RealNetworks backs MP3 67
Harlequin writes "These three articles from Yahoo center around RealNetwork's decision to support the MP3 format. In an interview between Rob Glaser (founder of RealNetworks) and ZDNet, Rob discusses what mp3s mean to RealNetworks and the industry. MP3 -- it has to change or die is a brief mainstream article about downloadable music and it's future. This article concerns the new product, RealJukebox, that was just released. Of course there's no mention of a Linux port... "
RealJukebox == Low bit rate MP3 (Score:1)
In short - yes, you can use the free-beer version to encode your CDs in real time. The MP3s will likely be at 64kbps or some other insanely-low bit rate, you'll come to think of MP3 as "low quality", and voila, MP3 dies for SDMI.
Only problem is, those of us with clue will see through the scam and continue on our merry MP3
at 128-192 way.
And in six months to a year, when real-time encoding at 128/160/192/VBR becomes a possibility for a low-end PC, Real Networks finds their product without a market.
If your gripe is no GUI/Features for Linux (Score:1)
Re:By secure they mean all-digital (Score:1)
> outputs of your sound card to something like
> a sound card input or tape device, but how
> many people are going to be that
Yes, but even before that, you could just use a
custom sound driver which captures the digital
audio stream rather than sending it to a real
sound card. It only takes one such copy to
totally defeat the IP security scheme, thanks to
today's wonderful networking.
> Don't forget either... we're still using analog
> sound boards. Sometime down the road we'll be
> switching over to something "all-digital" -
> given that chance what is the
What the hell are you talking about? This doesn't even make any sense. We live in an analog world.
The sound we hear is analog. I sure as hell am
not going to stick electrodes from some
proprietary sound device into the auditory
perception areas of my brain, and I doubt even the
most gullible consumer would. Thus, you NEED
a D/A convertor to make sound from a digital
audio data stream.
> there isn't ANYTHING for Linux that gives us an
> "all in one" GUI with a natural interface. Think
> about it.
I thought about it. I find the CLI more natural
and configurable. Just like I can typeset faster
in LaTeX than LyX. If I really wanted a GUI, I'd
prefer to have a bunch of tools I could tie
together with TCL/Tk to make it just how I want.
If there is a demand for this sort of thing from
computer amateurs, perhaps an "MP3 Guru" should
write such a shell for them and package it all
together in one big tarchive.
Have you tried it? (Score:1)
Linux Port? Who cares! (Score:1)
Don't flame me!! I'm a big-time Linux user. But I downloaded the beta Jukebox for Windows NT. My NT machine is a 300Mhz w/ 64 Mb RAM. Winamp plays on it like a charm. Opens quickly, plays without a hitch, NO serious resources used. RM Jukebox on the other hand took about 20 seconds to open, then wanted me to re-register my
RealNetworks, MP3 and others (Score:1)
Hi. I do agree that the site by Robin Whittle makes extraordinarily good reading.
If you'd like to listen to some sample files, I've put together what I hope is a fair test page, with MS Audio 4.0, Real Audio G2, MP3 (Fraunhofer and Microsoft) and Twin-VQ as found in the MPEG4 reference software. (Yes, it compiles!) For now, the files are at 20kbit/s and 8kbit/s.
http://www.billabong-media.com/compression [billabong-media.com]
My hope, as a record producer and musician, is that my comparisons are fair.
Re:RealAudio and MP3 together == convenience (Score:1)
It's music the government doesn't want you to hear.
I wonder why? Wouldn't we all benefit from listening to titles like Day of The Sword - White Supremacy, Johnny Rebel - Move Them Niggers North, or Norhat - Blood on my boots.
I can only imagine how lame this music is.
Re:Have you tried it? (Score:1)
I wish it would allow you to put the MP3s into a folder with the name of the artist, though, to make sorting easier. And I don't like the limited choices for MP3 encoding either. But it works better than any other ripper/enocder combination I have tried on this machine.
Re:this seems like great news (Score:1)
And I doubt they're going to support shoutcast. They haven't supported any other streamining media's, I doubt they're about to start now..
