AOL forms duet with Dolby

"America Online knows what's good ™"

I worked for them and I am not so sure.

I agree Tarod. I mean is't it possible they are doing this simply because Microsoft is their mortal enemy and therefore it is not in their interest to see WMA gain popularity. Yes it is to little to late and a waste. But it is all AOL can do for dammage control.

I think it might be due to Microsoft buying "Liquid Audio" which also made use of Dolby AAC & Dolby AC3.
thats just AOLs way to keep pace with MS.
But never heard much else after MS bought Liquid Audio.
I dont keep track of Real Networks, but did they not start to use Mp4 code in Helix DNA? and does that mean an end to RA and Sony, and their use of Atrac technology?

How so?

I don't see this as too little too late. AAC has been gaining in popularity and MPEG-4 applications are just now starting to make their way to the public in a large way. This move doesn't seem untimely to me even if it is not a particularly bold and preemptive move at this point in the game. I also don't see how it is a "waste" (and I hope this isn't going to turn into another baseless vorbis-zealot/aac bashing thread). There are a lot of applications for AAC (both hardware and software) which are becoming very widespread at this point. Given that, I'd say this is a rather good move to make on their part if they are serious about really exploiting this type of technology to the maximum potential.

If they don't want wma, AAC isn't the only solution. Why not to use Ogg?
IMHO sad news. If this will continue so, more companies will choose AAC and we'll get AAC monopoly in several monthes

DRM is certainly a good part of the answer. Streaming, e-distribution, new media (SACD,...) can't really exists without protection against piracy.
WMA9 is not only a audio format, it's a complete solution for audio distributing. Sony OpenMG/ATRAC3 offers the same service. I suppose mp4 too.
The industrial war is not a quality war : it's mainly a protection one.

Because, quite frankly, Vorbis is uninteresting to most large corporations at this point.

I have quite a bit of interest in the format, and a good deal of respect for the creators of the format, but I think that this is simply the brutal truth of the matter. This is probably so for a number of reasons, some of them possibly including:

1. Ogg Vorbis is not a "standard".
2. Most corporations would probably rather pay licensing fees than use a supposed "patent free" technology given today's legal atmosphere.
3. There are simply way more companies working with AAC/MPEG-4 technology than Ogg Vorbis. This creates for a much greater wealth of applications and implementation paths to work from.
4. The current Ogg Vorbis development infrastructure does not seem to be able to support or bring about very widespread propogation of its technology yet.
5. AAC/MPEG-4 technology seems to be moving forward at a regular pace while this does not seem to be so with Vorbis. Since 1.0 there have not been any major changes or improvements. Xiph's resources are spread thin with Monty being really the only main guy behind the core technology and him having to work on more mundane implementation details for various companies and other projects entirely (Theora). Meanwhile AAC+ will soon be available to the public which may make the whole 64kbps argument (where Vorbis currently seems to have the most merit but which still does not outperform Mp3pro) fairly moot.

I can understand that a lot of people like Ogg Vorbis and would like to see it become more prominent, but I think from a realists point of view, it is not ready for the primetime regarding this type of market.

I think that Vorbis was originally created, as were most Open Source projects, to help serve and provide options for the "little guy". In this case, the application was license free streaming audio. This simply isn't a concern for the kind of application or market that AOL is dealing with.

there will be aac support for the upcoming winamp. they indicated that silently in the winamp forums. the first results of the aol - dolby deal...

EDIT: grammar

From a famous developer:

ADTS??

EDIT: hmm, for shoutcast streams only then....

Heh. I shouldn't have quoted what makes sense for me, thinking it would make sense for everyone.

ADTS headers are one of the two types of headers (I know of) useable in AAC. The other is ADIF, and you can also have RAW (headerless) streams.

ADTS was designed for archival. ADIF was designed for streaming.

What the developer meant there is that ADIF and RAW files wouldn't be playable. (At least, that's what I understood)

so will I be able to play .mp4 files (with the appropriate header) or just to stream them??

EDIT: you mean ADIF for archival and ADTS for streaming??

They won't play MP4 files, AFAIK. Probably because Nullsoft is pushing NSV as container format.



Non, the opposite. ADIF sucks for archival, you can't seek it.

Yeah, I know that quote is a little weird. Problem is, I got that as an offline ICQ message, so I can't ask for clarification right now.

Does anyone else worry that AOL and Microsoft hopped in bed together (a $750 million settlement, i.e. chump change for MS) over the Netscape lawsuit? And part of the settlement includes a new "partnership" in technology? Which, as we can all reasonably predict, means AOL will come out with some lame announcement they are moving exclusively to Windows Media?

It's down to AAC or WMA as the new de facto format boys, better pick your sides now...

I don't wan't to start any "holy war" discusson, but IMHO biggest problem with Vorbis is that no big company stays behind it, and patent situation grayed by FUD from one big company a year or so ago.

Simple - nobody is going to implement Vorbis and constantly be affraid that some big corporation starts a lawsuit against them, it is easier (from the company perspective) to pay joint patent portfolio fees to a company which organizes patent-pool (like ViaLicensing, MPEG-LA, etc..)

Furthermore, being an ISO standard means a lot from the patent point of view - no company is allowed to practice weird licensing practices (patent fees must be granted on a fair and reasonable basis to everyone, without limitation of any kind) . Also, this greatly reduces possibility of so-called "submarine" patents, because no company would easily enter in "war" with names like Sony, Nokia, Motorola, Dolby...

Clarrification AAC is not MPEG4. It is both MPEG2 and 4. MPEG2 AAC is what all current encoders put out IIRC(please correct me if I am remembering wrong.) The specs for MPEG2 AAC if I am not mistaken was finalised in the mid to late 90s. Say 96~98 timeframe at least. So why has it taken so long to come the mediocre distance it has? In short I think it could be summarised as two things. Politics and licensing. And that is not going to change. And that is the killer thing for AAC. What is really holding it back and will likely make it mute.



Not untimely? Six or so years after the fact does not seem untimely? Why license it now and not when it came out? It is to me timely only in an anti-Microsoft preemptive scheme of things and nothing else. The way some people behave when talking about when will format x get support you would think they have less than a year to live and would like to see it before they die. Do you think they are still waiting for AAC?



Bad form on your part. I know I have problems. I am trying. But I expect better of a mod and well you know. Not once was Vorbis even hinted at or uttered in the entire thread before you made mention of it. Therefore you could only be hinting at one thing in my mind. It is personal and I do not like that. But I digress.

In the end in my mind it being a waste has nothing to do with Vorbis, VQF, or even MPC for that matter. It is solely to me an issue of this move being more about politics and less about user benefit or possible benefit from the codec itself. In the end it is not because they are concerned with quality or at least with what I suspect many here would percieve quality as.



I will admit that on the software side things are improving. Offerings at this point look well neigh on their way to nearing mediocre in number. It has at least surpased MPC and VQF. But might I ask exactly what hardware you are reffering to besides the currently Mac only iPod and an Iriver portable or two? And in the end it does not even come close to nearing WMA's market penetration and momentum.



If that were the intent I would agree whole heartedly. But I am almost beyond all doubt that their intent is something wholly other. Last time I checked AOL's main customer base was online subscribers. Which of course are draining rather steadily. One might say AOL is hemmoraging users. And MSN is soaking them up. Well Prodigy sure as heck is not. So by licensing AAC and giving away licensed decoders etc exactly how is this going to relate to benefit for AOL's main customer base and stop their exodus to greener pastures? Somehow I don't see AAC saving the company. And as i understand things they don't have that sort of petty cash to put to such use. It does not add up to me.

AAC may be superior to WMA. Not that it matters to anyone important.(IE not us) The world is not concerned with real quality. They are only concerned with percieved quality. They ascribe to the belief of brand. Buying 5 dollar shirts at 50+ for the name on the lable. Everyone knows who Microsoft is. How many of them do you think know who the company behind AAC is? Trick question eh? That's just one of AACs many weaknesses. Personally I like AAC. Not that it is either here nor there or that you knew that.

QuickTime and iTunes both encode MPEG-4 AAC and refuse to handle anything labled as MPEG-2 AAC. The political reasons don't really matter to me, yet another supporter for an otherwise good format is always a good thing. (If Apple and AOL were supporting Ogg Vorbis, that would be better, but I don't see this coming true.) I find it weird that they refuse to use the MPEG-4 file format. It will only leed to problems when people try to get WinAmp AACs to play with QuickTime or vice versa. After all, Apple is one of the main supporters of MPEG-4/AAC and have millions of AAC decoders and encoders out there.

Regardless, I know one thing.

I am *NOT* reencoding!

Actually no. AAC has no DRM either. Which is part of the reason I see it's chances as so dismal. Especially in light of the hype that Microsoft can spend cash to generate. I remember quite recently Microsoft purchased an hour of prime time air on several cable channels every night for a week for nothing more than an over glorrified interstitial WMA infomercial. It was sick and pathetic. And I know it got across to the people and they liked it. You can do that sort of thing when you have money.

The reason they are not rushing to vorbis is that there is no need for them to plain and simple. It costs them nothing and it will always be there. Unlike WMA and AAC. Of those two there will only be the quick and the dead. WMA the quick. AAC the necrotic dead. All the codecs have a niche. Problem is AAC and WMA are slugging it out over the same one. Vorbis's nich is and will always be secure. Why are we talking about Vorbis anyway? It had nothing to do with anything in this thread. Oh wait I remember now. Someone influential provoked it. Wasn't me folks.



To a large extent yes it is. Poor poor AAC.



