mp3s to be replaced by mp4s?

C/N: 58 CDs on one CD all in super high quality audio. Still don't know if it will require another media player.

May 16, 2006

Nero has released "reference quality" encoding software said to be fully compatible with the latest MPEG-4 audio standards (LC-AAC, HE-AAC, HE-AAC v2), and is offering a free Windows version for noncommercial use. Additionally, the company says its licensable digital audio technology includes an optimized codec for devices running Windows CE, among other embedded OSes.

According to Nero, the new "3GPP-compatible" audio encoder's compression ratios can be selected on a file-by-file basis, from 2.5:1 for highest audio quality, to a maximum compression level that can squeeze the contents of up to 58 CDs into a single CD. An entire audio album can be saved in a single .mp4 file with advanced content management, including support for CD-audio index maps, embedded album art, and ReplayGain, the company says.

Additionally, the new MPEG-4 audio codec supports sampling rates from 8 to 96 kHz and bit rates to 320 kBit/s per channel with constant, average, variable, or double-pass coding modes, making it compatible with virtually any audio source, according to the company.

The Windows version of the codec runs from the command line without a graphical interface. It accepts .WAV files in PCM wave format as input and provides .MP4 files in MPEG-4/3GPP format as output, according to Nero. The command line also supports a variety of quality and bitrate values as parameters.

Nero Recode 2, the Windows CE decoder, accepts MPEG-4/3GPP files as input, and outputs a PCM wave stream compatibile with DirectX 9.0a or later, according to the company.

Nero Digital Audio for Windows is available as a free download, for noncommercial uses, here.

Commercial licensing is available for an "optimized decoding/playback solution" that supports devices running Windows CE, Symbian, and Linux on ARM, Intel XScale, TI OMAP, Freescale mx.21, and other embedded processor architectures, according to the company.

source: http://www.windowsfordevices.com/news/NS9685099258.html

Seems to just be a HE-AAC / HE-AAC v2 encoder, great if you have something which plays them and has limited storage - eg, a phone (most nokias do HE-AAC these days).

At least they've not invented a new standard

Hugo

as long as it's it's been beaten to death with DRM, the media companies will sell it as "the next big thing" to get the masses over to it..

me.. FLAC/ogg are all I need.