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Thread: The MP3 Is Officially Dead, According To Its Creators

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    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    The MP3 Is Officially Dead, According To Its Creators

    From NPR:


    The MP3 Is Officially Dead, According To Its Creators

    Andrew Flanagan
    May 11, 2017 12:25 PM ET

    The MP3, which entered development in the '80s, has finally been laid to rest.

    Design Pics / Leah Warkentin/Getty Images/Design Pics RF
    "The death of the MP3 was announced in a conference room in Erlangen, Germany, in the spring of 1995."

    So opens Stephen Witt's How Music Got Free, an investigation into the forced digitization and subsequent decimation of the music business, from which it has only very recently started to recover. That ironic conference room eulogy actually took place just before the compression algorithm caught on (don't worry, we'll explain in a bit). Soon, the MP3 not only upended the recording industry but, thanks to the iPod, also contributed to Apple's late-'90s transformation into one of the most successful companies in history. (On Tuesday the tech giant passed $800 billion in market capitalization, the first U.S. company to do so.)

    But now, 22 years later, the MP3 truly is dead, according to the people who invented it. The Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits (IIS), a division of the state-funded German research institution which bankrolled the MP3's development beginning in the late '80s, recently announced that its "licensing program for certain mp3 related patents and software of Technicolor and Fraunhofer IIS has been terminated." Dr. Berhard Grill, director of Fraunhofer IIS and one of the principals in the development of the MP3, tells NPR over email that another audio format, AAC ("Advanced Audio Coding," which his organization also helped create), is now the "de-facto standard for music download and videos on mobile phones" and is "more efficient than MP3 and offers a lot more functionality."

    As Witt illustrates throughout his excellent opening chapters, the MP3, before upending the musical world as we knew it, almost died in the research lab. The team of engineers who invented the format was attempting to make it possible to send audio over telephone lines, which could only transmit small amounts of data. Fraunhofer, in competing for the legitimacy it needed to convince tech companies to actually use MP3s — and so actually make money — hit numerous speed bumps: It was repeatedly beleaguered by clever corporate sabotage and later by piracy. Other failures hinged on the need for the world to catch up with the technology's possibilities: Along the way, one computer engineer on the team had a patent for a music streaming service denied by the German government because it was technologically absurd at the time. Another innovation they failed to leverage? The portable MP3 player.

    In early 1995, the format was on life support, with one licensing deal being the use of the team's technology by hockey arenas across the U.S. (That spring meeting in which the MP3 was declared dead came months later, after another failed pitch that denied it being standardized and widely adopted.) A little later, Fraunhofer began giving away the software that consumers needed to turn compact discs into MP3s at home. The rest is recent history.

    So is it the end of an era? We may still use MP3s, but when the people who spent the better part of a decade creating it say the jig is up, we should probably start paying attention. AAC is indeed much better — it's the default setting for bringing CDs into iTunes now, and has been — and other formats are even better than it, though they also take up mountains of space on our hard drives.

    And it's not just that more efficient and complete ways of storing music have been developed — there was a deeper problem. The engineers who developed the MP3 were working with incomplete information about how our brains process sonic information, and so the MP3 itself was working on false assumptions about how holistically we hear. As psychoacoustic research has evolved, so has the technology that we use to listen. New audio formats and products, with richer information and that better address mobile music streaming, are arriving.

    Deezer, a music streaming company relatively popular in its native France, launched in the U.S. offering "high resolution" streaming, for double the price of a Spotify account. Tidal did the same. Neil Young tried his hand with the hotly tipped Pono. While all three are not exactly taking the world over — Pono, in fact, is officially dead, rebranded "Xstream" — the record business has put its stamp of approval on the idea, at least. "Master Quality Authenticated" is a promising new technology that uses a type of audio origami to spare cellular data when necessary and to "bloom" in quality when it's not — though it has drawn pointed criticism for being a closed loop that allows for recording industry cash-ins. It wouldn't be the first time.

    The formats which convey art and media to us also delineate that media; vinyl records require a session-interrupting flip, which The Beatles brilliantly exploited by creating an infinite loop of gibberish at the end of Sgt. Pepper's second side. The VHS tape in both image and sound was as soft and fuzzy as a worn teddy bear, while new high-definition televisions render images perhaps too robotically, tracking movement like T-1000. The MP3, as mentioned, enabled millions or billions of song listens, but with incorrect biological assumptions. The lesson seems to be, simply, that our media will always be as exactly imperfect as we are.

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    Parrots Ripped My Flesh Dave (in MA)'s Avatar
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    AAC is indeed much better — it's the default setting for bringing CDs into iTunes
    iTunes sucks.

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    Nutty article but the book 'How Music Got Free' is a great read if you're at all interested in the business side of music around that era.
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    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dave (in MA) View Post
    iTunes sucks.
    Word up!

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    AAC ("Advanced Audio Coding," which his organization also helped create), is now the "de-facto standard for music download and videos on mobile phones ... [and] it's the default setting for bringing CDs into iTunes now
    Huh. I suppose that's relevant for people who use iTunes and/or download music and vids to phones. It may be standard for some things, but there really is no standard anymore. If this guy is going to say it's a "better" format and others are even more so, the least he could do is say why.

    Quote Originally Posted by Grimjack View Post
    Nutty article
    Indeed, and you just reminded me again that I still haven't read the Witt book. Better years late than never?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Spiral View Post
    Indeed, and you just reminded me again that I still haven't read the Witt book. Better years late than never?
    Yes. More engaging than I thought. About half through.
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    ALL ACCESS Gruno's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dave (in MA) View Post
    iTunes sucks.
    iTunes does not suck.

