http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/05...al_stretch.html

"Also drawn to developers attention in build 10A354 is a new codec due to debut with Snow Leopard called MPEG-4 High Efficiency AAC (or HE-AAC). Apple said the codec is an extension of the Low Complexity AAC (or AAC-LC) codec that's optimized for low-bitrate steaming of audio and podcasts."

Does steaming your audio have the same effect as demagnetizing your vinyl?

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

The "seed notes" accompanying the release of this seed mention:



http://news.softpedia.com/news/Apple-Puts-...es-111334.shtml

HE-AAC will also be supported in iPhone OSv3. The remaining question is to know if Apple will also push HE-AAC to older iPhones/iTouches/iPods through a firmware upgrade.

I doubt iPhone 1G or iPod Touch 1G will get support for that. iPod Touch 2G sure will since it shares the same firmware more or less.

Well, if older iPhone and iPod touch models can be upgraded to OS3.0 then they should get HE-AAC support as well. Apple could limit OS3.0 to just the 2G iPod touch and iPhone 3G but I doubt they would do that since it would limit their revenue from people paying for the update (unless Apple wants to force people to upgrade to the newer hardware).

I doubt Apple would bring HE-AAC support to their other iPod models though. The iPod shuffle has been a prime candidate for HE-AAC compatibility for years now and Apple hasn't done anything about that. Well, Apple might update the 4G iPod nano for HE-AAC compatibility since they are continuing to push that those models.

It seems that iPhone OS 2.2 is already able to handle HE-AAC:
http://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/...008/tn2236.html

It's hardly breaking news that an operating system supports a new audio codec. Moved.

can anyone confirm this?

Awesome, but now am not sure what's better. The Copy and Paste or the HE AAC support on the upcoming iPhone OSv3.

It will be interesting to know if VBR will be supported and how will perform comparing to other HE-AAC encoders.

hopefully black pussycat X will support decoding h264 in its full range in 2020 (couldn't resist either).

The only thing I really hope is that this means iTunes will support internet radio streams in HE-AAC. That makes thousands of extra internet radio stations available and means I won't need a separate application just to listen to some stations.

Even QuickTime-compatible H264 videos on QuckTime result in 2x higher CPU usage than open source/free decoders like libavcodec/mplayer/etc. And their H264 encoder is a joke.

Regarding HE-AAC support, I think Apple is too late. I would rather prefer Apple implement FLAC support in QuickTime/iTunes/iPod framework. I just can't imaging uses for HE-AAC in Apple/QuickTime/iTunes worlds. Streaming? Bandwidth is cheap enough to easily allow for LC-AAC @128kbps and higher. Storage space? Users can buy huge hard drives at reasonable prices; similarly, portable players' capacity keeps increasing.

I can confirm.
I test Snow Leopard

Options of the AAC-HE system codec


Also i compiled FLAC system encoder/decoder

RBF, welcome to hydrogenaudio. Are you old friend RBF video compressionist?

Can you encode some samples at 64 kbit/s for some classic samples like eig, castanets....
I'm eager to compare it to Nero encoder.
Thank you.

I think the fact most "internet radio" stations stream at sub 128 is proof this statement is wrong.

HE-AAC is nice for people who want to listen to streaming radio over GPRS, EDGE or UMTS w/o HSDPA. FLAC will probably never happen due to ALAC - or maybe they will add a converter in iTunes like it's done for WMA.

RBF
There are some links with samples
http://ff123.net/samples.html
http://www.rarewares.org/test_samples/

IgorC

Yes, it's me

I have encoded 64 kbit/s Test samples from http://ff123.net/samples.html

http://www.mediafire.com/?medxj12asdx

Is it screenshot from Quicktime or Itunes?
Quicktime permits true VBR (not constrained)
http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn2008/tn2237.html

Can you find true VBR option anywhere?

I've already started ABX tests of Apple, Nero and CT HE-AAC at 64 kbit/s. Apple is doing better job until now. New encoder is really good.

IgorC
It is screenshot from Quicktime.
Quicktime permits true VBR, but not in aac-he (function 'kAudioCodecBitRateControlMode_Variable= 3' is not present in aac-he library).

I found some more aac profiles in CoreAudio SDK:
kAudioFormatMPEG4AAC_HE_V2
kAudioFormatMPEG4AAC_Spatial

But the binary is not included in 10.6 beta.

will HE-AAC come to iTunes eventually?

Could the lack of a binary be a licensing issue? i.e. they can't make it available without charging money for it, so it will only be in the final build?

One can hope, although Quicktime implementation is not necessarily an indicator of iTunes support. For example, Quicktime already supports Apple's own *.caf container, but iTunes won't even acknowledge such files, regardless of their content.

- M.