.

 

[whodatrr]

Originally posted by radiofreak
There is two ways to look at adding WMA to the ipod.


My point is,it would be nice if we had the option to search 3 or 4 music stores..buy the songs we want and then download them onto the mp3 player of OUR choice. If a person could buy from any music store.....and use any player....I still think the ipod would still dominate..it may even make it a more attractive buy.

It would also gr great if the songs we paid $.99 a piece for were in a format that sounded as good as a CD. WMA lossless gives us that.... .APE gives us that... AAC doesn't.

 

[sushi]

Re: WMA = Better Audio Quality

Originally posted by boros
Sorry to say this, but WMA and several other formats do have an edge over AAC - they provide for lossless compression. Yes, I'm a Mac owner and I have a fairly nice stereo. I've done blind tests with WMA losless vs WAV and various AACs and MP3s. On my syetem, the difference between the best lossy compression and a WAV or lossless MP3 is striking. Actually, listening to a lossy format on my system is... well... depressing. Lossy formats are great for iPods, multimedia speakers, and that Kenwood receiver. Play a lossy format on a pair of B&W Nautilus with Krell amp and you're in for a real letdown.

Okay.

A question for you. What type of encoding do you use for your MP3?

Sushi

 

[desdomg]

Originally posted by travishill
Wow. I totally agree with this- what's the downside?

Pro: People who would've been hesitent to convert to iTunes/iPod because of WMA support no longer have to be.

Pro: AAC is still the default format for ripping, and obviously all iTMS purchases are also AAC. It does nothing to further the WMA format while still allowing people to join the fold...

But you are missing 1 important point - the market will be looking to rally round 1 format in future - in the same way we have 1 format for TV, Video, etc. etc. At least on a National scale anyway. The day Apple starts supporting WMA on its iPods they will be banging one big nail into the coffin of AAC.

 

[greenstork]

Originally posted by Tulse
Well, there is iTMS.

It may, at some point, make sense for Apple to add WMA to the iPod. However, since the huge majority of online sales are in AAC, that point is not now. iTMS is successful enough to make an AAC-only strategy viable, and that strategy can push iTMS to grab even a larger slice of the digital music sales pie, which would strengthen Apple's position even further. However, if this best-case scenario doesn't come to pass, and other WMA-based stores become popular, then Apple can always fall back on Plan B, and enable WMA on the iPod. But for now, there is simply no benefit for Apple to do so.

Bingo, you nailed it. And for all of those readers of this thread that say but, but, but, they could sell more iPods, the answer is: they don't need to. they are selling faster than their supply this holiday season. If sales soften considerably, then maybe they would consider it but the migration to iTunes for Windows is already happening, the benefits are obvious and reluctant WMA users are trickling over anyway.

 

[whodatrr]

Re: Re: WMA = Better Audio Quality

Originally posted by sushi
Okay.

A question for you. What type of encoding do you use for your MP3?

Sushi

Currently, I archive a copy of all of my files in WMA9 format (some .APE). I use a tool called WMA Workshop to batch-convert copies of all of my files into MP3 format. For most of the MP3s, I've used the LAME encoder to convert them to 320 CBR. Recently, however, I've begun to experiment with VBR... not for storage constraintraints, but sound quality experiements.

I haven't yet found the best "lossy" format yet for my stereo... again, all sound horrible.

WAVs, PAE and WMA 9 lossless sound the best.

 

[greenstork]

Re: WMA = Better Audio Quality

Originally posted by boros
Sorry to say this, but WMA and several other formats do have an edge over AAC - they provide for lossless compression. Yes, I'm a Mac owner and I have a fairly nice stereo. I've done blind tests with WMA losless vs WAV and various AACs and MP3s. On my syetem, the difference between the best lossy compression and a WAV or lossless MP3 is striking. Actually, listening to a lossy format on my system is... well... depressing. Lossy formats are great for iPods, multimedia speakers, and that Kenwood receiver. Play a lossy format on a pair of B&W Nautilus with Krell amp and you're in for a real letdown.

Lossy compression on a "good" soundsystem works something like this... parts of the music are accurate and musical, but there are some instraments and passages that are unrecognizeable. You get wierd thumps instead of drum petals... shrieks instead of symbols. The revealing nature of these systems points out the artifacts that the compression left behind. Lossy formats actually sound worse on better soundsystems than they do on poor soundsystems - a lot worse. We're not talking sipping scotch and basking in subtle differences here... we're talking your friend's teeneage kids coming over and saying your system sounds horrible... it is that bad.

