"Clear" AAC tunes
In light of the itunes/EMI deal, lots of folks are asking if Zune supports clear AAC tracks. The answer is yes - today's Zune software and device both already support AAC tracks, including those that iTunes will presumably be selling.
I think it's interesting they chose to do AAC instead of mp3 files. I suspect Apple's systems were probably just not set up to "sell" mp3 files - for now.
39 Comments:
"I think it's interesting they chose to do AAC instead of mp3 files. I suspect Apple's systems were probably just not set up to "sell" mp3 files - for now. "
That's an absurd and stupid theory. The reason is that AAC is superior to mp3 and everyone should have been migrating to it years ago.
It's hilarious that this deal, between Apple and EMI, does more to promote the Zune than you guys have done in 4 months. (Of course, I now expect that Samsung, Creative, and Toshiba will get off their butts and support AAC across their product lines, eliminating the slight advantage that the Zune currently has (The Rhapsody Sansa does alreadysupport AAC, as well as most music playing phones and PDAs.)
Some bloggers are stating that this move will kill off wma as an audio format. Their logic is that no store is going to sell non-DRM'd tracks in wma format and lose out on potential sales from the huge iPod installed base, thus resulting in most stores using either MP3 or AAC for their non-DRM'd content. Given that both MP3 and AAC are non-proprietary standards, this seems a logical argument.
Dave, does that seem a likely scenario to you?
I think it's interesting they chose to do AAC instead of mp3 files. I suspect Apple's systems were probably just not set up to "sell" mp3 files - for now.
Apple uses AAC because it is superior to mp3, and more flexible.
Wikipedia
"The reason is that AAC is superior to mp3 and everyone should have been migrating to it years ago."
Both WMA and AAC are arguably superior to MP3, but neither are anywhere near as broadly supported. MP3 is the defacto clear audio standard.
"Given that both MP3 and AAC are non-proprietary standards, this seems a logical argument."
Neither MP3 and AAC are "non-proprietary". Using either requires licensing through the patent pool of the respective technologies. WMA has licensing terms as well, which I believe might actually be simpler.
@Dave: iTunes wouldn't have much of a problem distributing MP3s. I suspect that they are sticking to AAC because the files are smaller (lower bandwidth costs) and as a gentle format play, silly as that may be at this stage in the game.
"Both WMA and AAC are arguably superior to MP3, but neither are anywhere near as broadly supported. MP3 is the defacto clear audio standard."
So what? It's not Apple's job to help everyone else. It's not Apple's job to placate those who are unwilling to progress. There was a time when wireless and USB and gigabit ethernet were not widely supported. It's time for the rest of the industry to wake up and hop aboard a train that started chugging away 5 years ago.
I cannot think of a single file format that hasn't undergone an upgrade. mp3 is 16 years old. It's time for the rest of the industry to move up to its successor.
They chose AAC because because it's the primary format Apple wants to support. Good, because Apple's MP3 encoder still sucks compared to LAME. Since AAC/M4A support is less common, they still have a little bit of lock-in, too.
Sorry. MP3 is not dead or obsolete and will continue to be the universal format. (Even LAME continues to be improved.) Testing confirms that AAC is not "clearly" better, especially at higher bitrates like 256Kbps.
"Play on anything" MP3 is far more flexible than AAC and will continue to be so.
Purchased audio content should never be DRM controlled if it's burnable to Audio CD. Hopefully more and more labels will realize how stupid it is.
DRM should only be used for Subscription style services.
What I'm interested in is the bit where EMI mentioned that they were making this DRM-free content available to *all* retailers of their digital catalog, not just iTunes.
This means potentially we could (we should?) see this same "feature" on the Zune Marketplace, probably in WMA I'm guessing.
MP3 will stay the defacto standard for a long time mostly because it's still vender independent. You mention AAC and everyone thinks Apple while WMA means Microsoft. This in turn invites all sorts of fanboys or political-style debates, people arguing for one format over the other simply based on vendor vs. merit.
The vendor neutral formats like Ogg or FLAC are good options but they're still too much on the fringe for the mainstream and device support is spotty at best. Plus, with the recent MP3 format debacle companies are probably a little scared to support a codec that may come back and bite them with licensing issues.
MP3 is still the best format for those people that are vendor agnostic. Every device out there plays MP3 and your average consumer can't tell the difference between AAC, MP3 or WMA in terms of sound quality.