I am not going to pick a side. Personally I like AAC. But if I were a betting many my money would be on WMA all the way. I would be a moron to turn down such easy money. In this codec race I see AACs betting odds at best as a long shot.



I agree that there is no big brand name company behind it. AAC's problem is that there are to many. But what pattent FUD and what company? IIRC about a year ago AOL did a pattent search on Vorbis technology and came up with doodly squat. IE it was truly honestly pattent free. To what are you reffering? Oh and to squelch the holy war we should stay off that subject. It was not relivent anyway. Someone who should have known better made mention of it and I see it careening a bit out of control now. :| Proverbial stick in the hornets nest.



Normalised licensing is nice and all. But it currently is a bit much. More than your competitors licensing. And no matter how screwed up Microsoft's licensing practices are I would like to think that enough small companies have offered them selves to Microsoft's chopping block for us to know better. If history has shown us anything it is that cash is the flame and corporations are the moths. You would think they would know better. But it is not in their nature. They are more than willing to dance with the flame and risk getting burned. And if it was in question Microsoft's flame is at least an order of magnatude brighter than anyone else concerned.

I like the whole ISO thing. AAC as well. But perhaps I got news for you. There is one company that would easily and actually already has entered into war with names exactly like Sony and Nokia. Do I have to mention Microsoft? It should be redundant by now. No one else would. But they have. And so far they are quite a bit ahead if I am not mistaken. That is part of the problem with AAC. There is no "Microsoft" behind it. I would say something similar to Microsoft behind it but that would be pointless because there is nothing even remotely similar. Things don't bode well for you guys Ivan. But keep fighting the good fight. Better to have fought and lost than never fought at all. I realise I am a downer not holding out any great hope for commercial AAC Ivan. But I am behind it as opposed to WMA.

Where exactly did you hear/read that. Because I would like to.



Yes politics be damned. But if there is one thing you can't escape it's politics.



Beware politics in action. It is scarry that such a possibility does not set off alarms for more people.



Danger. Numbers in the last quote may be grossly exaggerated. They have distributed a number of encoders and decoders. But millions? Where? And even if they did Microsoft and WMA/WMV still dwarfs them. They are as a tiny gnat on Microsoft's radar. Ok closer to a horse fly. But still. Really really tiny!

[quote][quote]I don't see this as too little too late.  AAC has been gaining in popularity and MPEG-4 applications are just now starting to make their way to the public in a large way.[/quote]

Clarrification AAC is not MPEG4.[/quote]

First of all, I never said AAC was MPEG-4. I seperated the two ideas with an "and", which implies that they are seperate. I mention MPEG-4 because that is the vehicle through which most end-users are being exposed to AAC technology at this point.

[quote]MPEG2 AAC is what all current encoders put out IIRC(please correct me if I am remembering wrong.) The specs for MPEG2 AAC if I am not mistaken was finalised in the mid to late 90s. Say 96~98 timeframe at least. So why has it taken so long to come the mediocre distance it has? In short I think it could be summarised as two things. Politics and licensing. And that is not going to change. And that is the killer thing for AAC. What is really holding it back and will likely make it mute.[/quote]

Mediocre distance as compared to what? For you to view the progression as being mediocre, you must have some point of reference.

Since you offer no base for your claims (something which is not particularly unusual), I'll offer up Vorbis as an example since I know from your past postings on this forum that this is a codec that you approve of. According to Monty, Vorbis has been in development nearly as long as the what you quoted for AAC. However, Vorbis is not being utilized by Apple, Ahead Software, and now AOL. These are only some of the larger companies using AAC at this point. They are neither the first, nor will they be the last. So, in comparison, AAC is not "mediocre". Furthermore, for a technology of this scope, there is no other format that is as widespread or gaining acceptance as fast.

The fact of the matter is that adoption of new technologies is very slow. This is nothing new and it is not limited to the audio compression field. People still use outdated formats and technologies all the time even when there are better alternatives. Inertia is quite a force to be reckoned with in this world, might as well get used to it.

As for making AAC "mute", again, I ask for some sort of basis for your claims and an alternative that you believe will not suffer this fate. Excuse me for not taking your unsubstantiated claims at face value given the actual occurances transparing as we speak which emphasize just how unlikely they are to come true.

[quote][quote]This move doesn't seem untimely to me even if it is not a particularly bold and preemptive move at this point in the game.[/quote]

Not untimely? Six or so years after the fact does not seem untimely? Why license it now and not when it came out? It is to me timely only in an anti-Microsoft preemptive scheme of things and nothing else. The way some people behave when talking about when will format x get support you would think they have less than a year to live and would like to see it before they die. Do you think they are still waiting for AAC?[/quote]

Let's look at this time period in context. How long did it take companies to support MP3 on a widespread scale, even though it had been available for quite some time? How long has it taken Vorbis to come into the public eye (and note, it has not yet even acheived widespread support yet on the scale we are discussing)?

Once again, it takes time for new technologies to be utilized and deployed by companies. The adoption of AAC has not been particularly slow in comparison to the alternatives (which, although you may say are irrelevant here, are quite necessary to use as points of reference).

[quote][quote]I also don't see how it is a "waste" (and I hope this isn't going to turn into another baseless vorbis-zealot/aac bashing thread).[/quote]

Bad form on your part. I know I have problems. I am trying. But I expect better of a mod and well you know. Not once was Vorbis even hinted at or uttered in the entire thread before you made mention of it. Therefore you could only be hinting at one thing in my mind. It is personal and I do not like that. But I digress.[/quote]

Excuse me? Besides the blatantly obvious attempt to twist the conversation out of a point of relevancy here, I accused nobody of anything, nor did I make any character observations whatsoever. Whatever you gleened out of my comments on this matter were of your own making. Beyond that, I'll let your own words on this matter speak for themselves. If you feel you have problems, so be it.

[quote]In the end in my mind it being a waste has nothing to do with Vorbis, VQF, or even MPC for that matter. It is solely to me an issue of this move being more about politics and less about user benefit or possible benefit from the codec itself. In the end it is not because they are concerned with quality or at least with what I suspect many here would percieve quality as.[/quote]

Do tell, what "in your mind" would be a move that you would not consider as being a "waste"? AOL switching to WMA? Or howabout AOL switching to Vorbis? If you're going to take the time to speak your mind and condemn this move, it might be helpful for you to explain why you have come to this conclusion beyond some vague and superficial rhetoric.

[quote][quote]There are a lot of applications for AAC (both hardware and software) which are becoming very widespread at this point.[/quote]

I will admit that on the software side things are improving. Offerings at this point look well neigh on their way to nearing mediocre in number. It has at least surpased MPC and VQF. But might I ask exactly what hardware you are reffering to besides the currently Mac only iPod and an Iriver portable or two? And in the end it does not even come close to nearing WMA's market penetration and momentum.[/quote]

Mediocre? Umm.. sure, ok. As I'm sure any of the AAC developers here can attest to, AAC applications, in the form of software libraries/tools and hardware implementations in the form of DSP support (encoders/decoders/etc) are becoming quite widespread. Contrary to what you seem to think, this support far surpasses Vorbis (which you left off your list) and WMA. Perhaps you are judging by availability of these things to the end user, but this has never been a purpose of AAC in the first place, and in the end, it is being shown (through the success of Apple's new service and the anticipated success of Ahead's implementations and AOL's implementations) that this matters little in the grand scheme of things as people utilizing these technologies directly make up only a very small fraction of all end users.

[quote][quote]Given that, I'd say this is a rather good move to make on their part if they are serious about really exploiting this type of technology to the maximum potential.[/quote]

If that were the intent I would agree whole heartedly. But I am almost beyond all doubt that their intent is something wholly other. Last time I checked AOL's main customer base was online subscribers. Which of course are draining rather steadily. One might say AOL is hemmoraging users. And MSN is soaking them up. Well Prodigy sure as heck is not. So by licensing AAC and giving away licensed decoders etc exactly how is this going to relate to benefit for AOL's main customer base and stop their exodus to greener pastures? Somehow I don't see AAC saving the company. And as i understand things they don't have that sort of petty cash to put to such use. It does not add up to me.[/quote]

What are you even talking about?

AOL is obviously going to utilize AAC because they think that as a product, it will be a success. They are a commercial entity after all and they are in business to make money. Get over it.

Microsoft is their competitor, sure, so of course they are going to make a move like this if they think that it will benefit them in the long run. To do this, they need to release a product that customers will like. This is not a move to enslave the human race or somehow trick us all into selling our souls to AOL, it is simply business. This is the way things work in the real world when people have to make money and pay the bills.

[quote]AAC may be superior to WMA. Not that it matters to anyone important.(IE not us) The world is not concerned with real quality. They are only concerned with percieved quality.[/quote]

Umm, percieved quality is what psychoacoustic compression (and 90% of the discussions on this board) is all about... heh.

[quote]They ascribe to the belief of brand. Buying 5 dollar shirts at 50+ for the name on the lable. Everyone knows who Microsoft is. How many of them do you think know who the company behind AAC is? Trick question eh? That's just one of AACs many weaknesses.[/quote]

What is the relevance of these statements to the discussion at hand? We are not discussing whether or not AAC is a brand name or people's shopping habits in regards to clothing, we are talking about the technical merit of AAC and AOL's decision to use it.

Following you off-topic tangent though, just for the sake of indulgence, you're rather naive if you believe that majority of end users will care whether or not they are using something called "WMA" from a company named Microsoft, or whether they are using something called "AAC" from a company named AOL. The simple matter is that they won't give a damn as long as their music just works. At this point, AAC has a shot at working in a lot more applications (both hardware and software) in the long run than WMA.

