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April 30, 2003

THE AAC FILE FORMAT: ANSWERS.

AAC is the file format used in the new online iTunes Music Store. The store is online now for Mac users and will be available to Windows users later this year.

Exactly what restrictions does it have on playback?

• You can play the same track on three different computers at the same time. You can change your mind about which three computers are “authorized” to play the song anytime you want.
• On a network, you can stream the song to (and play the song on) five different computers at the same time. None of the other computeers needs to be authorized in any way; it’s just a limit of five at a time.

Can you convert it to AIFF for use in a normal CD player?

Yes. iTunes already has the ability to burn AAC files to a CD in AIFF format suitable for playing on most consumer audio CDs.

Does it really sound better than MP3s? The only scientific study I’ve seen so far is here. They compared AAC, MP3, and other file formats. Their conclusion:

• The AAC codec is the only one in the tests which was evaluated in the range “Excellent” at 64 kbit/s, for all the audio items evaluated.[.....]

That’s not very useful in this case, since most MP3s and AACs are encoded at rates higher than 64 kbits/s.

However, personal assessments from various users appear today via Macintouch. Here are a few excerpts from these comments:

FYI, I’m an audio engineer with over 25 years experience recording and mixing all kinds of sound and music. I downloaded “New Frontier” by Donald Fagen, an impeccably recorded song, and auditioned it switching between the original CD, an MP3 ripped from that CD at 160 Kbs VBR, and Apple’s ACC MP4 file. I couldn’t hear a farthling’s worth of difference between any of them, and this is on a studio reference monitor system.

My Professional opinion: The sound quality is excellent, and a darn sight better than the crap found on Morpheus, KaZaa, et al. Plus no spyware and ad banners and bogus files.

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Some songs encode well in AAC and some don’t. If you’re not obsessed with high fidelity—if MP3 sounds fine to you, if you’re satisfied with the sound from your FM radio—then the iTunes Music Store is all you need.

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I doubt that the casual listener is going to notice a huge difference in sound quality, if they are used to listening to 128kbps MP3s. If they are sticklers for sound quality, and are used to encoding their MP3s at 160kbps or above, they may notice lower quality with AACs bought from Apple.

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AAC is the audio codec of choice for XM satellite radio, and XM achieves very good sound quality (better than FM radio) at bitrates as low as 25 kbit/s. (No, that’s not a typo.)

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Most people appear to agree that AAC is better than MP3. However, it appears that AAC, while excellent, may not yet be equivalent to the full AIFF file you get when you buy a CD.

DRAWING THE ROADMAP TO PEACE IN THE MIDEAST.

An excellent article by New Republic correspondent Yossi Klein Halevi speaks to what it’s going to take to get the roadmap to peace to work:

The credibility of the road map depends on an explicit insistence that, this time, the Palestinian Authority act like a real authority and uproot the terrorist infrastructure. [.....]

Like the Oslo process, which imposed a deadline to resolve one of the world’s most complex conflicts, the road map is driven by the clock. It envisions an interim Palestinian state emerging as early as a year from now, to be followed in 2005 by a permanent solution on the thorniest issues dividing the two sides, including refugees, final borders and the status of Jerusalem.

That artificial deadline ignores the need to carefully measure each stage of Palestinian compliance. Unlike Palestinian pledges of peaceful intent, Israel’s territorial concessions are concrete and irreversible.

The fact is, it will take years, not months, to test the transformation of Palestinian society, which has been subjected to an official, relentless hate campaign in mosques, schools and media.

April 29, 2003

Not only is Libya the chair of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights – now Cuba has been elected to the U.N. Human Rights Commission for another three-year term. Cuba, of course, has recently been jailing and murdering Cuban dissidents.

The United States walked out of a United Nations meeting Tuesday to protest Cuba’s election to the U.N. Human Rights Commission for another three-year term.

“It was an outrage for us because we view Cuba as the worst violator of human rights in this hemisphere,” said Sichan Siv, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Economic and Social Council, which elected 24 new members to the top U.N. human rights watchdog.

The AAC File Format.

AAC is the file format used by the iTunes Music Store. It has restrictions built into it for purposes of copy protection. Tomorrow I’ll be addressing the three leading questions I, for one, had about this format, namely:

• Does it really sound better than MP3s?
• Exactly what restrictions does it have on playback?
• Can you convert it to AIFF for use in a normal CD player?

The answers are all good. Details tomorrow.

ITUNES MUSIC STORE: QUICK REVIEW.

Pros:

• It’s amazingly fast and responsive. After double-clicking a song, the excerpt starts playing immediately – as fast as if you had the CD right there. (I’m using a DSL modem. I’m curious to find out how fast the store is with a dial-up connection).
• The interface is very well-designed. It’s easy to find the singers and tracks you’re looking for.
• The excerpts make browsing easy. I’ve already found tracks I like by groups I’d never heard of before.
• The AAC file format appears to be considered superior to the MP3 format – i.e. considered to sound better. It also produces smaller files than MP3 does.
• Being able to purchase on the spot, usually on a track-by-track basis, is great.

Cons:

• Very few current hits are available. For example, there’s nothing yet from Eminem’s last two CDs, or Missy Elliot’s last two CDs. I expect this to change as the service becomes accepted.