That being said, it obviously makes sense for iTunes to offer everything in AAC, they have no reason to change. The only benifit they might get from switching to MP3 would be to attract non-iPod owners and personally I see people that are willing to install iTunes yet don't own an iPod as a small segment.
Wow, comments! Thoughts:
@ a bunch of folks. To do mp3, Apple would have had to transcode their entire collection to mp3. As it is, they just flip some backend switches. You're right AAC offers better sound quality, but the interop advantages of mp3 outweigh in most consumers' minds. Just look at the format of choice on p2p sites.
@anonymous. I agree that clear aac/mp3 is a challenge to wma for clear music. But then again, clear mp3 already dominates in users' collections, so it's not that great a loss.
As a general POV, I think mp3 delivers the best balance of compression and interoperability/flexibility of the various formats. WMA offers better sound quality and compatibility with the most SKUs of devices, except (ahem) iPods, which make up 75% of all the UNITs, so I'd have to concede that one.
fwiw, I'm not all that wedded to WMA and frankly I doubt Apple is all that wedded to AAC (given that they don't own it). From their POV, I think the important thing is to not see wma succeed - beyond that aac, mp3, whatever.
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David, I'd be curious if you had anticipated such moves by the industry towards DRM free content. If so, do you feel your business model is still intact?
Im interested in whether Microsoft will sell the DRM free content as WMA files or MP3s. While the attention is on Apple, Microsoft have to play a strong hand here. IMO, WMA is dead. Completely dead for a la carte music. This move makes that even more so.
ALL of the other online stores will now sell AAC or MP3 files so that they can say their tracks will work on iPods. Plays4Sure for a la Carte music will die too, because none of those tracks will work on an iPod.
Im extremely interested to see where Microsoft go with this. While a lot of credit must go to EMI, Apple has made an absurdly strong move.
While MP3 definitely offers better interoperability for the consumer, that's not Apple's concern. (I personally encode everything as MP3 for long-term compatibility, even though I am an iPod/iTunes user)
AAC is a format available to everyone. There are licensing fees, of course, but that applies to *every* format. No longer can anyone (such as the EU) argue that iTunes is a closed system. At least when it comes to these EMI tracks.
Yes, MP3 files will play on more devices than AAC files. But from Apple's point of view, they are all second-class devices — knock off music players and crappy phones that don't have a lowercase "i" in front of their names.
Steve Jobs didn't hate DRM because his iTunes music couldn't play on non-Apple devices. (That's why consumers and the EU hate DRM.) Jobs hates DRM on philosophical grounds. Reread his "Thoughts on Music."
I imagine that Steve Jobs would have preferred offering the tracks for the same 99¢, and at the same 128K encoding. But EMI needed some kind of concession, so Jobs let them charge an extra 30¢ per track (with no increase in album prices), and encoded the music at a higher quality (256K) to give the consumer a little something for their money.
So if EMI were to lose 30% of their online sales directly due to DRM-free piracy (unlikely, since those tracks are *already* available DRM-free on CDs), they'd still make the same profits.
Now just sit back and watch to see how the iTunes consumers (and other music stores as they bring DRM-free music online) vote with their wallets.
BJ Nemeth - actually, Apple and the labels had already just renegotiated their deals to sell at 99cents with DRM. This couldnt be changed. Note that Thoughts on Music came out just after the renegotiations.
We now have a situation where EMI will reap the benefits of that extra 30 cents for a much better audio file. It really puts the ball in the other companies court.
Smart smart moves by Apple. Incredibly smart.
"@ a bunch of folks. To do mp3, Apple would have had to transcode their entire collection to mp3. As it is, they just flip some backend switches. You're right AAC offers better sound quality, but the interop advantages of mp3 outweigh in most consumers' minds. Just look at the format of choice on p2p sites."
WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!! David is either making stuff up or completely misinformed.
Firstly, the new non-DRMed files are 256 kbps, not 256 kbps, requiring them to be reencoded.
Secondly, Apple does not do the encoding, the studios do. It requires zero work from Apple. EMI will be doing it.
Thirdly, initially, you speculated that this was because "Apple's systems were probably just not set up to "sell" mp3 files - for now" which is a strange and unsupported theory, but you concede that "AAC offers better sound quality."
Delete this if you like. It will be reposted and reposted and reposted due to its lack of "abusive"-ness.
