Max: A Pristine Audio Encoder for Mac

In the past, I have written a few entries (here, here and here) about my audiophile tendencies. In summary, after investing a sum of money into high-quality studio monitor speakers, I began to hear the limitations of certain audio formats, namely MP3 and Apple's AAC (which is based on the MP4 format).

It is a slow and ongoing process, where I have managed to re-encode approximately 10% of my audio collection (which is, incidentally, greater than 600 compact discs). In this journey, I have even uncovered more limitations -- not in the audio itself, but in the encoding technologies themselves.

For most consumers, the encoders included in Apple's iTunes or Microsoft's Windows Media Player should suffice. Both applications allow the user to choose a variety of file formats and bitrates, which should produce an encoded audio file which best suits the listener.

But not me.

Enter Max. Max is a high-quality audio ripper / encoder for OSX, which sports a number of advancements in audio encoding technology. Even though it is a standalone application, it integrates well with iTunes, will import artwork from a variety of websites, and will query the Musicbrainz database to ensure proper ID3 file tagging. Best of all, Max is freeware.

The interface is simple and clean. Everything you need to see in the main panel is there. If you need to make individual edits to individual tracks, all that is needed is to hit the 'Tracks" button on the toolbar, and a panel opens for you to make the desired changes. The same thing goes with artwork.

Tabbing from one song to the next works as expected, preventing the user from grabbing the mouse and double-clicking every individual track. I may even say, that this is a better interface for inserting tags than iTunes. However, a user should not need to individually enter these tags, if he is querying the Musicbrainz database.

Max has the ability to encode in nearly any audio format you desire. It can encode to AIFF, MP3, OGG Vorbis, FLAC, AAC, MP4, Apple Lossless, and many others. Within each file type there are many options available to tweak the encoding settings. I chose AAC, as it is the file type that most of my audio is encoded at. Not only can you choose the bitrate best suited to your needs, but you can choose the quality of the encoding -- good, better, maximum, for example -- and the user can employ variable-bitrate encoding to ensure maximum fidelity.

Of keen interest, is that it appears that you can choose multiple output formats, and change your settings accordingly. This could be useful for individuals who desire to have a high-quality encoding on their desktop computer, and one that might be optimized for web consumption.

Of most importance to me, is the error-correction settings. I am unsure of the technologies included in Windows Media Player, but I do know that iTunes has a preference where you can use error-correction when ripping your compact disc. This is desirable for those who have a few scratched cd's laying around.

Now, my experience with iTunes error-correcting technologies has been mediocre at best. I had a number of encodings that produced clicks, pops, and other undesirable noise on a few CD's I own. Compounding the problem is that a lot of the music I have is out of print, from independent artists, or generally hard to find. In these cases, repurchasing said compact disc is not an option.

As an experiment, I used Max to re-enode a few of my CD's that didn't encode well in iTunes. I chose AAC as my codec, used 192 kbps as my bitrate, and enabled variable bitrate encoding. I employed error-correction using cdparanoia as the error-correction type, and only allowed skipping after 40 retries (I would have considered using never allow skipping as an option, though I thought this might ensure a troublesome audio file never encodes).

So, how did it work out? Well, Max does produce pristine encodings. The audio quality surpasses that of iTunes' encoding capabilities. It does take longer, however, to encode a CD -- largely due to error-correction. The audio tracks that encoded poorly with iTunes (with audible clicks and pops) sounded much better than the original, with many of the pops much more subdued, or non-existent. Thus, I felt Max did exactly what it promised to do. Given the fact that these audio files are of very high quality, they are a little larger in size than the iTunes counterparts, but not much larger to become a storage problem.

What Max Does:

• Pristine audio encoding in a number of file formats
• ID3 tagging using the Musicbrainz database
• Import cover art from webistes such as Amazon.com
• iTunes integration
  

What Max Cannot Do:

• Max is not an audio player.
• Max cannot save heavily-damaged CD's.

Max appears to be still early in its development, and it is still a little buggy at times. It doesn't always import tags from Musicbrainz, but I feel this is largely due to the fact that I have tried using the program with rare CD's at this time.

There are a number of scripts included in the distribution, though they returned errors when I tried using them. I wonder if this is due to the fact that I have all my audio stored on an external drive.