[quote] Personally I like AAC. Not that it is either here nor there or that you knew that.[/quote]

That's nice. Whether or not you like AAC is rather irrelevant to me in this debate.

I don't think this is true in general. In the computer game market in particular, Vorbis is gaining widespread adoption for in-game audio, quickly replacing MP3 as the codec of choice (and as far as I know, no other codecs have gained any widespread adoption). The most high-profile games using Vorbis are probably the Unreal series (Unreal2 and UT2003 so far), but there are dozens of others (Mafia, Praetorians, Operation Flashpoint, etc.). IIRC, at some point Maxis (a division of EA) actually had a developer on the Vorbis mailing list contributing some code to the project as well, who mentioned that the patent fees were indeed the primary reason for their interest in Vorbis (he said that the MP3 license fees were unacceptable, so much so that they'd use uncompressed WAV if they had to rather than pay them).

[quote]Actually no. AAC has no DRM either. Which is part of the reason I see it's chances as so dismal.[/quote]

AAC has already been delivered in two implementations that utilized DRM (Liquid Audio and Apple's setup). DRM is not the problem here, and will have no bearing on AAC's success or failure.

[quote]Especially in light of the hype that Microsoft can spend cash to generate. I remember quite recently Microsoft purchased an hour of prime time air on several cable channels every night for a week for nothing more than an over glorrified interstitial WMA infomercial. It was sick and pathetic. And I know it got across to the people and they liked it. You can do that sort of thing when you have money.[/quote]

What do these off-topic statements have to do with DRM?

[quote]The reason they are not rushing to vorbis is that there is no need for them to plain and simple. It costs them nothing and it will always be there.[/quote]

It may always be there, but that does not mean that it will ever become compelling enough for them to deploy products with. The fact that Vorbis is Open Source and will "always be around" is really pretty irrelevant here. One of the key factors in the adoption of new technology is how advanced it is and how much it outperforms previous alternatives. As it stands, Vorbis, at least in the realm of low bitrate streaming audio, may be close to becoming obsolete unless the development pace picks up. As it stands now, a hacked up version of an outdated, obsolete, and inefficient format can stand toe to toe with it. Chances are that this will not be so with AAC+. The relative lack of developmental force behind Vorbis (given the fact that Monty is really the only mover and shaker so to speak) will likely end up being it's downfall in this regard.

[quote]Unlike WMA and AAC. Of those two there will only be the quick and the dead. WMA the quick. AAC the necrotic dead.[/quote]

Unlike the leniency I have shown for some of your more baseless and trollish posts in the off-topic section of this board (particularly in the war threads that you rendered so useless), I won't tolerate that here. If you're going to be making statements like these, back them up, or don't bother participating at all.

[quote]All the codecs have a niche. Problem is AAC and WMA are slugging it out over the same one. Vorbis's nich is and will always be secure.[/quote]

Yes, Vorbis's niche will likely remain secure, but the problem is that it doesn't matter because it's not the niche that companies like AOL are interested in.

[quote]Why are we talking about Vorbis anyway? It had nothing to do with anything in this thread. Oh wait I remember now. Someone influential provoked it. Wasn't me folks.[/quote]

Of course it wasn't you. Some people prefer to provide points of reference when making claims in a discussion to strengthen their argument and show that their conclusions are derived more from factual observation than unsubstantiated and subjective notions. Vorbis is a natural example for mutiple reasons including the fact that it is a natural alternative, at least technologically, to AAC, and also that, in responding to your statements, it is a format that you have shown repeated support for.

I don't know about you, but I have no problems discussing the available technologies here without resorting to "provokation". This is not a "game" or a "war" here, and despite what you apparently seem to feel (going by past statements), I view this debate as being beneficial in it's own right beyond the scope of simply "winning the argument".

[quote][quote]The industrial war is not a quality war : it's mainly a protection one.[/quote]

To a large extent yes it is. Poor poor AAC.[/quote]

I strongly suggest that if you plan to continue this discussion that you heed my warning above about trolling.

[quote][quote]It's down to AAC or WMA as the new de facto format boys, better pick your sides now...[/quote]

I am not going to pick a side. Personally I like AAC. But if I were a betting many my money would be on WMA all the way. I would be a moron to turn down such easy money. In this codec race I see AACs betting odds at best as a long shot.[/quote]

Perhaps you could elaborate a bit as to why rather than stating an opinion as an obvious fact. Either that or maybe you could move to usenet and start a rec.audio-format-adoption-speculation.opinion group where you could go on all day about how "poor" AAC is and how "obvious" it is that WMA will triumph.

[quote][quote]I don't wan't to start any "holy war" discusson, but IMHO biggest problem with Vorbis is that no big company stays behind it, and patent situation grayed by FUD from one big company a year or so ago.[/quote]

I agree that there is no big brand name company behind it. AAC's problem is that there are to many.[/quote]

This will be pretty much irrelevant to AAC's success because most end-users are not even aware of the technology they are using beyond the provided interface, let alone the company that came up with it. Beyond that, the fact that MP3 has been so successful in a similar context further emphasizes the irrelevancy of this point.

[quote]Oh and to squelch the holy war we should stay off that subject. It was not relivent anyway. Someone who should have known better made mention of it and I see it careening a bit out of control now. :| Proverbial stick in the hornets nest.[/quote]

Umm.. no. I for one will not limit my discussion of various topics because certain people can't seem to handle discussing them in a non-fanatical manner. Rather, these people need to refrain from participating if they cannot control themselves in discussion and conform to given forum conventions and rules.

When discussing a choice of technology by a given company, all possible alternatives are certainly relevant for discussion, especially when using them as a point of reference.

[quote][quote]Furthermore, being an ISO standard means a lot from the patent point of view - no company is allowed to practice weird licensing practices (patent fees must be granted on a fair and reasonable basis to everyone, without limitation of any kind) . Also, this greatly reduces possibility of so-called "submarine" patents, because no company would easily enter in "war" with names like Sony, Nokia, Motorola, Dolby...[/quote]

Normalised licensing is nice and all. But it currently is a bit much.[/quote]

To a smaller company, perhaps. To an end-user, certainly. To a large corporation deploying products of this scale, it's standard fair.

[quote]More than your competitors licensing. And no matter how screwed up Microsoft's licensing practices are I would like to think that enough small companies have offered them selves to Microsoft's chopping block for us to know better. If history has shown us anything it is that cash is the flame and corporations are the moths. You would think they would know better. But it is not in their nature. They are more than willing to dance with the flame and risk getting burned. And if it was in question Microsoft's flame is at least an order of magnatude brighter than anyone else concerned.[/quote]

More off-topic nonsense... Again, what does this have to do with AOL and AAC as a technology choice?

[quote]I like the whole ISO thing. AAC as well. But perhaps I got news for you. There is one company that would easily and actually already has entered into war with names exactly like Sony and Nokia. Do I have to mention Microsoft? It should be redundant by now. No one else would. But they have. And so far they are quite a bit ahead if I am not mistaken. That is part of the problem with AAC. There is no "Microsoft" behind it. I would say something similar to Microsoft behind it but that would be pointless because there is nothing even remotely similar. [/quote]

Microsoft is not the be-all-end-all here. There are quite a few areas in the technology world which they are not in the lead and perhaps never will be. It is quite premature for you to expect that they will wipe the floor with AAC, especially given the companies that are launching products in support of it. AOL is not exactly a small company, and no matter how poorly their internet service may be doing at this point, they are far from being out of the race. Other large companies such as Sony, which will be following suit, are not going to simply rest on their laurels and let Microsoft conquer the media world.

[quote]Things don't bode well for you guys Ivan. But keep fighting the good fight. Better to have fought and lost than never fought at all. I realise I am a downer not holding out any great hope for commercial AAC Ivan. But I am behind it as opposed to WMA.[/quote]

I would have thought that by now you would have realized that HA is not the place for discussions of this nature. If you want to sling blatently unsupported and patronizing opinions around, bandying them about as some sort of enlightened factual information, then do it somewhere else.

How is this untrue? It is a well known fact that Vorbis was originally developed to provide an license free streaming audio alternative. Computer game audio isn't exactly directly related to that application, and it's certainly not the application that AOL is looking at here at all.

Furthermore, compared to the likes of AOL, most game development houses are the "little guy".

Well, yes, I was disagreeing with the claim that companies are not interested in a royalty-free format, and would rather just pay the licensing and be done with it. This may be true for enormous companies on the scale of AOL, but I was pointing out that it's not true for at least some moderately-sized companies. Yes, compared to AOL they're the little guy, but Epic Games is still a moderately-sized company. My point was more that real companies are using Vorbis is commercial applications, so it's not like only open source programmers writing code in their spare time are using it and everyone else is licensing MP3 or AAC.

Which is exactly what I was talking about. I specifically stated, and you quoted, "large corporations". I wasn't discussing the games market, in either scope or application.

As I stated in an earlier post, I think Vorbis has complimentary market (the games market being a very good example), but the one originally being discussed is not it.

WMA itself has very big issues, not related to the quality at all (leave alone the quality, HE AAC wipes the floor with WMA) - but to basic design, when cheap VLSI design is in question. Do you know why? Because it is not developed by experts - I am not going to cite cycle loads for WMA decoders and memory requirements, and then compare them to AAC, even HE AAC - because this is completely out of scope for this discussion, but I must inform you that, from the hardware point of view, AAC is miles ahead of the WMA.

To make simple - WMA is >expensive< for the CE manufacturer (transistor cost, battery load) also, it is closed and proprietary, which will make it stay out of future international media standards, like DVD, etc.

