Why should an MP3 player include OGG support?

[esaym]

I was talking to some people on another forum about mp3 players. I mentioned to get one that supports ogg. His response was:


^What does it matter if my MP3 player doesn't play ogg? WMA and MP3 are perfectly fine with me and haven't cost me any extra dollars...

And my followup to that was:


Because it shows where the heart of the company is. It costs a company NOTHING to include ogg support. It is a free format. To include mp3 playback support on a device you will have to play royalties to Alcatel-Lucent. To include playback support for wma you will will have to pay royalties to microsoft. So why would a company disregard a free format and go with ones that they have to pay for? Because they are in cahoots with these other companies, the money that they pay to them gets reinvested back into the parent company. The parent company gets more money while the market gets flooded with restricted crap codecs and formats thus bringing more money and investment to the company of the licensed format. This is wrong and makes for a very UNPLEASANT computing environment.

Screw mp3, screw wma and wmv, divx, and screw screw screw quicktime http://www.lindsay.ath.cx/pics/smilies_files/barfaway.gif

Did I get it right?

[LaRoza]

Sounds good. Don't many MP3 players have OGG support?

[mostwanted]

Sounds good. Don't many MP3 players have OGG support?

Not really.

[LaRoza]

Not really.

That doesn't make sense...

[ComplexNumber]

they should have ogg support because it is a better compression than mp3 - it produces lower sized files whilst keeping the same sound quality.

[Lord Illidan]

Quoting from your post:

Because it shows where the heart of the company is. It costs a company NOTHING to include ogg support. It is a free format. To include mp3 playback support on a device you will have to play royalties to Alcatel-Lucent. To include playback support for wma you will will have to pay royalties to microsoft. So why would a company disregard a free format and go with ones that they have to pay for? Because they are in cahoots with these other companies, the money that they pay to them gets reinvested back into the parent company. The parent company gets more money while the market gets flooded with restricted crap codecs and formats thus bringing more money and investment to the company of the licensed format. This is wrong and makes for a very UNPLEASANT computing environment.

Screw mp3, screw wma and wmv, divx, and screw screw screw quicktime

It does cost money to use ogg. They have to pay developers to program in the functionality, and if they are most likely using a generic type of firmware which only supports mp3 and wma, then they are not going to shell out more money for a format that few people use.

[mjitkop]

Don't many MP3 players have OGG support?

Unfortunately, no.

The last time I bought an "MP3" player, I really wanted an OGG player. I did some research and found that the company iRiver made some so-called "MP3 players" that also supported WMA and OGG. Bingo. That's what I bought. There are other companies that offer OGG support, I believe.

Unfortunately, most players only focus on MP3 and WMA support. The reason is simply because MP3 was the first popular audio compression format and is widely used in the world. Companies would rather put product development effort toward something that "everybody" uses. Now most legal music download services offer WMA files and that's the reason why a lot of MP3 player also support WMA out of the box.

[notwen]

Unfortunately, this falls into similar territory as OEM bundling a certain OS w/ their systems. It's up to them to decide what their hardware includes/supports. It's up to the customer to purchase said product, if the majority of your customer-base doesn't want/need it, it's very likely that said function(odd support in your case) will likely be left out until the manufacturer finds it worthy of being added. Doesn't make sense, leaving out a free, nice quality/size ratio format, but some things just don't make sense. =p

[a12ctic]

Rage3d has some very close minded members, I used to post there regularly.

[esaym]

Rage3d has some very close minded members, I used to post there regularly.

I can't quite put my finger on it, but that place is definitely different ;)

[macogw]

Rockbox it...if you can...my DMP can't take Rockbox

[Lord Illidan]

Mine can. It's an Ipod Nano first generation. I like Rockbox, but it's very unstable sometimes.

[newbie2]

they should have ogg support because it is a better compression than mp3 - it produces lower sized files whilst keeping the same sound quality.

Does Vorbis completely replace MP3, or is it just a complementary codec?

Ogg Vorbis has been designed to completely replace all proprietary, patented audio formats. That means that you can encode all your music or audio content in Vorbis and never look back.
I'm an artist. Why should I be interested?

There are a couple of reasons:

* Vorbis files can compress to a smaller file size and still sound fine; Vorbis' better compression will cut down on bandwidth costs and keep you from being a victim of your own popularity.
* Vorbis' standardized, easily-edited comment header provides a space for you to scribble all sorts of notes about yourself to distribute with the music; this helps fans find you, your site, and where to buy your stuff.
* If you decide to sell your music in MP3 format, you are responsible for paying Fraunhofer a percentage of each sale because you are using their patents. Vorbis is patent and license-free, so you will never need to pay anyone in order to sell, give away, or stream your own music.

I'm a music fan. Why should I be interested?

Because Vorbis provides a high-quality format for you to listen to your music.

* For a given file size, Vorbis sounds better than MP3. This means:
o You can keep your music collection at about the same quality level, but it'll take up less space
o or you can have your music collection take up about the same amount of space, but have it sound better.
* Vorbis already enjoys widespread player support and work is underway to play Vorbis files on portable hardware.

http://www.vorbis.com/faq/


On May 16, 2007, the Free Software Foundation started a campaign to widespread the use of Vorbis “as an ethically, legally and technically superior audio alternative to the proprietary MP3 format
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogg

[Kvark]

An MP3 player should include OGG support out of the box because otherwise it won't be one of the options I consider next time I buy a new one to play my .ogg files on.

