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To leave Commie, hyper to
http://commie.oy.com/commie_leaving.html
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http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/04/12/1159253&mode=nocomment
Windows XP to Target MP3 Files
Posted by michael on Thursday April 12, @07:57AM
from the beginning-of-the-end dept.
blown.penguin writes: "Reuters UK reports that Microsoft and RealNetworks
plan to "wean customers way from MP3 files" and "limit the quality" of MP3
files that can be recorded on a computer running Windows XP. You can read
all about it here."
http://www.reuters.co.uk/news_article.jhtml?type=internet&Repository=INTERNET_REP_UK&RepositoryStoryID=%2Fnews%2FIDS%2FUK%2FInternet%2FOUKIN-MEDIA-MP3-REPORT_TXT.XML
The entire Wall Street Journal story is here.
http://www.canoe.ca/MoneyWSJ/wsj2-dow.html
Read it and weep. Dave Farber (who, incidentally, does understand
the issues and isn't making this comment in a "get used to it" sense)
has a great quote: "The consumer is going to eat what he's given."
* * * * *
>From the WSJ article:
The industry doesn't want [MP3] pushed, and Microsoft and RealNetworks
don't want it pushed. The consumer is going to eat what he's given,"
says David Farber, the former chief technologist at the Federal Commu-
nications Commission.
Under Microsoft's new restrictions -- which prevent its built-in software
from recording MP3 files at fidelity rates higher than 56 kilobits per
second -- MP3 music "sounds like somebody in a phone booth underwater,"
says P.J. McNealy, an analyst who researches Internet audio issues for
Gartner Inc. in Stamford, Conn. (Existing versions of Microsoft's audio
software don't allow consumers to record music as MP3 files of any quality.)
The new restrictions in Windows XP won't prevent other vendors' software
applications from recording MP3 music at a higher fidelity, but early
testers of beta versions of Windows XP already complain that the most
popular MP3 recording applications -- which compete with Microsoft's
format -- don't seem to function properly, apparently because of chan-
ges Microsoft made to how data are written on CD-ROMs under Windows XP.
Microsoft says that while other software vendors' products may not be
"optimized" to run with Windows XP, those products should run acceptably
with the operating system.
Microsoft said its decision not to include built-in support for recording
better-sounding MP3 music also avoids it having to pay license fees required
by Thomson Multimedia SA and the Fraunhofer Institut, which collect at least
US$2.50 from software vendors for each copy of recording software based on
their MP3 technology.
"We think at the end of the day, consumers don't really care what format
they [record] in," said Dave Fester, a general manager in Microsoft's
Digital Media Division. He maintains that despite the new restrictions,
Microsoft will make sure its software does "a great job of making sure
our player will play back MP3, or put it on a CD." But for new content
that users might want to create, he says there "are clear advantages"
to not using MP3.
[ they are SUCH slimebuckets. DEATH To Microsoft ! (tm) ]