Furthermore, AAC was designed for fields where Microsoft has absolutely no lead position, and probably will never have as long as they do not accept the rules of the standards game - we are using NTSC/PAL/MPEG/AC52 standards in our TV sets, not some proprietary AT&T/Philips/(put whatever company) bullshit, because of standardization.

MPEG-4 with HE AAC and H.264 is the route to go, as long as the state-of-the-art multimedia coding is concerned - like in every industry, proprietery solutions will die eventually and we will enjoy open standards, like that you only need to know the screw type and buy any brand, instead going to your screw vendor because it is "better than competition, and backed by leading screw vendor"

First of all, I have no need to hear or read it anywhere. I own a mac with QuickTime 6 and iTunes 4.0.1 installed. I have compiled mp4creator and FAAC and I can create MP4 files with MPEG-2 AAC or MPEG-4 AAC. If I create an MPEG-2 AAC file, QuickTime and iTunes will refuse to open it. However, if I force the AAC version stored in the MPEG-4 file to MPEG-4 - I hacked mpeg4ip to be able to do this - I will be able play MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 AAC any problems at all. Apple market AAC as part of MPEG-4; everywhere in QuickTime and on their homepage, it is referred to as "MPEG-4 Audio".

Apple's QuickTime 6 Downloads Top 25 Million (and only in the first 100 days). FYI QuickTime 6 includes an AAC decoder, and if you register (ie. pay $20) it includes an AAC encoder too.

You are right when you say that Apple is small when compared to Microsoft, but that does not make them insignificant. All other countries are dwarfed in size by China and India, but does that make them insignificant?

Apple are investing large amounts of money and goodwill in AAC. More than any other company, they know that WMA "winning" the "war" is a major loss for them. Microsoft have been backing WMA and trying to squish out MP3 for years. Have they succeeded? There are many companies backing AAC and some are far larger than Apple (Sony, Philips and AOL have been mentioned, all of which are larger than Microsoft in their own market.) WMA may be slightly better than MP3, but AAC has two advantages over it; first of all is significantly better, and second, it's the obvious successor to MP3. People know MP3, and "This is made by the same companies that made MP3, but it's much better, here for yourself." is something they understand. People know what MPEG, MPG and MP3 is, and so do companies - they will know what MP4 and M4A is too.

and the file extension is .mp4!
even the most stupid nuts will think that .mp4 is the successor of .mp3 and they will love it just because of the name

[quote=Dibrom]
First of all, I never said AAC was MPEG-4.
[/quote]

I did not honestly think you thought it was. And the clarrification was not for your benefit per se.

[quote=Dibrom]
I seperated the two ideas with an "and", which implies that they are seperate.
[/quote]

Rather than separating them "and" to me associates them. But that is me. My point was that AAC has been around in a finalised state forever. In fact I was using and reading about Psytel AAC even several years before Hydrogenaudio was founded.

[quote=Dibrom]
I mention MPEG-4 because that is the vehicle through which most end-users are being exposed to AAC technology at this point.
[/quote]

Fair enough. That I can agree with.

[quote=Dibrom]
Mediocre distance as compared to what? For you to view the progression as being mediocre, you must have some point of reference.
[/quote]

WMA and MP3. Mostly WMA. Heck I would hazzard a guess that more average joes have heard of MP3-Pro than AAC of any varriety.

[quote=Dibrom]
Since you offer no base for your claims (something which is not particularly unusual)
[/quote]

And you do? Puh-lease. Honestly other than the fact that AOL has "licensed" and not switched per se to AAC anything anyone has said at any time in this particular thread is almost completely baseless and rooted solely in oppinion. Mine, yours, anybodys. This is not a particularly factual thread. But it was shaping up into a rather nice organic run of the mill discussion.

[quote=Dibrom]
I'll offer up XXXXXX as an example since I know from your past postings on this forum that this is a codec that you approve of.
[/quote]

Yes and somehow my past postings in this or any forum are going to somehow magically define me as a person. Sorry but it is not the case. I don't take your postings in this forum as the definition of who "you" are. Please do not do so to me. You can take such things as hints to a personality. But be prepared to acknowledge that there "is" more. Granted most of my responses have been in the XXX related or off topic forums. But that does not mean I do not read the others. There is quite a bit of good interesting discussion that goes on all over the board.

[quote=Dibrom]
According to XXXXX, XXXXXX has been in development nearly as long as the what you quoted for AAC.
[/quote]

But what I quoted for AAC was not it's development time. What I was saying about AAC is for that ammount of time the specs were finalised and sitting still doing nothing. Even as XXXXXX took seed and geminated in XXXXXXX mind. It took people like Ivan and Meno to do anything with AAC. For all those long years no corporation would touch AAC or develop their own version with a 10 ft pole. Save a few who were core members of the MPEG consortium and their associates. In fact I dare say that it is due to the excelent work of those like Ivan and Meno than many of us are truly familliar with AAC.

[quote=Dibrom]
However, XXXXXX is not being utilized by Apple, Ahead Software, and now AOL.
[/quote]

Simply put. Incorect. AOL did put time and money forth to investigate XXXXXX. And they did bundle and are still bundling it with one of their flagship products. The one everyone knows outside their ISP biz and AIM. At that point they had licensed XXXXXX and still are. AAC it seems may now join those ranks.

[quote=Dibrom]
Furthermore, for a technology of this scope, there is no other format that is as widespread or gaining acceptance as fast.
[/quote]

Three letters. W-M-A. The hyphens don't count. It has left AAC eating the proverbial dust. I never mentioned XXXXXX. Someone else made that mistake and over estimation of knowledge. Everything I posted was always in response as to AAC's chances against WMA.

[quote=Dibrom]
The fact of the matter is that adoption of new technologies is very slow. This is nothing new and it is not limited to the audio compression field. People still use outdated formats and technologies all the time even when there are better alternatives. Inertia is quite a force to be reckoned with in this world, might as well get used to it.
[/quote]

Agreed. But the fact of the matter is that WMA is ahead in all possible areas save one or two. One of which is quality. AAC wins that. But does it matter to the rest of the world.

[quote=Dibrom]
As for making AAC "mute", again, I ask for some sort of basis for your claims and an alternative that you believe will not suffer this fate.
[/quote]

I have already said it. Please take the time to read it. WMA. In my heart I wish AAC would be the winner. In my head I know WMA will be the winner.

[quote=Dibrom]
Let's look at this time period in context. How long did it take companies to support MP3 on a widespread scale, even though it had been available for quite some time? How long has it taken XXXXXX to come into the public eye (and note, it has not yet even acheived widespread support yet on the scale we are discussing)?
[/quote]

If anything MP3's defacto success should have sped AAC's adoption. It did not. Lets look at this in context. How long did it take companies to support WMA on a wide scale comparred to AAC? WMA was greased lightening out of the gates and it still is. And as to XXXXXXXX support I still think it ahead of AAC in the larger scope of things. Though I will conceed that AAC is chosen by more corporations and XXXXXX is chosen more by users. But I was never discussing XXXXXX.

[quote=Dibrom]
Excuse me? Besides the blatantly obvious attempt to twist the conversation out of a point of relevancy here, I accused nobody of anything, nor did I make any character observations whatsoever. Whatever you gleened out of my comments on this matter were of your own making. Beyond that, I'll let your own words on this matter speak for themselves. If you feel you have problems, so be it.
[/quote]

Blatant attempt to twist the conversation out of relevancey? Perhaps you are mistaken or did not know what you were typing. Your response was to me and only me and you hinted in so many words that you thought I was a XXXXXX-zealot. Not a term of endearment. Perhaps I was mistaken. But I am trying to remain respectful to you.

[quote=Dibrom]
Do tell, what "in your mind" would be a move that you would not consider as being a "waste"? AOL switching to WMA? Or howabout AOL switching to XXXXXX? If you're going to take the time to speak your mind and condemn this move, it might be helpful for you to explain why you have come to this conclusion beyond some vague and superficial rhetoric.
[/quote]

Why do you have a fixation on XXXXXX. Before you mentioned it XXXXXX was never even remotely a part of the discussion. I am even doing my damndest to try to keep mention of it to a minimum by discussing it without mentioning it and might I add mostly for your and everyone elses benefit.

As to what would not have been a waste. Well AOL is in a tough position here. It was more or less AAC or nothing. But I still feel that there were more important things AOL should have been addressing rather than licensing AAC. That is unless they have a sure fire plan ready to go to stem the tide in the ISP wars and pull off an upset.

As to why I do not favor the move or don't find it all that inspiring. I am not going to type it again. I have already mentioned it several times in this thread.

[quote=Dibrom]
Mediocre? Umm.. sure, ok. As I'm sure any of the AAC developers here can attest to, AAC applications, in the form of software libraries/tools and hardware implementations in the form of DSP support (encoders/decoders/etc) are becoming quite widespread.Contrary to what you seem to think, this support far surpasses XXXXXX (which you left off your list) and WMA.
[/quote]

And now I respectfully turn the tables on you. Where are the facts and basis for your statement. Ivan, Meno, please speak up and help the man. The winner is not measured by how many software libraries you have or how many DSP you can run on. If that were the case Linux and BSD would have blown Windows away aeons ago. It comes down to how much they are used. I know I can go out and find a several cheap portables and devices that support WMA. I don't even have to look hard. I see devices that play WMA even when I am not specifically looking for that sort of thing. I really have to hit the pavement and look hard to find anything that supports AAC. And when it does it generally only supports a specific type of AAC and container. In other speak <jerry mcguire>SHOW ME THE MONEY</jerry mcguire> ;P WMA is unfortunatly where it's at.

