Building MPC support

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Building MPC support

Reply #25 – 2003-10-28 22:22:31

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Huh? Now, that's silly. Even if mpc wasn't going to be developed anywhere ever, it's still the best lossy codec available. I'll happily use mpc for a long time now.

You're right, but that 'best' thing is relative. MPC isn't best at all things, there's lots of weak points if you know what I mean.

Building MPC support

Reply #26 – 2003-10-28 22:46:47

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as long as there are lots of people who want it.

Face it, the few hundreds of HA users that know about MPC and actively use it aren't enough to convince the hardware manufacturers. Even Vorbis and it's thousands of open source advocates aren't enough in some cases.

Of course it takes lots of people, and I know there probably aren't enough right now. But I don't think the few hundreds in HA are the only mpc users, and I think the number can grow if we spread the word. Besides, according to a poll, mpc is the most popular format here at HydrogenAudio, so it would actually make thousands of users (!). Anyone who wants mpc go forward should do something about it. It's all up to the users: we can either push mpc forward, or we can abandon it.

Building MPC support

Reply #27 – 2003-10-28 23:53:26

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Besides, according to a poll, mpc is the most popular format here at HydrogenAudio, so it would actually make thousands of users (!).

Not if you consider the actual numbers of that poll and the active users. You can't take numbers from the active users list and extrapolate to the entire user base.

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It's all up to the users: we can either push mpc forward, or we can abandon it.

Well, you must consider one thing first: From what it seems, the MPC developer was the first one to abandon it. Nice way to set an example to the users...

Building MPC support

Reply #28 – 2003-10-29 00:36:57

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You can't take numbers from the active users list and extrapolate to the entire user base.

Almost a thousand people took part in that poll, and since the total registered users number is just about 8500, I dare say that it's a very sufficient sampling.

It is a sad thing that Klemm seems to have abandoned the project, but not all is lost! Not only is mpc already a very capable music format, but there has even been talk about someone taking up from where Klemm left. I sure am not ready to give up hope yet .

Building MPC support

Reply #29 – 2003-10-29 00:46:57

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Almost a thousand people took part in that poll, and since the total registered users number is just about 8500, I dare say that it's a very sufficient sampling.

Also, keep in mind that poll was mostly active more than an year ago, when MPC and SV8 were all the hype, Vorbis had no hardware support and AAC's only big hardware support was from Philips Expanium, which was buggy at best.

I believe several people switched from MPC to Vorbis or AAC since (some examples in this thread). Unfortunately, there's no way to change your vote in IPB polls.

Building MPC support

Reply #30 – 2003-10-29 00:59:27

It may be the case, yeah. Anyway, my point was that there probably are a lot more mpc users than just a few hundred, even here at HA. Perhaps we need another poll about it?

Building MPC support

Reply #31 – 2003-10-29 01:02:36

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Well, you must consider one thing first: From what it seems, the MPC developer was the first one to abandon it. Nice way to set an example to the users...

He stopped development (apparently). We don't know if he switched to AAC or Vorbis for his library.

Now, people will probably stop using mpc, not because Klemm leaves the project, but because hardware solution for better format than mp3 are now available. And growing too. It wasn't to difficult to predict a massive migration from MPC to another format

Building MPC support

Reply #32 – 2003-10-29 01:45:04

Not everyone is so dependent on hardware support (I for one). Also as I stated before, I don't think it's impossible for mpc to gain hw support in the future. And what, you mean that there already has been a "massive migration" from mpc? I don't think so..

Building MPC support

Reply #33 – 2003-10-29 01:58:36

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And what, you mean that there already has been a "massive migration" from mpc?

He didn't say it already happened

Building MPC support

Reply #34 – 2003-10-29 02:05:51

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Not everyone is so dependent on hardware support (I for one). Also as I stated before, I don't think it's impossible for mpc to gain hw support in the future. And what, you mean that there already has been a "massive migration" from mpc? I don't think so..

For the moment, I haven't any hardware MPEG-4 complient. I would stay with mpc, or lossless.