Overall. my biggest beef with the program was the lack of supporting documentation regarding the program's settings. The help section in the menu only had little to say about the error-correction settings, and what was required to query the Musicbrainz database. I hope better documentation will be more in-depth in future distributions.

That being said, I am quite impressed with the developer's efforts. The program is not for everyone, as iTunes will produce an encoding acceptable to most listeners. I, however will continue using Max as my default audio encoder for the foreseeable future. As I have said once before, and I'll have to say it again: it looks like I'm going to have to re-encode my audio collection yet again.

This is never going to end.

[Ed. Note: The missing hyperlinks have been updated. And, I'm going to need a bigger hard drive.]

Musings of an Uber Geek

Eureka!

I get excited abut geeky things -- especially when it involves big computers. I get especially excited when I can make 'super' computers out of the spare parts that I have lying around. Just look through my archives, and you will find many posts involving me trying the breathe new life into an old laptop that refuses to start up.

I have my iMac desktop, which is serving me well. Also at my disposal is a 13" MacBook, which still operates, though it has taken numerous trips to the local Apple-Authorized-Service-Center to get all kinds of repairs that I would otherwise not attempt while the computer is still under warranty. What I like about using the MacBook is that I can work on it anywhere: The couch, the dining room, the back yard, and yes, even the toilet. What I don't like about the MacBook is that all my personal files, my photos, my music, my bookmarks, and other necessities all reside on the iMac's drive. In order for me to use both machines requires synchronization, which gets messy. Furthermore, the number of files that exist on the iMac is so large, that it would overflow the poor MacBook, rendering it virtually useless. What would be perfect, is if I could access all my personal files that exist on the desktop computer from the laptop. All changes would be made and saved on the desktop computer.

In other words, enter the server. I need a central point in my house (perhaps even worldwide), that I can access my files quickly, and securely. This may mean that I will require a dedicated server sometime in the future, but at this point, I can make do with what I have.

Today, after some experimentation, I have begun a transitionary phase, where my desktop computer is becoming a server, at least within the confines of my residence. The first trivial step was to find a way for the laptop to access my iTunes files on my iMac.

This is simple is one sense. iTunes allows users to "share" their playlists with other connected users. I have been doing this since the MacBook arrived last May. This however, does not update your playlists, play counts, ratings, and other metadata. Today after some serious web sleuthing, I managed to get my experiment to work. It's not quite perfect, but it is a big step in the right direction.

Now I just need to do some further reading in order for the MacBook to automatically mount the Desktop machine upon login. This will require some more reading and searching on the web, but as I said, it's a step in the right direction.

Once I get this working a little more reliably, and automatically, then I can think about ensuring that my other documents can be accessed from the server. This would include my photographs, calendars, email, and documents.

Of a more serious nature, is you can probably tell, I take my digital information very seriously. I have, over the years -- at least since the "crash of 2000", tried to keep backups of my digital information. But manually backing up is only as good as your habits, and I have noticed that it takes time and effort to keep backups of my personal information.

So finally, after several years of deliberation, I will be acquiring the infrastructure necessary to ensure that my data will always be reliable.

Enter the RAID. For the uninitiated, RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent Drives. The are collections of hard drives that can offer the user vast amounts of storage, and offer the user redundancy, which is the digital work means security. You see, it's never a question about if your hard drive should fail; it's more of a question of when.

What are so cool about RAIDs, is that even if a drive fails, your data remain intact. Remove the failed drive, plug in a fresh one, and the RAID array automatically backs up the data to the new drive.

So what exactly, did I order? It is an external drive with removable bays. This way, I can always store a copy of my data off-site in a secure location. This way, if there ever is a disaster of sorts, be it flood, fire, or theft, I won't be destroyed if ten years' worth of digital memories happened to disappear into a meaningless string of 1's and 0's.

Since the advent of the internet, the majority of computer users are under the false assumptions that our (essential and personal) data is safe and secure. For the most part, that is true. But our data is easily manipulated and destroyed, and therein lies a big problem. We need to ensure that in the wake of disaster, we can recover what is lost. In the computer world that means backing up often, redundancy on many levels, and storage of those redundant copies in a secure off-site location.

