“There is currently no industry standard for downloadable MP3s. This means that, for instance, MP3s downloaded from Sony’s Connect service can only be played on Sony’s MP3 Walkman, and not on the more popular iPod (and vice versa),” Neil McCormick writes for The Telegraph.
“Behind the scenes, the battle waging for commercial dominance is reminiscent of the early 1980s cut-throat competition to establish video standards between VHS and Betamax. And lest we forget, VHS won despite being technically inferior,’ McCormick writes.
“Although Apple has been the pioneer in the MP3 market, with Sony/BMG controlling 25 per cent of the music market it will be interesting to see whose digital distribution platforms will survive,” McCormick writes. “Will all those expensive iPods we have been rushing out to buy wind up piled high in car-boot sales alongside Betamax video players and 8-track cassette machines?”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Confused? Ditto. iPod can play AAC, MP3, MP3 VBR, Audible, AIFF, Apple Lossless and WAV, so we don’t see why this writer’s concerned. If he means to ponder whether iTunes Music Store protected AAC (.m4p) content will possibly end up as “the next Betamax,” the songs can be easily transcoded into different formats with minimal degradation. That particular scenario doesn’t look remotely plausible at this time; 100 million sold and counting. We don’t see any reason for concern here.
Columnists bombard us relentlessly with reminders that the miniscule market share held by the Mac OS will forever relegate it to obscurity, that it can never become the industry standard in the way Windows has.
And yet, when an Apple product commands an overwhelming majority share of its respective market – in other words, has become an industry standard – the pundits again predict doom for Apple.
WTF?
Perhaps they spell ‘bias’ differently over in the UK, but I know it when I see it.
I think it is funny.
Sony, the company that developed the Betamax format, which lost out to an inferior product, has now created an inferior product hoping to defeat the superior iPod.
It could happen.
The Telegraph writer screwed the pooch. On another note, I guess if BMW’s sell well to Mac users, the same applies for Sony, or at least it used to. In other words, Sony had better not piss off Mac users.
A group of electronic companies including Sony agreed on a 1/2″ tape format called VHS. Sony introduce an incompatible format, Beta, before agreed date of introduction. Angry VHS members came up with LP and EP to punish Sony. VHS had longer tape/larger spool, so Beta had better video quality on SP, but could not compete with VHS EP’s play time (I believe difference was 6 hours vs. 8 hours). One interesting note is, once Beta died, we did not see much improvement in the VHS performance. We should thank Sony for the Beta, giving us Hi-Fi VHS format.
If Sony/BMG uses its music properties to beat Apple, it will be taken to the court for its anti-competitive behavior. Sony/BMG won’t be dumb enough to do that.
This three audio format race is good for the consumers. They will all try to create better sound for less bytes. Which one win will be interesting. Since Apple is major share holder of portal player, who makes the chip for both iPod and WMF players, Apple will win as long as AAC or WMF wins the race.
“Is Sony’s ATRAC format the next Betamax?”
I think Peter has it exactly right with his insightful question. Sony will attempt to bum-rush iTMS by making their ATRAC3 format the standard on their Connect download service, but the format has been so widely derided for its poor quality at lower bit-rates that in my opinion it’s a non-starter.
The Betamax was also the technology leader.
And while Betamax is no more, Sony parlayed its R&D of Betamax into what was the Professional Standard Tape format for years to come.. Beta. Yes, those exact same Betamax video cassettes filled with newer forms of oxide tape are now used in the broadcast industry around the world.
Whle VHS tried the same thing (MII), it was never adopted and failed. So even though Betamax is gone, its legacy lives on.
You can bet Sony made a bundle on its professional Beta format.
However, I don’t think the iPod and iTMS is headed down that Betamax path.
Tha i Pod clan aint nuthin ta fsck wit…
It’s the *porn*, stupid!
I wouldn’t necessarily call it minimal degradation to convert a downloaded AAC file to MP3. First of all, the AAC file has suffered degradation from the original and then its being converted again. So yes, the author is correct. There’s only one real solution. And that is forget about proprietary formats (i.e. MP3, AAC, ALTRAC, WMA). Forget about DRM of any kind. Support only Ogg Vorbis for compressed music formats and FLAC or one of the other open source lossless formats for CD quality.
I say this to the online music stores as well as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.
For those that don’t know, before I switched from a Sony Vaio laptop to an Apple G5, I used SonicStage, Sony’s horrible, horrible mp3 player. In the whole history of my life, this was the worst program I have ever used. Maybe it was Windows, maybe it was the computer, but that program is worse (at least in it’s infancy stages) than any other program I’ve ever used.
Don’t worry, if people are choosing that program over iTunes, there is nothing you can do to help them. They are considerably stupid and we don’t want them on our side.
Also, why does the Sony Connect website have McDonald’s ads all over it? What a horrible thing to advertise. While you’re buying our tunes, why don’t you get a free Big Mac and make you fatter.
