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BZ · May 14, 2002, 07:55 AM

Looks like QuickTime 6.0 will be able to play AAC (new compressed music format that is 30% smaller and better quality than MP3).

When do you think Apple will update iTunes and the iPod to rip/play the new format? I personally, am looking forward to it and would re-rip my entire CD collection.

BZ

BZ · May 14, 2002, 08:07 AM

I found this article, which is basically right on target.

http://www.ipoding.com/modules.php?o...le&sid=208

Northform · May 16, 2002, 10:34 PM

They may never update iTunes/iPod to support AAC. Royalty rates might be too high.

Someone will come along and say that they have already put it in QuickTime so obviously they aren't too high so I'll address it now. Apple makes money off of Quicktime, but not iTunes. More relevant is that QuickTime doesn't need to encode AAC, but merely decode it. Many times royalties are higher for encoders than decoderd. This allows a company (in this case Dolby) to offer a product cheaply to consumers, but still make a bundle of cash from those creating/encoding the content (In this case you would like Apple to foot that bill for you - nothing wrong with that; Apple already does it for MP3). That isn't to say that the rates are high or that even if they were high Apple wouldn't pay for it.

I'm more interested in iTunes supporting Ogg Vorbis. Ogg Vorbis is a free format (no royalties - even though MP3 may be free to you someone has to pay for your use. With iTunes it's Apple, but many people use one of the opensource encoders which are illegal - they infringe on patents and if you download one and use it you are supposed to pay a royalty fee which no one does. They don't go after individuals - too costly for minimal gain - but it is technically stealing). Ogg Vorbis is supposed to have superior sound than MP3 and the format is such that current decoders will be able to decode all future upgraded files (they are making the format better without breaking compatability rather than letting it get stale).

One thing you could hope for would be a third party developer to create a plugin for iTunes (probably wouldn't be free).

There is no technical reason that the iPod can't play AAC so that can be a relief to anyone who purchased one. It will have the capabilities (with its dual ARM based processors) to decode many future formats if Apple adds support for them. Oh, and its hard drive makes updating decoders easy.

Hopefully it will be soon, but it may be never. I hope this helped. (Hey, maybe it will be in the final release of Jaguar).

BZ · May 19, 2002, 10:25 AM

I thought AAC was not done by Dolby. I thought Dolby did ACC (which is the 5.1 surround sound encoding). Not sure why they would not put it in iTunes, as it is clearly the future in terms of size/quality.

BZ

Originally posted by Northform:
<STRONG>They may never update iTunes/iPod to support AAC. Royalty rates might be too high.

Someone will come along and say that they have already put it in QuickTime so obviously they aren't too high so I'll address it now. Apple makes money off of Quicktime, but not iTunes. More relevant is that QuickTime doesn't need to encode AAC, but merely decode it. Many times royalties are higher for encoders than decoderd. This allows a company (in this case Dolby) to offer a product cheaply to consumers, but still make a bundle of cash from those creating/encoding the content (In this case you would like Apple to foot that bill for you - nothing wrong with that; Apple already does it for MP3). That isn't to say that the rates are high or that even if they were high Apple wouldn't pay for it.

I'm more interested in iTunes supporting Ogg Vorbis. Ogg Vorbis is a free format (no royalties - even though MP3 may be free to you someone has to pay for your use. With iTunes it's Apple, but many people use one of the opensource encoders which are illegal - they infringe on patents and if you download one and use it you are supposed to pay a royalty fee which no one does. They don't go after individuals - too costly for minimal gain - but it is technically stealing). Ogg Vorbis is supposed to have superior sound than MP3 and the format is such that current decoders will be able to decode all future upgraded files (they are making the format better without breaking compatability rather than letting it get stale).

One thing you could hope for would be a third party developer to create a plugin for iTunes (probably wouldn't be free).

There is no technical reason that the iPod can't play AAC so that can be a relief to anyone who purchased one. It will have the capabilities (with its dual ARM based processors) to decode many future formats if Apple adds support for them. Oh, and its hard drive makes updating decoders easy.

Hopefully it will be soon, but it may be never. I hope this helped. (Hey, maybe it will be in the final release of Jaguar).</STRONG>

Carl Norum · May 19, 2002, 08:26 PM

As far as I know, AAC is part of the MPEG-2 specification.

Northform · May 22, 2002, 11:01 PM

Originally posted by BZ:
<STRONG>I thought AAC was not done by Dolby. I thought Dolby did ACC (which is the 5.1 surround sound encoding). Not sure why they would not put it in iTunes, as it is clearly the future in terms of size/quality.

BZ

</STRONG>

Now that you say it I might have screwed that up (damn letters). Either way my comments are still relevant since the royalties may be too high for Apple to include it in the iPod/iTunes right now (no matter who's collecting them). There is also limited demand (from what I've seen) for this new format. Maybe you should start a petition about it. You should check out one of the free Ogg Vorbis encoders out there as well. It has no royalties so Apple's inclusion of that format would simply be customer demand.