What are you doing to protect your essential digital memories from evaporating?

Countdown Update

MC Fro's Top 5 Tunes is a feature on this site that I particularly enjoy, and a feature I update when time permits (but also when there is a noticeable change in the rankings). I enjoy discussing the music that I am currently listening to, so this is a very easy way for me to let you all know my musical tastes and influences.

Since I use iTunes exclusively when I am listening to music, it is relatively easy to research what music is most popular in my music player. The Smart Playlist feature is likely the strongest feature of said program, which allows me to create playlists to accommodate my mood entirely on the fly.

That being said, the technology isn't entirely perfect. To reflect my current musical tastes, and to have frequent changes in the playlist, I have had to edit the parameters of the playlist more than a few times. Now, the Top 5 feature reflects popular music that has been played in the last two weeks. Now I expect the Top 5 Feature to change frequently.

I hope you all enjoy this feature of the website. You might glance over that feature entirely. By the way, if you aren't using iTunes as your primary digital music player, what's stopping you? It is by far the most advanced (and easy to use) music management program out there.

Ride the [Music] Elevator

Earlier this week, I have updated "MC Fro's Top 5 Tunes". Very little had changed in the rankings, though some moved up the chart, others moved down, and there was only 1 new entry on the charts. After careful thought, I considered that over time, the top 5 tunes would not be very representative of the songs I have been listening to recently.

The main reason for this, is the playlist I was using was a "top 5 most played". This playist ranks songs by a cumulative play count since I purchased my computer. If I listened to a song a dozen times six months ago, it is still going to rank very high on my playlist, even though I have grown tired of the song. So I created a new playlist that not only ranks songs by play count, but the song must also have been played in the last 30 days.

When I constructed this playlist, I found that I got some different results. Look to next week to see a new Top 5.

Not Another Top Five List

The latest addition to this website is the inclusion of "MC Fro's Top Five Tunes" on the sidebar. I had to resort to doing things the old-fashioned way, that is writing a bunch of code, though I was hoping I could find a computer application that would insert the images and data, and update the webpage automatically. I was not so lucky. A number of programs do exist that could accomplish what I wanted, but there were a few problems. First of all, sometimes these programs would not display images, others created their own formatting that would have not have worked well with this site, and lastly, nearly all of them required that I have access to some FTP server, and that is something I do not have at this time.

So it looks like I am going to have to update my top five list manually for the time being.

My "top five tunes" are simply the five most played songs in my iTunes library. Once I looked at the playlist, I was a little surprised at the results. First of all, the playlist has only been active since I purchased my computer, which was sometime in October. Other playlists that I have had on other machines would have registered completely different results.

I am also in the process of a massive purge of unwanted music on my computer. Out of a playlist of some 2500 songs, nearly half of them have not been listened to. I might end up finding a real gem that I cannot stop listening to. When this happens, it tends to skew the validity of my "top five tunes" playlist. In addition, I have only managed to encode about half of my CD collection, and I know that there are some really cool songs that aren't in my iTunes Library yet. It is going to take a number of months, but I foresee the top five tunes playlist making some interesting changes in the future.

I thought I might make a few comments about the songs that made the top five, which might provide some insight as to why they made this weeks' list.

1. I Can't Tell You Why - The Eagles. I love this tune. My parents used to play The Long Run album incessantly while I was a little kid. Though this song is a little depressing, there is some wonderful performances on this track. Don Henley's voice is slick jumping to and from falsetto, which is not an easy task for any singer, and I can't seem to get enough of that THC-influenced guitar solo at the end of the song. I listened to this song a number of times while I was learning to sing it -- so I wouldn't have to ruin the song if (and when) I decided to sing it at karaoke. That would probably explain why this song made it to number one.
   
2. It's My Life - No Doubt. I'm surprised this song made the list, as I like the Talk Talk version better. Actually, I'm not that big of a No Doubt fan in the first place. This song resides in a few playlists, including one I made specifically for parties. It's a playlist that contains only top-forty singles, thus almost anybody could enjoy the music, and would (ultimately) prevent me from incessantly skipping songs.
   