Again, this is a high-resolution audio system... think blowing that 2MP JPEG up to a poster sized image... it looks fine in 4x6, but crappy as a poster.

This creates a real dilemma as, though I love the iTunes interface, I'm forced to archive in huge WAV format files. At least WM9 supports lossless compression. Now I'm stuck with .APE archives, WMA9 Archives and WAV Archives. I have to use utilities to copy and convert batches of my files into MP3 format so they're portable. I also have to maintain seperate archives - not to mention backups of teh primary archives. This process is a complete organizational and disk-devouring nightmare... Steve J, please fix this and support lossless compression!

Right now I would have to say that this is the biggest downfall of digital music. And you'd think with the enormous growth of hard drive sizes that someone would drive home a good lossless codec. My guess is that when the bandwith of the average hosehold increases more, that we will start to see lossless codecs take hold because then people will be able to download higher quality music from their favorite music store. Until that time, I'll never use iTMS, or perhaps I should say rarely. I need a CD for my high end audio system.

Please, my Mark Levinson system is begging for it.

 

[desdomg]

Good point Greenstork.

Whatever way you look at the competitive legal DL market Apple is on top.

AAC accounts for 70% of the market and it is the open standard.

Notice Apple is not supporting flash MP3 players with iTMS store, rather it is setting out to take their market. It is no different with AAC. Apple is in this one to win. Not for nothing SJ says they want to "be the M$ of legal music DLs"

 

[gothamac]

"Currently Windows PCs use Microsoft's Media Player software to digitize music using the Windows Media Audio (WMA) format. iTunes uses Dolby's AAC digitisation system. Neither player can play songs stored in the other format.


According to The Independent, analysts had forecast that Apple's format would lose out to Microsoft because of the sheer volume of Windows PCs."

Good read on this subject below

http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/top_news_item.cfm?NewsID=7643

 

[greenstork]

Re: Re: WMA = Better Audio Quality

Originally posted by gwangung
With all due respect, I find this hard to believe. There's been few published reports comparing AAC to WMA, with the most recent studies at least a year old.

As well, we're talking about quality at a given compression level; talking about "lossless" is, to a great extent, irrelevant as the vast majority of people will stay at 128 kbps and a vanishingly small segment will get above 192 kbps.

yes, and what the original poster is trying to say is that the digital music revolution is passing everyone by who has a high end audio system. Should we all just settle for reduced audio quality and be done with it. Bring back the casette baby, wooohoo.

All joking aside, as standard hard drive sizes continue to increase, there will be no point in ripping at a lower quality. Why not have higher quality?

 

[crees!]

I don't care which media coder-decoders (codecs)

Even after his reply to all this critizism he still can't get some things correct. Codec stands for compressor-decompressor. Geez oh flip.. this guy is a joke. Besides, you like how he says Apple is locking everyone into their protected proprietary format.. well was in MS doing with WMA at the same time.. huh?

 

[hulugu]

Originally posted by Essefgy
Personally, I'd love SHN or FLAC support a lot more than (blecch) WMA

Thank you. Hey Apple guys, bring in FLAC, bring in Ogg Vorbis, bring in new and useful formats, but don't falter to WMA now. You have the No. 1 Mp3 player and 70% of the digital music market, why would you shift to WMA now?
People are buying iPods in spite of the lack of WMA support, which tells me that people don't care about WMA as much as they do the player. Keep the iPod ahead of the game and AAC will become a de facto and true standard in digital music.

 

[sushi]

Re: Re: Re: WMA = Better Audio Quality

Originally posted by boros
For most of the MP3s, I've used the LAME encoder to convert them to 320 CBR. Recently, however, I've begun to experiment with VBR... not for storage constraintraints, but sound quality experiements.

Do you use true stereo, or joint stereo?

Do you encode at 44.1?

Sushi

 

[greenstork]

Originally posted by singletrack
If Apple's major interest is selling iPods and they make no real money on iTMS then I don't see why they don't just allow iTunes to transcode WMA files into AAC. That way windows users with legacy WMA files can convert their libraries of old WMA songs easily enough and have them play on an iPod. Kind of like when you install a new browser and it converts your old IE Favourites.

WMA based online stores like Napster are still going to be less popular as their DRM is more restrictive than Apple's iTMS and they aren't a simple click away in iTunes. Apple doesn't need to support WMA on the iPod but a conversion tool for the PC to bring your files back from the dark side would be cool. Over time, less and less people will want to use that horrible WMA format.

Because as the markt grows and if they have still cornered the market, they may eventually make money off of the iTMS, they may make a substantial amount of money.