[quote=Dibrom]
Perhaps you are judging by availability of these things to the end user, but this has never been a purpose of AAC in the first place, and in the end, it is being shown (through the success of Apple's new service and the anticipated success of Ahead's implementations and AOL's implementations) that this matters little in the grand scheme of things as people utilizing these technologies directly make up only a very small fraction of all end users.
[/quote]

In the end avalibility to the end user is what matters most for a commercial codec marketed to end users and in the products end users use. And wait at least one business quarter for apple before you make a blanket statement such as their service being a sucess. It has only just begun. But yes it has seen a decent ammount of interest "so far". But every schmoe and his Windows box can play WMA and encode WMA. And record companies are giving WMAs away on their CDs whereas you have to go out and buy an AAC. Granted I am someone who would pay for better quality. But most people will not.

[quote=Dibrom]
What are you even talking about?
[/quote]

I was respectfully replying to your response.

[quote=Dibrom]
AOL is obviously going to utilize AAC because they think that as a product, it will be a success. They are a commercial entity after all and they are in business to make money. Get over it.
[/quote]

Well they know it is not going to be a complete failure. It is an ISO standard after all. But WMA will be the victor unless things change drastically.

[quote=Dibrom]
Microsoft is their competitor, sure, so of course they are going to make a move like this if they think that it will benefit them in the long run. To do this, they need to release a product that customers will like. This is not a move to enslave the human race or somehow trick us all into selling our souls to AOL, it is simply business. This is the way things work in the real world when people have to make money and pay the bills.
[/quote]

If they are going to release a product their customers like I think it important that they first and fore most fix their ISP service which is their bread and butter before they focus on such frivolus things. Or else in the end it might all be for naught. AOL of late has been falling seriously behind in their main business interest. AAC might attract the interests of people like ourselves. But how many of us actually subscribe to AOL. And would you subscribe to AOL simply because they license AAC.

[quote=Dibrom]
Umm, percieved quality is what psychoacoustic compression (and 90% of the discussions on this board) is all about... heh.
[/quote]

Damn! Now that was a zinger! Hehe. But all jokes aside you know very well what I am talking about here.

[quote=Dibrom]
What is the relevance of these statements to the discussion at hand? We are not discussing whether or not AAC is a brand name or people's shopping habits in regards to clothing, we are talking about the technical merit of AAC and AOL's decision to use it.
[/quote]

The relevence should be readily evident. It was a comparritive metaphore. Not a perfect one mind you. But it is relevant. On AAC's technical merit it has much. And it has people like Ivan and Meno behind it. On AOL's decision to license AAC. Well it is verry advantageous to AAC. But it seems somewhat poorly thought out on AOL's part. Perhaps this is part of a bigger still secret plan to revitalise AOL's service. But untill they come out with it I have a hard time fully accounting for AOL's decision. It seems they might have better spent their money. Perhaps they should license Ivan's implementation. Anyhow Dibrom this has nothing to do with Vorbis. It is my oppinion and I am free to have it. And I have yet for anyone to convincingly show me otherwise. Though you have tried. Lets just leave it at that. We have both had our say and neither is going to convince the other. I really have no desire to fight with you. I know I have flaws. I am overly accepting of Vorbis and what it and related projects stand for. But honestly can you really blame me? It is exciting after all. I also relize I can be overly disapproving of of Microsoft and what they do. But if I am as I so oft see myself steriotypically described shouldn't I be shouting with everyone else and touting AOL's licensing as the victory over WMA and WMA's utter defeat. It is a bitter pill for me to swallow. But I am having a hard time seeing how AAC is going to be sucessful against WMA. I would much preffer AAC after all.

Well, thanks - but I think that AAC has much "bigger" names behing it - basically, all of its parts were designed by experts in those fields. People that designed AAC are the same people that invented perceptual audio compression.


Regarding your fact about AAC specs lying for years - it is just plain untrue. MPEG-2 AAC was standardized in 1997 and in that time digital music distribution was in its infancy - MPEG-4 AAC was standardized in late 1998, and file format in 2000 - And the technology practically took 2 years to become commercial. WMA was there since 1999 - and still has major drawbacks I already pointed out ealrier, while AAC was ported to many cheap DSPs and VLSI cores. This will make AAC a codec of choice for many CE vendors, because latest MP3 cores usually read AAC as well (share a lot of same circuits), save battery life and do not require expensive external memory for VQ tables like WMA and.. hmm.. other "free" solutions.

Mind you that the industry we are speaking about is much bigger than MS, Apple, Sony and others, and many factors will decide which technology will be adopted in majority of devices.

Also, MPEG-4 Audio licensing practices changed a lot when Via Licensing Corp become company in-charge for patent licensing. Old closed MPEG-2 AAC model pushed by Dolby in early AAC times is a past - and now the licensing is as flexible as possible.

Contrary to the MP3, AAC does not have "streaming fee" associated with patent licensing, and also it has much more commercial implementations available than MP3, which means more business/licensing models.

It seems to me that AAC is becoming far more successfull than wma.

Look at hardware devices:
Hardware devices are often based on dsp. There is now quite more dsp able to decode AAC than WMA. Since about 1 year, the number has grown an an significant way.
I year ago, there was perhaps more dsp able to decode wma than aac, but this is not the case anymore.
There are also encoders. I have not seen yet any dsp offering wma encoding, while there are that are offering aac encoding.

AAC is also favored by mp3. MP3 was a huge success (mpeg video also). Considering this success, I think that companies could consider AAC to be more safe than WMA.

I also do not think that it is the work of Ivan and Menno that made AAC what it is today. I respect their work, but a single man is not going to push a format to be mainstream. (Have a look at Musepack or Vorbis). What is pushing a format is the whole industry, and so what is important is the number of licencees.
They are a part of the success of AAC, by a companies are trusting FhG and Dolby far more than Ivan and Menno.

You can also have a look at papers: how many papers are related to wma?

I forget VLSI...
Could anyone point to a wma VLSI? I have personnally never seen any.

Here are some DSP cores with AAC software:

- Analog Devices ADSP (many models, starting from 40 MHz)
- Motorola (many DSP models, starting from 20 MHz!)
- Texas Instruments (many DSP models, starting from 167 MHz)
- Philips TriMedia DSP
- Equator DSPs
- ARM

Basically, all mainstream DSPs for media coding do have AAC support - which is clearly not the case for WMA

ASIC cores from Fraunhofer IIS, Micronas, Sigma, etc...


Encoding software for AAC is available as general-purpose libraries for PC, as fixed-point or floating point software for DSPs and VHDL code for hardware design. Same applies for decoders as well.

Furthermore, AAC is a part of MPEG-4, ISMA (Internet Streaming Media Alliance), 3GPP (3G mobile), DRM (Digital Radio Mondial) and other worldwide standards - all not the case with WMA.

Deal between AOL and M$:

http://news.com.com/2100-1025-1011383.html?tag=nl

http://news.com.com/2100-1032-1011296.html?tag=nl

Could someone direct me to the adult section please, it'd be nice having "ooooooh oooooh aaaaah" sounding transparent for once

As has been said, to the average end user.. mp4 'sounds' like the successor to mp3. I haven't had much trouble convincing people I know that they should try out new codecs, I got people using both AAC (using in_aac) and Vorbis without much complaint, they were nicely surprised how good things sounded.

I think when AAC+ is released and (if) it dominates Vorbis and WMA at low end, with its multi-warhead attack people will get the necessary 'ooomph' drilled into them in order to go and use it. The more big names using AAC in different situations the better.. I think a lot of smaller names will mass up and be talked about more than the single omni(im)potent Microsoft, and that's what I think is needed to get the format super-mainstream

Personally, I hope if AAC gets to critical mass, the wrench-monkeys like Gabriel turn their hands to FAAC and get it 0wning as hard as LAME does, then anyone and everyone has a reason to use the format

Regarding those MPEG-4 open standards... What's an open standard good for, if you get the usage license and complete source code to a "closed standard" for less money (hinting at MS with their WM9)? AFAIK you need to pay license fees to use MPEG-4 legally, and MS underbid those fees not so long ago. You gotta look from the other side too.

[quote][quote]First of all, I never said AAC was MPEG-4.[/quote]

I did not honestly think you thought it was. And the clarrification was not for your benefit per se.[/quote]

Ah, ok. So it was basically a pointless statement. Perhaps you were being facetious again? Or maybe you just like talking in circles to sound as if you have something to say.

[quote][quote]I seperated the two ideas with an "and", which implies that they are seperate.[/quote]

Rather than separating them "and" to me associates them.[/quote]

Yes, it associates two seperate ideas, and association is different than equality.

[quote]My point was that AAC has been around in a finalised state forever. In fact I was using and reading about Psytel AAC even several years before Hydrogenaudio was founded.[/quote]

This is incorrect. AAC has been changing for quite awhile, whether it be through the addition of new tools, the changing of headers, etc. AAC is a continually evolving technology as AAC HE clearly shows.

It has also been gradually picking up more and more support along the way at a pace equal to or faster than the competition when considering the context (length of time these other technologies have been around as well), which you so conveniently forget to mention.