3. What Do You Need? - Goo Goo Dolls. I discovered this song by chance, and when I first heard it, I knew I found a keeper. I have a few albums by the Goo Goo Dolls, though I find their music is hit-and-miss. They have written some wonderful songs that have unique hooks to them (Naked comes to mind), although I find a lot of their b-sides boring to listen to.
   
4. You're Still The One - Headpins. If you are from Western Canada, and you have never heard of the Headpins, then you might have been living under a rock. This is the only Canadian rock band that I can think of that had a Gold record before being given a record deal. The Headpins managed to sell 50,000 copies of their debut album Turn It Loud from the back of their tour van. Originally began as a side-project for Chilliwack band members Brian "Too Loud" McLeod and Ab Bryant, the Headpins quickly rose to the top of the Vancouver music scene. In fact, these guys were so loud, they were louder than The Who!
   I have shared the stage with the Headpins on at least half a dozen occasions. They are one of the hardest-working Canadian bands out there. Next time they come your way, be sure to check them out. They are well-worth the price of admission.
   
5. If I Had a Rocket Launcher - Bruce Cockburn. Every time I drive, I am singing this song. I never expected a beatnik like Bruce to have such a dark side to him, which is probably why I love this song so much. I can't help but smile when I hear him sing the final line with such vengeance: "If I had a rocket launcher / some son of a bitch would die!"

I think updating my Top Five Tunes weekly is a little ambitious. I will monitor and see if the list changes by next week. If not, I may have to resort to updating the list monthly.

iTMS Doomed? Napster the Next Big Thing (Again)?

A recent statement from Micro$oft, Napster, and Yahoo! claim that Apples' Music Store is doomed, and that subscription-based music services are the future. Representatives of the above companies attacked Apple, stating that charging 99-cents for a song was ridiculous with respect to Apple's newest 40-gigabyte iPod. To paraphrase: "Why would anyone want to spend $10,000 filling their iPod with music?"

Apple rivals claim that they have developed a better solution: Offer subscription services that will allow you access to the entire music database. In addition, Micro$oft has developed a copy-protection format that allows the user to transfer a set number of songs from Napster or Yahoos' database to a portable unit, such as an MP3 audio player, for an additional fee over and on top of the subscription fees. Furthermore, it has been determined that only a handful of portable audio devices are compatible with the Napster subscription service.

In contrast, Napster is claiming that a one-year subscription to their music database would cost $180, and consumers could essentially fill their digital music player with 10,000 songs at a fraction of the price the Apple Music Store is currently offering. There is a hitch though, in order to transfer a song to a portable music, it costs an extra dollar a song. All of a sudden, this doesn't sound like such a good deal after all.

Enter Micro$ofts' new copy-protection software. They are suggesting for $5 per month, that consumers could transfer Napster's entire catalog to their portable music player and listen as often as they like -- as long as they continue to subscribe.

So does this sound like a winning model to knock Apple off the top of the digital music heap? To me, this sounds like a lousy deal for many reasons. There are many facets to this model that don't sit well with me.

1. Nobody in their right mind would spend $10,000 filling their iPod (or other digital music player) with music. Apple's adversaries are using faulty ammunition to attack their rival. They are using the assumption that us consumers are stupid enough to believe the only way we can put music on our iPods is by downloading them from the iTunes Music Store. This is simply not true. People can encode their entire CD collection, or even download files from peer-to-peer networks. Sure, millions of people download from the iTunes Music Store. Millions more resort to less legal methods. Audiophiles like me continue to purchase CD's (pawn shops have great bargains), and listen to music on our iPod that we legitimately own.
   
   
2. The 40-gigabyte iPod is a high-capacity model, which is aimed at a target audience: Audiophiles and computer geeks. Audiophiles often can't stand listening to compressed music, which means that they will be listening to uncompressed audio. A 40-gigabyte iPod will only hold about 1000 songs on uncompressed audio. Can you buy uncompressed audio from the iTunes Music Store, Napster, or MusicMatch (Yahoos' music database)? Not last I checked.
   Furthermore, computer geeks find uses for iPods other than storing their music collections. It makes a great portable hard drive. More often than not, I am reading about computer technicians installing operating systems and other diagnostic tools on their iPods. In essence, they've created portable, bootable hard drives so they can repair downed computers on the fly. Others are using their iPods as backup drives, to store valuable information.
   The smaller 4-gigabyte iPod Minis are the models that are aimed at the consumer market. Most people don't have large music collections, and a model that has a 1000 song capacity is ideal for them. [ed. note: I must apologize for this rant, it obviously has nothing to do with debunking Napsters' allegations.]
   