That should be reason enough for anyone who wants to sell MP3 players. At least if there are enough potential customers looking for OGG support to be worth the cost of adding support for another format.

[rsambuca]

Screw mp3, screw wma and wmv, divx, and screw screw screw quicktime

Did I get it right?

While you have a few valid points in there, I find that childish emotional comments like the last one just have the effect of nullifying anything logical you may have said.

[happysmileman]

I think the biggest reason an MP3 player should support OGG files, from the manufacturers point of view is to get HappySmileMan's money, and it would appear they also need it to get Kvark's money, and anyone else here's money for that matter

[stmiller]

Another issue with OGG and portable players is battery life.

I'm sure the decoders and technology and such will get better. But right now ogg takes more cpu to play than the other formats, and drains the battery faster.

[Polygon]

Another issue with OGG and portable players is battery life.

I'm sure the decoders and technology and such will get better. But right now ogg takes more cpu to play than the other formats, and drains the battery faster.

its not by much, and its just because OGG requires floating point decimal calculations while others do not. I read somewhere there is a special version of OGG that does not require floating point decimal operations so therefore it takes an almost equal amount of battery power to play it

and i hate rockbox. It works, but the GUI for menus is absolutely horrible. Its gotten a bit better but i still hate it how it looks ugly compared to the 'now playing' screen,

[esaym]

While you have a few valid points in there, I find that childish emotional comments like the last one just have the effect of nullifying anything logical you may have said.

Hmm good point, I will watch that.

[axemurder785]

I think the iAudio a2 is a very nice portable music player. It plays quite a few different music formats including ogg. It also has a 30 GB hard drive for holding lots of songs, movies, etc. I haven't purchased it yet, but i am sure it will work with ubuntu based on the fact that many iAudio products do.

[bruce89]

its not by much, and its just because OGG requires floating point decimal calculations while others do not. I read somewhere there is a special version of OGG that does not require floating point decimal operations so therefore it takes an almost equal amount of battery power to play it


Tremor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tremor_(software))

Manufacturers just support the formats that downloads are in these days, which is unfortunately WMA and even worse AAC.

Vorbis is much better in all respects (quality, price, patents), but most people don't give a damn what format they're using, all they want is for things to work.

Vorbis is used in a huge numbers of games though, so that's encouraging.

[ahaslam]

If an MP3 player played OGG it wouldn't be just an MP3 player, more a digital music player..

[methane]

I think the power argument here is worth exploring. Software is relatively cheap to implement decoding in if you've got a GPU in your DAP. But, I think, most Music players have a no very powerful GPU mated with very specialized ASICs which decode MP3 and WMA and whatever else (Xvid, ACC) while consuming significantly less power than a GPU doing the same thing will.
You could add OGG support via Firmware and use the GPU to do the decoding, but it would probably kill your battery faster. That leaves developing an ASIC specifically for decoding OGG, which takes time, money, PCB realestate, etc.
And the argument that *I* want an OGG player, therefore they should build it, while seemingly valid doesn't erase a corporations desire to produce a player which millions of other people who aren't you will buy. And make that one for cheaper, but in development costs and manufacturing costs.

[n3tfury]

Vorbis is much better in all respects (quality, price, patents)

you've done blind or double-blind tests to prove this to yourself have you?

[colllin]

I think the iAudio a2 is a very nice portable music player. It plays quite a few different music formats including ogg. It also has a 30 GB hard drive for holding lots of songs, movies, etc. I haven't purchased it yet, but i am sure it will work with ubuntu based on the fact that many iAudio products do.

yeah, i have an iAudio 7 and it acts like a removable drive when connected to ubuntu. All I have to do is drag and drop my music onto it. I believe that this is how all Cowon's players work with linux.

Oh and my iaudio 7 also supports flac files, which makes me happy.

[juxtaposed]

you've done blind or double-blind tests to prove this to yourself have you?

I'm sure some of the smart people on hydrogenaudio.org have ;P

[n3tfury]

exactly. this is why you can't make statements like bruce89 did.

[goumples]

A media device should play media, thats why. Regardless of format.

[b0ng0]

Spot on there boyo. I have a Cowon player and as far as I know all their players support .ogg (and flac as well as many others!). So.. all go out and buy a Cowon player :).

[j2fraser]

iRiver (http://www.iriver.com) plays OGG.

[n3tfury]

A media device should play media, thats why. Regardless of format.

i agree with this...sort of. it'd be nice that all players supported .ogg and .flac along with the mainstream formats, BUT, what if there's yet ANOTHER compression algorithm that comes along? do they need to support that too? when should a manufacturer decide that "hey, this is pretty popular, let's include support for it"?

[hessiess]

oog should be included for 1 simple resen, it dusent sound crap!

[-grubby]

oog should be included for 1 simple resen, it dusent sound crap!

exactly....MP3s are horrible

[n3tfury]

oh boy, here we go..

that totally depends on how the .mp3 was created in the first place. certain switches and vbr create a very nice sounding .mp3. if you're in the belief that every .ogg sounds better than any mp3 than i have to chuckle. also, nero's AAC at low bitrates is fantastic.

[Billy_McBong]

you could simply put Rockbox on your MP3 player, that would give it the ability to play oggs

[rsambuca]

you could simply put Rockbox on your MP3 player, that would give it the ability to play oggs

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[n3tfury]

pretty silly, really

[sinekonata]

Why won't mpeg guys copy open source of ogg vorbis to get to the same quality standards as ogg vorbis? All makes sense to me except this... :confused:

[CharlesA]

Back to sleep you go..