http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1526047,00.asp

By Jason Cross

I just spent the last couple of weeks trying to get my digital audio collection in order. It's no small task, mind you. I had MP3s and WMAs and who knows what else scattered all over my hard drive, with various schemes for filenames, some missing ID3 tag data, and many files at bitrates that I find, for lack of a better word, unmusical. I'm in pretty good shape now, with a single global Music folder on my separate media hard disk. It's organized by album, with file names that are consistent across my collection. Almost everything is re-ripped at a nice high bitrate that stands up to a well-trained ear and quality audio equipment.

Over the weekend, I read several mainstream articles about the iPod and iTunes (as well as several other digital music stores and players), including a well-written but somewhat disagreeable piece in the local San Francisco Bay Guardian . After immersing myself in audio codecs (as research for a future article) and re-ripping most of my own collection, I've come to the conclusion that I really like WMA -- and I really don't like the whole iTunes/iPod thing.

The other week, when we ran a bunch of Linux articles and reviews, we were accused by some in the forums of ignoring Windows and Microsoft. The implication was that we were becoming open-source zealots. Well, guys, here's your comeuppance. Here's where I praise a Microsoft solution, slam the open stuff, and dis Apple, all at the same time. Oh, the mail I'm going to get.

Why Apple is Rotten

I have to admit I do like the way iTunes looks and feels. I like that the radio stuff is free, whereas the new Napster wants you to pay $10 a month for theirs (thanks but no thanks, Roxio). I've used both the old-style and new-style iPod players quite extensively, and I still say Apple is crushing everyone else in the portable player market when it comes to industrial design and user interface. I want to make that clear from the start. Both iTunes and the iPod do what they do very well -- probably better than any other product out there. But I refuse to buy songs through iTunes or purchase an iPod. Why? It's what they don't do.

AAC is a perfectly fine audio format. It sounds good. I don't really want the music I pay money for to be encoded at 128k, but none of iTunes' competitors are offering a higher bitrate, so I don't have much choice there. The problem with AAC is that it doesn't really have digital rights management, so songs you buy through the iTunes Music Store have an Apple-specific proprietary digital rights management scheme called FairPlay attached to them. AAC may be a format that many desktop applications (like Winamp) can understand, and it's certainly possible for non-iPod portable players to build in support for it, but iTunes and iPods understand FairPlay.

If I buy music through the iTunes store, it will only play on iTunes or an iPod. That's it, until the end of time. I'm sorry, but that doesn't cut it for me. How do I know what music player I'm going to want to buy in four years? How do I know my next car won't have a built-in digital music player? I certainly don't expect Apple to make a CarPod. All those iTunes songs I pay for today are going to be useless tomorrow. I generally don't want to play back my music through iTunes -- I want to use a smaller, faster, less obtrusive playback client like Winamp. With music purchased through iTunes, that's not an option.

More Trouble Than It's Worth

Sure, I could burn all those iTunes-purchased songs to an audio CD, then re-rip them in the format of my choice so they'll play on other equipment. If I'm not exactly pleased about paying for audio files that are "only" 128k to begin with, I'm certainly not going to be thrilled at the prospect of re-compressing an already lossy format, thus further reducing the sound quality. Not to mention that it would be a gigantic pain in the butt.

I could still love the iPod if it would only play Windows Media Audio files, so I could buy music from any of the several other online music stores (all but Real's and Sony's use WMA). It doesn't, and Apple shows no sign of bending on that principle, so I'm stuck with MP3 format if I want to play cross-compatible music on an iPod. None of those shiny new music stores are selling MP3s, and they're not about to start.

I also have a problem with AAC's lack of a quality-based variable bitrate mode. In all the AAC-encoding software I've seen, including iTunes' ripping features, all I can do is pick a bitrate. It's my understanding that the AAC format actually permits a certain amount of bitrate flexibility in each "frame" (a sub-second interval used in encoding). So what you're actually getting is an average bit-rate VBR all the time, unless that flexible bitrate value is set to zero, which almost no application does.

The long and short of it is that none of the apps I've tried give me any control over any of this. What's worse, iTunes doesn't give me any control over how it creates filenames (a real pet peeve of mine). Windows Media Player 9 has more options for bitrate and lets me determine how it will create filenames. What's more, Windows Media Encoder, while not suitable for ripping whole CDs, is free and gives me incredible control over encoding parameters.

What's So Great About WMA?