128 kbit/s is not good enough; here's why (Score:3)
First off, 128 kbit/s encoding is good enough for a lot of applications. I just think that it's not good enough for music that you want to own. I don't claim that 128 kbit/s encoded music is easy to distinguish from the original. It isn't. But it is possible to distinguish the two. See this paper [cselt.it] for results of professional listening tests. MP3 at 128 kbit/s consistently scored at the "perceptible differences" level.
Of course, I realize that professional listening tests is quite different from you listening to music in your home. If you think the differences don't matter, then fine. But please at least experience the differences firsthand before judging whether they matter or not. I have personally done several A/B listening tests with music that I actually listen to, and I've decided that the difference does matter to me.
So go out, find some music that you're intimately familiar with, encode it at various bitrates, and do A/B listening tests. Hear out the differences and see if they matter to you. If not, then feel free to go out and say that the differences don't matter. But please don't say the differences don't matter because you can't hear them, because that's just admitting your ears aren't good enough to back up your opinion.
Finally, Robin Whittle's comparison [firstpr.com.au] of mp3, aac, and vqf discusses all the issues with digital audio and compression, and hits all the correct answers. It's a must read if you care at all about your digital or compressed music.
MP3's are going to stay for awhile (Score:1)
1: invited to have a song of ours on a new IDG book to be titled: An Idiots Guide to Music on the Internet. This included a half page write up URL and picture. Of course my bandleader said no. However that was before he understood what the whole phenomena was.
2: mp3.com's music director called us and asked for permission to use a song during a MP-Man commercial. Bandleader said yes to this one. A national commercial this one.
I like it...
Ken Broadfoot
http://www.mp3.com/robertrude
Re:128kbit not good enough? (Score:2)
People hear differently. People have different audio hardware. People like different kinds of music. All these factors play a part in determining how high a data rate is high enough for you. With crappy computer speakers blasting out heavy metal, the 128kbps MP3 is not the limiting factor. Someone listening to classical music with good headphones (Sennheiser HD580's perhaps) is quite likely to feel the limitations of that format.
On top of that, 128kbps from bladeenc is not the same as 128kbps from MP3 Compressor. It's a lot worse. (I choose these as examples because I've used them and heard the difference). Bladeenc is better at higher rates, like the 192kbps I'm using now.
To complicate matters further, I find that I'm now hearing faults in the MP3's I thought were flawless a few months ago. My brain is apparently training itself to pick up the flaws. How helpful.
--
Re:hmmmm (Score:1)
It's analogous to a 256-color display, where each color is selected to represent a number of similar colors in the original 24-bit image. It's not perfect, but it does well with the bits available.
By secure they mean all-digital (Score:1)
The record companies are more sly than we think, and instead LOOK FORWARD to digital, because here they CAN control what we can do, through software. Think about it.
Yes, you'll allways be able to run the analog outputs of your sound card to something like a sound card input or tape device, but how many people are going to be that resourceful? To put the question differently, how many people use the built-in editing capability supplied with 2 VCR's, and how many people have NEVER recorded a TV show?
Don't forget either... we're still using analog sound boards. Sometime down the road we'll be switching over to something "all-digital" - given that chance what is the likelyhood they'll try to introduce some copy protection at ALL levels of the listening experience?
X11Amp is OK.. same with rippers and encoders for Linux. They do the job, but there isn't ANYTHING for Linux that gives us an "all in one" GUI with a natural interface. Think about it.
I bet this product will sell like hotcakes, even though I think the Xing encoder, while fast, sounds like crap. I much prefer using Markus Barth's CD-Copy for Windows, along with BLADEENC
Wouldn't an open-sourced Linux version be GRAND? (Score:2)
Like the MAME project, this is an ideal open source application from the FUN perspective... should be easy to attract contributions, no? I was amazed at how quickly freecddb was put together after the CDDB folks took our submissions and made them their "property".
There's just so much more that could be done than what Real is doing:
* MULTIPLE LEVELS
"User-defined repeat" so you hear a track once in a while at a frequency you have some control over. In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida is cool to have... but you're still bound to hear it far too often.
* SONG SCHEDULING
Alarms, something for Friday @ 5PM, etc.
* LIST PRE-EMPTING
Care to interrupt the current playlist with another song, or playlist, then see it return to the first playlist?
* REMOTE PLAYBACK
Instead of playing locally, tell another system to start playing. Lots of people have second computers that run on minimal horsepower... host the GUI on one computer while sending only "play this" commands to that old 486/100 running Linux or DOS. X is piggish enough on my P120 thank you...
