iTunes 5?

[SiliconAddict]

Originally posted by beg_ne
Well for me when i listen to WMA's words like, "tin-can" and "complete utter s***" come to mind.

Infact i refuse to have any M$ software or M$ related files on my G5. I don't want to soil it with their half-assed software and lame pseudo-standard formats.

Nice to know someone is open minded. NOT.
OK first off have you ever heard the WMA 9 codec? If not you don't have a clue what you are talking about. MS did a massive overhaul to the Windows Media Codecs. Everything from video to audio. 9 blows 8 and older out of the water. Secondly as I and others have pointed out there is a hell of a lot of hardware that supports WMA. Show me ANYTHING other then the iPod that supports ACC. If Apple is trying to push the format they aren't doing that good of a job.

 

[hvfsl]

There is nothing wrong with iTunes playing WMA files, not supporting WMA is like AppleWorks not being able to read Word docs, it is just plain silly.

I hope there is WMA support, iTunes should be the only music player I need to use on PC or Mac, when I install iTunes on my PC, I dont want to have to boot up W Media PLayer 9, just to play WMA files.

M$ does this all the time anyway, they make there products compatible with everyone else. Then when they have enough people using M$ products, they make them incompatible so the people not using M$ products have to switch to M$ to remain compactible with the everyone else.

Apple should try and do this with iTunes, let iTunes read all audio formats, then when everyone is using iTunes, make sure iTunes can only encode in AAC, instead of WMA, MP3, etc.

 

[imbriumink]

Being a recent switcher, I think that this argument is definitely not about sound quality. WMA9 codec is a very good codec and so is Microsoft's video codec. My concern is the way MS is using their vast resources and giving away their technology for nearly nothing in order to establish WMA as the standard. As for AAC, it's nice but nobody except Mac users or people who follow both mac and PC have any clue what it is. I personally don't have any WMA files, but agree that the iPod should support it for the sake of selling even more to windows users. It's only business. Besides, it's just a simple firmware upgrade for the iPod.

And as for open standards, i think it would be wise for the iPod to be able to take music from other music services no matter how inferior they may be in someone's opinion. Give the people the option and let them choose the superior one for themselves. And sell iPods while you're at it for inflated prices just because you can and nothing comes close!

 

[Stella]

Trouble is WMA is propritirty

More, Its a Microsoft standard.

That is *bad*.

MS, once WMA is taken as the 'Standard', will screw us over, big time.

We will wish MS had not dominated media formats.

Everything MS bring out, screws us consumers over, and providers over.

MS will ensure that WMA is tied to the windows platform. MS will withdraw support for WMA for all currently supported platforms except MS.

Why don't you people realise that??

Just look at Explorer - that is dominate. They have now withdrawen Explorer for all platforms except their own.

Supporting WMA == Bad for the future.

Supporting WMA is short term gain, nothing else.

Originally posted by imbriumink
Being a recent switcher, I think that this argument is definitely not about sound quality. WMA9 codec is a very good codec and so is Microsoft's video codec. My concern is the way MS is using their vast resources and giving away their technology for nearly nothing in order to establish WMA as the standard. As for AAC, it's nice but nobody except Mac users or people who follow both mac and PC have any clue what it is. I personally don't have any WMA files, but agree that the iPod should support it for the sake of selling even more to windows users. It's only business. Besides, it's just a simple firmware upgrade for the iPod.

And as for open standards, i think it would be wise for the iPod to be able to take music from other music services no matter how inferior they may be in someone's opinion. Give the people the option and let them choose the superior one for themselves. And sell iPods while you're at it for inflated prices just because you can and nothing comes close!

 

[imbriumink]

I realize that is the strategy of MS. But making your product incompatible with what the consumer currently has is not a good strategy either. If I was a Windows user, which i was a week ago, and they told me that I had to reencode all my music just to use iTunes, I wouldn't even use it in the first place.

Just curious, are there any AAC encoders besides quicktime and itunes?

 

[mmccaul]

Re: Weapon of Mass Assimilation

-The fact of the matter is there are a whole heck of a lot of devices that play WMA. Name me one device other then the Mac and iPod that play AAC?

------------

Ok
http://www.nokia.com/nokia/0,8764,5820,00.html
Granted it is the only one I have ever seen, but it is a device that plays AAC. (not to mention it is the ungliest looking phone I have ever seen but...)

 

[Stella]

The point is MP4 is industrial standard.

WMA is not.

WMA will **** consumes over in a few years time.

MP4 will not.

WMA == *short term* gain.

MP4 is for long term.

Except that is how companies do not work.

Short sightedness.

Originally posted by imbriumink
I realize that is the strategy of MS. But making your product incompatible with what the consumer currently has is not a good strategy either. If I was a Windows user, which i was a week ago, and they told me that I had to reencode all my music just to use iTunes, I wouldn't even use it in the first place.

Just curious, are there any AAC encoders besides quicktime and itunes?

 

[Stella]

Re: Re: Weapon of Mass Assimilation

Fine, you buy WMA devices.

Fine you help support WMA.

When MS get a strangle hold of media format and they drop support for Macs - DO'NT COME CRYING TO THESE FORUMS.

