I really don't understand why Cowon don't look into AAC they have it on their other players. I appreciate where people are coming from about patent free I don't like them either, but is it really freedomif it limits your choice of audio hardware/software? I've found looking for the right AAC player restricts my choice enough. Now with regard to "free" iTunes and Nero Digital CLI don't cost you a penny and if what you meant by free was free of patents, well when is the last time iTunes, Nero, XviD or x264 ever popped up and bugged you about patents? Sure they make use of patents, but so do many things in life. Well that is a little exaggerated, but it gets the point across. I don't want to have to encode and keep copies of ATRAC-3 files for my archaic HD walkman (NW-HD1, it sucks), Vorbis for my PC, MP3 data discs for my CD player and AAC files for my mobile phone. I for one want to encode my files once (or at least have a single copy of a track).
If LAME magically became Vorbis quality overnight (forgetting any spec boundaries for a moment, this is in a perfect world), would you still use Vorbis? Possibly not it would make sense to use MP3 because there is so much software and hardware that can handle it compared to Vorbis. Unfortunately Vorbis is nowhere near as interoperable as MP3, and I dare to say it's not even as widespread as AAC.īack when AAC was relatively unused and Vorbis had a clear cut advantage over MP3, then I can see the reasoning behind using it but nowadays the difference between Nero's free CLI encoder or iTunes is marginal, if any so I don't see sense in forsaking interoperability for what really is a negligable difference. This is why MP3 is so incredibly popular because of it's level of interoperability with other software and hardware. However the attraction with AAC for me is that first off it's more efficient than MP3, and secondly it's an ISO standard which means there is interest in hardware and software support. I'm not saying you should use it, that is completely your choice obviously. Why should I use it if there's Vorbis, which is usually better and moreover free. I don't have a single track in AAC(+) and I probably never will. Then for me as a customer I would still be asking WHY no aac if there are so many licences already paid in regards to that product and maybe if it shouldn't be h264 (due to HW limits) as long as a product does support m4v IMHO it should include m4a also (and be it as m4v in this case restricted to certain specs only).
damned I am still not sure how it is for mp3 or similiar if it is not encoded via a licenced product wich grands that right to the customer (wich would made ITunes or NeroAAC more shiny than FAAC or Lame aside from quality and if context is not scientific/testing - ok, same problem with xvid and x264).īack on point: just saying as a pro that vorbis is free should IMHO be acompanied by some enclosing semantic in regards to context :p But ok, Point taking from a companies PoV. And I am still not sure how grey the legal attribute is for sharing homemade stuff (with all rights to it on your side) in aac. And for the EndCustomer it is free - of course in supporting it in hardware there are licence fees.
Wether Vorbis is free or not isn't an argument for me, my preferences in AV choice will be mp4 complient (Even if I prefer MKV as a container).