"MP3 dead"? - oh, no, it isn't

[Guest Eggcup The Daft]

This has made it to the SMH:

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/rip-mp3-audio-format-officially-terminated-by-developers-that-created-it-20170515-gw5jy1.html#comments

 

Cynic's translation:

Fraunhofer are not licensing subsidiary MP3 patents after the key ones expired in the US. So they are trying to convince us that MP3 is somehow dead now. Of course they own patents on AAC for a few years yet.

 

So new players may not be able to support some parts of the MP3 infrastructure perhaps - but would Fraunhofer be game to prosecute companies who break the patents they still own?

[PeteD]

1 hour ago, Eggcup The Daft said:

So new players may not be able to support some parts of the MP3 infrastructure perhaps - but would Fraunhofer be game to prosecute companies who break the patents they still own?

 

 

From my understanding, it's open slather following the expiration of a patent. As per the first comment attached to the article, "This means they no longer have any legal standing to charge a fee for the use of MP3". I would assume that also means that there would be no grounds for prosecution of anyone who chooses to incorporate MP3 technology going forward.

[ThirdDrawerDown]

Regrettably, .flac is often omitted from these sorts of articles. 

 

Which on the other hand is a clue that the source is not credible (fake news) due to ignorance, incompetence, or a vested interest with a money flow.

 

Yeh. Patents on other formats? That'll do it.

 

 

[Guest Eggcup The Daft]

Just now, PeteD said:

 

From my understanding, it's open slather following the expiration of a patent. As per the first comment attached to the article, "This means they no longer have any legal standing to charge a fee for the use of MP3". I would assume that also means that there would be no grounds for prosecution of anyone who chooses to incorporate MP3 technology going forward.

There are patents regarding later implementations of the MP3 format, so some less important stuff is still patented in some parts of the world. The last patents concerning playback are the ones that expired in the US this year. They expired in Europe in 2012 according to Wikipedia. And yes, anyone can do anything with the playback parts of the format where the patents have expired.

Neither the story nor any site I can quickly find state what is in the patents that are discussed in the article. It's probably stuff like metadata handling and perhaps attempts to make a "lossless" version of MP3 from a few years ago that never took off.

 

I'm sure someone here knows more, if it's worth knowing. The story does not state that these patents are relinquished. I just don't believe they would enforce anything. And as for MP3 being "dead"  - RIP MP3" in the headline - that's, um, fake news. I fell for clickbait

[davewantsmoore]

1 hour ago, ThirdDrawerDown said:

Regrettably, .flac is often omitted from these sorts of articles. 

 

Being that it's not an ISO / MPEG standard ... it's not very popular.

 

How would they fit FLAC into the discussion?     AAC is the natural successor, which is why it was mentioned.

 

1 hour ago, Eggcup The Daft said:

as for MP3 being "dead"  - RIP MP3" in the headline - that's, um, fake news.

 

At the big end of town, they are unlikely to continue with unsupported formats forever .....   but given the gravity that MP3 has, it's not going away over night.

[Guest Eggcup The Daft]

There's at least a chance that some sort of consortium of interested parties will gather to keep the standard going and maybe even progress it further.

 

After all, a lot of people have a lot invested in the format, and won't want the word "unsupported" attached to it.

[Hergest]

Worth a read.....

 

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170515/08521037370/mp3-is-about-as-dead-as-pepe-frog.shtml

[LogicprObe]

A whole generation grew up with MP3.

To them, it's the sound of music.

Their ears are attuned to it.

[Guest Peter the Greek]

I'm a bit ignorant about these things. Can someone provide or point me to a source for a pecking order? i.e. what's "best quality" to worst of the available codecs? 

[davewantsmoore]

55 minutes ago, Peter the Greek said:

I'm a bit ignorant about these things. Can someone provide or point me to a source for a pecking order? i.e. what's "best quality" to worst of the available codecs? 

 

A simple list will be misleading.

 

 

Lossless codecs should sound the same.   If they don't it's an implementation issue (not a codec issue).

 

Lossy codecs .... will achieve a level of "mostly transparent" (where 99% of people can't tell the difference between the original) ... and at this level they're for all intents and purposes, equivalent.

• In general AAC can achieve this level with a lower bitrate than MP3 .... typically 256kbps vs 320kbps.
• The benefit of AAC is that it can maintain quality at lower rates than MP3 can....  eg.   96kbps AAC will sound a lot better than MP3.

 

[Guest Peter the Greek]

Thanks @davewantsmoore

[eltech]

On 2017-5-17 at 0:45 PM, davewantsmoore said:

If they don't it's an implementation issue (not a codec issue).

And that's the problem. In the real world there is in my experience an audible difference between flac and wav. Sometimes flac sounds nicer than wav and other times it's the opposite. I've yet to hear any computer play them back and sound identical. I'm sure most people here don't care. But that's what I've heard. I'm not sure it's implementation. That implies bad coding? Or did you mean something else? I think computer processes are audible. Flac needs real time decoding. That's one reason I went back to a CD transport. Not that it's infallible either. 

[davewantsmoore]

12 hours ago, eltech said:

I'm not sure it's implementation. That implies bad coding? Or did you mean something else? I think computer processes are audible. Flac needs real time decoding. That's one reason I went back to a CD transport. Not that it's infallible either. 

 

You can trivially test that the codec produces the same data output.

 

If the data is later affected (ie. after the above test) to to produce a different sound .... then this is either:

 

• Not at all related to the codec, wav v flac, etc.
• Influenced by the codec  (eg. the computer doing more, less, or different work) ....  but this is avoidable.    ie. The software and hardware have been implemented  in a way that makes them susceptible.

 

An extreme example of how to be not affected might be a "dual computer" type of setup that you see some people using.    One computer 'decodes' the audio .... and all audio travels decoded and unencumbered, to the second which simply plays it out.