Sorry, but that is reality. History has shown us this time and time again. Anything for MS to gain a strangle hold on a technology, they will do.

Originally posted by mmccaul
-The fact of the matter is there are a whole heck of a lot of devices that play WMA. Name me one device other then the Mac and iPod that play AAC?

------------

Ok
http://www.nokia.com/nokia/0,8764,5820,00.html
Granted it is the only one I have ever seen, but it is a device that plays AAC. (not to mention it is the ungliest looking phone I have ever seen but...)

 

[lmalave]

Originally posted by pjmurphy77
if you read the brochure (PDF) it clearly states that if the headphones are on a conencted-state with the PC, you can listen wirelessly. or, if you are out of range, they act as a stand-alone music player (hence the flash memory)..

Wow!!!!!! I've been waiting for Bluetooth headphones. I wonder when this product will hit the market and what the cost will be.

 

[boobers]

playback of movies

the ipod is definetely fast enough to decode divx and mpeg2 bitrates. I just tested it on my new 20GB ipod.
But is it possible to make a "movie dock" that would allow recording in mpeg4? Something that took the encoding away from the pods processor and just dumps the file on the pod for playback.
Sorta like what the Dazzle DV bridge does but with encoding of some sort to minimize storage.

Or similar to this thing...

http://www.archos.com/products/av300_series.html?sid=j22oy2y2b2ooskybco33o3

but without the screen of course.

 

[beg_ne]

Originally posted by SiliconAddict
Nice to know someone is open minded. NOT.
OK first off have you ever heard the WMA 9 codec? If not you don't have a clue what you are talking about. MS did a massive overhaul to the Windows Media Codecs. Everything from video to audio. 9 blows 8 and older out of the water. Secondly as I and others have pointed out there is a hell of a lot of hardware that supports WMA. Show me ANYTHING other then the iPod that supports ACC. If Apple is trying to push the format they aren't doing that good of a job.

It's possible i could be a little closed mined on the subject, then again you could be a little naive. Yes I have heard WMA9 and while its better than previous versions it would certainly be the last thing i ever encoded anything in. For many reasons, including quality.

Apple, et. all associated with the AAC format need to do more to get it accepted, they need to talk to the people making the hardware and get them to accept AAC. Having Apple officially support WMA will only hurt all of us (except MS) in the future when they close off their format.

Microsoft is an abusive monopoly and WMA/WMV is only their latest tool to spread their monopoly into more and more areas. Just don't be surprised when they leave you out in the cold after you help them take over the media space.

 

[dongmin]

Originally posted by lmalave
Wow!!!!!! I've been waiting for Bluetooth headphones. I wonder when this product will hit the market and what the cost will be.

What is the advantage of having bluetooth headphones, vs. the more common 2.4 Ghz wireless headphones? Unless the bluetooth is built into the iPod somehow (so that you can use the wireless headphone anywhere), I don't see much need to have a bluetooth dock.

The existing interface is pretty darn good but it could use some refinements: first of all, I'd like to be able to collapse all the songs of an album into just one entry in my library. Or you should have the option to see all the songs individually or collapsed into albums. It'd make for scrolling through my library easy.
Also, it'd be nice to have nested playlists, meaning I can group playlists into different folder.

As for watching movies on your TV off your iPod, I don't see much use for it. Yeah it's nice to be able to load up some home movies and take it to your grandpa's and watch the movie. But then it'd require your grandpa to also have this dock. If this was just a simple TV-out cable, instead of a dock, I could see some use for it.

The most useful potential add-ons, to me, would be a compact flash/SD reader attachment and a microphone attachment. And they seem relatively easy to implement.

 

[j33pd0g]

My guess is if iTunes supports WMA it'll be on the windows side. iTunes for windows will include MP3's, WMA's, and of course the AAC format. That way the peecee'r will be able to listen to all their previous audio files.

What the heck are "listener loans"?

 

[Nicky G]

Re: Re: Weapon of Mass Assimilation

Originally posted by mmccaul
-The fact of the matter is there are a whole heck of a lot of devices that play WMA. Name me one device other then the Mac and iPod that play AAC?

------------

Ok
http://www.nokia.com/nokia/0,8764,5820,00.html
Granted it is the only one I have ever seen, but it is a device that plays AAC. (not to mention it is the ungliest looking phone I have ever seen but...)

Maybe you need to Google "mp3 player aac" -- to my mind, it looks like a large number of devices play (and record) aac files. Go figure...

 

[sebaz]

will itunes 5 if released next week come already in panther, or you think panther will ship with the current version?

 

[WM.]

Originally posted by pjmurphy77
if you read the brochure (PDF) it clearly states that if the headphones are on a conencted-state with the PC, you can listen wirelessly. or, if you are out of range, they act as a stand-alone music player (hence the flash memory)..

OK, so it's the MP3-player equivalent of those headphones with a radio built in (which I didn't previously think was possible). But it seems to me that they require some fancy drivers to make it work, meaning that the iPod would need to implement them in its firmware--which I doubt will happen.

