HD-AAC

[Brandon B]

Interesting development:

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS166619+07-Jan-2008+BW20080107

Hopefully this takes hold. Offering hi-rez audio files online has a better chance to survive what seems to be the inevitable niche status high quality audio ends up in than SACD has shown. And it's almost certainly something that could be added in a PS3 firmware update.

BB

[The Seventh Taylor]

Interesting indeed.

Now one can wonder whether this has any more chance of attracting a larger audience than the niche that is SACD/DVD-Audio but at least it meets the need for the convenience of downloading that appears to have become expected. I believe MP3 Pro came from the same lab and that still hasn't put much of a dent in the overall download market, I believe.

Some will also debate whether this was needed to achieve high quality in the first place: With the exponential growth of storage capacity a HDD-equipped audio player can easily store dozens of hours of losslessly compressed PCM or even DSD.

The article makes no mention of surround sound though. Then again we've got MP3 Surround from the same family tree. That makes me wonder whether we'll see a 'battle' between HD-AAC and MP3 Surround for capturing the two different main benefits of SACD and DVD-Audio but I doubt it. MP3 Surround has been out for over a year and failed to make much impact thus far. Probably because of the lack of source material. I have not heard of any SACD ripping software and I don't expect we will while the format remains uncracked. Does such a thing exist for DVD-Audio? If so, perhaps it will soon have two options: rip to MP3 Surround and rip to HD-AAC -- until somebody realizes we need a format that supports both high resolution and surround sound. HD-AAC Surround, anyone?

For more about MP3 Surround see http://www.all4mp3.com/

This also makes me wornder when (if ever) we'll see an MP3 Surround decoder for PS3 -- and an HD-AAC decoder.

[Brandon B]

[D-Mode 5.1]

This blog entry http://futuremusic.com/blog/?p=2273 declares the new format Dead On Arrival.

Frankly I can't say I disagree entirely.

[Jens]

I get the impression Apple is all into HD video downloads via iTunes but doesn't say a word about high-resolution audio. All the HD-AAC coverage appears to have been generated by the Fraunhofer Institute around CES, without a mention of it at the Macworld conference.

On a different note, I've read suggestions that the HD-DVD/Blu-ray Disc stalemate was resolved simply because the industry had to get their act on high-definiton movie distribution together if they didn't want to lose out to Apple, whose Apple TV take 2 announcement was imminent.
An interesting explanation though I'm not sure what to make of it. They're in on that deal too (Apple couldn't do it without them, could they?) so they stand to gain either way.

[Brandon B]

Hidef disc media and Apple's offerings are pretty separate markets. Their "HD" movies are 4GB 720p files. Compare that to a 15-40GB full 1080p file on a BD or HD-DVD. No comparison. I am willing to be that a good quality DVD upscaled WILL look as good as the Apple HD rentals, unlike the oft repeated meme about DVD and HD discs.

Nonetheless, in spite of that and my expanding blu-ray collection, I will be buying an aTV and partaking of their rentals.

Of course, I am not the mainstream consumer, my setup makes the price of a BD well worth it, and I tend to buy movies in lieu of going to the crappy mall multiplex in my city.

So for the rental market, that may be a valid point.

[Brandon B]

[Superman]

[The Seventh Taylor]

This news item writes about AppleTV movie downloads:

[md47]

why not just support flac..?

it is beyond me as to why the ps3 (and the psp) cant read the oggvorbis library, and the lamemp3 header (which allows for true gapless playback)...

what seems so obvious to me seems to be lost on sony - it isnt about how snazzy the codec is, it is about how many people use it. rather than reinvent the wheel, support the open codecs that are already out there...

[Brandon B]

HD AAC has nothing to do with Sony, and they are not supporting it. What is nice about it is it could be added to new devices and it would automatically continue support with the existing AAC format, while adding hi fidelity capability.

As to why it can read FLAC or Ogg, as you say, not enough people to make it worth their while. It is simply not a mainstream consumer format.

BB

[The Seventh Taylor]

Sound On Sound magazine last month had an article about surround sound music distribution via the internet by means of MP3 Surround:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan08/articles/mp3surround.htm

[FunkyMonkey]

Note that the surround sound (high-res) MP3 system is a different codec to the existing one, meaning many current players including the PS3 will nto be able to deocde (at present).

[PS3SACD]

I don't believe that's right. I downloaded some of the sample tracks and could play them on PS3 -- as stereo. That's how it's encoded: a regular MP3 decoder will only see the stereo data so you've got graceful degradation.

Will post something about this in the FAQ shortly.

[FunkyMonkey]