There's no massive migration yet. But there are only one vorbis solution (iriver) and one good mp4 jukebox (iPod). With the growing number of these compatible players, it would be hard to stay, for some people, with mpc and transcoding solution.
On the other hand, lossless will be more attractive, with the extended capacity of storage space. People maniac about quality will be more and more tempted by it (me, for exemple). Especially if various artifacts are reported, with no hope for correction.

Musepack is very nice. I'm still using it. But in my opinion, mpc success has historical reasons :
- transition period between mp3-compatible-only portable player and new generation of hardware device
- transition between limited HD capacity and very large one.

I would add multichannel support too. When (or if) SACD ripping will be possible, and therefore lossless encoding exluded, there will be few people to accept a stereo downmix. If a multichannel support will not be added to mpc, there's absolutely no hope for his future. And for the moment, there are no project for multichannel encoding with mpc - but it's a reality for vorbis, AAC and WMAPRO.

For the moment, mpc is still pretty, and attractive ; but with the time, more and more people will leave it.

Building MPC support

Reply #35 – 2003-10-29 04:54:34

Frank Klemm from what I understand is the one and only person responsible for Musepack development. Why hasn’t he made any announcement about his intentions for the format? If his life at this point does not allow enough free time to develop Musepack, why not do something to help someone else work on it? Why not at the very, very least, announce that he does not intend to work any further and give us all an idea of what is going on.

In my mind, this situation with Frank Klemm is killing the format. If he released the source code, or even release whatever he has for SV8 so far; someone may be able to complete his work... Without this Musepack is dead, progression in development is the key to making the format more popular in my opinion.

Just wanted to give my thoughts on this, many of you have probably thought, and said the same thing. We will see over time I guess. I hope deep down that Frank has been working on SV8 and he is keeping quiet to make its announcement really spectacular. But this is most likely not the case :-(

Building MPC support

Reply #36 – 2003-10-29 07:37:53

It's fine that people have dreams.. I don't know if mpc is ever going to have hardware support.
I wish it would, but it's IMHO utopistic. OGG and AAC are becoming better and better, who know when MPC is going to be beaten.
And OGG and AAC are better supported, tough not really great even.

It's too bad people don't care anything else than mainstream formats...
What happened to Xvid ? It didn't replaced Divx, but there's many Xvids. And Xvid have hardware support in some DVD players. According to Xvid support in DVD players it might be possible to get MPC HW support. If there's enough hard working developers.

Who knows, let's not lose the hope *grin*

Building MPC support

Reply #37 – 2003-10-29 07:55:28

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It's too bad people don't care anything else than mainstream formats...

Not really. People have lives. They can't devote all of their time currently arranging buzzwords like "Mp3", "streaming" and "bitrate" in their heads.

I've found lots of people who didn't even know common mortal people could make their own mp3-files. They thoughts mp3-files had to be downloaded and then transfered to your mp3-player.
They've never heard about WMA and doesn't know what a bitrate is.

Trying to advocate MPC with titles like "superior high frequency performance", "subband codec" and "great audio quality" is pointless. They'll ask "can I put this on my ipod?" or "can I email this to my cousin?" and you'll have to say no, and they'll say "fine, then I don't want it. I've heard mp3 is cd-quality."

It's trying to solve a problem, many people doesn't even know, let alone approve as a problem.
The only argument that laymen has a slight chance of approving is "more music on your mp3-player". And that doesn't count for MPC. It counts for WMA, AAC and Ogg Vorbis.

So just like Firebird and it's support for PNG, CSS2 and other standards aim to make a better internet, people ignore it, because they're happy about their Internet Explorer and doesn't know what damage it applies to the evolution of the internet.

That's life. You can't promote something with sense, you need common sense.

Building MPC support

Reply #38 – 2003-10-29 09:01:56

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What happened to Xvid ? It didn't replaced Divx, but there's many Xvids. And Xvid have hardware support in some DVD players. According to Xvid support in DVD players it might be possible to get MPC HW support. If there's enough hard working developers.

DivX & Xvid are like Fraunhofer mp3 and Lame mp3 : same format (MPEG-4), but different encoder. If one player is able to decode DivX, it could decode XviD with very minor chages (depending of the complexity of some encoding tools).