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    Member Jerjo's Avatar
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    I would argue that iTunes is the pinnacle of suckage. It is sufficient enough on an Apple computer/device but take that precious snowflake out of its gauze Cupertino cradle and put it anywhere else. It stalls, it's bloated, it doesn't work as well as a half a dozen other media players. Burn it with fire.

    AAC didn't kill the MP3, streaming has. People don't buy/download MP3s if they can stream it.
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    I'm here for the moosic NogbadTheBad's Avatar
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    iTunes works fine for me.
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    ALL ACCESS Gruno's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jerjo View Post
    I would argue that iTunes is the pinnacle of suckage. It is sufficient enough on an Apple computer/device but take that precious snowflake out of its gauze Cupertino cradle and put it anywhere else. It stalls, it's bloated, it doesn't work as well as a half a dozen other media players. Burn it with fire.
    Well, there ya have it: I use a Mac… always have, always will. iTunes is nice!

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    Parrots Ripped My Flesh Dave (in MA)'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gruno View Post
    Well, there ya have it: I use a Mac… always have, always will. iTunes is nice!
    iTunes sucks on Windows. iTunes sucks on a Mac. iTunes sucks on a phone.

    I use a Mac at work only when the task at hand calls for using a Mac. The rest of the time, Windows and/or Linux, although Windows is becoming more and more annoyingly Mac-like with every successive release.

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    Quote Originally Posted by NogbadTheBad View Post
    iTunes works fine for me.
    Probably depends on what you use it for. It's all right for filing/tagging batches of existing mp3s and moving them onto an Ipod. I have no problem since that's all I do with it. If I tried the program for ripping CDs or buying music through their store, maybe I'd have a very different opinion.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Dave (in MA) View Post
    iTunes sucks on Windows. iTunes sucks on a Mac. iTunes sucks on a phone.
    Agreed - Itunes is just plain bad software. There was never a time - even 10-12 years ago - when it was a good way to organize mp3 files, compared to other programs. Its "growth" over time consists mostly of either doubling down on mistakes, or inventing new ways to suck.

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    ALL ACCESS Gruno's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dave (in MA) View Post
    iTunes sucks on Windows. iTunes sucks on a Mac. iTunes sucks on a phone.

    I use a Mac at work only when the task at hand calls for using a Mac. The rest of the time, Windows and/or Linux, although Windows is becoming more and more annoyingly Mac-like with every successive release.
    I have zero problems with iTunes on all my devices. I must be the lucky one.

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    Studmuffin Scott Bails's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gruno View Post
    I have zero problems with iTunes on all my devices. I must be the lucky one.
    I think you hit upon it.

    The fact that so many have issues with it suggests that it's not an optimal product. It may work for you, but a good product would work for everyone. And, if it's offered for PC, it shouldn't suck on PC.
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    The MP3 should be dead but it won't lie down. Its crazy with all the tech we have available now but people still use this shitty medium to listen to music.

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    Member Plasmatopia's Avatar
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    I like iTunes. There have been a few hiccups over the years, but once those were ironed out it has worked perfectly for years. I'm not sure what people are trying to do with it that puts them in such conflict with it.
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  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Steve983 View Post
    The MP3 should be dead but it won't lie down. Its crazy with all the tech we have available now but people still use this shitty medium to listen to music.
    Curious, but what makes it "shitty"? That it is a lossy format? That in itself isn't bad if space is at a premium. I agree with you if you are saying that it is a horrible way to distribute music. Still annoys me that it is the only way to get music digitally on Amazon.

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    Member Jerjo's Avatar
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    I've gotten more coasters of worthless burned discs from iTunes than any other media player. It freezes, Apple is constantly fucking with the interface, when it does work it's a klutz compared to other players, it's a total mess in terms of getting the right album artwork or book cover. I only tolerate it because it's essential for my iPad and my phone. Both of those are getting on in years and will not be replaced with an Apple product.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Plasmatopia View Post
    I like iTunes. There have been a few hiccups over the years, but once those were ironed out it has worked perfectly for years. I'm not sure what people are trying to do with it that puts them in such conflict with it.
    I agree - I've used it for years - what is it that it is doing or not doing to upset so many - I can understand it not working on a P.C. it's Mac software after all.

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    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jake View Post
    I agree - I've used it for years - what is it that it is doing or not doing to upset so many - I can understand it not working on a P.C. it's Mac software after all.
    A big part of the suckage is that to put music on an iPod or iPhone you HAVE to use it, you can't just use those devices in Windows explorer like you would a disk or hard drive, dragging and dropping files.

    It was only the other day that I realized that iTunes by syncing a device means (I think) syncing your purchases from iTunes between the attached device and your iTunes account. I always thought it meant something much more ominous because I've only ever made like three purchases in iTunes and don't plan to make any more ever.

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    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by jake View Post
    I agree - I've used it for years - what is it that it is doing or not doing to upset so many - I can understand it not working on a P.C. it's Mac software after all.
    It's also Windows software. BAD Windows software.

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    Member Jerjo's Avatar
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    If you own a Mac and want a superior player, get this one:

    https://audirvana.com/
    I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart

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    Quote Originally Posted by TheLongshot View Post
    Curious, but what makes it "shitty"? That it is a lossy format? That in itself isn't bad if space is at a premium. I agree with you if you are saying that it is a horrible way to distribute music. Still annoys me that it is the only way to get music digitally on Amazon.

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    Yes because its lossy. Space used to be the problem but not anymore, who needs their whole record collection their pocket anyway? If Amazon would sell FLAC they'd get a lot more custom from me. Also charging the same price for MP3's as a cd is insane but people do it!

  25. #25
    I wonder how much Apple paid them to say this.
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