Anything new in the rumor mill about Apple and HD-AAC? Options

[jkauff]

Here it is a new year, and I haven't heard any updates to last year's rumor that Apple would be adopting HD-AAC for the iTunes Store and would start to offer lossless and/or hi-res downloads. If the rumored Pandora-killer iRadio happens, would that likely be the driver for HD-AAC?

WAGs also welcome.

[jkauff]

The advantage of HD-AAC is that you can store a song once in a hi-res (up to 24/192) compressed lossless format, similar to FLAC, ALAC, etc., and use the same file to extract lossy AAC (like the current iTunes) for downloading or streaming, or lossless standard 16/44. The advantage for the iTunes Store is that they could use the same file to satisfy all consumer uses.

The advantage for consumers like us is no more transcoding. You store the file once, and the player simply requests the slices that it is capable of playing. Same with applications. You could archive the songs on your computer, connect your iPhone/iPod, and ask iTunes to transfer the appropriate slices to your portable device in the size and quality you want to carry with you. You could say "Give me 50GB worth of my entire collection", and iTunes would do the math for you.

HD-AAC, if it became a standard, would be great for home music servers, too. You store the file on your server at its native resolution, and then any compatible device can request a stream at the highest bitrate and quality that it can handle. From what I've read, the compression ratio of HD-AAC is also higher than FLAC, so you can store more music in the same amount of space.

This post has been edited by jkauff: Jan 10 2013, 06:30