"@ a bunch of folks. To do mp3, Apple would have had to transcode their entire collection to mp3. As it is, they just flip some backend switches. You're right AAC offers better sound quality, but the interop advantages of mp3 outweigh in most consumers' minds. Just look at the format of choice on p2p sites."
WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!! David is either making stuff up or completely misinformed.
Firstly, the new non-DRMed files are 256 kbps, not 256 kbps, requiring them to be reencoded.
Secondly, Apple does not do the encoding, the studios do. It requires zero work from Apple. EMI will be doing it.
Thirdly, initially, you speculated that this was because "Apple's systems were probably just not set up to "sell" mp3 files - for now" which is a strange and unsupported theory, but you concede that "AAC offers better sound quality."
Delete this if you like. It will be reposted and reposted and reposted due to its lack of "abusive"-ness.
@johncz. Yes, this was very predictable from where I sit. VERY. It doesn't really impact our biz model, and opens up interesting opportunities.
I'm pretty agnostic about whether everyone should sell clear mp3 and aac, or wma files. Zune devices support all of those standards.
anonymous, actually David is right. Apple only accepts CD music content in Apple Lossless. Music publishers upload the lossless content to Apple. Apple then encodes the audio content to DRM 128-bit AAC for sale in iTunes...
and now, it seems, to non-DRM 192-bit AAC for slightly more cost to the consumer.
Yes, basically they throw a switch.
Grommet - Record lables do NOT send lossless audio files to Apple and Apple does NOT do any encoding of audio. All audio is encoded by the record lablels and delivered to Apple so they can add their DRM wrapper to it.
grommet, again, you are wrong. Have you seen iTunes Producer? I have. The studios deliver the files to Apple in their final format. Apple does not reconvert them. And even if Apple was reconverting ALAC to 128bit AAC or 256 AAC, this is not flipping a switch. This is recoding. Which would be exactly the same for mp3.
Neither you nor David seem to understand this industry very well. Maybe you should not make things up.
grommet - you are wrong
EMI stated they are offering the files in WMA, AAC and MP3. Apple just purchases the catalogue in AAC. If they wanted MP3, they could simply do the deal for that codec.
Ok, maybe I was told incorrectly... but I was told as of iTunes Producer 1.5 or so, Apple just wanted Lossless content. It's obvious this has it's advantages. (Apple can easily update content to newer AAC encoders, etc. without help from content providers.) I know in the "old days" they just wanted pre-compressed content. If I was told false information, I apologize.
To last anonymous, yes... they could just encode to MP3 (if they had the lossless source). I didn't say they couldn't.
The real winner here is Apple, and the potential big loser is Microsoft. This may well kill Windows Media as a digital audio format.
Think about it... If all the labels offer their music DRM free by the end of the year, then what incentive is there for any online music store, except for the Zune store, to offer music in Windows Media format, given that the iPod is incompatible with WMA and represents about 80% of the target market.
There simply isn't any reason for an online music store that isn't owned by Microsoft to offer downloads that are incompatible with around about 80% of the devices that people own.
More to the point. Microsoft is only offering the Zune as a means of pushing its own audio format. Yet even Zune customers will be now able to play DRM free tracks from the iTMS. Microsoft has just caught up to the idea that you have to have a closed system to succeed (which was never the case, as Jobs' said in his letter a couple of months back), and now they will have to go home and think again.
Steve Jobs has just succeeded in the first step of completely destroying Microsoft's music strategy, and no-one seems to have noticed. He must be chuckling to himself.
grommet, to further clarify, Producer supports several bit rates and now Apple Lossless. Few, if any, support that option.
And, no, they didn't want the option to have the source and to do the encoding themselves. They want the onus of the encoding quality to be on the producers.
Also, thanks, anon, for the confirmation, but even your post is somewhat incorrect. Apple doesn't even wrap the tracks in DRM. The songs are uploaded into a database and provided a unique ID. DRM is only applied, through iTunes, after download.
grommet, again, you are wrong. Have you seen iTunes Producer? I have. The studios deliver the files to Apple in their final format. Apple does not reconvert them.
Since version 1.5.1 iTunes Producer has been sending tracks to Apple in Apple Lossless format and they have have been downconverting the files at their end. That was last November - which means that more people really should have seen this coming.
marc, again, no, this is incorrect. Apple does no production or encoding of the final files delivered via iTS. iTunes Producer has several formats and bit rates available in its interface. This does not mean that Apple is reencoding. It means Apple is building more advanced software with more options for future possibilities.
