I just recorded an interview with Dr. Jim Coyle (aka iJim) and as I was playing with the file I saw the recording was made at a depth of 8 bits but a sample rate of 64Kbps. I can never remember to what these terms refer, but I know the net result is the recording isn’t terrible. Still, I like to understand the terms better than that, so I got onto Wikipedia and looked up the term ‘Bit Rate’. I will admit my brain was not firing on all cylinders, and so I was not absorbing much. I generally scanned the page to see if there were any pretty pictures. Alas, there were none.

I did come across a link that intrigued me. It was an article entitled Do Higher MP3 Bit Rates Pay Off? This is a question I have had myself. No, not with all the “fancy words” and “punctuation”, but I have been wondering about bit rates, file size, and audio quality.

[Back in the old days], most MP3s were encoded at constant bit rate (CBR) 128Kb/s, striking a balance between acceptable audio quality and file sizes that were small enough for easy trading over a dialup connection. But what was born out of necessity endures today, as most of the music available on rogue peer-to-peer networks is still compressed at this rate. It’s been called “near CD” quality, but we know better—it isn’t even in the same Zip code as CD audio. [More…]

Now, none of this has done anything to help me understand bit depth and bit rate, but it has been a great distraction so I don’t mind my ignorance as much.

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Tags: Technical, Mp3, Technology | 2 Comments »

I am sure most of you have heard that EMI has released its full catalog to be sold on iTunes drm-free. As you may know, these tracks are being offered only in the AAC format (at 256 kbps). I have heard the question asked by some if this means the end of MP3s.

The rationale is this: With Apple controlling the online music busines, and now the entire EMI catalog being released, the music format is becoming more and more common.

Okay, this may be true, but mp3s are everywhere. I cannot imagine it NOT being the standard.

The argument for AAC replacing MP3 goes on. The licensing fees are becoming steeper, and there was a recent legal decision that the newly merged Alcatel-Lucent could assert its royalty claim for the mp3 format.

As Tech News World points out, there are already signs that the ubiquity of mp3 is faultering. AAC support has spread to Microsoft’s Zune, Sony’s Play Station Portable; PS3; and some Walkman’s. Some cellphones (Nokia, Sony Ericsson) also support the format.

So are the days numbered for the MP3? While it is exceedingly hard to unseat an entrenched format, the forces might be right to undermine the mp3s hold on the market.

Maybe it won’t be the AAC that reigns supreme, there is a new kid on the block. Maybe this is the way things will go. Or will mp3 be saying in years to come: “The news of my demise, has been greatly exaggerated”.

Tags: Mp3 | No Comments »

redhat.com | Podcasting in open source: “Podcasting in open source”
by Rebecca Fernandez

Podcasting has always struck me as a bit paradoxical. On one hand, it grants anyone access to a wide listening audience. True democratization of content. You, the listener, choose what radio shows and content you want to hear. Advertisers and media conglomerates may loom over the airwaves, but you control your downloads. The content you want, when you want to hear it. And you get your RSS feeds in open source xml.

On the other hand, podcasting has become intricately tied to various proprietary file formats and software. The vast majority of audio files are sent in MP3 format. People get their favorite shows through iTunes and listen on iPods, jamming needlessly in a proprietary iWorld.” Read More…

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[John Buckman, CEO and founder of Magnatune], himself developed the algorithm against which the podcasts are generated automatically each week. The Magnatune podcasts imitate the radio “rotation” model, featuring new songs more, and making “hits” by playing the strongest tracks more frequently. Several podcasts have already seen several thousand user downloads since the launch, including the Bach podcast with 30,000 downloads in just over a week.”

By most measures, the casts wildly successful. The question becomes ‘does Magnatune make any money’? I did a bit of digging and came across some information on the Music Dish website:

“[Magnatune] Tout[s] a 30 percent annual sales increase, 10,000 daily visitors with one of every 42 visitors buying music, Buckman is has 9sic) something interesting going on at Magnatune.” (10-21-05)

Apparently, the answer is yes. Well then, maybe Magnatune is making the money, but what about the artist? Is he or she getting a royal rogering rather than royalties? According to the Magnatune website, half of the money from each album purchased goes directly to the artist. There appears to be different formulas for other licensing but it seems to be advantagous to the artist as well as to Magnatune.

Musician Victor Stone had this to say in a blog post:

“[I]f anybody ever wondered what it is that Magnatune does for its artists over and above just hoisting your CDs on a website with a PayPal button, there’s yet another push for the groovy on line licensing that professional music consumers (film makers, etc.) can feel very confident about. I mean it’s all businessy and stuff.” (Feb. 6, 2006)

At least one of the artists associated with Magnatune is please with the association.

Magnatune’s success seems totally counterintuitive. Giving away music for non-commercial use as a way to make money. In a time when the RIAA is suing its customers over music sharing, Magnatune asks you to share any album you buy with three other people. I don’t remember the last time I purchased a CD in a store. I would venture to guess it was in the mid-90’s. This last year, though, I purchased on album directly from an indie group called the Candy Butchers and two albums from Magnatune.

What we are witnessing is a revolution in media and media distribution. Viva la revolucion!

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Tags: Music, Magnatune, Business, Mp3 | No Comments »

This via Podcasting News

LibriVox takes public domain books and publishes them as audiobooks and a podcast.

LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain, and the site publishes the audio files to the Net (podcast and catalog). The recordings are released as public domain works. A recent podcast features a reading of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.

According to the site, “Our objective is to make all books in the public domain available, for free, in audio format on the internet. We are a totally volunteer, open source, free content, public domain project.

How it works:

1. LibriVox volunteers suggest books from the public domain, and we’ll choose some to record.
2. Volunteers “claim” chapters, and record them to mp3.
3. Volunteers submit files to LibriVox
4. The files are hosted on the Internet Archive
5. LibriVox maintains a catalog of complete and incomplete books, and podcasts selected books

LibriVox was founded by Hugh McGuire, a Montreal-based writer interested in the “free movement” in its many guises.

via Scripting News

Tags: Resources, Mp3, Public Domain | No Comments »