The MP3 is officially dead according to its creators.

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by Classicrock, May 13, 2017.

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  1. Classicrock

    Classicrock Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    South West, UK.
    The MP3 Is Officially Dead, According To Its Creators

    "
    But now, 22 years later, the MP3 truly is dead, according to the people who invented it. The Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits, a division of the state-funded German research institution that bankrolled the MP3's development in the late '80s, recently announced that its "licensing program for certain MP3 related patents and software of Technicolor and Fraunhofer IIS has been terminated." "
     
  2. Jiri Smahel

    Jiri Smahel Forum Resident

    Location:
    Czech rep.
    Well, I don't think so. 99,99% of music on the world (net) is in MP3. It takes decade(s) to kill this format. Every multimedia equipment (from microwave to new cars) can play it. So, it is not.
     
  3. Schoolmaster Bones

    Schoolmaster Bones Poe's Lawyer

    Location:
    ‎The Midwest
    Good to know. Thanks for the heads-up.
     
  4. Jimbino

    Jimbino Goad Kicker, Music Lover

    Location:
    Northern CA, USA
    You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.
     
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  5. Bingo Bongo

    Bingo Bongo Music gives me Eargasms

    Location:
    Ottawa, Canada
    So the license agreement expired???
     
  6. pathosdrama

    pathosdrama Forum Resident

    Location:
    Firenze, Italy
    They also state that the mp3 is dead because AAC is a superior format :rolleyes:
     
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  7. Tyler Chastain

    Tyler Chastain Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Orleans
    Give me FLAC or give me death
     
  8. 131east23

    131east23 Person of Interest

    Location:
    gone
    I think I'll go play an LP...
     
  9. SibilanceSegs

    SibilanceSegs Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    So did the Hippie but we still see those around :)
     
  10. Baidur

    Baidur Forum Resident

    I wouldn't be surprised if next RSD an album of mp3's on floppy disc appears.
     
  11. libertycaps

    libertycaps Forum Resident

    Location:
    Portland, OR, USA
    Goldwasser shots at the wake, i hope!
     
    SandAndGlass likes this.
  12. Gaslight

    Gaslight ⎧⚍⎫⚑

    Location:
    Northeast USA
    If anything else, the lack of licensing requirements will make MP3 even more desirable than it already is.

    Ubuntu and Fedora distros, for example, will likely able to add MP3 playback to its OS as the defualt option, and Audacity can add it into its program natively versus an add-on.
     
  13. andrewskyDE

    andrewskyDE Island Owner

    Location:
    Europe
    Flac upwards is the best!
     
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  14. Scopitone

    Scopitone Caught the last train for the coast

    Location:
    Denver, CO
    Yup, and software like Foobar and Music Bee will be able to bundle LAME instead of making you go get it.

    3 of the big 4 lossy music sellers (Google, Amazon, Microsoft) as well as lots of other sites (nugs.net, prestoclassical, etc) sell mp3 files. I don't see that changing anytime soon.
     
  15. raphph

    raphph Taking a trip on an ocean liner…

    Location:
    London
    This
     
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  16. Solitaire1

    Solitaire1 Carpenters Fan

    My understanding is:
    • The originators of the MP3 format stopped supporting it long ago. The original MP3 format hasn't been updated in a while. However, development of MP3 has continued in the form of LAME (which is supposed to be a better MP3 format than the original).
    • While AAC is technically better than MP3 (and was intended to be its successor), with the development of LAME it is basically a wash (meaning that neither is significantly better) at the higher bitrates.
    One of the major strengths of MP3 is that it is universally supported, and that is one of the reasons I often use the format as an output format (for my actual library I rip to FLAC and then convert to other formats when needed). Every device I have that plays audio supports MP3, but that is not the case with other formats.
     
    Last edited: May 13, 2017
  17. Gaslight

    Gaslight ⎧⚍⎫⚑

    Location:
    Northeast USA
    Exactly. If anything else, the lack of licensing costs for MP3 would probably save those same companies money, versus going to AAC.
     
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  18. ajsmith

    ajsmith Senior Member

    Location:
    Glasgow
    Looks like The Dead Kennedys timely and in no way embarrassingly out of touch protest song finally had the desired effect.

     
  19. ShallowMemory

    ShallowMemory Classical Princess

    Location:
    GB
    More like they can't make anything from it. Mp3 remains king of the lossy's as a Lame user (when I need a smallish file), it's perfectly fine.
     
    Last edited: May 13, 2017
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  20. Synthfreek

    Synthfreek I’m a ray of sunshine & bastion of positivity

    I know! "It's" is not the correct word.
     
    Vagabone and Raf like this.
  21. William Barty

    William Barty Forum Resident

    My take is that this announcement is much more about money than it is about an assessment of the quality of the technology.

    The patents underlying MP3 technology have finally expired (country by country over time, with the US patent expiring in April 2017). Fraunhofer is estimated to have collected >100 million Euros in royalties during the lives of those patents. Now that the patents are expired, there is no longer any more money for Fraunhofer and Technicolor (their licensing agent) to make from licensing -- which is why they made that announcement.

    In the announcement, they are steering the crowd towards the future MPEG-H standard -- which will again generate royalties from Fraunhofer and Technicolor.

    This is a good article about this. It makes the point that MP3 encoding can now be incorporated in more software products (e.g. Red Hat Fedora) now that the licensing issues are gone.
    MP3 Free At Last
     
    Last edited: May 13, 2017
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  22. eric777

    eric777 Astral Projectionist

    I don't think this will make much of a difference. If MP3 does actually go away, it will be replaced by something else. FLAC seems to be getting more attention in the last few years.
     
  23. Dennis Metz

    Dennis Metz Born In A Motor City south of Detroit

    Location:
    Fonthill, Ontario
  24. HotelYorba101

    HotelYorba101 Senior Member

    Location:
    California
    FLAC or honestly 256 AAC or higher is perfectly ok with me - at that point between a 256 AAC file and lossless the mastering is more important to me than splitting hairs of reasonably good sounding files
     
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  25. Lance Hall

    Lance Hall Senior Member

    Location:
    Fort Worth, Texas
    Most modern CD players and car radios play MP3. It's a universal format.

    I listen to MP3s in the car off a 16 gig USB stick.

    The MP3s are LAME encoded at 320-bit constant bit rate. Driving around you would never notice the difference between those and real CDs. Even at home I can't hear the difference and I have excellent hearing. Yet at home I'll still cue up actual WAVs off the computer.
     
    Dave S, Keith V, MYQ1 and 1 other person like this.
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