MP3 isn't perfect, but its biggest problems are very much offset by some recent developments. Heck, it works great with Linux too, if you should ever move in that direction, you rebel. It is PC and Mac agnostic, works equally well in iTunes or Windows Media Player, and can even be configured as the default CD ripping option in both products. MP3 is everything that AAC and WMA are not: It's compatible with every single software product, service, set-top box, portable media player, or other device you'd care to use. Enter MP3įortunately, we have that age-old standby, MP3, waiting in the wings. In my opinion, you, as a Windows user, would be crazy to back either format at this point. But neither is fully compatible across all the products you're going to want to use now or in the future. And that's where today's technological stalemate begins. WMA actually met these requirements before the iPod rocketed to success. (Curiously, AAC is compatible with two more recent Microsoft products, the Zune product line and the Xbox 360, but on the latter only through the comparatively primitive blade user interface.) AAC doesn't work with most third party media players, set-top boxes, or portable audio devices either. But even if you do that, you won't be able to access AAC content via a Media Center Extender. AAC isn't compatible with Windows Media Player or Media Center, though you're welcome to buy expensive and balky third party codec packages if you really want to add that functionality. "the world"-is that AAC doesn't play nice with products made by Microsoft and its partners. AAC, however, has the edge in sheer numbers, but only because the AAC-compatible iPod has sold so fantastically well. WMA has the edge in compatibility when it comes to the variety of devices and software that work with either format. They use completely different lossy compression schemes but achieve very similar quality and file sizes at identical bit rates. Technologically, AAC and WMA are very similar, and superior to MP3. And its iTunes software, not coincidentally defaulted to plain vanilla AAC for CD ripping whereas Windows Media Player defaulted to WMA. The success of Apple?s iTunes Store-which, until recently, sold songs only in a proprietary version of AAC called Protected AAC-suggested that maybe Apple, and not Microsoft, would define the next generation of digital audio formats. This format, AAC (Advanced Audio Coding), is the successor to MP3 from a marketing perspective but is, like WMA, really completely different technology. Apple wanted nothing to do with WMA, for what I assume are obvious reasons, and was instead foisting yet another audio format on consumers. Then, about a year after that, Apple released the first Windows version of iTunes, its iPod and digital music management system and front-end to the iTunes Store. The company released its first iPod in 2001 and followed that up a year later with a Windows compatible version. Back around 2002 or so, I was convinced that Windows Media Audio (WMA) was the future of digital audio: It offered better compression, better fidelity, and smaller file sizes than the industry standard but ancient MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3) audio format and Microsoft was pushing it hard with increasingly impressive releases of the Windows Media codecs, Windows Media Player, Media Center, and what seemed like a rich partner ecosystem for devices and services.īut then Apple happened.
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