[quote][quote]Mediocre distance as compared to what? For you to view the progression as being mediocre, you must have some point of reference.[/quote]

WMA and MP3. Mostly WMA. Heck I would hazzard a guess that more average joes have heard of MP3-Pro than AAC of any varriety.[/quote]

You need to provide a little more context than this for your examples to be useful. Given the age of MP3, AAC has probably had a faster "ramp up" and propogation so to speak. WMA might have initially seen more adoption in some limited areas like end user hardware support, but given it's closed and proprietery nature there are many areas which AAC is going to be utilized (Ivan gave some examples) where WMA will never be a player. Furthermore, it appears that recently AAC has been gaining momentum at a much greater pace than WMA with all the big companies jumping on board to support the technology.

[quote][quote]Since you offer no base for your claims (something which is not particularly unusual)[/quote]

And you do? Puh-lease.[/quote]

Yes, I provide some context for my statements and at least try to explain my reasoning. This is in contrast to simply giving an opinion, borderline trolling (useless statements serving only to agitate others) and littering my arguments with red herrings, etc.

[quote]Honestly other than the fact that AOL has "licensed" and not switched per se to AAC anything anyone has said at any time in this particular thread is almost completely baseless and rooted solely in oppinion. Mine, yours, anybodys. This is not a particularly factual thread. But it was shaping up into a rather nice organic run of the mill discussion.[/quote]

This is simply false. There have been many arguments made in this discussion of varying types. There is more to the matter than simply "opinion" (and opinion's can be wrong btw). There is quite a bit of merit in striving to provide strong and cogent inductive arguments even if sound and valid deductive arguments are not possible.

[quote][quote]I'll offer up XXXXXX as an example since I know from your past postings on this forum that this is a codec that you approve of.[/quote]

Yes and somehow my past postings in this or any forum are going to somehow magically define me as a person. Sorry but it is not the case. I don't take your postings in this forum as the definition of who "you" are. Please do not do so to me. You can take such things as hints to a personality. But be prepared to acknowledge that there "is" more. Granted most of my responses have been in the XXX related or off topic forums. But that does not mean I do not read the others. There is quite a bit of good interesting discussion that goes on all over the board.[/quote]

And so now we're going to resort to childish censoring of words? Heh... why do you even bother to have a debate at all with this attitude?

To respond to the off-topicness, once again, I did not make a character judgement or say anything about defining you as a person. I don't know why you continue to approach the discussion this way. The fact of the matter is that the things you say in the past do have an affect on how one must interact with you in the future. There is a certain responsibility that must be taken for the thoughts that you have previously laid out for others to see. If you feel that your words do not represent your meanings, then this is a problem that you need to rectify because this is the only data that other people on the forums here have to go on when responding to you.

As for myself, my words represent my thoughts on the matter plain and simple. If I think you have misinterpreted what I meant, I will say so, but I will not disavow what I have said before.

[quote][quote]According to XXXXX, XXXXXX has been in development nearly as long as the what you quoted for AAC.[/quote]

But what I quoted for AAC was not it's development time. What I was saying about AAC is for that ammount of time the specs were finalised and sitting still doing nothing. Even as XXXXXX took seed and geminated in XXXXXXX mind. It took people like Ivan and Meno to do anything with AAC. For all those long years no corporation would touch AAC or develop their own version with a 10 ft pole. Save a few who were core members of the MPEG consortium and their associates. In fact I dare say that it is due to the excelent work of those like Ivan and Meno than many of us are truly familliar with AAC.[/quote]

Once again, the specs have been continuously updated, and companies have been utilizing the various incarnations for quite awhile, just maybe not in some end user downloadable program as raw AAC.

Given that, time from so-called "finalization" of specs to current propogation levels is pretty much irrelevant. What matters is the overall propogation rate and current trends, because once it's all said and done, nobody is going to give a damn about lag time, they are going to care about what is supported and what is growing the fastest. The only situation in which lag time would be a factor is if the technology were not currently being improved, but as we see with AAC HE, this is not a problem at all. In fact, it will allow AAC to once again pull ahead of the rest of the pack as far as low bitrate performance is concerned. Meanwhile, other codecs with less of a supposed lag time will be falling behind and still be lacking in any widespread support or killer app (as far as a large corporation is concerned).

[quote][quote]However, XXXXXX is not being utilized by Apple, Ahead Software, and now AOL.[/quote]

Simply put. Incorect. AOL did put time and money forth to investigate XXXXXX. And they did bundle and are still bundling it with one of their flagship products. The one everyone knows outside their ISP biz and AIM. At that point they had licensed XXXXXX and still are. AAC it seems may now join those ranks.[/quote]

Forgive me for breaking the childish mold momentarily (it's more convenient for me to refer to it as Vorbis than playing along with the censorship game), but this application of Vorbis is not even remotely on the same level as what we are talking about here. The Vorbis implementation in Winamp, while laudable, has nowhere near the visibility of the applications we are discussing otherwise. It is the content that drives adoption of the technology, not the ability to utilize the technology implicitly at the most base level (though if we are not talking about the end user, available applications are critical in facilitating this content), and simply being able to decode Vorbis files does not directly address this problem. It certainly removes a large portion of the entry barrier, but until Vorbis content becomes as widespread to the degree that AAC has/will soon, the point is rather moot.

As it stands now, most end users wanting to use Vorbis will have to fend for themselves as far as learning about the format and its utilities and manually creating their own content. While this may seem rather mundane to the people on this forum, for the vast majority of end users, this is nowhere near user friendly or accessible enough to drive adoption to levels that would offer serious competition.

[quote][quote]Furthermore, for a technology of this scope, there is no other format that is as widespread or gaining acceptance as fast.[/quote]

Three letters. W-M-A. The hyphens don't count. It has left AAC eating the proverbial dust.[/quote]

You keep saying this but you, once again, provide no context for this statement. Exactly how do you figure this?

Hey, guess what, WMA doesn't exist. Why? Because I said so. You weren't aware of this? Oh, well, I dunno what to say, you're just wrong. Seriously. I mean, I know it's hard to except, but you area. Really. I mean, no matter what you say, you just can't show me convincingly that WMA actually exists.

[quote]I never mentioned XXXXXX. Someone else made that mistake and over estimation of knowledge. Everything I posted was always in response as to AAC's chances against WMA.[/quote]

My mention of Vorbis was intentional, as I already explained.

I realize you are trying really hard, especially with this little XXX kick, but I don't think it's winning you any points at this rate.

[quote][quote]The fact of the matter is that adoption of new technologies is very slow. This is nothing new and it is not limited to the audio compression field. People still use outdated formats and technologies all the time even when there are better alternatives. Inertia is quite a force to be reckoned with in this world, might as well get used to it.[/quote]

Agreed. But the fact of the matter is that WMA is ahead in all possible areas save one or two. One of which is quality. AAC wins that. But does it matter to the rest of the world.[/quote]

And what are the others that you so conveniently left out?

I have to ask, do you actually realize the problem in your arguments here, or are you just doing this to be annoying?

Oh, and performance that is orders of magnitudes better does matter, which is why AAC is replacing MP3 in the first place. AAC already outperforms WMA and AAC HE will provide another large improvement. For many applications involving streaming content (which is where most of this stuff is going to be focused around) this will matter quite a bit.

[quote][quote]As for making AAC "mute", again, I ask for some sort of basis for your claims and an alternative that you believe will not suffer this fate.[/quote]

I have already said it. Please take the time to read it. WMA. In my heart I wish AAC would be the winner. In my head I know WMA will be the winner.[/quote]

Actually, no, you still haven't provided any basis. "Wishing in your heart" and "knowing in your head" do not count as any sort of basis here, but so far that's the only type of things you've been providing.

[quote][quote]Let's look at this time period in context. How long did it take companies to support MP3 on a widespread scale, even though it had been available for quite some time? How long has it taken XXXXXX to come into the public eye (and note, it has not yet even acheived widespread support yet on the scale we are discussing)?[/quote]

If anything MP3's defacto success should have sped AAC's adoption. It did not. Lets look at this in context. How long did it take companies to support WMA on a wide scale comparred to AAC? WMA was greased lightening out of the gates and it still is. And as to XXXXXXXX support I still think it ahead of AAC in the larger scope of things. Though I will conceed that AAC is chosen by more corporations and XXXXXX is chosen more by users. But I was never discussing XXXXXX.[/quote]

You speak as if the war is already over, and it's just beginning. MP3's success probably has sped AAC's adoption, which is continuing to grow at an increasing pace. WMA may have seen an initial rapid burst of support from many hardware vendors, but it still has not penetrated many markets at all beyond that of the PC based world and a fraction of the portable/dvd player worlds.

WMA still has no killer app, and large companies do not seem to be adopting it at the pace they are adopting AAC these days.

And as Ivan has said, it has almost no chance of success in many more standard oriented markets which you apparently are overlooking completely.

[quote][quote]Excuse me? Besides the blatantly obvious attempt to twist the conversation out of a point of relevancy here, I accused nobody of anything, nor did I make any character observations whatsoever. Whatever you gleened out of my comments on this matter were of your own making. Beyond that, I'll let your own words on this matter speak for themselves. If you feel you have problems, so be it.[/quote]

Blatant attempt to twist the conversation out of relevancey? Perhaps you are mistaken or did not know what you were typing. Your response was to me and only me and you hinted in so many words that you thought I was a XXXXXX-zealot. Not a term of endearment. Perhaps I was mistaken. But I am trying to remain respectful to you.[/quote]

I knew what I wrote. My responses are geared not only towards you but towards everyone else reading these posts. Unless I address you directly (with a you, that is) then I may not be referring to you at all. If I had wanted to call you a Vorbis zealot, I would have simply done so. My statement was meant to be read by all of the people who might otherwise decide to start the fanaticism and bashing. If you felt that I was referring to you, then I can only speculate that you must have observed some sort of correlation of your own accord. Whatever I think about you in this regard is irrelevant because I have not directly commented on it either way here. Anything beyond that is you simply putting words into my mouth.

