Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Thursday May 04 2017, @01:52AM   Printer-friendly
from the lets-party-like-its-1999 dept.

MP3 decoding was already free and got recently included in Fedora. But now, encoding is also free according to Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS: "On April 23, 2017, Technicolor's mp3 licensing program for certain mp3 related patents and software of Technicolor and Fraunhofer IIS has been terminated." The Wikipedia MP3 article confirms that.

So, do you still use an MP3 library or have you switched to another format or means of listening to music such as (spying built-in) streaming services?


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by Zyx Abacab on Friday May 05 2017, @03:54AM (2 children)

    by Zyx Abacab (3701) on Friday May 05 2017, @03:54AM (#504667)

    I hate to interrupt the bitch-slapping festival, but there is a lot of [coresv.net] actual [hydrogenaud.io] data [ietf.org] on this subject.

    Opus - and several other modern codecs - perform measurably better than MP3, end of story. Even if MP3 is somehow "good enough", the alternatives are still demonstrably superior according to hard data.

    And, of those alternatives, at least Opus and Vorbis are unencumbered by patents.

    This is a technical discussion site, for god's sake. Shame on you both.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday May 05 2017, @06:08AM (1 child)

    by bob_super (1357) on Friday May 05 2017, @06:08AM (#504707)

    Why shame on me?
    up the thread:
    epitaxial: 9 out of 10 people can't tell 192kbps mp3 from straight .wav files.
    bob_super, concurring: most people are not listening in conditions where codec differences are noticeable.

    Those docs you link: those curves are all pretty darn close at 192kHz and above. Thank you for supporting our point.

    • (Score: 2) by Zyx Abacab on Saturday May 06 2017, @01:33AM

      by Zyx Abacab (3701) on Saturday May 06 2017, @01:33AM (#505262)

      The AC was certainly more belligerent, and said some nasty shit, that's true.

      But saying things like:

      [W]as your Monster Oxygen-free-silver triple-shielded directional audio cable in the way?

      isn't exactly becoming of a constructive discussion, no matter how much of a jerk he or she may be.

      Calling the AC narrow-minded—after he or she says that, if MP3 is good enough, you should be happy and not complain about what other people choose to do—is not called-for, either.

      If I can hear compression artifacts in the sound of a hi-hat (or applause) on consumer-level equipment, in a double-blind test, having used the best-available MP3 encoders, then the format really does matter to me. Evidently it matters to AC too—whether or not we're in a 5% minority.

      MP3 works for you, and that's great! If I don't dismiss your situation, will you do me the kindness of not dismissing mine?

      [I]t doesn't freaking matter... [y]ou can keep spouting nonsense...