 

[whodatrr]

Re: Re: WMA = Better Audio Quality

Originally posted by greenstork
Right now I would have to say that this is the biggest downfall of digital music. And you'd think with the enormous growth of hard drive sizes that someone would drive home a good lossless codec. My guess is that when the bandwith of the average hosehold increases more, that we will start to see lossless codecs take hold because then people will be able to download higher quality music from their favorite music store. Until that time, I'll never use iTMS, or perhaps I should say rarely. I need a CD for my high end audio system.

Please, my Mark Levinson system is begging for it.

The good news is that, with the right external DAC, WAVs will probably sound great on your Levinson... if they don't, I'll gladly trade you an old Teac system that wouldn't differentiate between 320 AACs and a Rega Transport/DAC.... 🙂

 

[MCCFR]

Let's play "detect the BS"!

Last summer, HP announced a sweeping push into consumer electronics and released more than 100 new consumer-oriented products in one day. The move drew a bit of press attention, but nothing like the front-page news assault that Apple Computer generated last week for its comparably weak announcement of expensive, new, and smaller iPod devices, portable audio players that won't be available for months. Attempting to latch on to Apple's marketing success, last week HP made the incredible decision to license Apple's iPod player and iTunes software , and the move predictably catapulted HP into the spotlight for a day. But as the dust settles, HP's customers are rightly asking some hard questions about the decision because, as Microsoft is pointing out, Apple's technology offerings are an island of incompatibility in an otherwise widely compatible PC world.

Rebuttal - One
from http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004/jan/06ipodmini.html

Pricing & Availability
iPod mini for Mac and Windows will be available in the US in February for a suggested retail price of $249 (US), and will be available worldwide in April

So Apple make an annoucement of a product that will be available in February and that's an issue. Longhorn won't be available for two years but that's OK, because it'll be really good when it gets here. Nice to see some consistency.

Rebuttal - Two

So Paul, what make's the decision incredible? Instead of building a new storefront and creating a new player from scratch, HP decided to rebrand - not license - the iPod and, in addition, offer iTMS as a storefront.

iPod has 30% of the market by volume and 50% by value. iTMS has 70% of the market. iPod is THE pre-eminent cross-platform Mac/Win digital music player and iTMS is - to my knowledge - the only cross-platform music store.

So, to HP's credit, they have decided to align themselves with THE cross-platform solution that DEFINES and LEADS the market. Incredible? Only in the sense that HP chose to exercise pragmatism in a part of the industry that normally maintains a rigid commitment to the MS cause, which is - normally - the creation of de facto standards in order to exert complete control over a given marketplace.

Rebuttal - Three

Who are these customers that are asking questions? How many HP - or indeed Dell, Sony or Toshiba - customers are ALREADY iPod users?

Given that Apple sold 730,000 iPods in the quarter ending 12/31/03 - representing 30% of the market by volume - and that Apple's share of the PC market could be assessed at around 5%, the simple extrapolation would be that around 694,000 Windows customers chose Apple's easy-to-use holistic digital music solution as opposed to its Windows-only competitors.

Maybe the question they're asking is: Why do we have to wait until the summer?

But that's not your agenda, is it?

I would argue that your concern isn't the customers of the music stores. Instead, your concern is all of the media suppliers who have invested in Wintel infrastructure to create or serve the Windows Media format.

That community - which is progressively less the preserve of the actual rights holder - has a right to ask questions. But those questions should be aimed at Microsoft who have singularly failed to convince the CONSUMER marketplace of the value of the WMA format and the digital player manufacturers who have failed to create products that ignite the imagination of the public.

Rebuttal - Four

as Microsoft is pointing out, Apple's technology offerings are an island of incompatibility in an otherwise widely compatible PC world.

FUD - in its most dishonest form and you should be ashamed for even publishing such fallacious deceit.

USB - Now standard on a Macintosh
TCP/IP - Now standard on a Macintosh
SMB support - Now standard on a Macintosh
UNIX support - Now standard on a Macintosh
Ethernet - Standard on ALL Macintosh systems for some while.
IEEE1394 (Firewire) - Now standard on a Macintosh
802.11b/g - Available on a Macintosh either as standard, or as a BTO/aftermarket option.
SMTP/POP3 - Now standard on a Macintosh
Java - Now standard on a Macintosh
MPEG-1/3/4 - Now standard on a Macintosh

Typically, the things that Apple are not compatible with are those things where Microsoft has chosen to take a defined de jure standard and to 'corrupt' that standard for its own monopolistic reasons, but we'll get back to that in the next segment.