Keep reading

Thank God it stopped where it did.

Which is your favorite flavor of DRM-poisoned RIAA crap? Who the fuck cares?!?!

There's this new thing called mp3, maybe you've heard of it? At 192k bit rate it sounds fine, and I'll bet money that any music you want to listen to is already available in mp3. You can also do whatever you want with it.

Did I mention it's free?

Hilarious article, you should read the postings on that site about this article.
DRM=Doesn't Really Matter
There is no such thing. I should start my own DRM company while the idiots are still willing to throw millions at it. Maybe I could name it 'Don't Press Shift Inc.'

I really don't understand these ***%&(*!%^#(!*%^(#^5*(3915^#75 reliance on DRM. They do realise that the songs are already available in mp3 format, and it is incredibly easy to break DRM right?

Well... I wouldn't buy this shit even if it was released in non-DRM format but this is really stupid.

In his article, Mr. Cross states that
" I don't really want the music I pay money for to be encoded at 128k, but none of iTunes' competitors are offering a higher bitrate"

Actually, I do not believe this is correct. If I'm not mistaken, the MusicMatch download service offers WMA files that are 160k, not 128k.

But JBDay & gdZ are on the mark in alluding to the fact that everything would be a hell of a lot simpler if everybody just used mp3. The DRM built into AAC and WMA doesn't keep tunes of the P2Ps, it simply discourages folks from using the 99 cent download services by virtue of loss of flexibility.

I read this the other day and about died laughing! Is this guy a noob or what? Or maybe he's on some other payroll besides ZDnet. Hey, it's his dime, and if he wants to shell out for DRM infested crap, that's his prerogative. But please, spread the word to the rest of the world that it's out there for free and sounds great, too!

WMA is from Mars.

MP3 is from earth.

Jason Cross is from M$ (got to be).

If the author wants to buy MP3s, somebody should tell him about the Ruskies.

When will people realize that MP3 is the standard?

Not WMA or AAC.

They're called MP3 players for a reason.

EVERY player plays back .mp3 files, the iPOD, Samsung's Napster, the Dell Jukebox, Archos, Creative Labs, Rio, all of them.

MP3 is all you need.

Not MicroSHAFT or CRAPple's garbage.

EAC + Lame=mp3 for free at any bit rate you want.

The term "Digital Rights Management" is an oxymoron. What happened to the user's fair use rights?

pfft, i won't waste harddrive space on AAC or WMA... only nice n' free mp3's

I agree that mp3 is the standard, but I wish ogg were instead. Oh well, can't have everything the way we want it.

And I agree that this guy is an idiot because DRM is for idiots.

Shmoo, of Electric Gypsy
Support Local and Independent Music!

Hehehe didact, we ruskies don't help idiots like him. Thats a waste of money!

Thanks, hawk. I thought the author should have been smart enough to know that LAME (better than the official MP3 codec anyway) is free.

Schmoo, I keep hearing about ogg. I'm probably an idiot, but I couldn't even get the plugin to work with my Winamp. Still, I'm not motivated to try very hard. Where am I gonna find ogg files of the obscure things I like to listen to, anyway?

I look at it this way -- we are not shooting for ultimate quality here. Personally, I don't view any lossy format as a substitute for CD-quality audio. As a "fun" format for casual listening, MP3 is very good. i.e. good enough, especially with VBR LAME encoding. If WMA or ogg happened to be a bit better, that isn't of great consequence to me. In this case, I think MP3 is the successor to the cassette tape. Good for the same kinds of uses -- portable audio, casual listening. I don't think anything else will encroach on its universality now.

Uh yeah, MS rocks.

Sure.

Mp3 is the standard. AAC sucks but at least Apple is supporting legal downloading with rates and felixibility that no one else could match (untill recently).

WMA? Please. Don't waste my time.

uhhh....WMA is VIRUSES! at least when i receive them on irc.. they shut down my windows!

AAC has better quality than windows WAV files and i import all my albums in AAC. They dont have drm if you rip it yourself, unlike wma which has drm on EVERYTHING!

by the way.. the only way to play wma is with mplayer(a video player) on linux or windows media player for mac.. mac makes itunes for windows to play aac and just because its new doesnt mean support wont grow.

but anyway windows media player for mac demands root access.. why? because it installs kernel mods which are there with the sole purpose of causing mac to kernel panic. another case of MS playing dirty. WMA CAN SUCK MY B@!!$