Editor's note: Here's an interesting bit from Wired Magazine. Read and feel free to rant or rave...
Ever since computers picked up the handy ability to play decent-sounding music, fans have overwhelmingly defaulted to the MP3 format for audio files because it sounds pretty good, doesn't take up much space and (perhaps most importantly) works with more devices than any other digital audio format.
It may seem as if the venerable MP3 standard is here to stay, but it faces attack from a number of angles. First, it doesn't sound as good, byte-for-byte, as files purchased from iTunes Music Store (in the AAC format) or any of the Microsoft-compliant stores.
Second, the CD rippers/encoders that most people use -- iTunes and Windows Media Player -- have encouraged users to rip to AAC and WMA over the years. Third, only one major online music store, eMusic, proffers songs in the MP3 format, and it lacks most major releases. Fourth, geeks who love MP3 for its wide compatibility can now choose from preferable open-source alternatives such as Ogg Vorbis.
Finally, today's faster connections and more capacious hard drives have audiophiles turning to lossless codecs such as FLAC and those offered by Apple Computer and Microsoft.
Thomson, the entity that licenses the MP3 format to the world (it's not free or open source, as some suspect), tried to update MP3 for the first time in 2001, to the mp3Pro format. That effort failed. Only RCA -- owned by Thomson -- added mp3Pro support to its MP3 players, and consumers mainly ignored it.
In its second attempt to shepherd the MP3 format into the future, Thomson's MP3 Licensing Group unveiled a new format last year, a surround-sound version of the MP3 format imaginatively called MP3 Surround.
MP3 Surround files are essentially ordinary MP3s with an additional layer of information that tells compatible players where to place sounds. New devices designed to support the format deliver rich and accurate surround sound -- whether through a 5.1-channel system or simulated through a pair of stereo headphones. The format adds minimal overhead, consuming just 15 additional bits per second. And it is backward compatible, so MP3 Surround files will play on any device that supports plain-vanilla MP3, sans surround.
During my tests, MP3 Surround performed well enough to warrant serious consideration among device manufacturers and music fans. The songs sounded more expansive and present than their stereo counterparts, and I didn't hear any additions to the sound that marred the experience. I used Shure E3c earbuds for testing, so the surround effect is evidently not dependent on having full-size headphones.
In order for you to hear MP3 Surround today, you'll need a computer with the playback software installed (available on all4mp3.com). But computer playback is no longer enough. If a digital audio format is to succeed these days, it'll need support on a wide array of home and portable devices.
Several promising avenues for MP3 Surround home playback loom on the horizon. According to Rocky Caldwell, general manager of Thomson's MP3 Licensing Group, any DVD player could be upgraded with firmware to decode MP3 Surround files and pass the bits through to a 5.1 amplifier using a digital connection. RCA plans to release a player that comes standard with that capability later this year.
Because home theater-in-a-box units already have six channels of amplification, a manufacturer could include MP3 Surround support right out of the box. Caldwell told me Thomson is leveraging the strong relationships it forged with manufacturers to add MP3 Surround support to next year's devices.
The third possibility could be the most promising: Caldwell said "a major Japanese consumer-electronics manufacturer" will be releasing a device similar to the Xbox that might include MP3 Surround support natively. Needless to say, the integration of MP3 Surround into the Sony PlayStation 3 would be a huge shot in the arm to the new format, especially because so many PS3s will be purchased by tech-savvy types and connected to surround-sound systems.
On the portable front, Thomson would need to add MP3 Surround support to as many devices as possible that have the processing power to decode the files. Caldwell asserted that any portable video player would have the required processing power of 150 mips and could be upgraded to support MP3 Surround through a firmware update. The company will almost certainly have its RCA division create an MP3 player that supports MP3 Surround, but that won't be enough (as it discovered through its RCA-only mp3Pro experience).
Considering the lopsided nature of today's MP3 player market, Thomson would also need to convince Apple to put MP3 Surround on the iPod. Apple has never permitted any company to install third-party software on the iPod, but according to Caldwell, Thomson has a very close relationship with Apple.
MP3 Surround faces some stiff competition in this arena from SRS Labs' Wow plug-in (already found on Samsung MP3 players among others), Dolby Laboratories' Dolby Headphone technology (already found on some Sony Vaios), and Plantronics' Volume Logic (once the subject of a petition to force Apple to add support for it to the iPod, it's now available as an iTunes add-on for $20). None of these offer exactly what MP3 Surround does, but all of them are positioned close enough to capture the market for enhancing sound on portable audio devices.
Thomson has an ace up its sleeve when it comes to device integration: The new licensing fee for MP3 Surround is -- zero! Developers and manufacturers can add MP3 Surround for free (as long as they were already paying for MP3). This gives Thomson a considerable advantage over the other companies Apple might tap for such a project.
Even if MP3 Surround makes it onto enough hardware to succeed, one large question remains: Where is MP3 Surround music going to come from? Piracy-paranoid record labels would never consider selling their music in the MP3 Surround format because it lacks the digital-rights-management protection that prevents users from sharing (or in some cases even playing) their files. Fraunhofer once issued a press release announcing a version of the MP3 format that included DRM capabilities, but that never came to light.
According to Caldwell, MP3 Surround can succeed without the labels' cooperation. "MP3 never had major-label content, and seems to have been relatively successful. On the other hand, Super Audio CD and DVD-Audio both had major label content, and millions, if not tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars, spent promoting it and they haven't succeeded, (among other reasons) because they don't address the convenience issue."
Assuming the labels won't sell you MP3 Surround songs, you could try turning DVD-A or SA-CD recordings currently on the market into MP3 Surround files. That would require considerable technical sophistication, and either illegal software or tedious real-time recording (from a DVD-A/SA-CD player into a 5.1-capable soundcard's input).
Using software available on the all4mp3.com site, you could also choose to batch-process your own files to create backward-compatible 5.1 simulations that consume 15 bps more disk space than untreated stereo MP3s. But that process is quite time-consuming, and doesn't create true MP3 Surround files, since it only starts with two channels of data.
Thomson desperately needs a good source for MP3 Surround files to surface, whether that's a legitimate MP3 Surround store, a renegade application for converting DVD-A and SA-CDs directly into MP3 Surround files, or a file-sharing network where people can download pre-converted MP3 Surround files.
If that happens, MP3 Surround could succeed for the same reason that MP3 did and still does: its overwhelming compatibility. MP3 Surround files play just fine on MP3 players that don't support the "surround" part of the file, and users with MP3 Surround equipment will be able to enjoy the exact same surround-sound file on their headphones and 5.1 systems for enhanced sound.
If people have MP3 Surround files on their hard drives, you can bet manufacturers will fall over themselves to add MP3 Surround support to their 2007 lines of MP3 players.