 

[fatfish]

Re: WMA = Better Audio Quality

Originally posted by boros
Sorry to say this, but WMA and several other formats do have an edge over AAC - they provide for lossless compression. Yes, I'm a Mac owner and I have a fairly nice stereo. I've done blind tests with WMA losless vs WAV and various AACs and MP3s. On my syetem, the difference between the best lossy compression and a WAV or lossless MP3 is striking.

What a plonker !!! This is like comparing a McLaren car (chassis) to a Honda Engine or a Dyson Vacuum cleaner to a Hoover dust bag. Because what you appear to be doing is comparing WMP to AAC

AAC IS a lossy codec WMA is a whole range of codecs which are supported by WMP, you just happen to have picked out one of the better ones)

If your arguement is that WMA lossless is better than AAC, well no ones going to argue. But you have to realise that itunes is capable of playing uncompressed files and acheiving the quality you are talking about. Granted we're talking slightly bigger files, but not much and your lossless decompression is dependant on a reasonably powerful processor.

So WMP and itunes are equally capable of playing music at the quality you want, but in neither case are you going to get these formats on a portable player. If your talking about portable music, then it's pretty much down to bit-rate and my understanding is that at the same bitrate AAC produces a higher quality than WMA Standard/Pro

I understand AAC at 128 kbps has the same quality as an MP3 at 160 kbps and a WMA at 128 kbps has the quality of an MP3 at 154 kbps.

The only arguement you might have is that WMP offers lossless compression, iTunes does not, but as I've pointed out this does not mean WMP can produce higher quality sound, only the same quality but with a slight saving on disk space.

And let's face it compressed audio at this quality is never going to be played on anything other than a computer, so I might also point out that whilst lossless compression is not supported by iTunes, there are other codecs such as Shorten which can be played on a mac with far superior compression/decompression than WMA lossless.

Oh, and how you can say there is a difference between one lossless codec and the next is quite perplexing, arn't they ALL lossless, ie., will decompress without loss of data.

 

[hulugu]

Just a little quibble

USB - Now standard on a Macintosh
TCP/IP - Now standard on a Macintosh
SMB support - Now standard on a Macintosh
UNIX support - Now standard on a Macintosh
Ethernet - Standard on ALL Macintosh systems for some while.
IEEE1394 (Firewire) - Now standard on a Macintosh
802.11b/g - Available on a Macintosh either as standard, or as a BTO/aftermarket option.
SMTP/POP3 - Now standard on a Macintosh
Java - Now standard on a Macintosh
MPEG-1/3/4 - Now standard on a Macintosh

Almost all of these things have been standards on the Macintosh for a long time. The Macintosh basically made USB, and Firewire, and were part of the main push for the other technologies, with the exception of UNIX support which has been such since 2000.
My point, most of the standards beyond Microsoft's software, have come from the Mac or began with the Mac. And even Office owes it due to Apple and the Mac.
But, you're points are well received.

 

[whodatrr]

Re: Re: WMA = Better Audio Quality

Originally posted by fatfish

The only arguement you might have is that WMP offers lossless compression, iTunes does not, but as I've pointed out this does not mean WMP can produce higher quality sound, only the same quality but with a slight saving on disk space.

And let's face it compressed audio at this quality is never going to be played on anything other than a computer, so I might also point out that whilst lossless compression is not supported by iTunes, there are other codecs such as Shorten which can be played on a mac with far superior compression/decompression than WMA lossless.

THIS IS MY ONLY ARGUMENT! Because of this, AAC is inferior to WMA as an archive format. Also, because of this, I will not pay $.99 a song for something that will sound horrible on my home stereo (Please look for reasoning behind this earlier in the thread).

I will not debate that there's a need for a lossy compression, but as WMA offers both lossy and lossless compression that maintains all of my audio data while reducing file sizes by 50-70%, I'd rate WMA as a better overall format... untill AAC supports losless compression.

Also, there is no perceptible difference in quality between lossless encoders... losless = lossless... (This is like comparing PKZIP to Stuffit... as long as you get all of your data in the end, you're OK). There is, however, sometimes a difference in quality between players that use those encoders.

Also, for some reason, WAV (uncompressed audio) always seems just a tiny bit more dynamic than even lossless-compressed files on my system... probably player issues...??? This has just been my personal observation. Has anyone else seen this with lossless .APE or Lossless WMA9s vs WAVs?

in the end, I'd love to see a lossless AAC. Also, when iTunes Store starts selling lossless audio, I'll begin to buy. until then, it's just a novelty for me.