Bottom Line:

• The days of paying $18 for a CD with one or two tracks you like, are numbered. This is the future of how we’ll all buy music.

ITUNES MUSIC STORE: SCREEN SHOTS.

This is so Windows users can see what they’ll be getting later this year. Mac users who haven’t yet installed the free iTunes 4 and QuickTime 6.2 (required for using the store) may find these of interest as well.

Home screen:





Album – excerpts from every song are available:





Search – note the Search box in the upper right-hand corner. Double-click the song to hear a 30-second excerpt.





Genre Pull-Down menu:






I’ll post a quick review later today.

MP3s and The Record Biz: A Survey

There is a lot of talk about how File Sharing of music files (or MP3s) is changing the record business.

What effect is File Sharing having on the record business? Here’s a quick survey survey to help us find out. It’s just two questions. The results will be posted here at a later date. Thanks in advance for telling us your thoughts!

1. Would You Say that You…

<INPUT TYPE="radio" VALUE="1" NAME="1">Buy More CDs Now Than You Did Before There Were MP3s
<INPUT TYPE="radio" VALUE="2" NAME="1">Buy About the Same Number of CDs Now As You Did Before There Were MP3s
<INPUT TYPE="radio" VALUE="3" NAME="1">Buy Fewer CDs Now Than You Did Before There Were MP3s

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2. How Often Do You Burn MP3s to a CD to Listen to On a CD Player?

<INPUT TYPE="radio" VALUE="1" NAME="2">All the Time
<INPUT TYPE="radio" VALUE="2" NAME="2">Often
<INPUT TYPE="radio" VALUE="3" NAME="2">Sometimes
<INPUT TYPE="radio" VALUE="4" NAME="2">Rarely
<INPUT TYPE="radio" VALUE="5" NAME="2">Never

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Click this button when you are done taking the survey. Thanks!

April 28, 2003

FIRST REACTION: ITUNES MUSIC STORE.

Okay, I just got online. It took a few hours – I guess their servers were getting swamped. Having seen it, my first response is… that’s cool. This is the future. It works perfectly. The streaming AAC audio sounds great. I’ll post some screen shots tomorrow for Windows users, so you can see what you’ll be getting later this year.

An ITunes Music Store infomercial is available online.

Jobs also showed ads and an infomercial that included testimony from people such as Bono from U2, Wynton Marsalis, and Alanis Morrissette.

Apple’s Music Service will be available to Windows users:

The iTunes Music Store is Mac only at first, but will be available to Windows users by year’s end.

APPLE MUSIC SERVICE NAME:

The iTunes Music Store.

is in progress. MacCentral is offering a live report of what’s happening. Afterwards this same link should still work to give you a summary of the event.

Steve’s talking about a new encoding format, AAC:

Jobs also introduced iTunes 4, which supports AAC encoding alongside MP3 because “it sounds a lot better.” Jobs said it was the “state of the art” audio codec.

Every song is “pristinely encoded” and some sound “better than CDs.”

I believe AAC may sound better than MP3, but I doubt it sounds better than the uncompressed file from the CD.

The Apple music service will offer one-click downloads. You can use iTunes to “browse” the entire music store by genre, artist and album. Apple is offering music tracks not available anywhere else, including Bob Dylan, U2, and others.

.....There are free 30-second previews with every song on the service.

.....Apple has made deals with the big five music labels and we have over 200,000 songs available.

Now this is exciting. Up until now if I want to hear new songs I have to go to Tower or Barnes and Noble and hope there’s a headset free. Now we’re going to be able to do this any time we want, and download tracks on the spot.

WHAT’S THE RIGHT PRICE FOR A HIT SONG?

Today Apple is expected to announce their new music service. Last week I asked, if a new track by an unknown band is worth 99 cents, what’s “Hot in Here” worth?

Here’s what I think:

• An MP3 of a new track by an unknown band is worth 25 to 50 cents.
• The MP3 of “Hot in Here” is worth around $2.
• The full uncompressed music file of “Hot in Here” off the CD is worth 4 or 5 bucks. Easy.

April 27, 2003

It’s an honor to have been blogrolled by one of the funniest sites on the Net,

Scrappleface. Thanks guys!

Here are some of the latest Scrappleface headlines:

• Wealthy Neo-Cons Support Mars Invasion
• Coalition Hires British Paper to Dig for Evidence
• Hatch Lists Reasons Polygamists Are ‘Fine People’
• NYT Links with U.N. to Garner Credibility
• Bush Calls N. Korea Nuke Revelation ‘Time Saver’

“THE STUPIDFADA”:

Little Green Footballs is one of the best weblogs around. I love a word they use here (boldfaced in this quote):

The latest poll released by the Jerusalem Media & Communication Centre, a Palestinian Arab organization, shows that only a very small minority of Palestinian citizens believe in non-violence; but a large majority (65.3%) support continuing the stupidfada, 60.5% support military operations inside the Green Line and 59.9% support suicide bombing operations against Israeli civilians.

LGF has it right. It is just so dumb. It’s doing the Palestinians no good, and the costs are immeasurable.

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