   
3. I would expect that most people would purchase between a dozen and a hundred songs per year from a music download service. Conversely, I cannot fathom how I could possibly listen to 10,000 songs in a year. That's almost 40,000 minutes of non-stop music. In other words, that's nearly an entire month of music, 24 hours a day, seven days a week! I have a hard enough time managing an iTunes library of 2500 songs.
   
   
4. Most importantly, consumers like to own their music. Napster and MusicMatch are offering subscription services which basically allow the user to license music from their database. I would be weary to say that they even allow you to download the music to your computer. It is likely that the music is just streamed to your computer (I really don't know how they manage this as I never have subscribed). I refuse to pay a fee for any music service that only allows me to listen but not own. Apple offers anyone to preview music on their iTunes Music Store for free. Furthermore, what happens when you do not renew your subscription fee to Napster? Do they send you an email stating "Your subscription has expired. Please delete all songs licensed by us from your hard drive". Not likely. This is further evidence that music from these stores are likely streamed to your computer, which brings me to my next point.
   
   
5. Micro$ofts' new copy-protection music format would have to include some sort of self-destruction device, that the song file would corrupt itself once a consumer's subscription was not renewed. You know as well as I do that hackers are attracted to copy-protected software like vultures are attracted to carrion. Someone will crack the code. Anti-copying codecs aren't much of a deterrent anymore; neither is the threat of legal action. Finally, charging an additional fee for this (over and on top of Napsters' subscription fees) is nothing short of robbery.
   
   
6. Subscription fees of $9.95 per month might seem like a good deal, but how can Napster manage to generate a profit from such low fees? Royalty fees for record companies are astronomical. If you pay for a CD in a music store, the artist you've supported may see one dollar of that $20 you paid. Half of what you paid goes to the store you bought music from, the rest is monopolized by the record company, manufacturing companies, and management firms. You better believe that these same companies are getting a share from every song you download from an on-line retailer like iTunes. The artist you supported is making no more than a few pennies from every downloaded song. Conversely, in order to keep prices competitive, Napster, iTunes and MusicMatch have to cut their overhead. Apple is only making a few pennies for every song downloaded from their store.
   In order for a subscription service like Napster to work, they would have to have tens of millions of subscribers. No record company is going to let digital music sit on a server and wait to be downloaded. Those record executives have been paid already. Unless Napster can entice ten million music enthusiasts to switch, and happily pay their license fees, their music service will tank -- and when it tanks, there will be many unhappy subscribers who have lost access to their favorite tunes.
   

It seems to me that this new marketing scheme reeks of rotten vegetables. I'd have to be a sucker to believe they are offering a better deal then Apple. I fully expect to see the iTunes Music Store alive and well in the next few years.

iTMS.ca

Only a few days ago, after much speculation and waiting, Apple has finally opened the iTunes Music Store in Canada. They are offering downloads at 99 cents Canadian, which makes it the best deal for downloading music from Apple worldwide.

I have not spent much time fiddling around with the iTMS. I went searching for some obscure music, and found little. I guess "obscure" is the key word here. When searching for music on the internet, I am usually searching for songs that I cannot otherwise find in music stores. At 99 cents per download, it is still cheaper for me to find music in pawn shops. Not only that, but then I have an uncompressed digital archive of all my music, which is something very important to an audiophile such as myself.

One thing that has bothered me about Apple's store is that the songs they are offering are encoded in the .m4a file format at 128 kbps. I have no problems with the MPEG-4 audio format; I think it is a superior audio codec (compared to mp3, wma, and similar ilk). My issues revolve around the bitrate. I find that the bitrate of 128 kbps is of poor-sound quality. I can identify the compression in such files, and not only do I find the sound annoying, it is also hard on the ears. I have been encoding all my music at 160kbps (.m4a format), which is comparable to mp3 files at 192kbps. At this bitrate, the audio quality is almost indistinguishable from the uncompressed original.