Something like this could really catch on. It would be a shame to see MP3 eclipsed by a PRODUCT, which then controls the future of things.
mp3spy forgets long-uptime icecast servers... (Score:1)
linux box, and every 18-48 hours mp3spy forgets about them. However, IIRC, yp.shoutcast.com does not. It means restarting the channels, which I
prefer not to do, but I do it to stay listed...
Cheers,
Re:hmmmm (Score:1)
I also bought the Xing encoder (sorry, I use windows). It was
I'm using a PII-233 w/128ram (I don't think the ram is that big a deal though.)
Bladenc was about
Jordan
this seems like great news (Score:1)
Is RealNetworks that naive? (Score:1)
Re:hmmmm (Score:1)
Digital Audio Capture via TSR/daemon? (Score:1)
Couldn't someone just write a daemon of some sort to capture those signals en route to the sound card?
I don't know enough about this sort of thing to know if this is actually feasible.
Anyone?
It's too bad the Real Networks spams (Score:1)
Besides, the semi-open QuickTime's much better. :)
--Tom
Re: (Score:1)
how digital music can change your life (Score:1)
I still don't understand... (Score:2)
My opinion is that people will pay for convenience in getting music--most people won't mind spending $10 so they can download their favorite song with ease. The antisocialites will continue to operate in an unlicenced fasion as they always have. And then there will be those such as I who don't listen to any non-freed music {grin}.
Cheers,
Joshua.
G2 (Score:1)
Re:128kbit not good enough? (Score:1)
Big Deal... (Score:1)
I've got about a half-dozen of these already, so why is the fact that Real has one big news? I've got several for both Linux and Solaris, and the fact that Real networks is now releasing their own is supposed to be a big deal? Well, it does have one thing I don't, it can encode to G2 format... *yawn*. As if I'd ever want to do that in the first place.
Oh, and the part about paying for "higher encoding rates"... puhleeze.
-- Foz
The Real Question -- why use SDMI? (Score:3)
That said, here's where I think he's wrong:
- ZDNN: Glaser: I think the way it's going to play out is that for major label music, the secured system [SDMI] will be the preferred method of distribution, and for unsigned artists the MP3 phenomenon will continue to snowball, and they will continue to exist side by side.
I disagree. Because of the record companies' heavy handed but mostly failing attempts to squash MP-3 as a format, IMHO we aren't likely to ever be willing to embrace their proprietary and heavily controlled version of digital audio no matter what. So I expect SDMI to die the same kind of death by consumer choice as DIVX. IIRC, alot of the major movie labels initially backed DIVX then backed away *very quietly* when consumers effectively told them to go to hell by purchasing much larger quantities of DVD players, etc.Secondarily, Glaser says that "In the short term, the most prominent way that'll happen is people will be listening to music on Jukebox, and they'll hear something they want, and they'll be able to click their mouse and go to one of the great sound stores, and get what they want when they want it." Nice idea, plus a built in plug for Real's own product.
Trouble is, it won't work in the long term. Short term, it's like saying "you can listen the song on AM radio so long as you come to the record store to buy the CD." Even if the "record store" is only a mouse click away, why would I be interested? Assume I have an SDMI encoded piece of music playing through a 64 bit sound card (which converts the digital information into analog electrical waves) -- into another PC (or Mac, etc.) with the appropriage analog to digital card, running an Open Source MP-3 encoder. **-Poof-** no encoding.
My points are: why would a knowledgable consumer bother with SDMI in the first place? Why would an artist want to give control to the record companies when they can negotiate and work with the MP-3 sites themselves and cut the record companies out of the picture?
How can MP3 ever 'die' ? (Score:3)
(and much the same argument goes for using Linux really; it might not be any use to a particular person right now, but the same person coming back in a year might find the situation a little different...)
Re:hmmmm (Score:1)
I'm not a big fan of real networks products but I have to admit that this product (conceptually) makes sense. Just insert your cd, let CDDB take care of track naming, select bitrate and hit record. Too bad they don't go over 128, well I'm using 56 anyhow (quantity over quality)
Greetings,
Jilles
hmmmm (Score:1)
BTW
With most CD-ROM drives, the encoding proceeds at three or four times the speed of music playback, so that the entire CD has been encoded while the user is listening to the third or fourth track.