Don’t forget, this is not about just Mac users. Millions of Windows users have also bought iPods and use iTunes. They’re not about to buy the new Sony player, use the new Sony service, and either have to carry two music players or convert all of their iTunes music to Sony’s format, if that is even possible (Does Sony provide for importing from iTunes?) It’s quite a job to export all your iTunes from AAC to AIFF, WAV, or MP3 format, then import into Sony’s software, which probably doesn’t work as well as iTunes anyway.
Here’s the unpublished, but true, reason why VHS won the standards war. And yes, it’s the type of thing you don’t read in Harvard Business Review Article.
VHS failed in large part because the adult video industry supported the VHS format. Yes, people found a way to enjoy movies in a private manner, and it became a $12Billion business.
It’s weird, but true.
These “journalists” are so retarded that they don’t do any homework before writing any craps!!! Are they high school dropouts? At least everybody likes my “documentary” !!! The audience just took my film on face value and never do any research themselves. If they believe any “ documentary “ is a representation of “ truth”, then there must be hundreds of UFOs flying over our heads because of all the “ documentary” on SiFi channel about UFOs!!! Suckers!!!!
BTY, my next ” documentary ” will be titled ” Obesity in America” and I’m the prime example of that!!!! I got rich and FAT from making craps and promoting hatred while all the soldiers out there are defending the country, and I got to be crowned the “the great American patriot” !!!! Heee Heee Heee!! Boy, some people like Linda are so screwed up!!!!
wake up M, if you love the soldiers bring them home don’t make them die for Bush buddies to get rich while he lies to us about the reasons.
do u think the footage in that movie was all actors? look on his web site for all the facts in the movie and where to prove them for yourself. the sci fi channel cant do that
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then make your own opinion but u don’t help america by pretending the facts aren’t facts. you only help Bush wreck the country even worse.
*jaw drops to floor*
Mac Beth gets serious! Yay! Damn, there goes the only girl on this board with funny innuendos.
j/k
If I want facts, I go to the library, or ask a college professor. I go to movies, including “documentary”, for entertainment, you morons!!!!!
The article is correct in stating that there is no industry standard for downloading music. There are only a set of proprietary formats. Apple’s iPod is not a ‘standard’ because it is not compatable with other online music stores. It’s not an ‘industry standard’ if only one company has the rights to the technology and doesn’t licence it out. Firewire is a standard. Mp3 is a standard. Fairplay isn’t.
Apple could decide to become the standard by licencing Fairplay the way they licence Firewire and Quicktime, etc.
I agree with other posts that the iPod is superior to other devices – and the iTunes Music Store is the best. But the field is still in its infancy. Apple could never have succeeded without opening the iPod & iTMS to Windows users. Now they should go all the way and really make Fairplay the standard DRM by licencing it.
Fairplay may not be an industry standard, but it is a de facto standard. Sometimes, that may be all that is needed.
WMA is going to be the next ‘betamax’
Ah yes, the myth of the superiority of Betamax. It is like the myth of the superiority of Dvorak keyboards. Just because people keep repeating it doesn’t make it true.
Betamax was NOT better than VHS. It had marginally better quality when compared to the highest quality setting on VHS but VHS you could have several times the duration of the 1 hour Betamax tape. And guess what, people chose the lower quality setting on VHS almost all the time. Even with a choice of higher quality, most people chose convenience of having longer recordings on a tape.
The parallel here is remarkable. The CD has significantly better sound quality than an MP3 or AAC, but no one really seems to care. That is because the absolute quality of the audio is not as important to most of us as the availability of a very large playlist. We trade absolute audio quality for convenience. The VHS tape was the exact same thing. It was a better product because it was a better fit for the needs of consumers at the time.
I think Neil got confused with Apple’s OS market share with the iPod’s. True, you need an iPod or Mac to play the AAC’s. So what. MP3 is an open standard and there’s nothing closed about the iPod other than the AAC format (which has easy and reasonable conversions). Apple is not an MP3 market pioneer – they are an MP3 player pioneer and online music store pioneer.
rons a loser and known apple basher. your stupid ron your family hates you and you will proboly have a heart attack from the secret anger you hold for wintel machines!!!
Neil is pretty wrong on every account.
The Betamax analogy does not hold for several reasons.
a) Betamax come first. Betamax was a 60minute format. VHS was a 90 minute format. JVC will willing to license format – Sony was not so willing.
b) Betamax and tapes required a hardware manufacturer – with AAC Mp4’s – there is already Fairplay – if tomorrow, Apple closed up itms – there would be a dozen software converters. Even the most obscure coleco file can be read – and that was 20 years ago!
AAC Mp4’s are also digital – unlike analog tapes that need to be converted in real time, you can convert dozens of files in minutes.
Unless Sony refused to license their songs to Apple – just a wee bit of a antitrust issue – not going to happen.
I like how he insinuates that Apple’s MP3 (BTW it is not mp3, it’s AAC) will be the one that will become obsolete without committing to any prediction. This way no one can later say he was wrong.