Even so, if you played your internet-obtained music on a high-end system, even at an encoding rate of 192kbps, you could still tell the difference between the audio file and the digital master. Apple has circumvented this problem by installing a "lossless audio codec" in the latest release of iTunes. This is a great feature for an audiophile, but the files are too large for anyone to put any substantial amount of music on their computer (or iPod for that matter). I would likely need a terabyte of storage on my computer before I would consider putting an uncompressed music library on my home computer.

The iTMS is still a powerful tool to search for music. You can preview music, so you could effectively find artists and music you would be interested in listening to. If you knew the title of a song, but not the artist, you could effectively search the archives and preview songs until you found the track you were searching for.

Unfortunately, most of the music provided on the iTMS is in the Top-40 category. Even Matthew Good stated on the opening day of the iTMS.ca that only two of his albums were featured in the store; his latest release was absent.

Perhaps things will improve in future months as tracks are added to the music store.

Sometimes the Best Solution is to Use What's Available to You

I shouldn't have to explain to you how much I enjoy my new computer. There is one major problem it has (actually all computers fall into this category), which is inferior sound.

I am a self-admitted audiophile. I like my music crisp, clean, and detailed. I on occasion, like it loud. My new iMac has these tiny little speakers built into the display, but they sure don't put out any volume, nor is the fidelity exceptional. Sure, there is lots of treble, but no bass.

So I was considering investing a lot of money into multimedia speakers for my computer. It has a digital output, so I should be able to run my computer using Dolby Digital 5.1. While doing numerous searches on the web, I just couldn't find any products that were going to satisfy my needs. It wasn't a money issue; I was quite prepared to spend a hefty sum for my ear-candy.

There was one other issue that was eating at me. Many of these 5-speaker (or 6-speaker) systems designed for computers use inferior products. Again, I did not want to front the money for a system I would be unhappy with in the future.

Furthermore, in the near future, I want to be able to do digital recording on my new machine. Mixing an album on little satellite speakers is no way to record. Again, I am faced with having to purchase expensive studio monitors for my workstation. The speakers I am specifically referring to (Mackie HR 824s) run about $2000 per pair.

I wanted to listen to my iTunes the way there were supposed to be listened to -- and I could not wait any longer. I managed to find the solution to my problem with items already in my possession.

A few months ago, while frequenting a few of my favorite pawn shops, I found a pair of Bose 201 bookshelf speakers for about $100. They are high-quality speakers, and studio monitors are similarly designed. In recent months, I haven't been using my fancy speakers. So today, I bought some monster cable, put my Bose speakers on my computer desk, and wired everything into an amplifier. Now I am in musical bliss. The sound quality is exceptional; better than any cheap multimedia speaker system could offer.

The next step will be in invest a few bucks into either an MBox or the Digi 002, both manufactured by Digidesign. Then, I will have my happy little recording studio.

No "Real" Choice?

Very recently, Real Networks has launched an anti-Apple website aimed at luring consumers away from the iTunes music store and to download songs for 49 cents from their online music store. In addition, Real also launched an online petition against Apple regarding their apparent monopolization and control of the iPod technology. The Real petition states the following:

Dear Apple, Your company has long stood for innovation and open competition. Wasn't it Apple that ran the famous Super Bowl ad encouraging consumers like us to stand up for our right to make our own choices? We're asking that you do the same now and support the right of your own customers to make their own choices about where they buy music for the iPod. We want Freedom of Music Choice! Don't lock us in to purchasing digital music from one source. That's bad for competition. It will stifle innovation. And it will slow the adoption of digital music devices like the iPod. Do the right thing. Stand with us for Freedom of Music Choice! Sincerely, The Undersigned

Before I begin my rant, I would like to address the fact that Real has removed the hotlink to the petition from its Freedom of Music Choice web site, due to an overwhelming amount of negative comments directed at RealNetworks.

When I read the above news story, I was furious. First of all, launching websites that personally attack and "flame" the competition is shooting dirty pool. A tactic like this is purely juvenile, low, and dirty. I am amazed and appalled that a company like Real would resort to such dirty tactics in an attempt to win back their share of the audio technology market they once had.

