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Topic: Why wasn't AAC taken advantage of sooner (Read 5304 times) previous topic - next topic
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Why wasn't AAC taken advantage of sooner

Since AAC was implemented in the MPEG-2 specs and in the MPEG-4 specs which were finished in 2000, why wasn't AAC used sooner for audio compression?  It seems to me that it is just now starting to be used.  Was it in use on the iMac for years before it became popular on the PC?  I'm a PC user and am now using the AAC format via iTunes and I was just wondering about the details behind this.

Why wasn't AAC taken advantage of sooner

Reply #1 –
No, basically AAC became popular on the Mac plaftorm since the launch of QuickTime 6, and that was in 2002 IIRC.  On the PC platform, AAC was around since 1999, in form of LiquidAudio, freeware AAC and couple of free, but closed source, encoders like PsyTEL AAC.  Ahead Nero was the first mass-used PC software product to include full ISO AAC support.

Bear in mind that MP3 was standardized in 1992 - and it took couple of years to become interesting.

Why wasn't AAC taken advantage of sooner

Reply #2 –
Quote
It seems to me that it is just now starting to be used.


Does it??

I don't think I know anybody who have heard of aac.

But, maybe it's becoming a little more popular because of ipod...

Anyway...

For me I was already looking for a new format in summer 1997, I was fed up with mp3 artifacts.
(but of coarse, back then we were using only l3enc and Producer Pro 1, and never higher than 128kbits/s cbr)
I searched a little on the net and on fraunhofer's site they wrote about this new hightech format, AAC.

Finally, I thought, here comes something that's gonna blow mp3 away for good, and push technology forward.
Cause they wrote as if they'd alredy made an encoder and that tests showed that it was hugely superior to mp3.
So I looked for their aac encoder & player, but couldn't find any...
So I waited in exitement of the encoder
waited all autumn '97
waited all winter 97-98
waited spring '98
waited summer '98
Came across homeboy aacenc and astrid/quartex, that claimed produced aac, but the quality was horrible.
So I continued waiting for something from fraunhofer..
98->99->00 nothing...
Sure, I found Psytel aacenc, in 99 or so, but the quality wasn't that great back then, and i still laked a player (i think).
And I didn't even hear about Liquifier Pro until 2001, even though it came in '98, but the aac's was wrapped in a hevely drm'ed lqt container.

Buttom line is:
I think in a sense fraunhofer is to blame for aac not being used more today.
They already had an encoder back in '97 or '98, but they never released it.
Who knows if they've even developed their encoders since then, it just might be that their '97 encoder is the one you find in sorenson squeeze 3.5.
Perhaps they thought they didn't make enough money from mp3 in '97 after years of developing, instead saw their player and encoder being cracked. Maybe they didn't want the same thing to happen to their aac programs.
And when other companies began paying alot for the mp3-decoding, they maybe saw much more profits in mp3 than aac.
So they held on tight to their aac-technology.

We basically only had Psytel (and faac) in 99-2001, while mp3 had gained alot of users in 97-98-99 also because of blademp3 and xing, not to say napster.

I think the LAME team should have developed an AAC encoder when they started instead of mp3. (LAAE Ain't an Aac Encoder).
That could have changed the situation abit.
But I guess there's alot of licening stuff with aac, which isn't with mp3 in the same degree. Maybe this is an answer to your question too.

It's good that we have more encoders, and good ones now: Dolby, nero, faac2, compaact

And fraunhofer, what are they doing? Developing their precious mp3 into multichannel.

Why wasn't AAC taken advantage of sooner

Reply #3 –
Thanks for the replies guys.  I guess it takes a couple years for standards to become adopted.  I was just reading about how AAC has been around for quite a while and even the MPEG-4 specs finished for some time and was just curious to why AAC was just now starting to get more popular.  It's nowhere near MP3 in popularity but it's gaining ground now.

Ivan, I was considering using Nero's AAC codec at the Transparent setting but I absolutely hated Nero's CD ripping interface.  The file naming feature is horrible.  If you guys design an excellent and easy to use ripping interface like iTunes has that would be awesome.  Just figured I'd add that in here since that was one thing that always bugged me about Nero's AAC support.  Love the codec and the burning program though.