[quote][quote]Do tell, what "in your mind" would be a move that you would not consider as being a "waste"? AOL switching to WMA? Or howabout AOL switching to XXXXXX? If you're going to take the time to speak your mind and condemn this move, it might be helpful for you to explain why you have come to this conclusion beyond some vague and superficial rhetoric.[/quote]

Why do you have a fixation on XXXXXX. Before you mentioned it XXXXXX was never even remotely a part of the discussion. I am even doing my damndest to try to keep mention of it to a minimum by discussing it without mentioning it and might I add mostly for your and everyone elses benefit.[/quote]

I don't. I'd say that your statement on this matter, along with your childish censorship of the word Vorbis here is rather a reflection of your own fixation on the matter. I can only guess what your thoughts are here or what you are trying to do with this.

If you have to struggle in the discussion here because of some warped principle you are trying to uphold, or if you believe that this will help you "win" the argument (an empty goal really), then something is very wrong. Perhaps you should reevalute what you are trying to accomplish.

[quote]As to what would not have been a waste. Well AOL is in a tough position here. It was more or less AAC or nothing. But I still feel that there were more important things AOL should have been addressing rather than licensing AAC. That is unless they have a sure fire plan ready to go to stem the tide in the ISP wars and pull off an upset.

As to why I do not favor the move or don't find it all that inspiring. I am not going to type it again. I have already mentioned it several times in this thread.[/quote]

In all of that, do you realize that you didn't answer the question at all? You didn't tell me what wouldn't have been a "waste". I guess we're backpeddling at this point.

[quote][quote]Mediocre? Umm.. sure, ok. As I'm sure any of the AAC developers here can attest to, AAC applications, in the form of software libraries/tools and hardware implementations in the form of DSP support (encoders/decoders/etc) are becoming quite widespread.Contrary to what you seem to think, this support far surpasses XXXXXX (which you left off your list) and WMA.[/quote]

And now I respectfully turn the tables on you.[/quote]

LOL... right, I forgot that this is what the debate is really about.

[quote]Where are the facts and basis for your statement.[/quote]

There are plenty of examples given in this thread already. In your haste, you must have missed them. Perhaps you could give examples now off some of the widespread applications for WMA?

[quote]The winner is not measured by how many software libraries you have or how many DSP you can run on. If that were the case Linux and BSD would have blown Windows away aeons ago.[/quote]

The key is available applications, be it hardware or software. Comparing the situation to Windows vs Linux is a very poor analogy. To help correct your analogy, the problem with the OS situation is that Linux doesn't have the applications (not literal applications per se, but functionality more so) that are often needed that Windows has traditionally provided.

With WMA vs AAC, the situation is that AAC provides many application (functionality) that WMA doesn't and probably never will.

[quote]It comes down to how much they are used. I know I can go out and find a several cheap portables and devices that support WMA.[/quote]

There's a lot more to winning the media wars than simply having portable support. Only considering this one aspect is a bit short sighted.

AAC will likely win out over WMA because of widespread applications on all fronts, such as streaming media servers, integration into many non-PC based end user products (game consoles, cell phones, etc), widespread support in all sorts of media equipment (broadcasting, etc). Many of these things are not going to be happen with WMA simply because of it's proprietery nature. Microsoft has almost no presence in a lot of these areas at all. They may form a niche in the PC based market, but is only part of the equation.

[quote]I don't even have to look hard. I see devices that play WMA even when I am not specifically looking for that sort of thing. I really have to hit the pavement and look hard to find anything that supports AAC. And when it does it generally only supports a specific type of AAC and container. In other speak <jerry mcguire>SHOW ME THE MONEY</jerry mcguire> ;P WMA is unfortunatly where it's at.[/quote]

And yet, beyond a very superficial level of penetration into a small group of products, WMA is still not very widely supported or recognized. There is still no killer app regarding WMA content either, and this is what will matter the most.

Ok, here are some "open standards" which are heavily patented (some of which are now free because patents expired):

CD media, DVD media, GSM, G.711, G.722, G.729(.a), G.723, MPEG-1/2/4, 3GPP...

While you speak on your telephone, you are utilizing damn lot of "open standards" which are also patented in some way While you watch your cable TV - also you are utilizing a lot of "open standards" and your provider is paying appropriate patent fees

Now, why does it matter? Because of interoperability and open market - It is very important that international body controls something which is of worldwide benefit, like international telephone standard, or a video compression used in international TV broadcasts, etc.. If you leave that to one company, you are getting into danger of complete market control which is against all common-sense practices in modern world.

It is not just a short-term patent fee loss or gain, it is a long-term care that market do not become hostage of single corporation, no matter what the corporation name is.

Take the "i can make a smarter counter-counter-counter-counter-counter-argument" somewhere I'm not interested in reading

Seriously, maybe split the thread? Nekko & Dibrom have 'gone off on one' it seems...

thx mac.

i was just reading thru this thread and this "i know better than u, no i do, no i do, no i do" really made it annoying., because both are not backing up with facts (count phrases similar to: "as one can see", "it seems..." in both postings)
(@Dibrom/Neo Neko: read Schulz von Thun. i guess it´s about that)

hope i won´t get banned for that

well I think the most important things with aac aren't patent issues. it will be hardware compatibilitiy. and here I like the idea of the MPEG ISO standardization.

AAC (as often referred to MP4) will be the next thing as the Fraunhoffer ISO successor of MP3. there are big companies already on board (as dolby and sony and apple) that guarantee coming hardware support.

I think we all should look forward to a new standard. new codecs every day (MPC, vorbis, vqf, wma, mp3pro...) with only a few few supporters will split the hardware market as well. I will stick to mp3 until a new (and of course better) standard codec will win. then I will buy a hardware devices that supports both MP3 and AAC (the probable winner of the codec race, of course labelled as MP4, you will see). and everything without transcoding...

The problem with MP4 is the support by the users. Means free decoders/plugins for all sort of applications and available AAC encoders. Right now I'm still using Psytel, even though I can make MP4 files, I'm doing it illegally. Same goes for decoding/listening to the stuff, by using a FAAD2 binary. I do not pay licenses to en-/decode stuff. If they would at least introduce licensing terms that would allow to freely use at least the decoder for no-cost on freeware applications, they might get a boost.

Great, although I don't remember seeing you at vqf.com/bbs years ago discussing about Psytel..

I can't say I "know" MPEG AAC will win over WMA, I'm just quite convinced that it will happen. We should check this message again after a year or so. Then we'll see in which direction things went and who is right..
My guess is that MPEG AAC will gain further grounds, faster than WMA. Imo all the signs show that. I also see the wide acceptance of MPEG4 video pushing also MPEG AAC audio..

Microsoft is just not the whole industry, infact many strong industry alliances exist thanks to Microsoft's opposing power. I see MPEG media as clearly stronger "media brand" in general in the media business than Windows Media. MPEG AAC and MPEG4 in general are skyrocketing in popularity right now. The rest of the industry and even a considerable percentige of users aren't so keen about Microsoft's media technology. I talked to few casual users, and their impression about windows media is very causious, they remember reading horror stories about MS getting control and deleting their mp3 collections, their experience about absolutely horror sound quality of wma tracks in copy protected CDs which further increases the negative impressions towards Microsoft because everybody hates both copy protected CDs and 48kbps WMA "CD"-tracks.

If anything is going to replace mp3, I'm 90% sure it's MPEG AAC, not WMA.

[quote=Mac]
Take the "i can make a smarter counter-counter-counter-counter-counter-argument" somewhere I'm not interested in reading

Seriously, maybe split the thread? Neko & Dibrom have 'gone off on one' it seems...
[/quote]

You know honestly I agree Mac. Unfortunatly now we probably will both get a severe repremand. This was not my intent and Dibrom has done quite alot to lead to this tangent. But I also let it get here. And for that I am sorry. I am not gonna play with him any more on this. I had a good long post already typed up several pages worth ready to go to retort him. But I stepped out for a few hours before posting it and had time to cool down. And I have decided to delete it and go with this instead.

[quote=caiman]
thx mac.

i was just reading thru this thread and this "i know better than u, no i do, no i do, no i do" really made it annoying., because both are not backing up with facts (count phrases similar to: "as one can see", "it seems..." in both postings)
(@Dibrom/Neo Neko: read Schulz von Thun. i guess it´s about that)

hope i won´t get banned for that
[/quote]

You know I called Dibrom on that as well. I said that in so many words that neither of us were backed with facts. But he assured me that somewhere I can't see in this thread he is backing up his oppinions with facts. I know alot of it is oppinion and views on my side. Sorry for indulging myself and troll feeding. I thought differing views would be tollerated. That is part of what leads to discussion. And I will say that I have learned a few things from this discussion about AAC by excelent responses from those besides Dibrom. Unfortunatly when titans of words clash all the short sweet simple posts get trampled. Sorry.

[quote=Tripwire]
The problem with MP4 is the support by the users. Means free decoders/plugins for all sort of applications and available AAC encoders. Right now I'm still using Psytel, even though I can make MP4 files, I'm doing it illegally. Same goes for decoding/listening to the stuff, by using a FAAD2 binary. I do not pay licenses to en-/decode stuff. If they would at least introduce licensing terms that would allow to freely use at least the decoder for no-cost on freeware applications, they might get a boost.
[/quote]

Well you will be able to rip and encode legally with applications like Quicktime Pro. Perhaps Ivan can help me here. He said the licensing has changed. But to my knowledge AAC licensing still precludes applications such as freeware. I am a bit more versed on the MPEG4 video side though and if I understand correctly JVT or h.264 simple profile will be license free for use in such aplications. There are already some groups looking at GPL h.264 encoder/decoder projects which will be able to legally distribute binaries unlike Xvid.