It wasn't that long ago that Real was the leading company in the development of streaming Internet audio and video. An overwhelming large percentage of Internet audio and video was distributed using the RealAudio streaming codec. It was an ingenious technology for the time. The quality was high for the file size, the technology was (generally) free to use, and it exercised digital rights management (content was streamed from a server, but rarely could the recipient be able to save the content to their computer for future use).

Today, the RealNetworks audio and video technology is hardly being used anymore. Why? Advances in technology, and poor choices led RealNetworks back down into the cellar. Real's success was largely due to the bandwidth squeeze. Five years ago, almost everyone who was on the Internet connected through a dial-up modem. To view or listen to any quality media on the computer at the time would require a person to wait anywhere from fifteen minutes to two hours to view a small clip. RealNetworks allowed the content to play immediately, and larger files would continue loading while the content was playing. No more waiting. Sure, the quality was lower, but at least you knew what you were getting right away, instead of waiting 30 minutes for a clip to download, only to realize that it wasn't what you were looking for in the first place.

So what happened? Well, MPEG-4 was developed, for instance. New versions of QuickTime were available free to computers of all platforms. And don't forget the behemoth of them all: Windows Media. Bundle any software with the Windows operating system, and it is a safe bet that it will wipe out the competition (anybody remember Netscape?). In all these cases, the new versions of the codecs were superior in all respects to the previous releases.

I believe at one time RealNetworks stopped development of their software for the Macintosh. It may have been that they had no intention of releasing a version that would be compatible with OSX. Or, perhaps that they thought that Apple users would be timid to test the UNIX waters of the Aqua Operating System. Or, perhaps they didn't anticipate that Apple would bundle OSX with every machine sold, and kill the archaic OS9 once and for all. The new breed of UNIX-Apple users only had once choice when it came to Internet audio and video: QuickTime. This trend remained for nearly two years. I think that it has only been in the last 18-months or so that RealNetworks have actually released an OSX-compatible player for their content. The same can be said with Windows Media Player. But now it's too late.

Today, many computer users are on broadband connections. They can transfer and view high-quality audio and video in a fraction of the time than they used to on the old dial-up connections. They don't have use for the old-grainy technology that Real offered. Now, I have a pretty good feeling that Real's audio and video content are up to snuff with MPEG4, QuickTime, or Windows Media, but does anyone care? All they remember is the old, heavily compressed technology Real once offered.

When I viewed Real's webpage "Freedom of Music Choice", their attacks at Apple, and their online petition, I could not believe their position. It is not about consumer rights; it is blatantly propaganda. People have all the choice in the world as to what content they can put on their iPod. File formats are meaningless if the content is the same. One file format is not better than the other; it is the quality of the encoding that really matters. People are being steered in the wrong direction if they are being coerced to believe the only material they can download to their iPod is available only from the iTunes Music Store. I would have had to spend a fortune if I had paid 99 cents (US) for all my 2500+ songs that are on my iPod. People must not forget that they can import songs into iTunes (and their iPod) if they have the CD available to them. It seems that the competition doesn't want people to know that. As I have stated in an earlier post, The iPod supports a number of audio codecs, but not Windows Media, and not Real either.

I, as a consumer still believe I have all the choice in the world. I do not feel like I am forced by Apple in any way to download their music or use their technology. I use their technology because I chose to in the first place. Apple has their reasons to restrict what file formats can be used on the iPod. It's simple marketing. If the iPod was not such a hot seller, perhaps Apple would allow competitors' file formats to be compatible with the iPod in an effort to bump sales. It is more likely that if it were not for the iPod, Apple would never have developed the iTunes music store in the first place. Even Steve Jobs said publicly that the iTunes music store was designed to sell more iPods; not to make billions with 99-cent downloads. Even Apple knows that the money isn't in the sale of music. The sale of music hasn't been very profitable since the advent of Napster and the rising popularity of peer-to-peer networks.

It is also because the iPod is such a hot seller that, all the competing companies have their panties in a twist. I would hope that RealNetworks would take their propaganda machine offline, as it seems that few of us are buying their story anyway.