I seem to think my encoding takes much longer then this on a p2/266 w/128ram. Do I have something misconfigured?
huh? (Score:1)
thought that WAS the market...
Getting sick of the hype (Score:4)
Re:a cd ripper? what a *simple* concept... (Score:1)
and the RIAA is so scared of (uncontrolled) MP3 b/c of the same thing, simplicity. All it takes is a computer and most folks have that.
Plus they got a mention becuase of a $200 stock price, which will probably go ballistic with more press coverage.
In Bandwidth heaven maybe. (Score:1)
That is the market (Score:1)
Re:MP3Spy (Score:1)
Real far behind... (Score:2)
The SDMI will fail much like DIVX has failed. Someone else pointed this out and I think it's a good analogy. When you have competing formats..one free and open...one closed and expensive, the free one wins out. Oh wait, unless of course the closed and expensive has 90% market share and $20B in a closet and margins in the 40-50% range. But if the open one is there first ppl will rarely move to a closed one.
Glaser is smarter than the Broadcast.com dumba$$ who said MP3 will die a quick death. They're both multi-$$'s though..:(
Too early. (Score:1)
The real problem with "downloadable" music is that the vendors always encode at 128, which anyone with good ears can tell sounds like crap sometimes. I like going to the CD store, I like having CD case and cover, but I also like having 13 CDs instead of 100. I paid for one downloaded album and I don't think I'll do it again unless the quality gets better.
To the average person, it seems like those 100 carousel CD players is ten times better than having mp3s.
Re:128kbit not good enough? (Score:1)
VBR is probably the best choice, except that some mp3 players can't friggin' fast-forward or rewind VBR files (though I presume this will be fixed soon, since WinAmp has fixed it). VBR on x11amp now is almost like having an 8 track. Not that I fast forward my songs all the time, it's just that a digital format shouldn't be so stupidly limiting.
The point is that if you're going to be paying for downloadable music, it should be at least _offered_ at 256. You're not paying less money for a lower quality song, but for the lack of distribution costs. Unfortunately, I don't see any of the downloadable mp3 sellers offering higher quality. You can usually better quality from ftp sites, heh.
Re:Please help, wavplay (Score:1)
(I'm actually ignorant about mp3 myself, haven't
gotten around to studying up on it yet, but I
will when I get bored or annoyed enough at not
understanding half of what people are talking
about) but I record to wav format from line in
on my sound card using wavplay, usually through
it's X-window front end xltwavplay. Use 16 bit,
stereo, 44100 samples to cut old sytle audio CD.
Glaser interview good read (Score:4)
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/zdnn_display/
It's from a couple of weeks ago though.
Read the Fine Print (Score:3)
So, what you have is a player that will play any MP3 format, will play Real streaming content, Real's commercial format, and will do basic radio-quality MP3 encoding. Pretty useful.
If Real can succeed in becoming the default MP3 player for a lot of people, they stand to endear themselves to the music industry. Any CD that gets ripped at 96K instead of 192K is one less headache for copyright holders. It also would provide a boost to Real's streaming formats, and in turn to their proprietary formats. The latter is the new market that they want to develop.
The music industry seem to understand that they can't kill MP3 entirely; instead, the focus is on cooexisting and creating a medium that they can sell. A recent Wall Street Journal editorial on the subject suggested that the industry's approach would be to make it easier to purchase a downloadable file than to find an equal-quality pirate version of a particular work.
By making a player/ripper that the music industry can live with, and which will be useful to a very wide audience, Real seems to have found a good compromise. They know that people will use MP3 anyway, so they want to make sure they use it on Real players.
Of course, to appreciate the strategy, you have to have to let go of the hacker point of view a bit. Remember that in the mass market that the music industry is aiming for, most folks out there just want something that works easily, while quality and flexibility are secondary for most consumers. Real's solution is aimed at the Windows/iMac consumer, the people who go out to CompUSA on a Saturday afternoon and pile a computer, printer, and monitor on top of a shopping cart.
a cd ripper? what a novel concept... (Score:5)
What About RealPlayer!?!?! (Score:1)
... so there!
Re:Big Deal... (Score:1)