Why wasn't AAC taken advantage of sooner

Reply #4 –
Quote
Since AAC was implemented in the MPEG-2 specs and in the MPEG-4 specs which were finished in 2000, why wasn't AAC used sooner for audio compression?

Here's my take on it: For the average person ripping their CD collection, MP3 @ 128kbps *sounds* fine.  Most consumers won't and can't perceive the limitations of MP3.  Therefore, it's up to the market to introduce new formats and standards that consumers will benefit from.   

But there's a problem -- for profit-seeking companies, transitioning to AAC at this point may not be the wisest decision.  As others have poinetd out, MP3 literally took years to become the "standard."  The market for high quality audio compression is really not much of a market at all (for end consumers.)  So, for most companies, a unilateral change to AAC over MP3 is not an economically viable solution right now.  Why go through the process of introducing a new audio codec when it took years for MP3 to catch on?  It's a long, drawn out process, and the returns probably aren't worth it at this point.  Therefore, if companies don't push it, it won't become widely adopted, and we're stuck with what we've got. 

Yes, Nero, Apple, et al are getting the show on the road.  This is probably sufficient to start altering demand for a high quality audio codec.  However, there will always be some lag.  In time, and with more improvements, consumers will come to see see that AAC is of sufficient quality to warrant spending some hard-earned income on.

Anyway, I know thousands probably disagree.  I'd be interested in seeing other responses.
I just discovered Opus. Holy mackerel!

Why wasn't AAC taken advantage of sooner

Reply #5 –
In my opinion - biggest problem of AAC was the Dolby licensing authority itself  - FhG wisely allowed many free MP3 encoders (of questionable quality)  to circulate around the net, until the format got very popular.  And the biggest advantage was - they allowed free MP3 decoders without a hassle.

It wasn't Opticom's MP3 Producer or FhG's command line mp3Enc (of $300, or something - who was in the industry in that time remembers!)  that made the format popular,  but probably Blade, ISO compilations, Xing (that was very popular), etc..

On the other hand, Dolby maintained strict policy of terminating any free project that was on sight - and not many companies were ready to slash $10K just to play with the ISO code, or .. well, little bit more, to pay for the professionial C++ implementation of AAC.  For everyone, MP3 was "enough", maybe not the best - but for average user, well enough.


However, in 2002, things started to change, as users demand better quality at low bit rates suitable for portable players (64 kb/s and below), multichannel capability  and also people start hearing MP3 artifacts - and Xing is not enough anymore. That was a good case for AAC, and I think with the release of H.264,  HE-AAC and H264 will be a great pair of corecs for ultra low bit rate movies, with very good quality - probably new MP3 for movie industry

Why wasn't AAC taken advantage of sooner

Reply #6 –
Is AAC licensing still that strict today?  FAAC has been around a while so why hasn't it been squashed by Dolby?  Are free AAC decoders allowed now?  Free decoders should be a given as without free players like Winamp decoding AAC, it can't get popular.  How does Apple get away with a free encoder?  I know they were involved with development of AAC so does that give them some rights on how to use it?

Why wasn't AAC taken advantage of sooner

Reply #7 –
from my point of view it was the combination of nero and itunes, which finally made the format popular

but this could have started much earlier, as ivans psytel encoder already brought great quality (and still is not bad) for a long time, but not many (but ahead  ) really realised it
I know, that I know nothing (Socrates)

Why wasn't AAC taken advantage of sooner

Reply #8 –
Quote
Is AAC licensing still that strict today?


No, first of all,  mandatory "DRM" - i.e. encryption was removed,  during the MPEG-2 Days,  it was requested that implementations encrypt strems.  Quite ridiculous, but it sounded like music industry's demand.

And, Dolby is no longer directly in charge of licensing - they formed a company called VIA Licensing (they do share the building, though  which is not responsible for the licensing stuff.

Actually, AAC has better licensing deal than MP3, as no royalties  are required for streaming/broadcasting purposes.