Mpc is different from AAC, which is different from mp3, which is different from vorbis. Hardware decoding is not technically impossible ; according to the decoding speed of the format (more than twice than vorbis for exemple on foobar2000), I'd bet that it's easier to implement mpc decoding than vorbis decoding.
Problem is not technical, but industrial, dependant on marketing considerations, and maybe juridic ones. Few consumer demand, no industrial offer.

A solution for mpc users would be players allowing personnal development (SDK, or something similar).

Building MPC support

Reply #39 – 2003-10-29 09:30:25

So it seems that Frank does not develop/support MPC anymore. At least that's what it comes down to for normal users. Nevertheless I think that for some time I'll stick with MPC because I don't need any hardware support and I'm happy with its quality.

Many thoughts about the future of MPC have been discussed here and in numerous other threads. Maybe the HA admins have an actual contact with Frank and could at least pass some info to the anxious masses if he himself is not inclined to do it.

Maybe Case is the right person to make a reliable statement about MPC's SV8 future?

[edit]
Just bumped into ChristianHJW's post on http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=12878. Maybe SV8 is not a lost case in the end

Building MPC support

Reply #40 – 2003-10-29 13:38:45

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A solution for mpc users would be players allowing personnal development (SDK, or something similar).

Now available for the iPod by special request. I dont know if its powerful enough to add new codec support.

Building MPC support

Reply #41 – 2003-10-29 13:45:45

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A solution for mpc users would be players allowing personnal development (SDK, or something similar).

Now available for the iPod by special request. I dont know if its powerful enough to add new codec support.

MP4 support was added by firmware update for 1st & 2nd iPod generation. I suppose that technically, iPod decoding chip is strong enough for mpc. What do you mean by "special request"? Requesting Apple? Independent developers?

Building MPC support

Reply #42 – 2003-10-29 15:23:54

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A solution for mpc users would be players allowing personnal development (SDK, or something similar).

Now available for the iPod by special request. I dont know if its powerful enough to add new codec support.

MP4 support was added by firmware update for 1st & 2nd iPod generation. I suppose that technically, iPod decoding chip is strong enough for mpc. What do you mean by "special request"? Requesting Apple? Independent developers?

Apple is making an SDK for the iPod available to "special" 3rd parties. Possibly a request and a signed agreement to ONLY add mpc support would be enough to get it.

Building MPC support

Reply #43 – 2003-10-29 15:44:57

AFAIK, that SDK is only to build apps that run on the iPod. Say, for a little game that you install on the iPod's HDD and play it on the little screen. It doesn't contain the DSP routines, so that you could add or remove codecs.

Theoretically, one could create an MPC player that runs from the HDD. But I doubt the controller chip (that does mostly database management and disk/firewire i/o) can decode musepack in real-time. The DSP surely can decode it, but I doubt the SDK has routines to interface with the DSP chip.

Building MPC support

Reply #44 – 2003-10-29 16:07:17

Ive just discovered MPC and like it a lot for the size of file it generates. Just as codecs are developing - so is hardware. I wonder how long it will be before a hand sized PC has the processing (and storage obviously) power to be able to decode musepack - thus not relegating it to an also ran quite so quickly. I would much prefer this where i wasnt so dependent on the hardware itself.

Building MPC support

Reply #45 – 2003-10-30 02:35:27

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It's too bad people don't care anything else than mainstream formats...

Not really. People have lives. They can't devote all of their time currently arranging buzzwords like "Mp3", "streaming" and "bitrate" in their heads.

I've found lots of people who didn't even know common mortal people could make their own mp3-files. They thoughts mp3-files had to be downloaded and then transfered to your mp3-player.
They've never heard about WMA and doesn't know what a bitrate is.

Trying to advocate MPC with titles like "superior high frequency performance", "subband codec" and "great audio quality" is pointless. They'll ask "can I put this on my ipod?" or "can I email this to my cousin?" and you'll have to say no, and they'll say "fine, then I don't want it. I've heard mp3 is cd-quality."

