Why Continue MP3 Development Given AAC? Options

[izscors]

Please don't take this the wrong way, but I am curious why there is continued development of MP3 encoding (such as LAME) when AAC is now long-known to yield superior quality for a given bit-rate (all other things being equal)?

I can sort of understand an explanation as being for the heck of it, but given that a superior method exists, why not work on improving even that instead? I'm not technolgically sophisticated enough to comment with any authority at all, so I pose the question.

[Engelsstaub]

I was only wondering if it was possible. If it supports the iPod then it would have AAC playback capabilities and I wouldn't understand why it wasn't possible with the USB stick.

Based on replies from you and Soap, I understand that some manufacturers of car stereos don't support AAC. That's just stupid (IMO) when the majority of legally-purchased music is obtained through iTunes. It's even stupider (IMO) that they seem to think more people would be concerned about WMA playback.

As for me, I just use AAC for my lossy-encoding needs. I've nothing against MP3...it has some clear advantages. I just like the uniformity in my iTunes library and have to use it when encoding video as well.

Every device I own (and that's quite a few if I count kids and phones) supports it. I have an older Alpine stereo in my car. It supports AAC and has an iPod interface. Perhaps if my circumstances and usage were different, I'd be using MP3 instead. It would certainly be "just as good" as I only encode at "iTunes Plus" bitrates or 160 Kbps for video.

[saratoga]

That's just stupid (IMO) when the majority of legally-purchased music is obtained through iTunes. It's even stupider (IMO) that they seem to think more people would be concerned about WMA playback.

Most people who purchase music from iTunes use ipods. Since you have to pay to include AAC support in hardware devices, a lot of companies simply don't bother.

Every device I own (and that's quite a few if I count kids and phones) supports it. I have an older Alpine stereo in my car. It supports AAC and has an iPod interface. Perhaps if my circumstances and usage were different, I'd be using MP3 instead. It would certainly be "just as good" as I only encode at "iTunes Plus" bitrates or 160 Kbps for video.

Yes, AAC is fine if you stick with the Apple ecosystem.

[MichaelW]

Yes, AAC is fine if you stick with the Apple ecosystem.

I thought one of the things established in this thread was that AAC is NOT an Apple proprietary format. But obviously, in some eyes, it is for ever tainted by being the format chosen for iTunes.
(Don't bother, I know you didn't SAY that, and I know MP3 is more universal, but it would be nice to keep the AAC = Apple = DRM = teh ebbil set of associations out of it.)

[saratoga]

Yes, AAC is fine if you stick with the Apple ecosystem.

I thought one of the things established in this thread was that AAC is NOT an Apple proprietary format. But obviously, in some eyes, it is for ever tainted by being the format chosen for iTunes.

On the contrary, I meant it as a compliment to Apple. They seem to be one of the only companies that has managed to get a truly robust AAC implementation across a large number of hardware devices that works as well as it should. With an iPod I am quite sure that any AAC-LC file I am likely to make or find will play, have its tags properly parsed, etc. Outside of Apple products, AAC support tends to be incomplete or even outright buggy (Sandisk i'm looking at you...). Even in the software I've worked on for rockbox we are just now beginning to approach Apple's level of robustness for AAC support after many years of trying.

(Don't bother, I know you didn't SAY that, and I know MP3 is more universal, but it would be nice to keep the AAC = Apple = DRM = teh ebbil set of associations out of it.)

Ironically, your extreme sensitivity to this topic is the only reason it was brought up. No one here thinks AAC belongs to Apple, just that in practice their products tend to be among the few worth using it with (as a music file format at least). Perhaps you should assume people here know at least a little about audio.

[MichaelW]

On the contrary, I meant it as a compliment to Apple. They seem to be one of the only companies that has managed to get a truly robust AAC implementation across a large number of hardware devices that works as well as it should. With an iPod I am quite sure that any AAC-LC file I am likely to make or find will play, have its tags properly parsed, etc. Outside of Apple products, AAC support tends to be incomplete or even outright buggy (Sandisk i'm looking at you...). Even in the software I've worked on for rockbox we are just now beginning to approach Apple's level of robustness for AAC support after many years of trying.

I find this surprising, especially since, given the experience of MP3, it ought to have been possible to iron out difficulties of implementation. What is it about AAC that makes it so hard to implement? (I mean, Apple are normally quite good about getting things right, but that's normally about knowing what to leave out rather than any special technical competence; technically, I've come to expect good community projects to be the equal of commercial stuff.) Is that part of why AAC is still less widespread than MP3, especially, it seems, in car audio?

[Soap]

of commercial stuff.) Is that part of why AAC is still less widespread than MP3, especially, it seems, in car audio?

Just to steal a bit from this:

MP3, I think we all can accept, is going to be implemented in any digital-format-playing device due to its prevalence.

Microsoft very actively encouraged (for a very wide variety of definitions of the term) hardware makers to add WMA support to their devices. I believe there is little doubt why (since the death of most DRM WMA music services) that is why there are more hardware devices (car head units / DVD players / DAPs) which play WMA than actual WMA files in the wild.

Is anyone doing the same for AAC?


This post has been edited by Soap: Dec 22 2011, 13:46