Quote
FAAC has been around a while so why hasn't it been squashed by Dolby?


Initially, a lot of letters to stop the project were received, but this trend stopped as it seems key people realised that it is just not the way to go.  FAAC itself is distributed in a source code form, not really a target for enforcing royalties.

However, NetBSD  did receive letters with very strong wording  - to stop distribution of AAC and AC3 (for DVD decoding) code.

Quote
Are free AAC decoders allowed now? Free decoders should be a given as without free players like Winamp decoding AAC, it can't get popular. How does Apple get away with a free encoder? I know they were involved with development of AAC so does that give them some rights on how to use it?


No, Apple wasn't involved in development of AAC - AT&T, Dolby, FhG, Sony and Nokia were essential patent holders.

It is possible to distribute free encoders and decoders if you pay so-called "annual cap" -  $25,000 for decoder product - or - $250,000 for encoder product.

Why wasn't AAC taken advantage of sooner

Reply #9 –
>>It wasn't Opticom's MP3 Producer or FhG's command line mp3Enc (of $300, or something - who was in the industry in that time remembers!)
It was 199$, As I remeber. I've studied DSP at university that time and we contacted Fhg for some literature recommendations...
BTW, Ivan, just a small question: Is it worth to wait until new Nero release to encode to HEAAC ?
There are some players on the market already (and I'm going to investigate this  )...

Why wasn't AAC taken advantage of sooner

Reply #10 –
Quote
In my opinion - biggest problem of AAC was the Dolby licensing authority itself - FhG wisely allowed many free MP3 encoders (of questionable quality) to circulate around the net, until the format got very popular. And the biggest advantage was - they allowed free MP3 decoders without a hassle.


I find that strange but it's the truth, blade xing.
But I seem to remember that LAME got into a little trouble with FhG at some point...

Fraunhofer might allowed free mp3-decoders, but they were/are selling their mp3-decoder (to microsoft, syntrillium, hardware decoders, and many other software decoders)  so they have made alot of money on mp3-decoding...right?

While dolby was hunting down any sign of aac on the net, fraunhofer although part of the aac development, made alot of money on mp3 and it's popularity, and couldn't care less if aac never caught on.
That's why aac wasn't pushed by fraunhofer in '98, they were speculating in mp3-money, while dolby was the company that wouldn't let aac get out of hand like mp3 had, due to lost licensing fees, and therefore never released an encoder/player until 2001.

Would this be a good theory?


What made dolby change their mind, and not have the same strict licensing as before?

Why wasn't AAC taken advantage of sooner

Reply #11 –
I don't think it matters to Fraunhofer whether a company decides to use their  MP3 encoder or an encoder such as LAME because the software company still has to pay Fraunhofer royalties for every copy of the program sold.  So either way Fraunhofer gets their money.  I think Dolby decided to lessen the restrictions of their licensing to get more companies to start using AAC.  They probably figured that if they lessened the restrictions that more people would consider using AAC and they would make more money off of it that way rather than with a stricter license.
 

Why wasn't AAC taken advantage of sooner

Reply #12 –
Quote
That's why aac wasn't pushed by fraunhofer in '98, they were speculating in mp3-money, while dolby was the company that wouldn't let aac get out of hand like mp3 had, due to lost licensing fees, and therefore never released an encoder/player until 2001.


Don't forget that Dolby also couldn't care less about AAC, because they were speculating in AC3 money  One of the main reasons why separate company took over is possible conflict of interests - which is especially true when it comes to HD-DVD  -- Dolby would always offer their DD+  solution.

So, AAC had a very tough time for catching on - mostly on "political" level,  but since HE-AAC offers clearly better performance than anything else,  politics is not enough to stop it

IIRC - Thomson still pushes MP3,  first - there was mp3Pro.  Then, multichannel capability has been added in form of MP4 container (sic) - and, now, there are MPEG documents (to be accepted yet)  about adding 64, 88.2 and 96 kHz  bit rates to MP3  Finally,  "Spatial Audio" will probably be first tested on MP3...