Goodbye MP3??

[alexpgp]

From an article on ZDNet News titled Tech giants out to ambush MP3:

Microsoft, for example, plans to severely limit the quality of music that can be recorded as an MP3 file using software built into the next version of its personal-computer operating system, Windows XP. But music recorded in the Redmond, Wash., software company's own format, called Windows Media Audio, will sound clearer and require far less storage space on a computer.
...
"The industry doesn't want [MP3] pushed
[...]. The consumer is going to eat what
he's given," says David Farber, the former
chief technologist at the Federal Communications Commission.

The article goes on to say that Windows XP will limit MP3 recording to 56 kbps, though I cannot understand how they might impose this restriction on third party developers. OTOH, Microsoft has been giving away free licenses to other companies to use its audio technology, and that word "free" just may have had a small string or two attached.

BTW, that Windows Media Audio format, if I'm not mistaken, is the one whose file format has been patented by Microsoft, requiring any software designed to decode the format to be licensed from Redmond. Whoo-ee!

Cheers...

Comments

[bandicoot.livejournal.com]

That isn't quite true. MS is providing a basic MP3 codec, but you can use whatever codec you want. Of course they're pushing their own format, but you know how proprietary formats fare - pretty badly.