Ok, I checked with my "big" contact and he says they send Apple Lossless to Apple exclusively now and have for a while. This means Apple does the encoding to AAC now. I doubt he's lying to me, since there is no reason for him to lie.
So, at least for recent content: Apple can encode it to any format or bitrate anytime they want.
re: reencoding to other formats. I'm not sure what format apple's master library is in. I do know that for at least one content source they take in one format and convert it to AAC themselves (audio books).
My point was less about transcoding being the issue than about swapping formats in the service. Their service is built from the inside out to support selling aac files. I'd guess you'd need time to test/modify the backend to support mp3 files. How much I don't know.
I'd thought I was giving Apple the benefit of the doubt, but it could also be part of a continuing format play on their part.
We'll find out eventually - either they'll eventually swap to mp3 or not. I'm pretty sure rhapsody and others will go mp3 when they swap and customers will either prefer those or not.
"I'd thought I was giving Apple the benefit of the doubt, but it could also be part of a continuing format play on their part. "
It's giving them the benefit of the doubt to presume they were being lazy rather than assuming they have a format strategy?
"I'm pretty sure rhapsody and others will go mp3 when they swap and customers will either prefer those or not. "
I'm pretty sure you're wrong and Rhapsody is going AAC since they've moved their individual downloads to AAC and brokered a deal with Samsung to bring AAC to the Sansa.
Actually, to complicate matters. Rhapsody is AAC codec inside of a Realnetworks container, so essentially proprietary and unplayable on other devices.
Oh, and it's not lazy to get better time to market by being pragmatic. It's smart.
I know they use their own DRM. That doesn't invalidate the fact that their new devices support both RealPlay AAC and unprotected AAC, and that Real is moving to support AAC, does it?
Yeah, it doesn't surprise me that Zunies are patting themselves on the back with: we didn't rush it, we weren't lazy, we were pragmatic.
But again why do you project the Zune way onto Apple? Why don't you just go: if I (and other Zunies think this), then Apple probably does NOT. It's pretty easy.
Not just their own DRM, their own file format. the AAC spec specifies the codec and the container. Real puts the AAC codec into a realmedia file, rendering it incompatible with other aac players.
MP3 is still the defacto standard. But I'm guessing it may have something to do with MS' recent patent lawsuit with Lucent over the MP3 codec...
@bj: I don't think jobs was trying to get the best deal for the consumer. Notice they're still selling FairPlay-locked files, which ultimately cost less per track. The average user doesn't think they'll ever own anything but an iPod, and won't care about the non-drm'd files. AAC isn't compatible with a lot of players, and very few people know how to transcode (and I'm not sure if WMP does so automatically, the same way iTunes transcodes unprotected WMA). They're still effectively locked in, just this time, there are a few more devices supported. I wonder how it's gonna play out with Apple's reverse sync, which currently only works with FairPlay'd tracks.
And, AGAIN, David, this does not moot the point that Rhapsody's new players support non-DRMed AAC and their own DRMed AAC. And that Rhapsody is moing towards supporting AAC.
These are the 2 points that I apparently have to make three times. There is zero reason to believe that Rhapsody would not choose AAC considering they ADOPTED it just months ago.
@anonymous (one of ya, anyway)
the labels don't encode the tracks or rip the album art. The vast majority of online stores, including iTunes, Zune, Urge, and eMusic, as well as a number of smaller ones, rely on a company whose name eludes me now.
This company is responsible for creating the massive catalogs and interpolating them into the stores. Labels send CDs or electronic files to them to be encoded and such.
This is reaching the point of diminishing returns. Maybe they'll go mp3, maybe AAC. It's not really that important from my standpoint, and we'll see eventually. Let's revisit in 6 months.
"It's not really that important from my standpoint, and we'll see eventually. Let's revisit in 6 months. "
It's interesting in that you are completely unaware of Real's strategy and clear future direction. It's interesting that you are advocating more than 16 year old technology. It's interesting in that you are unwilling to see that AAC compatibility will easily be accomplished in the next couple of iterations of music playing products (and that it's already there for 80% of the market, 99% of the audio networking market, 99% of the HD home component market, and 99% of the music phone market).
I'll gladly revisit the topic in 6 months.
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