Future Format Frenzy: Digital Audio and Y

Just learned about another digital audio compression format: FLAC (free lossless audio codec). Check out the Web site http://flac.sourceforge.net/ for details. A lossless digital audio compression format appears very interesting. And FLAC is apparently Open Source, like Ogg Vorbis.

That Web site also points out that portable HDD digital audio players similar to the iPod exist which can play this lossless format: the company JetAUDIO sells the 20 Gb and 40 Gb iAUDIO M3/M3L which supports FLAC - see http://www.jetaudio.com/products/iaudio/m3/ (US$ 329 for the 20 Gb model and US$ 399 for the 40 Gb model).

Very interesting article, Dusanyu. I downloaded the music sample encoded using the different formats and listened to them, but it's a pity that the WMA format was not included in his test.

The M4A (AAC) sample doesn't sound too good, does it? The MP4 (AAC) sounds a bit better, but the LAME MP3 and OGG files do sound quite good, don't they? But I wonder whether WMA would have beaten them?

By the way, I was looking for a way to play the OGG files and found out that my favourite image file viewer (IrfanView) can play OGG files.

As I mentioned in the iPod thread, the article on the page http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/03/23/dvd_forum_chooses_ap ple_music/ appears to indicate that AAC is better than WMA 9, MP3 and Sony's ATRAC.

Any listening experience by ProgArchives forum members to corroborate this?

Dusanyu,
your article link about Palladium Computing is kind of freaky , don't you think ?

Well I took this thread in its literal sense of digital audio formats (let no-one forget VHS vs BetaMax!);

MAX's link is concerned with the less portable formats (when compared with digital files), which may well go the same way as vinyl for the same reason vinyl was dropped - you can produce CD/DVD more cheaply than vinyl and it's easier to store. It's also concerned with codecs (compression/decompression - algorithms http://www.digitaljuice.com/techsup/codec.asp), which apply to any form of digital media compression;

Files stored in solid state memory rather than on a mechanical medium are becoming as if not more popular than CD, due to ease of storage and lack of wear on components. Access and seek time is practically non-existent too - we're talking about nanoseconds instead of seconds. You can copy tracks from CDs to your PC as CDA files - that's all they are. Just because they're stored on a CD and described as CD-Audio, they are not limited to the one storage medium - it's just data at the end of the day. DVD is a bit more cunning, and stores files in complex folder hierarchies in order to inhibit raw copying. Anyone with a Linux machine won't worry about that, and simple decryption software such as decss will continue to be developed by those who believe that it is their right to be able to create a backup.

This is why I think it's useful to keep a tab on the developments in the different fields - mechanical/optical vs solid state and the development of the digital files and their codecs. My personal feeling is that solid state will eventually win - but it has to drop in price significantly at a given capacity point first.

I like to understand how it all hangs together - just to keep that vital step ahead of the new ways the media companies are planning to stitch us all up. No. I'm, not paranoid, I just forgot to use the word "again".

Here's my favourite site on all things "techie", describing how CDs, and recording works, and comparing CD to DVD;

http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/cd.htm

http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/analog-digital3.htm

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/question344.htm

I found this article to be particularly helpful in understanding the current formats - it includes some short samples so that you can hear the differences for yourself.

http://www.cdburner.ca/digital-audio-formats-article/index.h tm