Please note that those are NOT standard Bluetooth headphones in any way. If the iPod supports any Bluetooth headphones it won't be those ones (and again, that product is basically solid-state MP3 player + headphones + Bluetooth transceiver).

In conclusion: not relevant to the discussion here.

WM

 

[WM.]

Originally posted by stingerman
Most WM players do not support WMA with DRM.

Completely true: my initials are WM, I'm a playa, and I don't support WMA with DRM.

I sure have fun with these Windows Media threads!

WM

P.S. Wow, Safari's (i.e. Cocoa's) built-in spell check recognizes "playa" as a word...I guess Apple really is gaining in popularity in the hip-hop community...

Actually, a quick check of the American Heritage reveals that a playa has something to do with geology and deserts, though that kind of playa is pronounced very differently from the version I intended.

 

[Fukui]

Originally posted by macr1jxb
Supporting, at least, playback of WMA in iTunes for Windows is actually pretty simple(even rights managed), because the Windows Media technology is actually a shared resource other applications can take advantage of. So what may end up happening is iTunes has its own software for playing and ripping MP3/MP4 and then farms out the backend to Window Media for WMA support (never exposing a user to the horrible Window Media Player)

Exactly what they would do, and its neccesary in the PC world. Without WMA unfortunately, iTunes can't replace the other players because they all support WMA too.

 

[WM.]

Re: playback of movies

Originally posted by boobers
the ipod is definetely fast enough to decode divx and mpeg2 bitrates. I just tested it on my new 20GB ipod.

WTF???? You mean you got video to display on the screen somehow?

I don't think so...

WM

 

[stingerman]

DRM different

Both AAC and WMA come with and without DRM. Many MP3 players play AAC and WMA but not with DRM. iPod is the only one that currently plays AAC with Fairplay DRM. I know of only Creative that produces a WMA DRM compatible device. (Don't forget that their are now multiple DRM's for WMA and they are not interchangeable.)

It is clear to me that Apple will play WMA but not with any DRM. Apple will bring over AAC with fairplay DRM to Windows. Quicktime will be the vehicle to support the codecs on each platform. Third party venors can easily add new codecs to Quicktime as well. So, if MSFT wanted to develop a codec for Quicktime, it would easily plug in.

 

[dho]

Too bad 7b85 doesn't include a test run of itunes 5

 

[Fukui]

Originally posted by SiliconAddict
Show me ANYTHING other then the iPod that supports ACC. If Apple is trying to push the format they aren't doing that good of a job

Cell Phones, upcomming set-top boxes and some new music players, and sony clie I believe. Not as prevelant as WMA for sure, but its starting....

 

[Thanatoast]

Okay, I think some people are resisting wma out of spite.

In order for there to *be* the possibility of long-term gains, Apple must support wma. Otherwise they will be pushed out of the market. Not supporting wma would be cutting of their nose to spite their face.

Yes, we all know MS will play dirty, we've just gotta play smarter. How to do this? Hellifino. But denying reality won't help.

Originally posted by WM.
I guess Apple really is gaining in popularity in the hip-hop community...

Actually, a quick check of the American Heritage reveals that a playa has something to do with geology and deserts

I guess apple is really gaining popularity in the earth science/arid ecosystems crowd, eh?

 

[bipto]

Just a couple of thoughts...

1. Apple's priority (at least when it comes to music) is to move iPods. The iTMS was developed to do just that at a time when there was nothing else out there like it.

2. Not supporting WMA means not allowing your customers to buy their music from Napster, BuyMusic, MusicMatch, Real, and eventually AOL, Amazon, Dell, etc., etc. If I'm a Windows user and I can get an MP3 player from Dell for $100-200 less then Apple's and I get access to all the music stores on the internet except iTMS, then what has Apple gained? Nothing.

3. Allowing the iPod to play WMA does not mean Apple is ditching AAC. Support for WMA does does not mean iTMS will sell WMA. It just means iPod owners can get a song from Napster or iTMS or wherever.

4. Apple can continue to market the advantages of AAC over WMA while at the same time supporting WMA. Support for the rival format while demonstrating the superiority of your own cannot hurt you, especially when your format is unique in the marketplace.

Bottom line, support for WMA on the iPod lowers the resistance to buy one and Apple wants to sell iPods. I would be stunned (and very discouraged) if the next version of iTunes and the iPod firmware did not support WMA.

 

[illumin8]

Re: Weapon of Mass Assimilation

Originally posted by SiliconAddict
Name me one device other then the Mac and iPod that play AAC?

How about every DVD player ever made? Just kidding, but you should know that AAC is made by Dolby labs and is the de-facto standard audio container that will be used in MPEG-4. MPEG-4 is widely anticipated to be the High-Def DVD standard and will soon be available on a number of devices. It would be trivial to playback AAC encoded .m4a or .m4p files, since they are simply MPEG-4 audio without any video streams in the container.

AAC is a far superior format to both WMA and MP3. There is no way that Apple would embrace an MS format when they could just as easily make iTunes for Windows capable of playing back the same AAC files that Mac users get.

Anyone that seriously suggests Apple will make two separate stores, one for Windows and one for Mac, with two separate formats, is smoking some serious crack.