It's trying to solve a problem, many people doesn't even know, let alone approve as a problem.
The only argument that laymen has a slight chance of approving is "more music on your mp3-player". And that doesn't count for MPC. It counts for WMA, AAC and Ogg Vorbis.

So just like Firebird and it's support for PNG, CSS2 and other standards aim to make a better internet, people ignore it, because they're happy about their Internet Explorer and doesn't know what damage it applies to the evolution of the internet.

That's life. You can't promote something with sense, you need common sense.

The important fact that you have to remember is that the average computer user has the knowledge of a 9-year-old child. They only understand what they see on TV, or find on Kazaa. If TechTV says MP3 is the way to go, and that's all they can dig up, so be it. The only codec that really stands a competitive chance is ogg vorbis. This is simply because a lot of P2P programs support it now, and many games are using it as their main audio source. This is not mentioning Mac users, though, because 90% of them use iTunes, and iTunes is incredibly limited without a significant amount of hacking and editing. Simple is the way to go for most people, and since Fraunhoffer has a lot of money to put into pumping their outdated and antiquated codec, it's all people will accept. They like it this way. Big companies simply wish open-source would go away. Look at how many users use Internet Exploiter, and then look at the others. Mozilla, Firebird, opera, etc. They're simply "Too hard" to use and set up in comparison. IE comes with windows, so does MP3 support. It's all about useage. No one wants to use it, because they don't understand it. It's the same reason Manual transmissions are being replaced by automatics. Manual ones get better mileage, offer better control, etc, but it's too complicated for most people. Unless they have a real reason to desire a stick shift, they go for an automatic. No one has any real reason to desire anything but MP3. I prefer ogg vorbis, myself... But then again, my car is an automatic.

Building MPC support

Reply #46 – 2003-11-03 08:52:55

I think, it is only a question of time, when you will get reasonable priced small PCs, which are free programmable with a Linux, or maybe even Windows OS.

So, actually, PC IST HARDWARE Support already.
We have it.

Get a cheap 600 - 1000 MHz P3 or celeron or similar,
make it a little silent with active & passive actions, and you have your audio-player for living room.
eg. P3 on via board, made by IBM, is quite silent from scratch, and cheap to get at ebay eg....

Actually, for car or portable, mpc is not necessary, mp3 at 128 is enough !
But mpc is an archive format !
or for HiFi in living room with high tech Audio.

Guruboolez pointed out a very important thing:

Multichannel support.

SACD (please, forget this Sony crap, DO PREFER DVD-Audio instead)
and DVD-Audio can be recorded at least the analogue way, into multuchannel recording soundcard.

An Audigy 2 version is able even today to record analogue in multichannel.
That is the way to go, if you like multichannel.

So, mpc multichannel would be very important, or lossless multichannel, is there already ?

Otherwise, ogg will win indeed, as it has multi ?!

Building MPC support

Reply #47 – 2003-11-03 17:43:05

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It's not silly if you need the disc space. I'd rather use it for a format that has a chance of hardware support.

.... hardware support, if you dont think of a portable player but would accept a standalone at home ( no X-Box or mini-PC or such ), is much closer for MPC then you might have thought. More to come soon. Sorry for the 10 GB deleted music my friend ....

About Frank Klemm :

I dont know what to think anymore. I was asking him several times what his plans for MPC are, if he has any. He obviously doesnt think its worth answering to me ....

Building MPC support

Reply #48 – 2003-11-04 16:12:35

Regardless of what happens concerning development I'll be using mpc since it's perfect for my use. However what I'll be using in the future (maybe 3-5 years from now) is another story. Maybe there will be some new/existing format which is even better than mpc. When that happens (especially concerning lossy sound quality) I'll happily switch over. Until such a format comes along I'll be happily using mpc to get the best sounding lossy mid to high bitrate tunes.

Building MPC support

Reply #49 – 2003-11-06 03:18:43

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Regardless of what happens concerning development I'll be using mpc since it's perfect for my use.

My thoughts exactly, and lots of other people's too. I believe that people like us might well keep mpc in wide enough use, so that it could get hardware support eventually. I refuse to think that an audio format of this quality would just be dumped to dust .

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