Not only i read; i heard many people are ready for the next technilogical format to replace Mp3. The hype, generated by thousands of people over the internet / Media and marketing. Makes us thing Mp3 is very old.

I was used be in it too. ( That was many years ago, i still remember chatting with Roberto about these thing )
Then after a while; i left and became more active on Video Encoding. I still constant come back and check things up. But it doesn't fasinate me anymore. The long long promise of a format to replace mp3, or a format that surprise Mp3 128Kbps quality with half the size - 64 Kbps - Still aren't happening. As a matter of fact, looking at the recent 128Kbps Listening test LAME aren't that far off from competition. And hopefully MP3 with possibly some more clever programming could squeeze more things out.

On the other hand Video has been constantly changing. Seeing how fast they evolve in past years i believe they are not totally hype. Nero AVC does give some extremely impressive results. Not to mention a experimental codec Snow that show we are capable to encode decent Video with 3-400 Kbps Bitrate. It may require huge processing power but that may not be too far off with Dual Core CPU finally taking place.

I know MP3 stream itself is a limiting factor. But currently is either AAC is not showing its potential or i am still living in dreams. I really hope either Itunes or Nero could turn things around. But currently with the amount of mp3 player out there. Mp3 still a long time to go.

I believe the talk of the anticipated AACPlus "wave" is the 64K at better than 128k MP3 format you were referring to. There will soon be a new 64K test to determine if this is truly the case. I believe they are waiting for Apple's new AACPlus support in Quicktime 7 and iTunes 5, scheduled to be released sometime this month of April, before they can begin the listening test.

Only when something widespread like iTunes/iPods and QuickTime fully supports AACPlus, can we possibly find a true lower bitrate alternative to straight MP3. MP3PRO is good, but still rather proprietary in licensing and not supported by a large number of apps yet. AACPlus seems to be the best "shot" for a low bitrate MP3 replacement (for Internet distribution of audio files and radio streaming such as WinAmp currently supports).

Real, Nero and WinAmp already support AAC/AACPlus playback in various formats (mostly .m4a container file format). Once iTunes and QuickTime jump on the AACPlus bandwagon, we should see some real momentum. Especially since MPEG 4 has internationally standardized it.

Also since the format and files are license free to distribute (not the encoder/play which still require patent and code royalties), but the actual files, unlike MP3Licensing.com which requires a royalty fee for each copy of a MP3 file commercially distributed.

Gaps and royalties.


(I don't want MP3 to "die", but those are my two beefs with it.)

Well AAC has royalties too but no one seems to ever want it to die (except of course the open source zealots). Let's face it: to the end user royalties really don't matter all that much; just to developers.

As for gaps AAC isn't natively gapless either. Nero and LAME do gapless for both of their respective formats just fine.