[quote=JohnV]
Great, although I don't remember seeing you at vqf.com/bbs years ago discussing about Psytel..
[/quote]

No John. You never would have. I did most definatly read there. But not once did I ever post there(Even if I had I would have been using a different moniker back then). Same for r3mix.

[quote=JohnV]
I can't say I "know" MPEG AAC will win over WMA, I'm just quite convinced that it will happen. We should check this message again after a year or so. Then we'll see in which direction things went and who is right..
[/quote]

Honestly I hope you are right. I just have some serious niggling doubts in my mind. My problem entirely I suppose.

[quote=JohnV]
Microsoft is just not the whole industry, infact many strong industry alliances exist thanks to Microsoft's opposing power. I see MPEG media as clearly stronger "media brand" in general in the media business than Windows Media.
[/quote]

Yes many strong aliances exist solely to thwart Microsoft. But I do not see MPEG as a clearly stronger "media brand". MPEG got to where it is by at the time being the defacto standard. Times have changed and there are considerably more players positioning for a piece of the pie. Microsoft, MPEG, On2, and even Xiphophorus to an extent. Of all of those Microsoft and MPEG are in a league of their own. In the media industry where defective copy protected CDs are employed often times they provide a data track with crappy 64Kbps DRM protected WMA versions of the tracks. Not AACs or MP4s. Microsoft is even releasing high definition DVDs utilising WM9 such as the recent Terminator II special eddition IIRC. Granted you wont find it at walmart. They only carry the regular DVD version. But it does exist. And Microsoft is campaigning with what I would call better than moddest success to have their technology used for the next generation of DVD. MPEGs place is not so secure in my eyes. There is much to be addressed. But hopefully that will come to pass.

[quote=Ivan Dimkovic]
Now, why does it matter? Because of interoperability and open market - It is very important that international body controls something which is of worldwide benefit, like international telephone standard, or a video compression used in international TV broadcasts, etc.. If you leave that to one company, you are getting into danger of complete market control which is against all common-sense practices in modern world.
[/quote]

Ivan I agree that interoperability and open market are ideals that should be upheld. But my country at least has already failed to do so. Specifically in the case of Microsoft. Which is what is responsible for quite alot of my pessimism. I understand similar dileberations are happening still in europe. I honestly do not know what they will be able to do. I just hope they don't drop the ball like the US did. In the US many things were left to one company and now we are in danger of them having near complete control in many markets. Common sense or not something got screwed up somewhere. And I have often found myself what I considder common sense is often rare, special, or privelaged knowledge.

[quote=Ivan Dimkovic]
Here are some DSP cores with AAC software:

- Analog Devices ADSP (many models, starting from 40 MHz)
- Motorola (many DSP models, starting from 20 MHz!)
- Texas Instruments (many DSP models, starting from 167 MHz)
- Philips TriMedia DSP
- Equator DSPs
- ARM

Basically, all mainstream DSPs for media coding do have AAC support - which is clearly not the case for WMA
[/quote]

That's nice Ivan. But as I said. It is not the one with the most DSPs at the end of the day who is the winner. I know places I can go and find a great selection of devices that support MP3 and WMA. But where should I shop to find places that have devices that support AAC out of the box? When I can find AAC devices like that. In places that I shop every day. I will be much more enthusiastic about AACs chances. AAC needs to get out there with the people and make itself known. Perhaps AOL might help with that. We will have to wait and see.

[quote=Ivan Dimkovic]
Encoding software for AAC is available as general-purpose libraries for PC, as fixed-point or floating point software for DSPs and VHDL code for hardware design. Same applies for decoders as well.
[/quote]

Microsoft has that in spades as well Ivan. In fact they are often willing to pay companies to develop support for their products. I know we will not see that from the MPEG side. But they should be better than that after all. Right?

[quote=Ivan Dimkovic]
Furthermore, AAC is a part of MPEG-4, ISMA (Internet Streaming Media Alliance), 3GPP (3G mobile), DRM (Digital Radio Mondial) and other worldwide standards - all not the case with WMA.
[/quote]

Standards are nice. I like standards. But standards, open standards even are not as secure as I think you make them sound. Ivan to me you seem like a man who eats, sleeps, and breathes MPEG. And on MPEG I have and will continue to hold your words with esteem and reverence. But all of us at times are to close to some topics to make excelent comparrisons. Talking to you for me is alot like talking to Amir Majidimehr. In some ways you guys are alike and even say the same stuff about the opposite things. I am just inbetween trying to find the middle ground. Aaaah feh perhaps I have been listening to Amir Majidimehr to much.

[quote=danchr]
Apple market AAC as part of MPEG-4; everywhere in QuickTime and on their homepage, it is referred to as "MPEG-4 Audio".
[/quote]

Upon further inspection on that you are correct.

[quote=danchr]
Apple's QuickTime 6 Downloads Top 25 Million (and only in the first 100 days). FYI QuickTime 6 includes an AAC decoder, and if you register (ie. pay $20) it includes an AAC encoder too.
[/quote]

What would be interesting to know is if the download stats have been sustainable to any extent. Also correct me if I am wrong. But the initial release of Quicktime 6 did include an MPEG4 video codec. But it did not include AAC of any sort. Or at least it did not show as an encoding option. It does however show now.

[quote=danchr]
Apple are investing large amounts of money and goodwill in AAC. More than any other company, they know that WMA "winning" the "war" is a major loss for them. Microsoft have been backing WMA and trying to squish out MP3 for years. Have they succeeded?
[/quote]

Not completely. But they have made great headway. If any format is close to replacing MP3 today it is WMA.

[quote=danchr]
There are many companies backing AAC and some are far larger than Apple (Sony, Philips and AOL have been mentioned, all of which are larger than Microsoft in their own market.)
[/quote]

But not as large as or in as many markets as Microsoft.

[quote=danchr]
WMA may be slightly better than MP3, but AAC has two advantages over it; first of all is significantly better, and second, it's the obvious successor to MP3.
[/quote]

Cmon. I am sure you and I both like to pick on Microsoft. But lets be serious. WMA is not only slightly better than MP3. It is quite a bit better than MP3. And as far as AAC being the obvious successor to MP3 well that has yet to me shown. Just because something is *.MP4 does not mean AAC is inside. And just because it is AAC does not mean it is in an MP4. They are not synonimous. But then again they are not mutually exclusive.

[quote=danchr]
People know MP3, and "This is made by the same companies that made MP3
[/quote]

Not exactly. There are some different companies involved. Not that the average MP3 enthusiast spent much time thinking who is behind it. Or that it is better. Things like that do not naturally occur to them.

[quote=danchr]
they will know what MP4 and M4A is too.
[/quote]

Really? I know alot of them who are struggling to comprehend MP1, MP2, MP3, M2V, M2A, M1A, M1V. Especially MP2. Is it MPEG 1 layer 2 or is it MPEG 2. If so what layer. It is a sure fire way to confuse the hell out of an average person. And what is the real difference between them. Mainly the codecs used on the streams inside. The containers are exactly the same to the largest extent. Not so with MPEG4. It is a big abstraction and confusion to the lay man. Not an obvious association I think.

@Dibrom
I really have to agree with everyone else here. Our discourse. Yes yours as well were largely childish. <Inflamitory remark removed> I will choose to be the bigger man here and cut it short. I had a big point by point rebuttle prepared for your last several replies. I am sure you would have loved to rebuke them on a point by point basis without giving them propper considderation or actually addressing them. I guess I did it to. Point is I was not kidding when I said I was not looking to start a fight with you. I am not going to take back anything I said. And I don't expect you to either. But I will say just this much more. By even mentioning Vorbis or zealotry in passing you practically forced it on the discussion. Severely derailing the thread. I am sorry to say I helped you. But before that ill plotted post it was not a part of the thread. And had you not made that post this thread would not be awash in off topic text. Again to everyone else I am sorry. In all likelyhood if people had a real problem with what I said they would have ignored it and that would be that. Because I am not here to troll. I am not going around to other AAC threads posting such stuff just to post such stuff. Actually I was making a point of not doing so. Because I knew some of the people here and even some of your modderators would respond in just this fasshion. I am just extremely dissapointed it was you. I knew all along where your obvious bias and uncalled for attitude was coming from. You did not have to mention it but you did. I did gather alot of information to back myself. But by that time the thread was by and large dead and falling pages and pages behind in forum history. And I thought it would probably be best to leave it there. For the greater good of the forum. On the topic of trolling. On the forums I modderate we have 1 rule that never changes from forum to forum. Don't feed the trolls. If I am or was a border line troll you not only fed me but you provoked me. And then I suppose we fed off eachother in a virtual circular troll fest. So again both of us are to blame. We both should know better. JohnV and myself got into something similar though I don't think to this depth. But I'd like to think we resolved it and have both come to understand eachother better. I am quite certain we don't hold any animosity towards eachother. If you wish to reply cincerely please do so. But I'll tell you now I am not going to continue things as they have been.


Oh before I forget. Ivan if you have a bit more info on that Vorbis pattent problem you mentioned I would sorely like to see it. This is a personal request only if you have the time and has nothing to do with the thread. Oh BTW do you know where I can find information about MP4 and AAC DRM? Again if it is handy for you. I know you are busy.